Salvage Marines (Necrospace Book 1) Page 8

  He opened his med-kit and found the emergency lung. He gritted his teeth as he slid the nozzle and feeder tube into her ragged wound without giving her painkillers, which might have hampered her ability to breathe by relaxing her. In this situation he needed her to be as agitated and awake as possible, despite how much it might hurt.

  Once the nozzle was inside her punctured lung, Samuel hit the inflator and the emergency lung, contained in a small plastic box that he attached to her armor with the adhesion strips on the bottom of the box, the artificial lung began to inflate her real lung. Once that was done Samuel used the hypo multi-tool to inject a vial of faux flesh into the wound. The faux flesh would seal the wound and keep her real lung from re-collapsing.

  His work was good, and soon Jada was stabilized enough to let her be. She would need to go to med-bay as soon as possible, and could still die from shock and complications if the boarding party did not conclude their business soon. For now, Samuel had done what he could as a medic, and he unslung his rifle in preparation to do what he could as a soldier, which was to secure the beachhead and take the space hulk.

  Mag and Virginia took turns firing and moving as they advanced on the five remaining pirates who defended the landing zone. Once they were within shouting distance Mag gave them a choice.

  “Listen up, space scum!” shouted Mag as she slotted another magazine and chambered the first round, “We are taking this ship one way or the other. The only choice you have now is whether you die in this room today or take your chances in the penal labor system. What’s it gonna be?”

  “Sod off, company man! We’re nobody’s slaves!” shouted one of the pirates from behind cover.

  “Have it your way,” grumbled Mag. She grabbed a frag grenade and yanked the pin, letting it cook for a few seconds before throwing it, all while a visibly shocked Virginia watched.

  “You’re crazy Boss, you know that right?” said Virginia, crouched with Mag behind cover while the pirates shouted in surprise at the grenade landing in their midst.

  “Now that we have a beachhead the hard part is done, I’d rather blow another hole in the ship than get killed at the last minute trying to take out stragglers,” Mag snarled before smiling wickedly as the frag grenade detonated, giving the pirates a grisly end.

  Harold and Ben, each on their last shotgun magazine, stood ready to enter the airlock as Boss Marsters and Patrick pulled it open. Samuel had gently moved Jada to the side, just under cover of the makeshift barricade. Once the doors opened the two shield bearers leapt through the threshold and into a brutal firefight. Pirates had positioned themselves on either side of the corridor and were using scrap metal pieces in the hallways to create modest cover for themselves.

  However, in the tight metal passageways, the breaching shotguns of the salvage marines revealed their truly devastating capabilities. As their shields bucked against the impact of enemy fire, the marines rapid-fired their shotguns with Ben taking the right passage and Harold taking the left. In the tight environment, the buckshot rattled and ricocheted to create a deadly cloud of projectiles that shredded defenders on either side of the corridor.

  Those who weren’t killed outright were either wounded or driven back. Samuel fell in directly behind Ben, who, once his shotgun was empty, knelt to allow Samuel to stand over him. The shields all had a gun rest built into the top so that marines could execute this very maneuver.

  Samuel was protected from the upper chest down while he rested his weapon on top of the shield to keep it steady as he fired upon the enemy. Boss Marsters performed the same maneuver with Harold on the other side. The marines paused to allow Mag and Virginia to join them, and each of the three person teams moved forward to the next hallway. At that point they slotted fresh magazines and held their position. The marines had expended all or most of their ammunition by that point, and though the fighting had only been going on for a few minutes, each one of the marines was exhausted by the furious pace of the battle.

  “Squad Ulanti, beachhead is secure and you are clear to advance,” reported Mag as she scanned the hallway in front of her.

  Samuel knew that just beyond their sight would be more pirates working to rally their defenses and prepare for the next phase of the battle. However, now that the beachhead had been established it would be tremendously difficult for the pirates to push the marines off the ship.

  As Squad Ulanti pounded across the compartment floor to reach the airlock, Samuel wondered how the dozens of other boarding parties had fared in their initial assault. How many marines, he wondered, were now crawling through the insides of the space hulk?

  When Squad Ulanti arrived, they carried with them several boxes of additional ammunition. For ten anxious minutes the new squad held the line while the survivors of the first two squads reloaded their magazines.

  Once everyone had rearmed, Squad Ulanti pushed forward as what was left of Squad Taggart held the right corridor and Squad Marsters held the left. Lucinda led her squad down the main corridor and was immediately met with stiff resistance.

  Samuel could hear shouting and shooting from his position behind Ben’s shield and found himself counting the seconds until they could advance. He felt, deep in his bones, that to stop was to die, and according to everything he’d been hearing about boarding actions, this was accurate. Boarding actions were inherently an all-or-nothing scenario, with the percentages of survival dwindling the longer the defenders were able to hold out.

  There would be no re-supply mission, so the marines had to take the ship with the ammunition that they’d brought with them. The crate hauled in by Squad Ulanti held two full reloads for each member of the squad. The ammunition would go slightly further than it might have otherwise, as both of the assault squads had suffered casualties. Samuel looked back over his shoulder to Jada’s prone form, watching while she struggled to breathe. Even with the apparatus she was still in danger.

  After what seemed like hours, but was only a matter of minutes, the shooting abated.

  “Boss Taggart, the way ahead is secure, you can move up,” crackled Boss Ulanti’s voice over the com-bead, her transmission somewhat distorted by the hulk. Because the gigantic craft was a conglomerate of untold numbers of other ships and various pieces of space flotsam it was anyone’s guess as to what might be causing the interference.

  Mag nodded at Samuel, who turned and tapped Ben on the shoulder, then the three marines moved through the corridor to join Squad Ulanti. Behind them, Squad Marsters spread out their defenses to cover both corridors. From here on out Harold, Virginia, and Boss Marsters would hold the beachhead. Assuming the other marines were successful and the ship was taken, then Wynn would move his people deeper inside to help secure the area and begin the salvage. Until then, Squad Marsters would serve as a rearguard, plugging the gap they’d smashed in the enemy’s defenses so that the marines pushing forward couldn’t be attacked from behind. Samuel appreciated the tactic, although knew from the additional briefings from Mag that more often than not, once the boarding party was far enough from the beachhead anything could happen.

  The ship was a maze of corridors, compartments, and hostiles, and nothing could be trusted except the marine to the fore and the marine to the aft.

  Samuel gingerly stepped over the bodies of several pirates as he, Mag, and Ben joined the other marines.

  “They’ve pulled back for now, not sure if they’re routed or if they have something else planned,” said Boss Ulanti as the marines reached her position.

  “They pulled back fast once we hit them, and I gotta say Boss, none of the compartments we’ve passed have that “squatter digs” look to them,” observed George Tuck, the rig operator for Squad Ulanti. “I’m thinking this ship is functional. Might still be grafted to the hulk, but my guess is, this one isn’t derelict.”

  “I know you guys thrashed the place, but the landing zone looked to me like a functioning warehouse. I used to run a lifter on Baen 6, I’d know,” pointed out Andrea Baen, another o
rphan who had been recruited from Baen 6 at last year’s founding.

  “Keen point, marine,” said Mag as her eyes scanned the ship’s interior before them. “If the Praxis Mundi specs are accurate, and the pirates haven’t made too many modifications, we should only be one compartment block away from the prime deck. We clear that and we’ll control the core of this vessel.”

  “That’ll be a bitch to hold with so few of us,” said Spender from the front of the group as he held his combat rifle pointed down the corridor.

  “Taggart is right,” agreed Boss Ulanti. “We take the center and bring Squad Marsters up, then any other marines who’ve been able to push inside should end up converging on us.” She hefted her combat rifle and began to march forward. “Check your corners, conserve ammo, and let’s get this done. Move out.”

  Samuel and Ben looked at Mag and she nodded. Ben moved to the front of the group so that he could cover their advance alongside the marine who had replaced Yvonne White on Squad Ulanti.

  Samuel again realized how few names of any of the replacements or new recruits he knew, as if only the fifteen marines who were with him in Basic could occupy space in his brain. It was a mental oddity, though from what Mag said, it was very common among marines who had been on the job long enough to lose comrades. It seemed like such a callous thing that his mind would perform such unconscious mental triage.

  The journey through the next compartment block went without incident. Samuel agreed with Tuck that the ship was in fairly good condition, all things considered. Most of the holds were full of crates, shelving units, and barrels that supported the idea that while this was no longer a ship capable of deep space travel, it had certainly been kept functioning.

  Samuel imagined that life on board a space hulk might hold all manner of surprises for those desperate or courageous enough to attempt it. When he recalled the sheer scale of the hulk he realized that once the marines had taken this Praxis Mundi vessel there would still be plenty more work to be done. The Reapers could seize a ship a day and the fleet would still be moored in the hulk’s presence for easily a month or more as they plumbed the depths of the great beast. All in all, Samuel was beginning to understand the cruel brilliance behind the Reaper fleet’s deployment upon such missions. The amount of potential revenue that could be generated from the ship salvage and space scrap alone was enough to pay for the fleet’s continued presence. Any losses incurred while taking the hulk, including expended ammunition, damage to assault craft and marines killed-in-action, would be more than recovered by any additional materials discovered on board the hulk.

  “I get why management has us hitting this ship first. It isn’t about a strategically positioned beachhead,” Samuel said to Mag as they crept forward through the storage compartments towards the central deck. “It’s because long range sensors could tell that this ship still had artificial gravity, power sources, and before becoming part of the hulk this ship was a transport hauler. It’s safe to assume that with the pirate presence here they’d be storing plenty of food, equipment, loot, or whatever on board.”

  Mag snorted with quiet contempt. “You’re finally catching on kid. This hulk is so big there isn’t really a strategically sound insertion point. You just pick a spot and dig in. It might as well be where the best salvage is sitting.”

  The marines reached the entrance to the central deck and immediately Ben and the other shield-bearer began taking fire. The marines pushed through the corridor into the open deck and found themselves on the high deck with another deck below them. Samuel was reminded of the retail complexes back on Baen 6 where everything was designed to allow the pedestrian to view the storefronts on both decks from a high vantage point.

  The marines kept close to the shield bearers as they hugged the wall on the right so that they could stay out of the field of fire from the gunmen below while engaging those on the high deck.

  As the marines fought their way forward across the high deck the sounds of more shooting elsewhere in the central area erupted. Samuel recognized the unique sound of the standard issue Reaper combat rifle, then the telltale report of the breaching shotgun and knew that other marines had stormed the area. Samuel surged with confidence and aggression as he realized that his small band of marines were no longer the only ones in the fight, and that other boarding parties had managed to work their way to the central deck. He was not alone in this feeling, and the change in posture and disposition amongst the other marines was palpable.

  “Weapons free!” shouted Boss Ulanti as the marines spread out across the high deck and began engaging targets as each marine took up individual fighting positions.

  Samuel braced his rifle on the railing of the high deck and aimed down at the pirate gunmen below. The marine drilled several bloody holes in the back of a pirate sniper who was firing on the advancing marines from the other platoon. After he shot down a second pirate, Samuel saw an access hatch blow out and through the smoke strode another squad of Reapers, who immediately added their firepower to that of their comrades.

  The shooting intensified as more marines and pirates emerged from various corridors, side hatches, and gangplanks. It seemed that both the marines and the pirates agreed that controlling the central deck was the key to controlling the ship.

  Andrea joined Samuel on the rail and the two of them worked the actions of their rifles, steadily pouring rounds at a cluster of pirates who were attempting to mass for a counter-assault on the newest squad of marines to leap into the fight.

  Suddenly, a tremendous explosion rocked the entire ship, and the shockwave of the blast knocked most of the combatants to the ground.

  “What the hell was that?” shouted Spencer, sprinting to catch up with Boss Ulanti, who had also been knocked onto her back by the shockwave, “Feels like the whole ship is keening!”

  “That’s because it is!” boomed Boss Ulanti’s voice over the com-bead, “Activate your void armor now!”

  Samuel had landed on his chest and was shocked when pushing himself up actually sent him flying up away from the floor. Andrea was shouting below him as he soared away and it took his back slamming into the ceiling of the central deck before Samuel realized the artificial gravity was gone. He depressed the activator button on his neck to ignite the void seals. The armor would protect him from the hard vacuum of space for a short time, but he realized with stark terror, that the void armor was absolutely useless in helping him navigate in zero gravity.

  Samuel’s disoriented gaze swept across the central deck to see the ship slowly spinning in a wide circle around the hapless floating marines and pirates and he realized that gravity was the least of his worries. The ship had clearly broken free of its moorings to the space hulk by whatever the explosions were and was now tumbling through open space.

  “We still have a job to do people! The tug will recover us if we can clear the ship! So fight, damn you! Fight!” roared Mag in everyone’s com-bead as the veteran pushed off from the wall and went sailing across the central deck. Her trajectory took her over the position of several pirates who were struggling to regain their footing. The veteran fired several rounds into the pirates as she sailed over them and turned her body mid-flight so that when she hit the opposite wall she was able to break her impact with her boots.

  Samuel pushed off the ceiling and took aim as best he could at a pirate floating nearby. The recoil dampeners in his rifle prevented the shooting from altering his course more than a few feet. He was able to land on the high deck’s floor even as the pirate’s bullet riddled body spun away in a tight circle that sent globules of blood flying in all directions. Andrea was using one hand to grip the rail and hold herself in place while she took carefully placed shots at various targets with the other hand.

  Samuel moved to join her, but was knocked off of his feet by a hard round that impacted his chest plate. Thankfully, the bullet did not penetrate his battle armor, but it hit hard enough for Samuel to saw stars for a few seconds and left him unable to prevent h
imself from crashing into the wall behind him.

  Andrea grunted in pain briefly and Samuel saw long streaks of blood jetting out of her as a pirate who floated above her fired dozens of rounds from a short-barreled submachine gun.

  Samuel snapped his combat rifle to his shoulder and emptied his last four rounds into the pirate. The marine reloaded and gently pushed off from the wall to reach Andrea’s corpse. Samuel was down to his last magazine and he knew that the dead marine had at least had one fresh one. He felt odd about how quickly he’d overcome witnessing her death, though he knew that to hesitate in this sort of environment was suicidal.

  The marine sighted down his rifle and looked out over the battlefield to witness a roiling three hundred and sixty degree firefight as the pirates and marines careened across the deck. He saw Boss Ulanti, who had apparently abandoned her combat rifle, sail across the central deck and swipe the head off of a pirate using her boarding knife. The man’s head and body went spinning away in opposite directions passing another pirate and marine locked in mortal combat with their own blades. It was madness, and the marine knew that standing still would make him an easy target. Samuel took a deep breath, unsheathed his boarding knife, and then pushed off to send himself careening into the melee as he fired.

  Nearly twenty hours later Samuel, Ben, and Virginia walked from their barracks to the med-bay looking for Jada. They were politely informed when they inquired at the exterior waiting room that the marine was making an effective recovery, but was being sedated for the next several days as the various machines worked hard to repair her damaged lung. Boss Marsters emerged from the interior waiting room and nodded at the three marines as the doctor retreated back into the med-bay.

  “Jada Sek is one tough soldier, she’s going to pull through,” Wynn Marsters assured the marines. “Like the doc said, they’re having to keep her sedated, the machines are doing what they can for the lung, but over the next few hours they are going to remove the damaged one and insert a nu-flesh lung.”