Samuel knew that his choice was clear, and that he had to provide for his family, regardless of the loneliness he might feel or the likely death he faced. One way or the other his family was taken care of, so long as he signed the dotted line and took up his rifle. If he died, Sura would endure it, but in time she would thrive, as he knew and loved that no amount of hardship could break her. She would find another partner, as he knew she had during some of his longer deployments, and she would raise a son to be proud of.
The klaxon bells awoke Samuel from a troubled sleep and he realized he must have fallen asleep while still tinkering with his data pad. It did not do to dwell on the maybes and the what-ifs, Sura would have told him, and he stood to wash his face and prepare for the coming mission.
“This is the job,” said Samuel several times as he looked at himself in the mirror, imagining how Mag would have sounded if she’d been barking in his ear, “Get it done, marine.”
THE LEGION
Fifteen minutes later Samuel Hyst presented himself to the sentry who stood guard outside the observatory, and was allowed inside.
“Boss Hyst, welcome to the observatory, I’m Technical Officer Ingrid, let me show you how the system works,” said the middle aged woman in a crisp warden’s uniform as she approached him with an outstretched hand, which Samuel shook. “As you can see, the Grotto Correctional Department has performed some modifications to the traditional observatory stations on board this Reaper tug.”
Ingrid led Samuel around the room and he saw that there were a large bank of monitors lighting up the area, and at each one of them sat a Reaper squad leader. Boss Ulanti and Boss Marsters both noticed him and gave him respectful nods. Even those small recognitions of his promotion by Boss Aiken before the man assumed his Command meant the world to Samuel, to be accorded respect by such hardened veterans was more of an achievement to him than he realized. He fleetingly thought of Mag and missed his old squad leader, then focused his mind on the task at hand.
“There are approximately eight hundred and seventy-five Reapers on this mission, and as you can see, we have arranged for there to be an interface available for each of the one hundred and seventy five squad leaders, such as yourself.” Ingrid led Samuel down the long rows of the sizeable observatory compartment while pointing to the many workstations occupied by other marine squad leaders. “Each squad leader will be linked up to a Line Warden on the ground who commands twenty nine legionnaires. You will be able to observe the camera feeds and data-uplinks for all of the legionnaires, in addition to open lines of communication with the Line Warden themselves.
Naturally, your role during the initial phase of the operation will be to act in an advisory capacity to identify salvage hot spots and guide against unnecessary collateral damage should armed resistance be encountered.”
Samuel nodded and remained silently attentive as Ingrid escorted him to an empty workstation, flanked by two Reaper squad leaders he did not recognize.
“Boss Hyst, welcome to your designated station, we will be conducting an interface orientation and final mission briefing in ten standard minutes.” Ingrid presented a faux smile that Samuel was sure she’d practiced many times in order to perfect. “In the meantime, please make yourself comfortable.”
Samuel took his seat and looked around the room to see that most of the Reaper squad leaders had filed into the observatory shortly after his arrival, and the seats were starting to fill up in short order. The scale of the mission was like nothing he had experienced in his time as a marine, and he found himself begrudgingly impressed with the genius of it all.
Though many corporations ruled their populations with various financial schemes and economic coercion, none were as cunningly brutal as Grotto Corporation. Human beings were just as much a natural resource to be exploited as any ore, mineral, or gas in the vastness of space.
The nightmare that crouched just beyond the debt based social order of Grotto Corporation was the abyss into which a person would disappear if they were unable to make at least their minimum payments. After several warnings for missed payments or payments below the minimum required amount, citizens would be picked up by bondsmen and hauled to the local detention centers for processing and sentencing.
Bondsmen were a special breed of law enforcement officer that specifically sought out those unfortunate citizens who could not, or in some occasions refused, to pay their debts to Grotto. Bondsmen were dangerous, and would not hesitate to kick down doors and assault people in public to get their quarry. Once detained, the debtor would be given a sentence, one that took into account the total debt owed, payment history, and workforce assessment.
The ugly truth was that although most sentences were only a few weeks or months, all of the court proceedings, bondsman recovery fees, and cost of imprisonment were added to the citizen’s Grotto debt. As a result, a significant portion of first time offenders found themselves back in detention within just a few months of being released. Most workforce assessments provided only subsistence wages anyway. Usually the only people who were able to “rehabilitate” were those who lucked into promotions at work or experienced a death in the family, either of a dependent whose absence relieved the citizen of that financial burden or a relative who had arranged for a death benefit.
Second time offenders were automatically detained and rotated into the Grotto penal system, which was comprised of several moons that orbited a number of planets in Grotto space. Massive prison complexes had been built into those moons, and served not only as detention facilities, but as forced labor camps. Some of the prison moons doubled as factories or refineries, and low security convicts would be able to work down their debts and sentence by working the machines.
Others were vast salvage yards where much of the materials procured by Reaper fleets ended up for final processing. Rumor had it that Penal Legions would be founded from these populations when Grotto needed a cheap military option for one purpose or another. The convicts would volunteer for duty in much the same way the Reapers did, with the hopes of the additional earnings helping pay down their debts and move them towards freedom.
Samuel had never seen a legionnaire, and stories of their military exploits were simple rumor and tall tales told in school. If his time in the Grotto military had been any indication of how non-elite military assets were treated, it made a great deal of sense why he’d never even heard of a retired legionnaire.
Warden Ingrid cleared her throat as she approached the podium, and the lights in the observatory dimmed somewhat to enhance the luminosity of the speaker. She began to brief the assembled Reapers on the technical specifications of the workstations, instructing them on how to toggle between each of the legionnaire’s shoulder cameras, in addition to maintaining communication and data-uplinks with the Line Wardens.
As Samuel made notes to himself on his personal data-pad, Ingrid explained that the Line Wardens were all combat veterans of one branch of the Grotto military or the other and functioned as the command structure for each of the legionnaire platoons.
Unlike the Reapers, the legionnaires did not work in squads, and only broke down as far as platoons, the size of which differed even from the Reaper definition. Each legionnaire would be issued a standard pattern combat rifle with one magazine pre-slotted and two spare magazines on graft mounts attached to the stock.
Samuel wondered what the legionnaires were supposed to do if they were forced into a protracted engagement. As Ingrid explained the harsh discipline exacted by the Line Wardens he realized that Grotto did not care.
The average marine rifleman loadout was easily twenty high capacity magazines, sometimes more if the individual marine was willing to deploy without a sidearm. If the legionnaires could not get clear of a fight with their three magazines it was deemed to be a state of diminishing returns to further supply the penal soldiers.
The Line Wardens were armed with a combat repeating shotgun utilizing a drum magazine so that they would not have to reload for a lo
ng while. The shotgun and the thirty round big bore auto-pistol on their hips were designed to be used on the legionnaires as much as the enemy.
The threat of being executed in the field kept the soldiers in line when they were deployed, and if it didn’t, the small remote explosive implanted in their necks that would detonate if they left the maximum set distance from the Line Warden’s command collar made sure that they did as they were told.
Ingrid assured them that the legionnaires were highly motivated soldiers, each of them having been signed to a contract that dramatically reduced their sentences and debts, giving them all a better chance at a modicum of freedom. Samuel had never met a rehabilitated convict who had come from a penal legion, and he was skeptical that anyone survived long enough to gain their freedom.
If the mortality rate of the Reapers were any indication, it was unlikely that any of the legionnaires would live to breathe free air. They were used as battle fodder, and though they were perfectly clear on that fact, there was always hope. Samuel felt a kind of kinship with the legionnaires in that moment. The mission clock chimed and the monitors flickered to life.
The legionnaires were already packed into their landing craft, and Samuel could watch through the shoulder cams as each of the convicts looked at each other, checked their weapons, and prepared for deployment. Samuel donned his headset and began to toggle between the cameras to get a feel for the system, and did a quick read of the Line Warden’s personnel file.
Line Warden Shoto was a former bondswoman who signed on with the legion during the founding, so this would be her first combat mission with the group. The mission clock chimed again and the landing craft’s engines ignited, sending a hailstorm of craft into the void above UK1326. The invasion had begun.
Making planetfall from orbit was always a dangerous affair in Samuel’s experience, even when not sailing through flak clouds and anti-air barrages. The refurbished craft that comprised the penal landing cadre were recycled transport haulers from old Hive Fleets, outfitted to carry human cargo and their meager provisions.
Of the many dozens that were launched into the void, four of the ships burned to slag in atmosphere, and as the squad leaders of those ships in the observatory stood to leave, Samuel considered that it had been a less costly infiltration than he was used to.
Samuel had never observed planetfall from orbit, having always been ‘in the can’ as the marines often called it, and it had been a thing of dark wonder. He mused at how many times other observers had watched with callous detachment as assault ships were thrown into battle.
Samuel’s platoon jostled in their seats from the gravitational force as they plummeted to the planet surface. Another two landing craft must have been destroyed on impact or otherwise had critical landing failures, as moments after Samuel’s platoon hit dirt two more squad leaders in the observatory stood and left the room.
The bay doors opened and Line Warden Shoto bellowed for the convicts to disembark. The legionnaires hit belt releases and as their boots crunched the gravel underfoot the shoulder cameras began to reveal cyclopean structures looming in the fog just beyond the landing zone. Shoto barked for the convicts to form up and the platoon moved forward as they assumed a human ‘v’ shape.
Shoto took up a position in the concave center of the formation, both to have a full view of the entire platoon, but also to have a clear arc of fire that would enable her to wipe out the platoon easily with her repeating shotgun. It was a brutally genius method of maintaining martial discipline while remaining combat effective. Samuel was impressed despite his misgivings about the injustice of the prison system itself.
Samuel noticed that the cloud cover of the sky extended all the way to the ground in a sort of swirling fog, and it was no wonder that the un-manned probes had such a difficult time piercing the gloom. It was only the low-tech cameras and the crude satellite signals being bounced up from the drop ships that made observation of the legion possible. According to radio chatter among the Reaper squad leaders, Samuel knew that there were dozens of platoons nearby, all pushing towards the distant skyline, though through the fog it was difficult to make a line of sight confirmation with more than one or two other platoons at a time.
The legionnaires made swift progress across the broken ground and soon began to enter the outskirts of the necropolis. Immediately, Samuel felt the knot in his stomach tighten as through the camera he saw the strange buildings emerge from the fog. He could not pinpoint what exactly was so disturbing about the buildings, which looked perfectly capable of use by humanoid beings, complete with doorways, windows, and seemingly interconnected streets and sidewalks meant for vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
“The angles are all wrong,” Samuel said under his breath, prompting a few sidelong glances from the Reapers in his vicinity.
“Copy that Reaper Command,” Shoto grumbled as she responded, reminding Samuel that his mic was still active, “How are legion vitals? They’re getting jumpy.”
“Green across the board, Warden,” said Samuel as he swiftly checked the body statistics for the platoon, “I am noticing that they aren’t checking the blind corners on the approach and back-shadows on the pass.”
“We’re performing the requisite anti-sniper sweeps,” Shoto said curtly, her voice taking an icy edge that Samuel imagined aided in her former career as a bondswoman.
“Line Warden Shoto,” growled Samuel as he decided that it was time to flex his command authority, if not to save face, but more to save lives, “Blind corners on the approach and back-shadows on the pass, there could be hostiles capable of employing tactics beyond human physical possibility. We’ve crossed the Ellisian Line. How copy?”
“Good copy, Reaper Command, and duly noted,” responded Shoto before she switched to the legionnaire channel and her voice piped into the com-beads of the convicts as she relayed the new field protocols.
Samuel and Shoto kept their communication limited to as-needed specifics, the same as the rest of the Reapers and Line Wardens, while the penal legion entered the city from multiple directions.
The odd angles of the buildings had begun to be a topic of chatter on the Reaper command channel as squad leaders began to share ground intel. The general consensus was that the buildings were constructed and oriented towards humanoid occupation, with little apparent defensive capabilities. The notation of defensive capabilities indicated that there had been no additional occupation by squatters, pirates, or rival corporations. Any such groups would have erected hardpoints and various fighting positions throughout the city to enable them to defend their claim.
While certainly, most modern cities in corporate space were constructed without defenses from ground invasions, most of their defense coming from orbital batteries and warships; it was a standard tactic to create fortifications during occupation.
Though all of the Reapers knew of the anomalous conditions of the mission, given that planets almost never remained at the same coordinates for more than a few days or weeks on the other side of the Ellisian line, it was still a sign that they were the first to properly explore the target site since whatever catastrophe befell it.
One platoon far to the north of Samuel’s reported observing grooved pathways underneath a damaged section of building, the wall having been knocked down by what appeared to have been a tiny meteorite. Other groups, as well as Samuel’s, had found standard meteorite damage, which was common on most all planets that had been floating through the void without the advantage of air shields or defense batteries, and it was a common part of the planetary life cycle. Photos were uploaded of the damaged wall and the Reapers instructed their platoons to look for corresponding grooves in the streets, only to find that they existed through the city.
At first they’d appeared to be a sort of open sewage system or guttering network, though with the new evidence from the damaged building it looked as if most of the buildings were slotted into the grooves and capable of moving along them. It was thought that perhaps the
city was even older than they’d thought, and the grooves were there to help thousands of hands to push the cyclopean buildings into place as they were built block by block.
Most of the buildings looked to Samuel to be a cross between a pyramid and a sphere, and though they did seem to be constructed out of a conglomerate of molded beams and smooth blocks, he just could not pinpoint exactly how any of it was physically possible.
The blocks were a mix of smooth metal and some kind of glassy stone that registered as unknown in the Grotto databanks. Each platoon had a portable mining lab which allowed them to take samples and upload analysis as they passed through the city, and nothing they sent back could pierce the mystery.
As the platoons plunged deeper into the city the buildings became larger and more complex, until after a few hours it seemed as if the physics of the planet must be wrong somehow, as the increasingly bizarre designs of the buildings could not possibly be built by any process or laws of physics that was known to Grotto, possibly to humankind at all.
Samuel knew that the other Reapers were thinking the same thing he was, that despite the growing sense of dread there was a spark of greed that had begun to grow hot in the breast of the professional salvage soldiers.
If their salvage tools were able to be modified so that they could harvest even the raw building materials, it was indeed possible that this would be one of the greatest finds in Reaper history.
Samuel found that he was counting his fortunes before the city was secure, and worked to control his breathing and manage his expectations.
Shoot first and salvage second was a common phrase among the marines, though it was difficult to maintain that mental discipline when he and the other squad leaders knew that if they could secure the city, the sheer tonnage of the find would keep them earning those elevated hazard wages for months.
Grotto had indeed found an excellent motivational tool for the veteran salvage marines.
Dead Worlds (Necrospace Book 2) Page 10