Garm had little use for traditional urban warfare, preferring to either charge recklessly into the fray or swoop down upon the enemy and rely on the shock of their savagery and numbers to carry the day.
Ajax took note of several smears of blood across the decking and on the door of a building as the team entered the compound. Ajax pulled security with Silas as Ford and Rama entered the squat building.
"Are you seeing this?" asked Rama, his voice shaking with something close to fear as the other marines entered the building behind him.
It had been a supply shed, positioned near the lift-gate for easy access. There were several ATVs parked in the main area, and shelf upon shelf of tools, supplies, and raw materials that indicated that this was a maintenance building.
Ajax activated his mounted light to cut through the shadows and swept his gaze through the room illuminating the two bodies. One male and one female, who had died horribly.
"They look to have been tortured, don't they?" asked Ford as he knelt down next to the woman.
Ajax saw that while they had been finished off with extreme blunt trauma to the head, they did appear to have been mutilated prior to being slain.
"Garm don't do this," muttered Rama, shaking his head and backing away from the corpses.
All of them were feeling sick, and Ajax knew exactly why. Each of them had seen terrible violence in their long war with the garm, and none of them were a stranger to the torn bodies of humans. However, the garm were not sadists, simply nightmarishly efficient killing and eating machines.
There was a deliberate malice to this that none of them had experienced thus far, and for the first time in their long careers as soldiers they were unsure of their path forward.
"Yao, call it in," ordered Sharif suddenly, the marine stepped forward and firmly herded his men, including Ajax, out of the building. "We stay on mission. Our job is to find the garm and kick ass. Leave this for the skalds."
"We aren't the only ones to find this sort of thing," said Yao, a haunted edge to his voice after reporting their findings, his ear filled with chatter of similar grisly discoveries.
"But who would do this and why?" protested Rama, allowing himself to be shepherded away from the grisly scene, "People don't fight people anymore."
"Lock it up, Rama," said Sharif, "Ajax, take point."
The marines returned to the wet outdoors, and continued deeper into the compound.
The rain was relentless and Ajax could see the complex gutter system the riggers had put in place to handle the runoff. It was as he cautiously stepped forward to look more closely at the drainage system that he caught the shimmer of movement on the low roof adjacent. His instincts screamed at him to retreat into cover, but Silas was already in position behind him.
"Shooter high and right!" shouted Ajax as he hurled himself across the open intersection, knowing that if there were more shooters he'd just run into their sights while avoiding the former.
Silas was able to pull back behind the wall just as a series of shots rang out, the high-pitched crack of conventional firepower ringing out against the morning rainstorm. Bullets ripped through the cheap metal of the decking and the wall near Silas, though the marine's combat armor easily deflected the shrapnel.
Ajax hugged the wall and began moving down the intersection towards the shooter, staying just out of sight thanks to the oversized gutters installed on the edges of each building.
The shooter kept up a sporadic, but punishing rate of fire which kept the rest of the team behind cover, though Ajax had the distinct impression that this was not sustained suppressive fire. It lacked the methodical pacing that a trained soldier would display, making Ajax think that it was more likely a civilian with a high capacity rifle.
Colonists were known to bear arms, as was their right, especially when they were settling a rugged wilderness such as this. However, why they would shoot at the marines who’d come to rescue them was indeed a mystery.
More shots echoed through the downpour and the company channel erupted with radio chatter. Apparently, there were hostiles all over the compound, and once fire teams had begun to penetrate the facility an opposing force was lashing out. Everyone, including Ajax, was temporarily at a loss about who they might be fighting or why. While they had been at war with the garm for years, not a single marine among them had fought a human being. There were some, like Jarl Mahora, who had been professional soldiers during the intercene corporate wars that were interrupted by the garm invasion, though they were in the extreme minority.
While Ajax moved to position himself underneath the shooter's position, his actions were more based on instinct, and he was hesitant to raise his rifle once he was there.
Was humanity not aligned as a single force against the garm? How could anyone think to stand against the Einherjar? Every man, woman, and child recognized the armor and weapons of these legendary warriors. Why attack the very soldiers dedicated to your protection?
The sharp cracks of the rifle were joined by the voices of other conventional weapons throughout the compound, though the other marines were just as confused and hesitant as Ajax. They weren't trained to fight people, and the killing of a human being was so outside the paradigm of the garm fighters that not a man among them had returned fire. Casualty reports began to ring out, and it was clear that they faced a sizable enemy force.
"Defend yourselves, marines!" bellowed Jarl Mahora over the company channel, his voice and command code silencing the multitudes of reports from other beleaguered fire teams. "Garm or not, they've stepped up, so put ‘em down!"
Ajax sucked in his breath and raised his pulse rifle. He had followed the shooting to just underneath the enemy, and sure enough as another shot rang out, a spent shell rolled off the roof and clattered into the gutter. The marine pushed off the wall and spun around, aiming his rifle upwards as he did so. The shooter filled the marine's iron sights, and Ajax could not help hesitating.
The man was dressed in the filthy coveralls of a rig staffer, complete with ink-rock stains on his outfit, but it was his face and hands that gave the marine pause.
The man was smiling, not the sort made of mirth, but the wicked grin borne of madness. His eyes were wide open, lips pulled back to reveal bloodstained teeth, and it appeared that he had been engaged in violence based on the wounds Ajax could see. The shooter didn't notice him at first, but then those wide, mad eyes glance downwards and the rifle began to move in the marine's direction.
"Meat!" howled the man, and the familiar battle cry snapped Ajax out of his paralysis.
The marine squeezed the trigger and sent a bolt through the man's face. As the round crushed his nose, the heat from it expanded outwards to obliterate the skull. The headless corpse collapsed in a heap and the dead hands dropped the rifle. Ajax took a second breath and then keyed his mic.
"They're ragmen! Repeat, ragmen!" shouted Ajax as Silas moved from cover and the rest of the fire team filled the intersection.
"Wipe them out!" responded Mahora, "Watch for ridgebacks on the perimeter. Fire teams not already engaged, set up defensive positions on the platform."
Ajax started marching forward, sweeping his pulse rifle up to check the rooftops and side to side to cover the streets as he moved. He could feel the garm presence strongly, and was drawn towards the center of the facility.
So powerful was the pull that he had to center his breathing just to focus on the threat at hand. His discipline paid off, and he was poised for action when a ragman leapt out of a doorway and began firing wildly at the marines.
Ajax filled his iron sights with the ragman and put two bolts through the hostile's chest. The man's torso exploded outwards, sending smoking flesh in all directions, and where the man fell a fine red mist hung in the air just inside the door and away from the rain.
More shooting reverberated off the metal surfaces and Ajax scrambled for cover behind a stack of cargo containers, held in a tight stack by netting. Bullets threw sparks against the rain a
s several ragmen charged into what Ajax realized was a small cargo plaza.
He looked to his side and saw Sharif taking cover behind a stationary crane, and took note that the crane must have been part of the original fabrication process, left to wait in case the platform was ever taken down.
Ajax shook his head, casting the image of the exploding man out of his mind. He'd put down many a garm in his day, and more than a few ragmen, but there was something horribly different about killing a colonist. The Einherjar were, for better or worse, used to killing their own when a marine became a ragman, but they were out of their element, fighting an offensive action against human opponents. There was something about fighting otherwise civilian combatants that took some effort to cope with.
More shots pinged off the cargo containers and brought Ajax back into the fight. However, the fire team was rising to the challenge. Ajax saw Rama and Silas assaulting one of the ragmen snipers while Ford laid down suppressing fire. A concussive explosion ripped through the plaza and sent the torn remains of another ragman sailing through the air, splattering across the deck near Ajax's position.
"Yao took to the grenade launcher nice and quick, didn't he?" joked Rama over the team channel, his voice bookended by roars of his pulse rifle, ending the life of the ragman sniper.
"Boone wouldn't be impressed," answered Yao, "I don't think that's in his DNA."
Ajax laughed despite himself. It wasn't the best set of jokes in the world, but it was something he could hold onto. It was enough.
The marine launched himself from behind the crates and strafed the position of a ragman who had been pelting Sharif and the crane with clouds of buckshot. The first two bolts went wide, but the third vaporized the ragman's right arm and enough of his side that Ajax could see the pink of lungs and the white of ribcage. Any other human being, even an Einherjar marine, would have gone down after that kind of damage, but not the garm-spoor infected ragmen.
"Meat!" howled the ragman as he charged Ajax, seemingly intent on tearing the marine apart with his bare hands.
Ajax fired from the hip and his shot blew the ragman into pieces. The marine then swept his rifle around and saw that the fire team was forming up on his position. There were firefights all across the compound, but they'd earned themselves a brief reprieve.
"The garm are in the rig," said Ajax flatly, meeting the eyes of his fire team as they looked at him expectantly.
"Then let's drop every ragman from here to there," answered Sharif as he tucked his rifle stock into his shoulder and proceeded forward.
WOLVES
Rama staggered backwards as a ragman burst out of a shipping container, blazing away with a shotgun as he rushed the marine. The first blast was at a sufficient distance to spread the deadly shot, and though a cloud of projectiles hit the marine, they were mostly stopped by his armor. It was the second shot that pushed the marine back and damaged his pulse rifle, the third cracked the armor protecting his chest, and the fourth finally shredded his torso with buckshot.
A bolt from Ajax struck the ragman and sent his body spiraling to the ground in a super-heated storm of viscera. The marine had been providing bracketing fire for Sharif so that the man could flank and eliminate another ragman. His tenth consecutive round fired, Ajax raised the barrel of his rifle and Ajax ducked back into cover behind a small forklift as he vented the heat of his pulse rifle.
While these ragmen were certainly different from those he had experienced in the past, they died the same, which was at least something.
They had no sense of strategy or unit cohesion, which was typical, though they were able to perform some degree of critical thinking, which was profoundly disturbing. The fact that they were actually using their weapons instead of simply resorting to close quarters attacks had made progress through the compound slow going.
As he and the fire team fought their way deeper into the compound they were soon joined by other teams from Hydra as the company swept across their quadrants.
The psychic pressure was growing, and Ajax felt the alpha garm cry out for aide. Like Jormungandr's, it was a psychic keening that very nearly put Ajax on his back. The marines were still at least one block away from the rig, having marched over the bodies of dozens of ragmen, though not a single ridgeback had been spotted.
"Ajax, you okay?" asked Ford as he crouched down next to the marine.
"The alpha garm is definitely in the rig, I just felt it call for a swarm," muttered Ajax as he struggled to his feet, his rifle again at the ready.
Ajax toggled his comms over to the command channel as more waves of psychic pressure crashed against him. He paused for a moment when he realized that the waves were coming from the swarm that was responding. Two distinct psychic impressions occupied his mind, and Ajax understood that his ability to filter and control what he was sensing had become more potent. With use comes mastery, he thought to himself grimly before opening the channel.
"Jarl Mahora, the alpha garm is here. I feel it in the rig," announced Ajax, "But that's not all. It called for swarms and swarms answered."
"Roger, Ajax, I’m getting updates from command. They’re registering heat sources that weren't there before, and closing in on us from all sides," acknowledged Mahora,
"Looks like the bastards buried themselves to avoid orbital detection," snarled Mahora before announcing, "We've got swarms on the surround! Fire teams not presently engaged get into position on the compound walls and prepare to repel attackers. Get these ragmen finished, marines!"
"Ajax, I am closing on the rig," chimed Skald Omar. "We will meet you in the middle."
Ford and Ajax leapt out from behind cover and rushed to join Sharif and Silas, who had taken up position at the mouth of an alleyway that lead out into the rig plaza. Above them they heard the signature report of Hart's sniper rifle. A welcome sound, considering that they could already hear the rumble of garm swarms, the pounding of their feet upon the earth reverberating through the cheap metal of the compound decking.
"Rippers and gorehounds on the approach," reported Hart over the command channel, punctuating his statement by firing a heavy round. "No shriekers, no ridgebacks, no UltraGarm. This swarm is even less versatile than the last, they have the numbers, though I’m not seeing any of the environmental adaptations as reflected in Jormungandr's brood."
"Our enemy had less time to prepare before our arrival," responded Omar as he and two skalds appeared on the other side of the plaza and signaled to Ajax, gesturing with his hands at a large rollup docking bay and the access door adjacent. "Jormungandr likely had months to develop its brood, while Fenrir, whatever it reveals itself to be, has had mere weeks. Our bloodhound is running them to ground. Ready marines?"
"Overwatch, ready," stated Hart.
"Assault, ready," said Ajax.
"Go!" shouted Omar.
At Omar's signal the marines sprinted across the open ground, keenly aware that they would be easy targets for any ragmen still active in the area, made only marginally less so by their speed.
As the marines pounded over the deck, they heard the boom of the high caliber sniper rifle and the body of a ragman came crashing down onto the metal. A second shot rang out, and this time Ajax saw that Hart was hitting men who had emerged from the thick forest of scaffolding higher up on the rig. A third man fell to Hart's rifle, and then the marines were safe under the metal awning just beneath the docking bay.
One more shot rang out, and a body splattered onto the deck just behind the marines.
"Scaffolding clear," reported Hart. "Repositioning to outer perimeter defense, maybe I can get the WarGarm before it reaches the walls."
"Good hunting," responded Omar, who then produced a telescoping rod that extended out to six inches and became instantly white hot.
Skald Omar pushed the rod into the lock on the door and in seconds the entire mechanism was slagged. The skald returned the tool to his belt and hefted his rifle.
"Now for the wolf, my brothers," he said wit
h a smile. He shouldered the door open and rushed into the room with his rifle raised, followed by the two skalds and then the marine fire team.
The Einherjar swept into the rig interior, a wall of pulse rifles at the ready and were immediately met with a grisly sight indeed. While many dozens of armed ragmen had offered stiff resistance to the marine advance, it became clear where the rest of the facility's residents had ended up.
Ajax was reminded of the two victims he'd seen upon first entering the compound, only here there had to be the bodies of at least half the population. It appeared that most of them were laid out in piles, and after a few moments the men noticed that they were organized by gender.
It was difficult to tell the exact number, partly due to the limited visibility inside the rig, as only the body lights and mounted lights of the marines gave any illumination.
They dared not fire any flares for fear that the rig had fallen into disrepair. One spark upon a single crude spill could set off a chain reaction that would turn the rig into an explosive column of fire.
"Ragmen don't have this level of intellect," said Sharif with a tone of disbelief in his voice.
"They aren't supposed to use guns, either," observed one of the skalds as the formation moved deeper into the rig, passing by the piles as they went.
"Could it be that they were controlled somehow?" asked Silas as he looked closer, witnessing what had to be evidence of both cannibalism and torture. "The way the WarGarm direct the swarm?"
"Considering the bio-tech that was being utilized by Grendel upon its victims, to transmit psychic signals much like what our man, Ajax, is able to sense, I would venture a guess that it’s likely what we are witnessing," breathed Skald Omar as he moved his light over a pile of bodies and then slowly up a nearby wall. "Having ragmen perform such foul deeds, execute basic instructions, use firearms, it all points to another kind of weapons test. One of control and influence. There is a plan unfolding before us."
Space Marine Loki (Extinction Fleet Book 2) Page 11