“What about all the missing hardware?” queried Mag as she pushed deeper into the room, “I’m looking for the exit. Do a sight sweep of those catwalks, I don’t want one of those things coming down on my head.”
“The hardware being gone could mean that the bulk of the workforce were in the tunnels and on shift during the event,” said Samuel as he tracked his light over the catwalks, noticing a panel that had been ripped open to reveal the ductwork above. “So, if it was a gas pocket explosion that would explain at least the missing hardware and the internal power being down, mordite gas is rather volatile.”
“Wouldn’t we have noticed more damage to the tunnels themselves when we infiltrated? Besides, someone locked the tunnels from the inside, we had to cut our way through in the first place,” stated Mag as she gingerly checked the handle of the exit door. She nodded back to Samuel and he watched her slowly pull down the lever to open the door, “We also had to cut through the hab door.”
“It was like someone started blocking the path into the compound, closing things off behind them,” responded Samuel as he began to see where Mag was going with her line of thinking. “So you think they were trying to keep the hostiles out?”
“Or in,” said Mag swinging the door open and stepping aside to give Samuel a clear line of fire through the open door.
Gunfire erupted behind them as Ben’s voice crackled over the com-bead, “Multiple hostiles closing in on our position, all passageways are compromised!”
“Hyst, hold your position and cover this door, anything moves in there and you blast it!” shouted Mag. She turned to rush back through the atrium toward the tunnel entrance.
“Takeda, lay down suppressing fire against all avenues of approach! Patrick, get Aaron into the hab!”
By the time Mag reached the door, Patrick was assisting Aaron to the ground just on the other side of the door. The chattering sound of Ben’s machine gun reverberated through the walls and would certainly have been deafening had it not been for the audio dampeners inside the marine’s helmets. Reapers needed full access to their senses, though the helmets were designed to adjust to the environment around them. In many ways, the helmet was the most sophisticated part of the REAPER kit, especially considering that most of the rest of their gear was generic, outdated, or refurbished surplus hardware from frontline military units.
“I’m about to need a drum change, Boss!” shouted Ben as he poured hails of bullets down each of the three corridors. His attacks were answered by the screams of enough inhuman voices that their number was impossible to determine.
Mag knew that once Takeda needed a drum change he would be out of the fight for at least several seconds. Vital seconds since she could see the tangle of limbs rushing at them from the darkness.
“Patrick, get ready to seal the door! There’s scrap metal on the floor, cannibalize whatever hardware you see laying around,” she said as she stepped up to support Takeda and add her firepower to his.
Mag saw that several drill bits were embedded in the wall and Takeda was bleeding from a ragged hole in his side. The enemy apparently had projectile weapons somewhere out there in the darkness, and as if to verify her suspicion, several more drill bits shot out of the central passageway. Two of them missed and bit into the wall behind her, but one managed to tear through her already wounded arm and gouge a small furrow of flesh from her forearm.
“Fall back! Fall back!” shouted Mag as she heard Takeda’s gun click dry. She toggled her rifle to 3-round bursts and began to fire salvos down each of the passages to cover Takeda’s retreat. Once he was through, Mag turned to leave just as a hostile entered the red light from the flare. The skirmish in the tunnels had been too furious and chaotic for her to get a clear view of their enemies. In the dull light of the flare she was able to see the hostile from head to toe and recognized the tattered and filthy mining suit that clung to the creature’s frame. She screamed and emptied her magazine into the thing’s body and hurled herself backwards through the door even as the creature fell away in a spray of dark blood.
Mag lost her footing and fell to the ground as Ben and Patrick slammed the door shut. Patrick turned up the flame on his hand welder and began spot welding broken pieces of mining equipment into the seams of the door. Several more drill bits hit the other side of the door with a clatter, then the screams of several of the creatures filled their ears as fists and who knew what else pounded against the door. Ben and Mag held the door closed as their muscles strained against the hostiles on the other side seeking to force it open. Once Patrick had welded everything he had available to the door he joined them in holding it in place.
“It’ll take a few minutes for the welds to cool enough to matter,” shouted Patrick as he added his strength to theirs. “We’ve got to hold this door!”
The screaming from the other side of the door suddenly ceased, individual voices began speaking, even whispering, through the door, as if trying to communicate with the marines inside. If they were speaking a language it was not one that any of the marines understood, though the simple humanistic act of communication was enough to set all of them on edge.
“Ignore it people, it might seem like a nightmare right now, but you’ll go through this and worse the longer you sail with the Reapers,” assured Mag as she held her part of the door, “This universe is full of nightmares, and as hardcore as these guys are, you will fight worse, and you will win. This is the job!”
“This is the job!” shouted Ben and Patrick simultaneously, joining their leader in the REAPER mantra, soon joined by Samuel through his com-bead, “This is the job!”
After several more minutes their attackers either left or at least grew silent, and Patrick nodded.
“That should do it, these welds aren’t nearly as strong as the lock we cut, but they’ll hold, at least for a while. Assuming the main hab isn’t crawling with these things, I can seal up that other door Hyst is covering,” said Patrick as he lifted the dazed Aaron to his feet.
“Hyst, you hearing this?” said Mag as she nodded at the rest of the squad, “Let’s get behind that second door, we’ll sweep the hab and hopefully make contact with the other squads.”
“Yes, Boss, I’m hearing. Sounds like we’re following the same pattern as the folks before us, sealing ourselves in one layer at a time,” Samuel replied as he looked into the gloom of the hab in front of him. “Here’s hoping whatever we find in here isn’t worse than what’s out there.”
“Hyst and Takeda, you’re on point. Patrick help Aaron and stay on me,” Mag said as she began moving forward, her bold strides pushing Samuel and Ben into action to sweep in ahead of her, “Let’s get this done.”
The squad pushed into the main building. The hab blocks of mining compounds such as this one, were little more than giant cubes, consisting of interlocking buildings that served as living quarters. The hab blocks were mass-produced by Grotto, and were one of the company’s major exports, as the demand for cheap housing was high, especially in developing quadrants of the galaxy.
Each standard hab block was designed to house roughly one hundred adult humans. In the design schematics, two children equaled one adult, though the growth and space needs of children were deemed inconsequential to the overall design.
Samuel looked around at the cramped spaces and was reminded of his own home back on Baen 6, certain that inconsequential was Grotto’s way of saying “unprofitable”.
Each hab block was customizable with a variety of laboratories, workshops, storage lockers, and even prison units. Each of the individual units, regardless of purpose, were connected by a series of sliding doors to the adjacent units and gangplanks to those across. The entire block was a multi-dimensional layering of units and doorways, a veritable maze of gangplanks that rose into the darkness. From the briefing schematics the marines knew that this particular hab block was one of the larger models, and likely extended several more levels upwards beyond the edge of their mounted lights.
“Pa
trick, get us to the central command unit for block security,” ordered Mag as she joined Samuel and Patrick while they paused to take in the vastness of the darkened hab. “A compound this large is bound to have had at least one, possibly two security stations. Population oversight is a big deal on these deep space operations, never know when someone is going to lose their mind out here and need to be dealt with swiftly before they can cause any damage or hurt anyone.”
Patrick consulted his rig and found the command unit, dropping a digital pin on the map that allowed him to navigate through the maze using a waypoint. As he further checked the schematics he pointed to two areas on the large scale readout and presented his arm to Mag.
“Squad Marsters was set to enter here and Squad Ulanti here,” he said as Mag looked at the rig, “All of the mining tunnels are equidistant from the hab, so unless they got turned around and ended up going down a fabricated shaft that wasn’t part of the original compound, they should be converging on the hab bloc by now.”
“This is a big place, but sound carries in these things. It’s only because of the buzz of people and the hum of the power lines that most people don’t notice what their neighbor is saying,” added Samuel as he continued to move his light back and forth to scan the perimeter, “Back home the first thing that happens during a blackout is listening to everybody’s business.”
“You don’t realize just how loud people are until they shut up,” said Ben as he joined the group, “This place is a tomb.”
“Copy that, move out,” said Mag, giving the signal to move forward.
The squad continued down the main avenue of the hab as their lights illuminated evidence of one or more brutally violent firefights. The spent shell casings were all shotgun cartridges, the standard issue weapons provided to security forces in Grotto space. The guns and corresponding ammunition were cheap to manufacture and the weapon itself, not to mention the wounds it created, were highly effective in the execution of security operations. Samuel silently pointed out several more drill bits and even a saw blade embedded in the walls, some of which were crusty with old blood.
Patrick stepped in a pile of dung that seemed to have bits of bone and teeth in it. The squad as a whole each gave thanks for the power of their re-breathers to filter out what they imagined must have been a horrible stench permeating the hab. Ben wiped his finger across the guard rail of a gangplank once they’d ascended a flight of stairs to reach the second level and his finger came away with a fine layer of dust.
“Not to be overly creepy or anything, considering what we’ve just been through, but now that I’m looking at it, this whole place is covered in dust,” Ben observed as he looked at the rest of the group.
“So?” said Patrick as he ran his own hand over the rail to see for himself.
“The major contributing factor to dust,” Mag said, “in a sealed environment, is human skin cells. We shed more than most folks realize. Sure, it’s a mining compound, but you wouldn’t have this much of a layer after ten years of being sealed up.” She hefted her rifle into a more aggressive posture.
“I’ve seen this sort of thing on derelict ship salvages. Pretty standard story actually. Malfunction or damage sets the vessel adrift, the air filtration systems stop working even though life support stays active, since it’s on emergency backup grids. If there’s even one survivor who stays alive on the ship for more than a few months without dying of starvation, thirst, or whatever, then the ship is covered in a layer of dust.”
“That’s some knowledge that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life, thanks, Boss,” piped up Aaron as he lifted his head weakly. Aaron’s face was covered in a fine green sheen, as if he’d dunked his face in pond water and come away with a patina of scum.
“At least you’re still alive to be haunted,” said Patrick as he did his best to smile reassuringly, then to Mag he said, “We’re two flights up, one more flight to go then maybe twenty meters and we’ll be there.”
Progress was slow going, as each marine checked and re-checked their corners, all of them now keenly aware that the creatures could be anywhere, and that someone, somehow, could possibly still be alive inside the hab.
In answer to their silent questions an ear-splitting shriek erupted in the darkness, but it was impossible to tell from what direction it came. It was answered by the staccato pounding of a combat rifle. Suddenly, more inhuman voices rang out of the dark and the sounds of running feet and scrabbling claws could be heard all around them.
“Get up the stairs! I want that security station! Go! Go!” bellowed Mag as the squad hustled to follow her orders.
Samuel sprinted up the stairs as fast as his battle armor would allow him. He did not want to get caught in the middle of a firefight exposed on the stairwell, not that the gangplank was much better. The moment he stepped into the open a spinning blade that looked as if it had once been part of a stone-thresher came hurtling out of the darkness toward him. He threw himself to the floor as the blade ricocheted off of the metal girder, throwing out sparks, and clattered over the side of the gangplank.
Samuel rose into a crouch and fired three shots in the direction from which the blade had come, though if he hit anything he couldn’t tell. Ben came pounding up the stairs behind him. As he passed Samuel, the gunner thumbed off the safety switch of his weapon.
Running footsteps scraped against the metal of the gangplank as one of the creatures rushed the marines. Combined shots from both Samuel and Ben pitched its body over the rail.
The bestial screams and gunfire continued elsewhere in the compound and soon Mag, Patrick, and a barely conscious Aaron joined the others on the gangplank. They ran as fast as they could across it, with Samuel in the front sweeping his gun in all directions as he looked for possible threats.
As more projectiles, drill bits, nails, and other random bits of twisted metal pelted the area around the squad, frequently pinging off of the marine’s battle armor, Mag dropped to a knee and reached for her flares. The veteran started igniting them and throwing them in every direction. Some sailed through the air before falling down to land one or two flights below them while others bounced off of units and landed on gangplanks on their level. One even landed on a gangplank above them. As the boss was throwing flares, the rest of the squad was able to see in the resulting red glow, that the hab bloc was swarming with the creatures.
It would only be in the debriefing, many hours later, that some of the marines of Tango Platoon would recall seeing the creatures actually fighting and killing each other, though in the heat of the moment, all any of the marines could see were swarms of hostiles bearing down on them from all directions.
Samuel raised his rifle and fired several rounds through the back and neck of a creature that was crawling towards them while upside down on the bottom of the gangplank above them. Ben swept his heavy machine gun in a wide one hundred and eighty degree arc as he squeezed the trigger and spit hundreds of rounds at the enemy.
Mag pushed Samuel ahead of her, gesturing to what he could see was the security unit as the rest of the squad rushed for the promise of safety while Ben covered their movements with a withering hail of fire. As Samuel ran, his path was blocked for a tense moment by one of the creatures as it dropped down and landed in front of him. Not breaking stride, he put round after round into the creature. By the time he stepped over its body, the hostile was riddled with holes.
Now that they could see the enemy more clearly, Samuel was convinced that these creatures had once been the mining crew. Nearly all of the creatures wore remnants of either environmental suits or Grotto civilian clothing.
Patrick shouted and pointed, revealing Squad Marsters as it fought its way up the stairs from the East. As he did, one of the hostile hurled a spinning blade that slammed into his back. Patrick’s battle armor protected him from being wounded by the blade, but the impact knocked him to the ground. Aaron was too weak to stand and had been using Patrick as support. Robbed of that, the wounded marine col
lapsed in a heap on top of his comrade.
Aaron rolled onto his back. Even though he was completely blind he clicked off the safety of his combat rifle and started firing single shots down the gangplank in the general direction of the enemy. The hostile wasn’t hit by Aaron’s rounds, but the marine’s sporadic fire distracted it long enough for Mag to put a well-placed round through its skull.
Samuel turned and rushed back to help Patrick to his feet. The two men dragged Aaron behind them as Ben covered the rear and Mag took point. The veteran tried the door and found it locked. Instead of trying in vain to shoot through the security glass, she turned to Patrick.
“We’ll hold here until you cut through the door. Might take a moment, but once we’re inside we can set up a real fighting position.” She raised her rifle to fire on a hostile that looked like it was taking aim with some kind of modified power tool. “Standard issue habs all have the manual emergency generator stored inside the security unit, so if somebody turned it off on purpose we can turn it back on. I’m tired of fighting these guys in the dark!”
Samuel noticed that the flares Mag had thrown were beginning to dim, so he took a moment to hurl two of his own before shouldering his rifle and continuing to fire once more. Ben’s heavy gun clicked dry and he dropped it to the floor, drawing his sidearm even as the red-hot barrels of his gun sizzled against the blood and dust that covered the gangplank.
Squad Marsters finally emerged from the far stairwell and began fighting their way towards Squad Taggart. Harold Marr’s machine gun must also have been out of ammunition, since he had slung it in favor of his sidearm. Other than that, the squad was at full fighting capacity and seemed to have sustained zero casualties.
Salvage Marines (Necrospace Book 1) Page 4