Dead Worlds (Necrospace Book 2)

by Sean Michael Argo

  Samuel’s heart started racing, and the familiar pre-war rush filled him. Hazard deployments paid the best, and as the merc, Imago, had told him so long ago, it was all about maximizing the day rate. Samuel had spent over a year on basic salvage duty, and that was never going to get his family out from under Grotto’s heel. The prospect of a combat salvage tour inside one of the largest spire cities in mapped space had given Samuel the ray of hope he desperately needed.

  He just had to survive it.

  SPIRE CITY VORHOLD

  Tango Platoon had arrived in time to witness the final death throes of what was once a proud spire city that served as the capitol for a planetary venture gone bankrupt. The planet was called Vorhold, and prior to liquidation, was a mighty factory world, with one mega-city by the same name dominating much of the planet’s three continents.

  Pirates had swarmed out of deep space to wreck the shipping lanes that were now unprotected by the usual corporate security forces, effectively isolating Vorhold as its economy rapidly crumbled.

  The Vorhold Venture elites defaulted on everything and sold the whole planet to Grotto, which is what brought the Reapers to sit astride former Vorhold cor-sec armored transports as the column wound its way through the once glittering streets of the city.

  Samuel recalled from the brief, that the Vorhold Ventures Corporation had made some bad gambles on the derivatives market and had been doing so for many decades. When the market turned against it, Vorhold Ventures had defaulted on a number of trades and loans, creating a cascading effect where one corporate enemy after another ceased trade with Vorhold. While perhaps in other, gentler times, such business brutality would have been spun in a more positive light, this was Grotto, and the Reapers got their briefings as raw as they came.

  As a factory world Vorhold had been dependent on the importation of necessities like food and water, so, thanks mostly to the aggressive intervention and embargos by creditor corporations, such basic needs were almost immediately in short supply.

  Now, refugees clogged the streets, standing shoulder to shoulder as they pushed and shoved to gain a better position in the haphazard food lines. They had been forced from the city proper at gunpoint by the cor-sec units that had bonded with Grotto. While once the cor-sec had patrolled the streets, fought gangers from within, and defended the city from without, they had also sold themselves to Grotto.

  The cor-sec had, under close Grotto supervision, emptied the above ground portions of the spire city, commonly known as upspire. Now there were millions across the borders of the city proper who lived in tent cities and relied exclusively on Grotto and their new cor-sec allies for food, shelter, and medicine. In the days since planetfall, the situation had gone from dire to worse as the one-time citizens of Vorhold learned the hard way what it was like to belong to a corporation that declared bankruptcy.

  The sound of so many thousands of voices raised in need and protest was not unlike being in battle as far as Samuel was concerned.

  From his vantage point atop the re-appropriated armored transport, he had a clear field of vision across the sea of humanity as it swelled and broke against the hastily constructed barricades that separated them from the food and water.

  Behind the ceramic battlements was a refugee relief center that had been erected by the newly bonded cor-sec forces. Samuel and the other members of Tango Platoon could feel the waves of anger and resentment pouring from the mob, and each silently gave thanks that they were the outsiders to this spectacle. The marines scanned their perimeter in all directions, prepared to engage at a moment’s notice.

  The Reapers were combat soldiers and salvage operators, and had neither the training nor the disposition to be utilized for crowd control. However, thought Samuel, as he checked the safety on his combat rifle and gripped the handle for reassurance, neither did the former Vorhold cor-sec. From what Samuel witnessed it looked as if the cor-sec forces were just as likely to set off the spark of violence as the angry mob.

  The seven vehicles that constituted the Reaper column broke through the lines of the mob and pushed across the makeshift grated roads and tent cities to move deeper into the freshly abandoned spire city proper.

  As Samuel looked at the vast urban sprawl before him he shuddered, not just because of the size, but also because of the realization of the brutal door-to-door and street-by-street fighting that was about to happen here.

  “What is Grotto going to do with an empty city?” asked Ben as he turned his helmeted head back to face Boss Marsters.

  “You’re not looking at it like one of the Anointed Actuaries,” answered Marsters, as he too took in the magnificent and strange view, “Grotto intends to depopulate the city and scrap most of the buildings.”

  “They’re likely to maintain only a few of the forges and a minimal cor-sec presence,” added Boss Ulanti over the com-bead, “They’ll keep the forges and maintain the shipping lane, but that’s about it. Everything else is going to be liquidated.”

  “What about the people?” Virginia asked, keying into the platoon channel on her com-bead, “I thought we were sweeping out armed gangs and militia clans. Aren’t the refugees going back to their homes?”

  “Tillman, you’ve been a Reaper long enough to know that the shift manager never tells us the whole story,” snorted George Tuck from his seat near Spencer and Boss Ulanti, “Grotto is liquidating the people too. They’re assets, just as much as the buildings.”

  “Ah, yes, the projected value of their labor,” Patrick chimed in with a grim laugh, “Makes sense, they might not be Grotto, but our corporation will treat them like they do us. I’ll bet you they have to agree to a life-bond or pay the expatriation fee.”

  “But the elites are gone, they left when Vorhold pulled out, everyone here is a low-rating worker,” protested Virginia, “There’s no way any of them have that kind of cash, regardless of whether or not Vorhold was a life-bond economy.”

  “Red List,” said Boss Marsters, and his words cut across the conversation like a knife, silencing all but his voice.

  “They’ll join Grotto or pay the expatriation fee as a way of covering their portion of the outstanding Vorhold debt. Otherwise they’ll be put on the Red List and then it’s open season,” said Boss Ulanti as she nodded her head, “Anyone who doesn’t bond or pay will be classified as a hostile.”

  “So while we’re down in the sewers playing hide and seek with real gangers, those cor-sec forces who bonded with Grotto will liquidate the population,” growled Marsters. “Once we’ve purged downspire the real salvage work begins.”

  “Man, when cities die they die hard,” said Harold, as he tapped his armored fingers against the barrel of his heavy machine gun.

  The conversation died down after that, and Samuel was glad for it. He’d always been equally fascinated and terrified by the Red List.

  To live in the world without a corporation seemed as alien to him as living in the world without the basics of survival.

  A man needed the support of an institution greater than himself, didn’t he? What hope could there be for the people who chose to scorn Grotto’s offer of bonding? No doubt they would flee, using every available ship, registered or unregistered, that they could charter, stowaway on, or capture.

  The shift manager had warned against a sharp increase in acts of piracy from the refugee population, though Samuel had not quite made the connection until the Bosses spelled it out for him. The people of Vorhold were being given the choice between slavery, death, or exile, and Samuel shuddered at the prospect. At least he and the other people born into Grotto were shackled with their life-bond at an early age, so had years to work against it. Those Vorhold citizens who bonded were old enough that they would certainly die in debt and poverty. Samuel had to remind himself, however, that poverty was relative, and though he had known no masters beyond Grotto, he had yet to go hungry as its subject. The wargir, Imago, was right, being on the Red List was freedom, but of a darkly desperate sort.

&n
bsp; The marines had descended into silence, each lost in their own thoughts as they moved through the city. Soon they reached the rally point and found that for each of the seven Reaper platoons there were no less than two full platoons of bonded cor-sec troopers who would serve as additional combat support.

  Samuel didn’t like the look of most of them. To his eyes they seemed more like jumped up security guards than soldiers. The Bosses, including the dour new Boss Aiken, who had replaced Mag, seemed equally unimpressed.

  What did catch everyone’s eyes though, were the seven costumed and tattooed warriors who stood at an uneasy distance from the cor-sec platoons. Each of the seven individuals couldn’t have been more different from the next, save for the eight-pointed star over a crown tattoo on the right sides of their faces.

  They were dressed in rags, though much of the material was festooned with a dizzying assortment of bones, bullet casings, coins, beads, and other items to numerous to catalog.

  The longer Samuel looked at them the more he became convinced that the items must be trophies, tokens to commemorate one deed or another. It sounded good in his head and helped him make sense of it all. The people of Grotto were plain folk, and typically did not make such a show of themselves.

  The gangers bristled with a multitude of weapons, armed with every imaginable type of shotgun, pistol, spear, knife and axe. Their hair styles were equally bizarre, a riot of strange colors and cuts that reminded him of the revel bands back on Baen who played in illegal underground clubs and screeched anti-Grotto propaganda at the audience over the grating sound of guitars, synths, and drums. He’d never cared for the music, though Sura had insisted that it was important to see a few shows.

  Once he’d joined the Reapers that had stopped. Now that his movements were tracked much more closely as a soldier he couldn’t afford to be caught involved in such things.

  Still, like those revel bands, the same defiance and fierce individualism, was reflected here by these downspire gangers.

  What Samuel couldn’t understand was why in the world nobody was shooting at them. The gangers were the very enemy the Reapers had been sent to eliminate. As the marine looked around he saw that he wasn’t the only one confused by their presence, and it was only the lack of response from the surly cor-sec troopers that stayed his hand.

  “Boss?” asked Spencer from his perch on the transport as he flexed his hand on his rifle’s handle, “Are those what I think they are?”

  “That’s right, Green. Bought and paid for with food, fresh water and our promise to wipe out every rival gang they’ve ever had a grudge against,” answered Boss Ulanti as she stood and shoulder checked Spencer in a manner that had to have been the closest thing to affection any of the marines had seen her display, “Those gangers are the Rotted Kings, our local guides.”

  DOWNSPIRE

  As bullets chewed up the wooden planking that comprised the makeshift low tide dock, sending swarms of splinters flying in all directions, the salvage marine was thankful for his battle armor.

  Samuel sprinted across the dock and managed to stay a few steps ahead of the machine gunner who was tracking him with deadly fire.

  The gunner was firing a weapon that seemed to have been fabricated entirely out of spare parts. The report and muzzle flash were different with each round, which indicated homemade ammunition as well.

  Samuel leapt behind a rusted and pockmarked metal pylon just as the gunner’s aim caught up with him. The shots rattled the pylon so hard that a cloud of rust and who knew what else cascaded down onto the marine.

  His body was encased in the standard Reaper combat armor, though for their mission into downspire each soldier had been issued ‘tunnel webbing’, a series of specialized coverings for the segments of their armor. The webbing resembled matte black spider silk draped in a lattice pattern across each section of Samuel’s armor. Its purpose was to wick away toxins, chemicals and a variety of other harmful substances that might be suspended in the various liquids a soldier was likely to encounter downspire. The armor appeared to now have glossy scales or insect shells layered over it, giving him and the other Reapers a somewhat more menacing appearance, although nothing that the marines were sporting could equal the eye-catching, mismatched costumes and markings of the downspire gangers.

  It had been a hard fight just to get this far into District 12’s downspire region. It was being ferociously held by the Haggard Sons, a powerful clan of gangers that had dominated these sewage tunnels for generations.

  Samuel dared to pop out from behind the pylon long enough to fire several rounds into the murky half-light of the sewage channel, and then cursed at himself for not using his low-light scope to ensure that he’d actually hit anything. Then again, thought Samuel, toggling the sight on his combat rifle, pausing to aim would have given the gunner plenty of time to peg him. The gunner was good; Samuel had to give him that, considering how the last few minutes had unfolded.

  Samuel looked back the way he’d come and saw the bullet-riddled corpses of two cor-sec troopers laying mangled and bloody on the planks of the dock.

  It had all happened so fast. He couldn’t be sure, but Samuel thought it likely that the body of a third trooper was even now floating in the water on the other side of the dock. The rest of Squad Aiken, as they were now called, looked to be in stout cover behind a series of pylons supporting the spires above and the handful of portable flak-boards they had lugged down here with them.

  The Reapers were accompanied by two cor-sec platoons, just over thirty men and women, all armed with standard combat rifles and shotguns. For better or worse, the gunner was focusing his attention on Samuel, though he was strafing the squad’s position every few seconds just to keep them squatting in place. Whoever this ganger was, he certainly knew how to properly use a heavy weapon to control the battlefield, Samuel thought as he swept the area with his eyes in search of some way to strike back without being torn to pieces.

  Samuel took in his surroundings with a more critical eye, noting the multitudes of bullet holes in the concrete walls opposite of the mouth of the sewage channel. Most of them were old, some even had mold growing out of them or brackish fluids leaking from them as the environment sought to fill any available dark crevice with some form of corruption or growth.

  That was the way of things in downspire, Samuel had come to learn over the last few weeks. Since most of the bullet holes were old, Samuel began to realize why the dock was made out of ramshackle wood and barely held together.

  The Haggard Sons had been holding this ground for years, perhaps even decades, as a natural choke point. Any enemy element, regardless of size, was architecturally forced to push through the bulkhead just behind Squad Aiken’s current position. Clearly, the gangers had engaged enemies numerous times here, and would simply re-build their dock whenever it had taken too much damage to function. Samuel glanced one last time at the bodies of the cor-sec troopers. He realized with begrudging respect that it was actually the gangers enemies that would be bringing the fresh ammunition and weapons into the jaws of this trap to replenish what the gunner would have exhausted cutting them down. It had a brutal simplicity to it, a low cunning that Samuel had to admire.

  The marine could see several more gangers clinging to the walls as they moved to flank the Reaper position. Samuel’s observations were cut short as Boss Aiken’s voice sounded in his ear piece.

  “Okay, soldiers, this half-life scum isn’t going to hold us back any longer. Command has us on a specific timetable and we need to stick with it,” Boss Aiken growled into the ears of the squad as they hid behind their various points of cover.

  “Boss, I can see gangers moving into position, on your left flank,” interrupted Samuel, just before more bullets tore into the wood around his legs, pushing him into an awkward position as he attempted to keep himself secure behind the pylon, “They’ve got cloaks that look like the concrete, I count four but it’s tough to be sure, could be more.”

  “Copy that,
Prybar, I see them,” said Patrick Baen. Return fire soon spit out from behind one of the flak boards as the soldier squeezed the trigger.

  One of the gangers fell away from the wall in a bloody spray, splashing into the foul liquid lake that took up most of the space in the large concrete chamber. More of the gangers began shooting and in seconds the chamber was a deafening cacophony of small arms fire as the two forces engaged.

  The Reapers and cor-sec troopers were only too glad to have an enemy that they could see. The machine gunner on his boat was too far in the shadows for them to get a bead on, even with their half-light scopes. Something about the air quality in downspire played havoc with most of the more sophisticated gear, and more often than not the Reapers and cor-sec troopers relied on their old fashioned iron sights.

  The gunner responded to the firefight by raking his weapon across the Reaper position. Samuel couldn’t see clearly who got hit, but he knew that several bodies jerked backwards and lay still on the ground.

  “They want this beachhead secured and ready to receive work crews as soon as possible. I want volunteers!” Boss Aiken barked into his com, obviously uncaring about how many died needlessly as long as he attained his objective.

  Boss Aiken was a transfer from the Bagrid Gamma Reaper fleet, a solar system near the Baen worlds, where deep core mining was the primary operation.

  In Samuel’s opinion, Aiken’s character and personality had all of the subtlety and imagination of a stereotypical mining manager. He did not see his soldiers as people, more as resources to be exploited in the service of the Bottom Line. While Samuel knew this was indeed true, Boss Aiken all but rubbed their faces in it. At least Boss Marsters and Ulanti did their best to treat the Reapers like human beings. Their orders were sometimes difficult and brutal, but their callous demeanors were balanced by the honor and courage that they did their best to instill by example.