Extinction Fleet 1: Space Marine Ajax

by Sean Michael Argo

  “Grendel just took out the jarl of Manticore Company, multiple sightings confirmed in District 10,” came Skald Thatcher’s voice over the company channel. “Available elements converge!”

  “Ajax, Rama, Ford, and Silas, break away and get yourselves over to District 10 and support the skalds,” barked Mahora as he pointed to each man in turn with his bloody spike. “Hart, drop overwatch and join them.”

  “But, jarl, the WarGarm might still be in 9,” protested Hart over the channel.

  “Step to it, Einherjar, the rest of us will handle the WarGarm if they decide to make a move,” interrupted Mahora. “You lads have a monster to kill.”

  GRENDEL

  Ajax and his small squad of marines rushed through the narrow streets of Heorot, their built-in squad beacon buzzing as it indicated their position relative to the signal being broadcast by Skald Thatcher’s command module. In the distance, they could hear the sounds of battle and reports indicated that the swarm’s strength was waning. The Garm never retreated and even though they had failed to seize the city they continued to attack, each time with successively smaller numbers.

  It was a testament to the weapons and combat prowess of the Einherjar that such a great swarm had been shattered against their defenses, Ajax reflected as he moved through the uncannily silent streets that made up the outskirts of District 10. With two hive ships adding their strength to the swarm it seemed a miracle that Heorot had not yet been overrun.

  Every point on the wall had been sorely tested by the enemy, but the walls of Heorot stood firm except for District 9. Manticore Company had been stationed in District 10, and by all accounts had been defending their bit of wall with brutal efficiency. Radio chatter made it clear that despite the loss of Jarl Grummond, the warriors of Manticore were fighting hard to finish off the scattered and desperate assaults of the broken swarm. The civilians of Heorot had been moved behind makeshift barricades beneath the shadow of the capital building, so the streets were empty, and yet Ajax felt as if they were suddenly filled with a palpable malice.

  Rama seemed to sense it, too, and the marines paused at the mouth of an alleyway to exchange glances before proceeding.

  “Do you feel that?” asked Ford, flexing his fingers on the grip of his rifle, scanning an empty street and seeming rather unsatisfied with what he found, or more, what he did not find.

  “Grendel is here,” whispered Hart through their ear-beads. The marines looked up to see the sniper crouching on the edge of a rooftop above them, training his sniper rifle deeper into the abandoned district.

  They could hear the echoes of crisp reports, the chopped pulse assault rifles carried by the skalds, and each man tensed as he brought his weapon up.

  “I can see two skalds moving across the rooftops, Thatcher, too,” reported Hart as his rifle tracked to the left. “I can’t tell whether they’re attempting to herd the beast or simply keep it from slipping away.”

  “What do we do?” asked Silas. “They called for available units. Are we just supposed to flood the area with rifles?”

  “Hart, you’re on the skald channel, right?” asked Ajax, having a feeling that the secretive warriors had given the sniper access to their exclusive communication network. When the sniper nodded, he said, “Give them our grid coordinates. If they can flush it towards us we can engage. Once we do, throw the green flare so Thatcher knows we’ve got it occupied. Maybe you and the skalds can bring it down before we’re all dead.”

  “I had a sinking suspicion that was your plan,” scoffed Rama warmly, his gallows humor seemingly undiluted despite his repeated and increasingly grisly deaths. “But how are we going to make sure it doesn’t just move around us?”

  “This thing is smart, it’s learning our ways of fighting, figuring out our weapons,” said Ajax. “Maybe we can use that against it.”

  Minutes later, Hart had disappeared, slinking off into the gloom to find a better overwatch position. The marines were gritting their teeth and waiting for the enemy to approach.

  Ajax and the others had set up booby traps that covered the roads and alleys leading into a small plaza. At the center of the plaza was the first windmill device to be built on Heorot and the area was something of a historical site for the once burgeoning community.

  The skalds were getting closer, the steady crackle of their small arms fire getting louder, and the marines knew that soon the beast would be upon them.

  If Grendel was aware of even cursory facts about the weapons of the Einherjar, then it would recognize the thin wires stretched across the roads and alleyways. It would see the hastily shaped charges made from det-putty that each soldier carried. Usually, it was used to make trenches quickly by blowing out patterns in the ground that would then be shaped by shovel and board, though they made handy booby trap devices as well.

  It took everything Ajax had to avoid telling the men about what he knew concerning Grendel’s ability to consume the brains of the slain. Thankfully, Hart’s association with the skalds, and the inevitable barracks gossip about Ajax having met personally with Skald Thatcher, gave the two marines enough clout to pass the plan off without having to reveal what they knew of the beast they hunted. Ajax reasoned that if Grendel had consumed knowledge of not only the Watchman, but the recon scouts, then it must know how to recognize the traps, what he was gambling on was that the creature wouldn’t know the difference between a well-hidden device and one put on display.

  Ajax and Rama held their rifles at the ready, each man crouching behind the low wall that surrounded the historical windmill. Above them, on the left and right, perched on rooftops, were Silas and Ford, with Hart somewhere in the darkness. Ajax knew that Grendel would come here the moment he’d seen the windmill. He remembered it from his resurrection dream, and from the moment he first encountered this creature he had determined that there were no coincidences on Heorot. Something big was happening here, and this fight with Grendel had become the entire Garm war. He was sure that the beast would attack and slaughter him and the other marines, but if they could buy the skalds or Hart even a single chance at taking the beast down it would be a win.

  Ajax worked to calm himself. The gunshots of the skalds grew ever closer, signaling that the beast was upon them. The bone on bone sound reached his ears and he felt as if he were once again in the resurrection dream. He wished he had Kora at his side as he did then. She had always given him a reservoir of strength to draw on and he could have used some of that in this moment. Suddenly, three skalds appeared on the rooftops ahead of the marines, yet the one alleyway they had not booby-trapped was empty.

  At first, Ajax was incredulous that the beast had not moved the way it had been driven, for surely even Grendel could not have avoided the skalds once the elite commandos had the measure of it.

  Suddenly Silas cried out, and Ajax snapped his head upwards just in time to see the marine’s body soaring through the air, trailing blood and viscera as it went. Across the street, Ford fired his pulse rifle and soon a shower of debris cascaded from the side of the building where Silas had once been positioned.

  Ajax could hear Ford uttering panicked curses as the marine fired, the brief glimpse of Grendel slaying his comrade having been sufficiently disturbing to unhinge him. Ajax tracked Ford’s line of fire in the hopes that he could catch a piece of the enemy in his sights, though in the gloom there was little that met his eye beyond gray buildings and shadows.

  “There!” shouted Rama just before he squeezed the trigger of his own weapon to send several bolt rounds shrieking through the air, tearing huge chunks of metal and concrete out of a squat building off to the left.

  Ajax swung his rifle around, but before he could find his target, a projectile bit into the low wall he crouched behind. He heard it before it struck as it made a whining sound, as if air passed through parts of it to give the projectile an audible signature, or perhaps it was another example of the living bullets that the Garm sometimes fired, either way Ajax felt it too terrible to c
ontemplate overmuch. It appeared to be a spine of sorts, much like that fired by the WarGarm. It had splintered upon impact to reveal that it was filled with a fluid that was already melting a significant section of the wall into caustic slag.

  The marine let his instincts take over, trusting that his years of combat would lead his aim to the enemy if he could just quiet his mind and calm his nerves. This was a monumental task in the heat of battle, though one that every Einherjar trained ceaselessly to accomplish.

  The whine met his ears again as another projectile whisked past his shoulder. From behind him Ajax could hear Rama screaming horribly. He let it fall away from his awareness, for this was certainly not the first time he had fought on while his friends died all around him.

  The marine caught a glimpse of Grendel in the shadows, its sickly pale chitin reflecting for a moment the green light of a signal flare that streaked into the sky to illuminate the plaza. Ajax squeezed the trigger and very nearly struck the creature, missing by a mere inch, and just as quickly as it appeared, the beast was gone, its escape masked by the shower of debris from the bolt’s impact against the building.

  More shots rang out as the skalds leapt off the rooftops and sprinted across the plaza. They had more refined optics than the average Einherjar grunt, and Ajax was sure they could see something more of the beast than he’d been able to. He ducked back behind what was left of the wall as the skald’s line of fire passed over his position, giving him a chance to take account of Rama’s condition.

  The spine had pierced the man’s right shoulder, and the liquids inside the projectile had neatly melted away the tissues and armor connecting his arm to his body. The marine was alive and desperately injecting himself with basic stims from his personal kit. Ajax recovered Rama’s weapon and swapped out the magazines as one of the skalds vaulted the low wall in hot pursuit of the creature. Rama grimaced but nodded in thanks as Ajax pressed the grip of the pulse rifle into the wounded marine’s hand.

  Grendel roared and Ajax caught sight of it crashing through the doorway of a building, chased by raking fire from the skalds. So far, the booby traps were keeping it pinned in and with the number of rounds that were being hurled at it there was a high probability that it was at least moderately wounded.

  Ajax watched as Thatcher fearlessly plunged into the darkness of the building with his weapon raised while the other two skalds flanked the building. He could see the muzzle flash of Thatcher’s weapon through the shattered windows, then elsewhere in the building thanks to the holes blown into it by Ford’s panicked assault. None of the warriors outside dared fire for fear of hitting their commander, so they covered the building as much as possible, hoping that they could maintain a line of fire on every avenue of escape. The sounds of pulse rifle fire and whining spines rocked the building as the two combatants assaulted one another in the tight confines of the building. A glorious running battle was being fought inside between the champions of their respective races, and somehow it was fitting that the details of it were lost in the gloom of this tragic brackenworld.

  From inside, the beast suddenly screamed in a way that Ajax had not yet heard. It was a high-pitched sound that yet somehow managed to rumble deep in his chest as if it were a powerful bass note. The very sound of it felt like metal nails raked down the side of a rusted piece of metal, and the pain was more in his mind than in his ears.

  Grendel was calling for help, of that Ajax was certain, though why he knew this he could not understand.

  “Incoming!” shouted Ford seconds before he fired bolt rounds into the sky, causing gory pieces of a shrieker to come splattering down upon the concrete.

  Ajax looked down one of the booby-trapped alleyways on his left, just behind the building where Ford was positioned, and saw several ripper drones rushing headlong through it. The drones hit the tripwires without so much as pausing and two explosions tore them to pieces. The det-putty had been packed with bits of metal and concrete that the marines had chipped off the buildings.

  While the shrapnel was certainly deadly, the explosives had been set up to be easily spotted to direct Grendel’s path. The drones proceeded, heedless of the obvious danger, and in the tight confines of the alleyways the concussive damage of the explosions killed them an instant before the cloud of shrapnel tore their corpses to ragged bits.

  “It’s calling survivors to it, the stragglers from other broken swarms,” breathed Ajax in disbelief, forgetting for a moment that he held a rifle at all as he watched another pair of ripper drones willfully hit tripwires across the street, rocking the plaza with another bloody explosion.

  “Ajax!” cried Rama as the marine slammed his good shoulder into Ajax, sending them both sprawling to the ground just in time to avoid being struck with a stream of burning death from above.

  The shrieker spread its leathery wings, attempting to pull up and swing around for another pass, but one of the skalds swiftly shot it from the sky. Ajax rose to a kneeling position and fired a bolt through the chest of a ripper drone that had pushed through the carnage of the wrecked alleyway, suddenly realizing Grendel’s plan. The beast was using the lives of its own kin to exhaust the killing power of the traps, giving it multiple avenues of escape. The signature report of a sniper rifle sounded and another shrieker smashed into the ground, reminding Ajax that the sniper was out there doing his best.

  No sooner had the thought occurred than Grendel came crashing through the third and top floor of the building, showering the plaza with concrete and metal debris as it emerged. It landed with a sickening display of dexterity and seconds after regaining its balance, the creature lashed out with its barbed tail to strike a skald unfortunate enough to be nearby. The commando’s body was transfixed by the huge barbed blade that protruded from the end of the creature’s serpentine tail.

  With a powerful undulation of its body, Grendel heaved the skald through the air towards Ford, who had already fired once at it and missed. As the skald’s body flew towards the marine atop the building, the beast vomited forth another pointed projectile.

  This time it did not miss.

  Rama grunted as his body was speared by the whining round. By the time his corpse hit the ground, the marine’s entire torso had been melted away, reducing him to a haphazard pile of sizzling limbs with a detached skull.

  Ajax raised his rifle to fire upon Grendel, but was forced to readjust his aim as another ripper drone charged him, its comrades having given their lives to plow through the last of the booby-trapped pathways. Ajax squeezed the trigger of his pulse rifle and punched two bolt rounds through the ripper drone, blowing it neatly into three pieces of lifeless meat. More shots rang out and Ajax turned his entire body, sweeping the barrel of his pulse rifle around to reveal the last skald ignoring the two ripper drones that were coming up behind him in favor of focusing his fire on Grendel. Hart’s rifle boomed in the distance as the sniper put down both attackers in rapid succession.

  Ajax saw the creature slithering behind the low wall opposite him, the only bit of cover between him and the beast other than the ancient windmills. The creature spat a spine round in the direction of the skald, who shouted in pain, though Ajax did not see what became of him, intent as he was on engaging the creature himself.

  Grendel screamed again, this time the psychic force of it causing Ajax to stumble a moment before he regained his balance. Above him, Ford was firing continuously, as was Hart, and Ajax knew that more of the scattered survivors of other broken swarms were converging on this plaza. The green flares Hart had sent up were no doubt drawing rifles to them as well, though Ajax was positive that this fight was going to be over, one way or the other, before reinforcements arrived.

  As he and Grendel circled each other they kept to the outside of the low wall that encircled the windmills, exchanging blistering fire at near point blank range. The beast was grievously wounded, that much Ajax could see despite Grendel’s somewhat supernatural ability to remain shrouded in shadows or obscured behind cover despite
its tremendous size. Whatever might have happened to Thatcher, he had given the beast quite the fight. The marine was becoming rather certain that his own bolt rounds would be relatively ineffective against the beast’s reticulated chitin armor, and only a lucky round would find its way into the creature’s flesh. He did, however, still have a stick of det-putty, which he swiftly slid from his pouch. The marine slid an activator pin into the top of the stick and held it firmly in his left hand, knowing that he’d have to get very close to make it effective.

  Ajax unexpectedly saw an opening, or at least his instincts told him there would be one if he rushed to meet chance, so he surged forward over the low wall. If he could use the cover of the windmills and his rifle in conjunction, perhaps he could get close enough shove the stick under one of the joints in the creature’s armor. A wound like that might not kill it outright, but it would certainly immobilize it, making it easier for the others.

  The marine sprinted across the few meters of open ground between him and the windmills, cutting deep left and then right to avoid the deadly spines being fired by the beast. The creature suddenly sprang into action and slithered forward also, as if it had seized upon the desire to kill Ajax with its limbs instead of a projectile.

  It was just as well, thought Ajax, as he sprinted towards his enemy with rifle in one hand and explosive in the other, they had an account to settle between them.

  The enemies collided in the thick forest of windmills. Ajax jinked to the right to avoid a whining spine projectile that tore into the windmill blade just behind where he’d been. The fluids inside the splintered spine created a pungent odor as they burned through the metal of the old machine. He squeezed the trigger of his pulse rifle and tracked the beast’s movements as it slithered through the tall devices. Ajax wasn’t so much trying to hit the beast as he was direct its movements to the left, and his ploy worked as the monster sped away from his hail of bolts. He felt, more than heard it coming up behind him, and spun on the balls of his feet, going to one knee, swinging his rifle around tightly across his chest as he did.