by Jake Bible
Mag was a tough-as-nails veteran, as was Boss Lucinda Ulanti and Boss Wynn Marsters, assigned from other Reaper fleets to be leaders for the Baen 6 founding fleet. It was these veterans who set the standard for what it meant to be a REAPER. It was they who would not only lead the marines, but also teach them through action, how to take what the new recruits had learned in basic and execute it in the field.
Samuel’s grip tightened on his combat rifle as he looked behind him once more into the darkness of the tunnel, silently hoping that the training had been enough.
“Everybody watch your corners, just because someone already swept it doesn’t mean something hasn’t show up in the meantime,” Mag growled into her com-bead as she raised her combat rifle to point the muzzle into the darkness of the corridor in front of her. The mounted light on the rifle illuminated a small bend on the right that indicated a side passage. “We don’t want to get flanked if there really is something in here with us.”
“Copy that, Boss,” said Samuel in a low voice, partly through the com-bead and partly to himself, as he’d certainly not double checked either of the last two passages they’d come through since entering the labyrinth of corridors that made up the underbelly of the compound.
His imagination threatened to conjure up any number of horrors from childhood stories, and he retreated into his firearm routine to calm his nerves.
Ever since basic, he habitually checked the safety of his weapon, and then looked at the ammunition read out on the side of the gun. He had not fired a single shot outside of training, and certainly not twenty minutes into his first salvage mission, but the young man took an obsessive comfort in the assurance that he had control of his weapon and a full magazine.
The fleet had set anchor in low orbit around a small planet with no name beyond designation M5597. In the pre-drop briefing the shift manager had informed the marines that fourteen years prior, a mining branch ship was sent to this planet in response to data returned by unmanned probes revealing large deposits of biridium and mordite gases. As both resources were labor intensive and time-consuming to extract, a ship outfitted with the ability to found a mining compound was dispatched. After several years of acceptable levels of production yields, communication with M5597 abruptly ceased.
The entire 5500 sector was considered low security space, so keeping military vessels in the area was deemed unnecessary. The transport way station, after missing two consecutive deliveries, had filed an automatic report.
Once the regional managers of the sector, who worked out of the Home Office on Grotto Prime, were made aware of the report they determined that the cost of a response effort would outweigh the projected profits of the facility.
At the time, Grotto Corp. was engaged in a bitter trade war with the Hadrian Conglomerate in several of the surrounding sectors. To re-task even one response ship to pass through the war zone and into sector 5500 would have not only resulted in the loss of the ship to one or more of the many Hadrian frigates that picketed the area, but also ran the risk of Hadrian management discovering that there were precious resources hidden on a small planet deep within the largely ignored and unmapped sector.
The report was buried and the fate of the mining compound on M5597 was unknown.
It had been ten standard years since then and the war with Hadrian had eventually ground to a halt as more lucrative ventures had presented themselves to both companies in other parts of the universe.
Two weeks ago the branch ship that had sourced the mining compound, which should have been the ship to deliver the production yields all those years ago, had been sighted several systems away and flagged as a rogue ship, no doubt being crewed by pirates or independents.
The companies that dominated the universe, though in constant conflict with one another, did ostensibly share information about independents and pirates, as both groups represented a challenge to corporate rule.
Once flagged as a rogue vessel the ship would be ‘red listed’ alongside thousands of others. They simply ceased to exist as far as being under the protection or responsibility of any company. While this certainly represented a kind of freedom, Red Listed ships, and static communities for that matter, were completely on their own. They had no allegiance to anyone, which meant they also had no rights. Most Red Listed ships and communities quickly turned to piracy in order to survive, were wiped out by a corporate interest, or were simply swallowed by the void of space and never heard from again.
A new regional manager on Grotto Prime, so far removed from the field that even the shift manager did not have their name in her briefing, had decided to classify M5597 as a REAPER objective.
Samuel had listened attentively, not once flinching at the shameless bureaucracy and adherence to the bottom line that ruled Grotto society. He had long ago accepted that such things were unchanging. It made perfect sense to him that the managers, both old and new, made their decisions based on the profit and loss projections of their actions. Such was the Grotto way, and he had been raised in that world, as had the other hundred and forty marines.
It was the logical choice now that the trade war was over and there was a new regional manager looking to boost his or her quarterly revenues and political status within the organization.
Sending a REAPER fleet was relatively inexpensive, and since the cost of the entire facility had already been tagged as a loss, any salvage or resource yield would be pure profit. The shift manager went on to say that, as per standard operational procedures, the marines were to do their best to avoid further damaging the compound should they be met with armed resistance.
It was that thought of armed resistance that hurled Samuel’s mind back into the present moment and he once more checked his safety and ammunition count.
Squad Taggart had made planetfall roughly twenty minutes prior and though their drop-pods were out-dated and uncomfortable, they were sturdy. As they’d been coming down, Samuel had found himself looking at the blast scarring on the interior of the pod, and realized that at some point in this pod’s history an incendiary device had gone off inside it. He hoped that the marines within had already exited the craft since salvage marines weren’t usually dropped into direct combat, though it was anybody’s guess what had happened.
Record keeping was more concerned with resources expended and resources procured and there was little in the way of storytelling amongst the marines. They were a grim lot, being the lowest paid and most poorly equipped of the Grotto military even though they were always being sent into the unknown.
As Samuel swept his rifle through the gloom of the corridor he found himself wondering if it might have been better to be a legionnaire. At least then he would have bio-implants to make him faster and stronger, an armored dropsuit, and access to the most impressive and deadly of armaments. However, he told himself, instead of prowling the dark corridors of mysteriously abandoned mining facilities in the middle of necrospace he would be in the middle of a firefight with enemy soldiers who were just as powerful as he was. Samuel was a pragmatic young man, and had been raised Grotto from birth, so as the seconds ticked by he considered that his pay-per-minute as a marine was the better choice for a family man.
A sharp scream that could not have been human filled the corridors, and Samuel’s blood felt like it had turned to ice. Suddenly the unknown of an alien threat seemed much more intimidating than fighting other humans.
Samuel had always heard stories and rumors of inhuman creatures that stalked the forgotten corners of space, and there were always tales of ancient aliens who ruled the frontiers of necrospace. Like most people, he had ignored them, though in that moment, there was no doubt in his mind that monsters were real and that one was inside the dark compound with them.
“Tighten up people, this is what you’ve been training for,” muttered Mag as she held a fist up for the squad to stop, “This is a big place, sounds like that could carry serious distance, whatever it is could be on the other side of the compound for all we know.
Aaron what’s our position?”
“The rig says we’re only about two hundred meters from the central quarters, Boss,” said Aaron as he checked the data-deck affixed to his forearm which contained all of their mission specifics, including maps of the facility and last known inventory lists. “Could be that whatever it is came in through the tunnels on the far side of the compound.”
“Squad Ulanti entered on that side. With all the atmospheric interference we aren’t going to hear anything from them until we’re face to face,” grumbled Mag as she lifted her rifle and continued forward, “Keep it together, people, let’s breach the compound and get out of these freaking tunnels.”
The squad began to move forward again and Samuel, who was bringing up the rear, could not help but turn to peer down the corridor behind them. He was astounded that the three other marines, raw recruits just like him, seemed so unshaken by the scream. Mag, as a Reaper veteran of at least ten years, he could understand, but the certain knowledge that something was in here with them, something not human, had rattled him to the core.
Suddenly, the combat rifle in his hands provided less assurance than it had moments before and checking the ammunition read out did little to steady his mind. He stood there, looking into the darkness and could almost swear that he could see shapes moving in the black. The illumination from his mounted light seemed to be swallowed by the pitch darkness of the corridors and just beyond the edges of his sight he felt a menacing presence.
“Hyst, snap out of it, man,” said Ben, as he gently shoulder checked Samuel with his own, “Let’s get top side.”
Samuel shook his head and turned to face Ben, “Just getting a little tight in here, first time jitters maybe.”
“You and me both, brother,” grunted Ben as he hefted his heavy machine gun and turned to follow the rest of the squad, “I don’t know what I expected after signing up, but it certainly wasn’t this.”
The squad kept moving forward, though their progress was much slower than before, as everyone, including Mag, were on edge and keenly aware that they were not alone. Everyone was exacting in their corner awareness, and Samuel observed from his vantage point at the rear of the group that the effects of their training were beginning to take shape.
During basic, it was very difficult to maintain muzzle discipline, and recruits often would find themselves in the hot box for accidentally pointing their weapons at each other during maneuvers. Here, in the dark mine shafts, with an unknown enemy lurking, the recruits had locked in.
The squad had pushed through another uneventful hundred meters when the hair on the back of Samuel’s neck stood up and his heart suddenly began inexplicably pounding in his chest. For the first time in his life, Samuel understood what it was like to be in real danger.
His mouth tasted like he’d gargled with aluminum shavings, and even though the air he was breathing was being cycled through his helmet’s respirator, it smelled suddenly sour. He reacted to the sensation by spinning on his heels, dropping to one knee and slamming his rifle to his shoulder.
For a split second his mounted light shone upon the pallid skin of a nightmare.
It was humanoid and stood upright, but he couldn’t tell if it had arms, legs or tentacles for appendages. The head was an awful oblong shape that made him want to retch. The eyes burned yellow and by the time it opened its mouth to reveal a sickening maw, Samuel had opened fire.
The marine screamed in a mixture of fear and survivalist rage as he thumbed off his safety and began pounding rounds into the corridor. The creature was blindingly fast, melting into the darkness before Samuel could confirm he’d hit it at all.
Salvage Marines is available from Amazon here.
