Sean-Michael Argo - Hard Cargo

The former battle trooper squeezed the trigger and sent three super-charged hot rounds through the chest, neck, and head of the armored merc. The man went down twitching, his weapon clattering to the ground. Whoever owned this compound had most certainly chosen quality over quantity when it came to their mercs. While the man was no Merchant’s Militant, for a non-union scab, the man had likely alone cost what the Rig was paying for at least two or perhaps three of the low rent mercs under Narek’s command.

Samuel and Garn moved parallel to each other as they pursued the surviving rival merc into the thick maze of support machinery. This was the level just under the primary drill mount, and though Samuel desperately wanted to ascend the stairs and continue the search for his wife, this merc had to be dealt with. Considering his armor and weapons, the merc could easily circle back around and wipe them out, so there was no choice but to engage.

Hard rounds suddenly strafed across the platform, sending both Garn and Samuel to the deck as they hurled themselves out of the way. Narek cursed over the comm-bead, and Samuel couldn’t help smiling as the former battle trooper could be heard clattering back down the stairwell after taking several rounds. The armored merc moved around the edge of a bank of power cells and sprayed more fire at Garn, who just barely managed to scamper his way to safety behind a large tool rack, the multiple impacts causing a storm of sparks to flash in the half-light of the platform.

The rival merc staggered backward as Samuel drove several rounds into his chest, giving Garn a moment’s reprieve before ducking back behind a pylon.

The rival merc swept his gun around, spitting a hail of sustained fire as he did, and one round cut neatly through Samuel’s armor and tore into the meat of his upper thigh. More rounds chewed away at the pylon as Samuel collapsed to the deck in pain and shock. He rolled onto his stomach and took aim, determined to at least return fire before he bled out or took another hit.

This time Samuel aimed for the rival merc’s weapon instead of the man himself, and the device proved much less sturdy than the combat armor. The merc shouted in frustration and shock as the assault weapon was literally shot to pieces by the marine’s sustained fire. Samuel’s magazine clicked dry, and he saw the merc hastily cast away the shattered gun and attempt to flee. The rival merc had only gotten a few steps when Garn cut loose with his sub-machine gun, aiming at the merc’s legs, the wave of projectiles doing nothing to penetrate the armor, though the multitude of impacts made the merc stumbled to the deck.

As Samuel struggled to his feet he saw Jayce materialize out of nowhere and empty his magazine at point-blank range into the back of the merc’s helmet. The first handful of rounds did little, though as dents turned into holes, and then holes into a direct path to the merc’s skull, it became the third execution Samuel had witnessed from the young merc. Samuel looked away and fumbled with his personal med kit, knowing that he needed to get a vial of anti-coagulant dumped onto his wound before he lost too much more blood.

By the time he had done so Jayce and Corbin rushed up the stairs towards the primary drill platform. Garn stopped to help Samuel after slapping a fresh magazine in his sub-machine gun, and the marine used the merc’s support to steady himself before dosing with a stimulant. Samuel only had two of them in his personal kit, they were both holdovers from the war, and after so long their potency was somewhat reduced. Thankfully, in this particular situation, the diluted effect was a boon, as Samuel was able to ignore the pain enough to walk and still keep a clear head.

More shooting could be heard upstairs over the roar of the wind, and as Garn and Samuel reached the stairwell Narek rushed past them. Samuel could see that the former battle trooper’s robotic arm hung limply at his side, which was also seeping blood from a rent in the armor. The arm was throwing sparks every few seconds, and Narek carried his rifle slung tightly across his shoulder so that he could fire from a half guard position with one hand. The marine waved Garn on, and as the uninjured merc took the stairs two at a time Samuel climbed up as swiftly as he could manage.

When he reached the top of the stairs Samuel pulled the stock of his rifle in tight against his shoulder and surveyed the scene before him. The platform was littered with bodies, and though not nearly so many as the two decks below, Samuel gave each corpse a moment’s glace to ensure that it wasn’t his wife. To his left he saw Narek turn and place five hot rounds through a piece of machinery, causing a corpse to fall behind it, a small pistol falling from its freshly slain hand.

Shapes moved in the dust and Samuel peered through his iron sights. His trigger discipline was immaculate, and when Captain Dar emerged from behind a stack of drill pipes the marine did not fire. He might have wanted to, angry as he was about the situation and the conduct of the mercs, though he did nothing. The marine lowered his weapon as Garn, Corbin, and Jayce swept the rest of the platform and moved to secure the topmost.

“Where is my wife, Captain?” snapped Samuel as he kept the muzzle of his rifle pointed down, even if not entirely away from the freelance prospector.

“I’m here, Samuel,” answered Sura as she used the stack to support herself while walking around the pipes on legs made wobbly from her injury.

Samuel slung his rifle immediately and rushed to support his wife, and not a moment too soon, as her legs gave out just when he got his shoulder underneath her. The sudden extra weight on his legs gave him a fresh stab of pain from his own wound, though the marine gritted his teeth and bore it. Now that he was up close he could see that Sura had taken a nasty hit to the head, though her hair was matted from the blood to a point that he could not tell if she’d been hit with a blunt instrument or took a grazing shot from a bullet. She had Vol’s gun in her hand, and there was blood drying on the blade.

“Drill secure!” came Narek’s voice over the squad channel, and Samuel could see through the haze that Braden and Narek were now standing at the primary drill mount.

The geo-engineer was busy analyzing what appeared to be a fresh core sample, seemingly uncaring or unaware of the carnage that was strewn about. Soon the other three mercs came back down the stairs and gave a thumbs up to the former battle trooper serving as their squad leader. Garn appeared from the interior of the platform and did the same.

“Good work, everyone,” said Captain Dar in a weary voice before casting his gaze around the assembled group, “Where’s Michael?”

“We ran into some professional muscle downstairs,” muttered Narek as he pinched a sparking cable on his robotic arm and bent it away from the other end of the severed line so that it ceased to throw sparks as it tried to send current. “Michael got retired. Shame.”

“He pretty much ran straight into it if you asked me,” smirked Jayce as he made a show of putting the safety back on his auto-pistol and fastening it to his chest mount, “Kinda surprised he lasted this long. Former cor-sec officers make bad mercs.”

“Show some respect for the dead,” growled Garn, bristling at the young merc’s snide tone. Jayce held his hands up, palms out as he relented and went quiet.

“Everybody stow it,” snapped Captain Dar, his voice cutting across the chatter as he activated his secondary transmitter to send a pulse signal to the Rig Halo . “Meridian will be here shortly. Let’s get everyone with an injury to the rover and ready for dust off. Jayce, Corbin, and Garn police up the firearms tie up any loose ends, and pull security.”