Sean-Michael Argo - Carrion Duty

Dante unleashed fire from his combo-weapon and butchered one of the boarders, then a second, before the rest of them could start scampering back into cover as they sprayed bullets indiscriminately into the lower deck.

Rhett had his rifle to his shoulder and punched several rounds through the chest and neck of one of the boarders who had not reacted quickly enough, too focused on hosing down a third civilian with lethal projectiles.

Drago’s combo-weapon lent its voice to the exchange, and another boarder went down with shredded body armor and his blood pouring out of several holes.

Rhett pulled the stock of his compact rifle tight into his shoulder and continued to fire, sacrificing accuracy for a free hand, which he used to drag the wounded young cor-sec trooper into cover. Once he had the young man secured, he took careful aim and peppered a boarder with bracketing fire driving the enemy into Dante’s hungry gunsights, wherein the boarder’s body was torn apart by the cultist’s devastatingly accurate shots. Rhett peered down his iron sights and saw that the corridor before them was now empty, the boarders having pulled back, presumably to their checkpoint, after their counter-attack had been blunted.

Rhett looked behind him at the assembled defenders, happy that his helmet partially obscured his face so that they would not see the scowl that covered it. Not a single civilian had fired in the brief, but fierce exchange. It was a sobering reminder that though they were eager to help, none of them had the skills or discipline that would make them equals in battle to the likes of the ravagers. He looked down at the young cor-sec trooper and saw that at some point in the firefight the young man had expired.

Rhett cursed and started moving cautiously out of cover and towards Dante’s position, hoping to give himself more of a firing advantage in case the enemy attempted to press the attack. He knew that they couldn’t just hunker down in the lower deck forever, sooner or later someone was going to have to go back in there. Then, before he could consider the meat grinder that such an action would result in, Rhett felt the entire main deck shake violently.

At first, he thought it was another torpedo attack, until Rhett realized that he was beginning to float away from the floor plating. The civilians started shouting and Rhett cast his gaze upwards through the main deck. Someone had destroyed the gravity drive and in an instant, the station’s most bustling center of activity was choked with floating debris and panicking civilians.

Plenty of people had either been attempting to hole up in the various shops and upon the gangplank of the main deck, in addition to the armed group that had gathered with him at the bottom, and all of them were now on the drift.

Rhett immediately engaged his mag-clamps, and he was still close enough to the floor plate that his boots drew him the several inches back down to solid ground.

Dante and Drago had done the same, though neither of them were looking up, both staring intently at the corridor which was now filled with the floating corpses of boarders and troopers. The cultists opened fire again, their salvo tearing into the tangle of bodies, and through the chaos Rhett caught sight of several boarders that had taken the sudden change in gravity as a chance to press into the lower deck.

Rhett raised his rifle to assist when an explosion rocked the deck. He looked up to see something he had never dreamed possible. Two mech warriors, smaller and more wickedly agile than he’d known existed, emerged from the great hole they’d blasted in the top tier of main deck.

The great cylindrical deck was the largest single atmospheric compartment in Andromeda Station. There was no real way to seal it if the hull was breached. That was a necessary design flaw in the Gamma Pattern orbital stations manufactured by the Aegis corporation. To build the stations as affordably as possible, it was a flaw that had been deemed acceptable. Sectioning off the main deck would have required much more raw material tonnage and many more labor hours, an unacceptable and deemed unnecessary expense, so it was simply left open. This cost saving design allowed Aegis to maintain a vast array of stations across its borders, stimulating trade to a high degree while exposing the populace to an acceptable risk.

Rhett had not heard stories of main decks suffering from hull breaches, so it had never occurred to him to consider what might happen if that was the case. He had also never thought that ravagers would dare attack an accredited station. The size of the hole was sickening, and instantly the cavernous chamber began to depressurize as all of the vital atmosphere began venting into space.

The mech warriors opened fire with heavy mounted weapons even as they used their hideous, sharp claws and onboard thrusters to move downwards despite the storm of bodies and debris that rushed upwards and out the breach. The main deck was tremendous, so it would take several minutes for the entire area to vent, but in that time hundreds would die. Rhett snapped his rifle to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger, knowing before it happened that his bullets would ricochet off the stout armor of the mechs.

He watched for a moment as the mechs moved, seeing how they used their onboard thrusters to propel them back and forth across the great chasm of open space between one side of main deck and the other. They were focusing their fire, Rhett realized, on the airlocks and maintenance hatches that would protect other decks from their assault. They were here to kill the station, to rip the beating heart out of Andromeda. There just wasn’t enough firepower or able fighters still active to push back against the boarders and resist the mech warriors.

One of the mechs, a vicious looking beast painted matte black and sporting a plasma lance on each arm, slagged an airlock someone had managed to shut just before decompression. Some unfortunate station dweller was sucked out of the burning opening where the hatch had been moments before and sent soaring towards the hole in the top of the main deck.

“Dante!” shouted Rhett through their team channel as he pointed at the mechs, “Go for the thrusters! They won’t be able to stabilize if we knock them out before the entire deck depressurizes.”

“Send them out the hole they came through,” laughed Drago, his voice nearly unfamiliar to Rhett, as the man only very rarely spoke.

The twins nodded at each other and deactivated their mag-clamps before pushing off hard, sending themselves soaring upwards towards the mechs as the brutal war machines worked their way methodically downwards.

Rhett turned and fired his compact rifle at two boarders who had entered the lower deck. His rounds connected with one of the ravagers, but the man’s armor protected him from the first of the shots and Rhett was forced to rush for cover as the man returned fire. The ravager was armed with a needle rifle, likely of Rubicon manufacture, just like the one Rhett had used during his time in cor-sec, and Rhett felt the sting of several projectiles piercing his armor.

Rhett crashed through the front door of Tae Mae’s as a cloud of needles chased him. The former trooper attempted to roll onto his feet, but in the zero gravity it was awkward and he ended up plowing through a table and chair set instead. His rifle went soaring out of his grasp and he scrambled for his pistol as the boarder leapt into the tiny restaurant. Tae Mae appeared from behind the bar, her face obscured by a re-breather system that had to be as old as she was, however, the chopped down double slug thrower in her hands was polished and new.

She fired both barrels and sent two high velocity slugs of max-density alloy at the border. The slugs shattered the low-grade body armor covering the man’s chest, and the sheer power of the rounds sent him reeling backwards. The boarder had his mag-clamps engaged, and so instead of his whole body sailing away from the impact his knees buckled and his torso slammed down hard against the floor plating. Blood spewed from him, and it was impossible to tell if he’d died from the slugs themselves or the sheer blunt force trauma of being hit from the front and back in rapid succession.