Sean-Michael Argo - Carrion Duty

“Just keep your eyes open, Vitrian, and stay light on the stick,” counseled Captain Estrada, his expression grim as he fired up the plasma lance. “Let the soldiers and warships do the real fighting, we only have the one job.”

“If we die I’m going to blame you, Bella Mons,” snorted Vitrian with something approaching camaraderie. “Genius extrapolation of data spores and approach vectors might get us bounties, but I think this one could be a little bit more hard duty than we bargained for.”

“Not my fault that Aegis put a hold on our payment until recovery,” snapped Bella, her voice hard but her face betraying the slightest of smiles. “Personally, I think they should pay us twice, the yard lost it, not us.”

Rhett swallowed hard at the memory of the last few days of his troubled life. He’d woken up on the table in the modest medical bay of the Vulture Six , with Bella Mons hand inside the gaping wound in his midsection and Doak helping to hold him steady.

Apparently, Captain Estrada had suffered from a radical change of heart and ordered the Six back into the fray. By the time they arrived, the Fatalis was gone, taking with it the Tasca prize they’d left tethered to the yard ring. Whatever force in the universe that refused to allow Rhett Calibos to finally die had placed the scrapper’s unconscious form within scanner range of the Six as it returned to what was left of Andromeda.

Captain Estrada messaged the fleet that the ship had been seized, but that his tech officer had a bead on it. The Six was immediately ordered to pursue the ravagers with all haste. Bella had run the hull, engine, and armament specifics she’d recorded of the warship’s attack and had been able to pull up schematics of the Fatalis , or at least records other observers had made of Wageri ships, as little was officially known about them. She established a safe distance for the Six to maintain and Estrada ordered them to burn.

There was no functional med bay left on Andromeda, and though cor-sec and relief vessels were en route to do what they could to rescue the station, the Six could not stay behind and help. While in transit, they were informed that Dante had been found and was in recovery, though he was the lucky one, being on board the Six , heading deeper into necrospace was, effectively, a death sentence for Rhett. His wound was grievous, and without proper medical facilities, the only thing keeping him standing was the massive amount of drugs Bella had supplied him with.

When they had been joined in their pursuit by the Grotto Reaper tug and a clutch of freelance cor-sec frigates, everyone aboard the Six knew they were involved in something much more complex than a simple bounty salvage.

“They killed Andromeda,” said Rhett, thickly to himself, remembering what he’d said when Bella and Estrada both insisted he take the skiff out to dock with the Reaper tug and get proper medical attention. He could not fathom missing out on this fight, and refused to recuse himself from the mission.

The Reaper tug slammed into the outer perimeter of the debris field, shuddering from the detonation of a multitude of anti-ship mines and collisions with debris. Scraps of ships and orbitals hung in a tight cluster around the asteroid commune that was Fiat Lux, a grisly testament to how long and aggressively the ravagers had been terrorizing the sector.

As Rhett watched, several gun batteries opened up on the tug, and though the lumbering ship had a few batteries of its own which fired back, the ship did not pause in its forward progress.

Several larger debris pieces revealed themselves in proximity to be functional or at least semi-functional ships, shuttles, and self-contained weapons batteries, all of which concentrated their fire on the massive tug.

The Grotto ship’s response was to launch scrap wagons, the up-armored assault transports of which John had spoken earlier. Rhett could see one of the wagons bash through several pieces of smaller debris and shrug off anti-air fire before slamming into the side of what appeared to be a converted cargo hauler. From what John had told them, there would be a full platoon of salvage marines disembarking the wagons and fighting a boarding action. Sure enough, the ship’s weapons went silent as whatever crew within worked to fight off the Grotto invaders.

“You two had better get down to the dropship and strap in,” said Vitrian as he narrowly avoided a tumbling piece of debris. “The ride only gets worse from here. Once we scope a solid landing zone, we’ll get you and those marines out of the storm.”

Rhett shared a nod with Captain Estrada before the bounty scrapper and former marine rose from their seats and engaged their mag-clamps. It was a short, turbulent, journey to the launch bay where the dropship awaited.

Rhett and John both were already in their full kit, though Rhett had to forego his abdominal armor plate so that the auto-doc device strapped to his midsection would fit. The machine monitored his vitals, working continuously to manage his dosage of antiseptics, painkillers, anti-inflammatories, and nutrient solutions, as his ability to eat was hampered by his damaged organs until he could undergo proper surgery.

Rhett knew it was a reckless decision he’d made, maybe even suicidal, but he could not bear to stand aside. The bounty scrapper had already adjusted his compulsory accounts with Captain Estrada, and the fact that the captain was willing to allow Rhett’s desired adjustments was a testament to the fact that Estrada understood, in his own way, why Rhett had to be there.

Rhett wondered if losing Vader, Drago, and Andromeda Station in such a short time span had softened the captain’s usual staunch pragmatism as he ducked down to enter the dropship’s cramped interior.

Inside were the familiar faces of Doak, Quinn, and Sparks, who thankfully had remembered her pistol. It was unfortunate that the engineer and the cutters, including John, had to be on this run, but without them there was no guaranteed way to secure the ship or, more importantly, the nav-computer.

There was no telling what the ravagers had done to the ship, and they would need skilled scrappers to make good on recovery. Not that the dropship wasn’t full of skilled salvage professionals, Rhett reminded himself, as he looked at the four Reapers who had been temporarily assigned to the Six . They had kept to themselves, camping in the hangar bay during the eight hours between them being added to the crew and the final approach on Fiat Lux.

“Rhett Calibos, I am Boss York,” announced one of the salvage marines as Rhett gently lowered himself onto the grav-couch nearest the hatch, “Command has instructed your captain to cede your leadership duties to myself. I hope that will not be a problem for you.”

“It’s your show, Boss, I just work here,” responded the bounty scrapper through gritted teeth as a surge of injections from the auto-doc hit his system before pointing at his comrades. “Take care of my people and they’ll get that ship secured.”

“You don’t look so good there, bounty scrapper,” observed one of the Reapers, a stocky man who cradled a heavy machine gun and whose helmet’s visor was, Rhett noticed, actually a metal face with a breathing apparatus built into it, “Sure you won’t stand aside? There’s enough heat coming down on these guys that I don’t think us having one less rifle is going to matter much. No offense.”

“Takeda, leave him be,” said Boss York firmly, “A man doesn’t armor up with a wound like that without a good reason. Best to leave him to it.”

“Takeda? As in Ben Takeda? Of Tango Platoon?” said John after a few moments of staring openly at the Reaper’s grim mask.