Sean-Michael Argo - Ghost Faction

She had little time to consider her mental state as a Helion trooper attempted to rush her position from the car across from her.

The man had been sprinting, but came up short, faltering in his steps as he saw the nightmare that had been made of the gun emplacement. He may have been so shocked at the bloody scene that he did not see the skull-faced death dealer crouching in the half-light of the ruined metal. Whether he did and could not react, or if he had simply been robbed of the will to fight in that instant, was inconsequential, as a burst of armor-piercing rounds from Jada’s rifle punched through his mid-section and sent him tumbling off the train and out of sight.

The second trooper was made of sterner stuff, and crawled on his belly over the top of the car to exchange fire with Jada. Neither of the combatants was quite able to get their bearings on the other.

With Mors at her back, the pilot must have made quick work of shifting the controls, because after the first few exchanges between Jada and the trooper, the train’s brakes became fully engaged.

It was a technological marvel and a true achievement of engineering and industry that despite the tremendous tonnage of the train, when the pilot engaged the controls, the train swiftly came to a halt. It was a controlled stop, smooth and without the final jerk of momentum that Jada would have expected.

The familiar engine scream of the Dire Sword dropships could be heard now that the wind of the speeding train wasn’t whiting out all of the other sounds. The shooting continued, the Helion troopers who still defended the train not quite realizing the extent of their defeat, or perhaps their commitment to Helion was sufficient enough to keep them fighting to the last. The trooper on the car seemed to be of the latter mentality and he kept up the pressure, sending multiple hot rounds into the ruined train car before Jada was able to flush him out with a grenade. The explosion knocked the armored opponent off his perch and sent him flailing out of sight.

“Strega was Helion,” said Mors as he stepped out of the chamber to join Jada. She looked behind Mors to see that the pitiless merc had permanently ensured that none of the engineers would be attempting to get the train started back up. “She said that the battle troopers in her day were loath to retreat, and without any support here, I suspect these will fight to the last man or woman.”

“That’s been my experience,” agreed Jada gravely as she and Mors began advancing to the next car, each of them slapping in fresh magazines in preparation for what was to come.

The two mercs carefully mounted the train car and were met with the sight they had expected. The remaining Helion troopers held what appeared to be three cars, the rest of their comrades having perished or been knocked off the train before the great machine had been halted. They did indeed seem intent on fighting till the bitter end.

“It is glorious, is it not?” asked Mors as he and Jada bounded across the open train cars to close distance with the defenders.

“Well, they probably think they’re dying for something more than money,” answered Jada as she took aim at one of the troopers, the defenders not yet realizing that they were caught in crossfire. “Helion propaganda is some of the best in the universe.”

Mors grunted with what sounded like laughter, and joined Jada in firing upon the embattled troopers. The two of them poured on the fire, sending one trooper to the grave and driving two more back into cover behind their horribly dented mobile defenses. Mors kept shooting while Jada slotted in a fresh magazine, her last. She was glad that the battle was winding down, as there was only this magazine and the handful of shots left in her pistol.

A gun went off next to Jada. She looked up, not recognizing the sound of the weapon, her HUD lighting up with effort as it dampened the concussive report so close to her skull.

Mors sank to his knees beside her. His faceplate was cracked and painted with blood from the inside, giving the skull etching an eerie red glow. He fell forward to the deck.

Jada reacted out of instinct. Her pistol was in her hand and her finger squeezed the trigger before she realized what she was doing. She turned her head in time to see that she’d put a magnum round through the stomach of the pilot who had stopped the train. The woman fell back, the force of the bullet at such close range sending her lifeless body to the ground. Jada saw that she already had a ragged wound in her chest. In her hands, she clutched the stubby weapon the cor-sec officer had been holding before Mors shot him. Obviously, Jada realized, Mors had thought he’d killed the pilot, but missed her heart.

Even with her comrade dead beside her, Jada found herself thinking about the sheer will the pilot possessed to have taken up that weapon and reached the mercs before succumbing to her mortal wound. To have watched Mors execute her comrades, be shot herself and yet survive to take vengeance, like Mors said, thought Jada, it was glorious.

Jada sat next to Mors for a long time, leaving the rest of the fight to others. Her mind wrestled with the natural attempt to categorize Mors as a good man or a bad one, and the merc knew it was just a psychological coping mechanism. The attempt to reconcile a person’s life into a single value judgment was a fool’s errand, but one common when faced with such sudden death after so troubled a life.

She wondered what would be thought of her once she died, and it was therein that she felt a sudden kinship with the dead mercenary. Perhaps he, like her, had died a long time ago on some distant battlefield and only now had his body finally caught up to that fact.

The combined crossfire made short work of the remaining defenders, and by the time the dropships arrived, the last Helion trooper was shot down. With the dropships came several haulers, barges that had been retro-fitted by their employer to seize the train’s precious cargo.

The Dire Swords pulled security on the train itself as the dropships ran long-range pickets across the shale, though no Helion counter attacks came. The rest of the planet’s defenders were either defeated or otherwise engaged with the rest of the Dire Sword elements and the haulers were free to do their work unimpeded.

Jada wasn’t surprised to discover that the haulers had been retro-fitted by a company of salvage marines, or that it was a Reaper tug that waited in low orbit for the crystals.

Now that the starport was either theirs or soon would be; moving the stolen goods would be easily done. To her knowledge, the plan was to seize enough material to cover the cost of the expedition, then destroy the rest. They were here to disrupt Helion, not conquer territory.

If they couldn’t steal it, a raid they would ensure that Helion would not be able to recover it.

Jada knew that but for the margin of chance, it would have been her crossing the mineshaft instead of him, her shattered helmet on display in the temple’s central altar instead of his.

Mors was dead.

Jada was alive.

There seemed little difference between them beyond the obvious carnage of a body riddled with bullets. Jada had looked into the eyes of the Hollow Horde several times now, and there was a kind of light behind those dead eyes, a spark, and where there was such a spark perhaps there was life, or something that resembled it.

During her time in necrospace, she’d fought the re-animated bodies of fallen penal legionnaires, Helion troopers, and even a few salvage marines. They moved and made war like any other living being, only she knew for a fact that they’d died before being reborn, so to her, the line between life and death was arbitrary relative to technology.