Sean-Michael Argo - Trade War

Typically, thermals were inaccurate and thus the marines rarely used them during standard salvage missions, however, they were excellent for just this sort of void scrap. The ship had lost most of its atmosphere, and along with that, much of its heat. Even in this airtight chamber filled with breathable atmosphere, anyone not in a void suit would be freezing cold. The engine had powered down, so the only warmth left in the ship was what had remained after the battle, and what little the bodies of the survivors could generate.

A part of Samuel felt pity for the woman he shot three times in the chest as she fumbled with cold-numbed hands to reload her scattergun, and yet another part of him silently raged at her for taking up arms in the first place.

Samuel could see that at least half of the survivors were wearing black and yellow stripped tactical vests which marked them as naval security, armed with standard pattern scatterguns, which were typical armaments on most all corporate warships, and even the Reaper tugs.

On most ships they were often kept in lockers at different points in the ship so that the crew could break them out quickly in case there was a hostile boarding action. Petty officers and deck bosses had keys and controlled their issue. Apparently, on Helion frigates there was a subset of crew whose exclusive duty was shipboard security. Having such weapons handy was very useful in repelling pirate attacks or suppressing mutinies, however, when Samuel stepped out from behind Ben so that he could gun down another shooter, catching a few more errant and ineffective pellets as he did so, it became obvious they were dramatically less effective against opponents who were covered head to toe in combat armor and void seals.

The cor-sec staff had apparently received little training in the use of their weapons in zero gravity, because they did not properly brace themselves when shooting. When a security staffer fired their scattergun the recoil would send them spinning through the chamber even as they racked the slide and continued attempting to fire upon the marines. After the first furious seconds of the firefight there were easily twenty bodies hurling or drifting through the air, some alive and some dead. The rest of the engineers ducked for cover as the hellish clouds of shot that didn’t embed themselves in shield and armor were deflected and continued their flight through the chamber.

The marines pushed forward, using each other’s opposing recoil velocity to allow them to maintain their formation so long as everyone continued to fire. Five marines against easily three times their number would have been difficult odds to beat under normal circumstances, but the engineers offered little in the way of earnest resistance.

Within seconds of their entrance, the chamber was transformed into a microcosm of the debris storm raging outside the ship. Bodily fluids, spent shell casings, bullet-riddled corpses, and clouds of shot filled the space with chaotic motion. Several pipes had been riddled in the fighting, and at least one was still under pressure and had begun to vent some of its unsavory contents into the chamber.

“ Marines! Break and subdue!” bellowed Samuel, realizing that if he allowed his tight wedge of armored warriors to continue to spit death in all directions there would be no captives left to take. “ Target only active shooters! ”

With a discipline borne from years of combat the marines sprang into action. Ben let go of his shield as he swiftly reloaded his shotgun, while Bianca, Holland, and Marcus all launched themselves from the flooring and into the open space of the chamber, all with their shock cylinders crackling.

Samuel skirted to the side and slid over the floor to slam his armored form into the knees of an engineer who had been unarmed but had then given into the temptation to fight by reaching for a floating scattergun. The engineer, clearly and understandably unaccustomed to moving and fighting in zero gravity, spun head over heels when Samuel hit him. It was easy for Samuel to thrust his mounted shocker against the man’s chest and zap him into unconsciousness.

“Kade, secure that hatch!” shouted Samuel as he looked up from the drifting engineer to see a security staffer ushering another engineer through a small door at the back of the chamber.

Bianca nodded and gathered her legs underneath her as she turned in space and fired several rounds into the far side of the room, toward no target in particular. She had positioned herself so that her trajectory would take her towards the hatch as the force of the recoil sent her body hurtling through the battle space. The veteran marine twisted so that she was facing the hatch as she sped toward it, moving much faster than the security staffer and the engineer.

Samuel could tell from her angle and speed that she was going to reach the hatch just after the Helion men opened it, and there was no telling what was waiting behind that door.

Samuel, still low to the floor, bunched his feet beneath him and placed the heels of his boots against the wall as he pushed himself into a horizontal position with his hands. As he prepared himself, the marine could see Ben and Holland soaring back and forth across the debris strewn room zapping the survivors as Marcus did his best to keep up. From the looks of it most of the security staffers were dead or wounded beyond combat effectiveness and more than one engineer had moved out into the open with their hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Shock everybody, even if they have their hands up!” snapped Samuel as he prepared himself to launch, seeing that Bianca and her Helion prey were moments from collision, “We’ll sort them out once this area is secured!”

Samuel focused his attention on the hatch as he made adjustments to his body in order to perfect his aim. The security staffer depressed the release button and the hatch slid open. To the staffer’s credit he shoved the engineer through the door first before turning around and producing a sidearm he must have had holstered somewhere on his harness.

Bianca didn’t blink as she squeezed the trigger of her combat rifle and sent a round through the staffer’s upper chest and one through his throat. The man had been fast on the draw, however, and had opened fire a second before the marine. Bianca’s armor protected her body from being pierced by the bullet, but the opposing force of the round’s impact, along with her own shooting, degraded her momentum significantly in addition to sending her sprawling off course.

Samuel kicked off and streaked across the chamber floor, gliding under most of the debris that would have otherwise impeded his momentum. The dying staffer drifted away from the open door as droplets of blood spewed into the zero gravity environment.

Bianca slammed into a series of pipes, which stopped her flight through space but took her well out of the contest for the door. As Samuel sped toward the open hatch he could see through the cloud of blood droplets that the engineer was wrestling with his own courage over whether to flee or attempt to close the hatch. That brief moment of hesitation was all the time Samuel needed to close the gap between them.

The Reaper splashed through the cloud of blood droplets with his shocker crackling, and before the engineer could do anything but back away a few feet the marine hit him with enough voltage to send him into unconsciousness.

Since the engineer had attempted to back away, Samuel was able to hit him with the shocker in passing. Even though his momentum was slowed, the marine still flew deeper through the corridor, past several other closed hatches and into the next room. It was what appeared to be a control and observation bridge, though most of the equipment looked powered down.