Sean-Michael Argo - Trade War

From what Samuel had heard, the sort of clientele who were in the market for slaves were usually not concerned with cosmetic damage, only that the assets could perform their duties, whatever those might be.

As the slaver’s trajectory brought him arcing over Samuel’s position the marine opened fire, this time scoring at least one solid hit. The rounds didn’t manage to punch through the operative’s armor, though the impact was enough to skew the slaver’s aim, the salvo of pistol rounds from his fast-drawn, off hand weapon raking the heat vent instead of the marine.

Samuel cursed aloud and kept firing, choosing to ignore the fact that the recoil from his shots had pushed him away from the heating vent and upwards from the hull. Several more rounds knocked deep scores in the slaver’s armor, though the enemy dropsuit held, despite the fact that now the slaver was listing due to one of his thrusters being damaged.

Samuel stopped firing and reached out for the communications array he was drifting toward and managed to keep himself from flying off into the void of space. The slaver had also begun to right himself.

Several rounds impacted against the hull and both the slaver and Samuel saw Claudius and Bianca bearing down on the hostile operative. The two marines exchanged fire with the slaver as he compensated for his damaged thruster by kicking off the hull and firing with both his trap-caster and his sidearm.

Either Claudius or Bianca managed to hit the slaver in the faceplate as the three combatants soared within close range of each other, but not before the slaver launched a net across Bianca’s position. The veteran marine managed to twist most of her body away from the net just as it blossomed, though two of the barbs slammed into her cybernetic leg. There was no pain to speak of, but Bianca was now tangled up in the net. She discarded her rifle and slashed madly with her boarding knife at the netting. The gears of the net were grinding closed, though the razor-sharp edge of the boarding knife managed to cut through enough of the mesh that within several seconds the trap closed without her in it as she cut the net away from the barbs and left them stuck in her leg.

Samuel was only distantly aware of Bianca’s struggle, as he watched the sickening display of battle physics unfold between Claudius and the slaver. In the furious exchange of fire that had resulted in the slaver’s faceplate being shot out, so too, had Claudius taken several rounds from the slaver’s sidearm.

The marine’s limp body sailed out and away from the frigate, its momentum only moderately slowed by the bullet impacts. A steady stream of bright red ice crystals flowed from him as his last heartbeats vented precious life fluids into hard vacuum. The armored form of Claudius faded into the clutter of the debris storm as the dead slaver slammed into the hull and began a lazy red drift further aft. Holland sped past the whole engagement and Samuel could see that the medic was shooting aft.

“Hyst, on your right!” came the voice of Spencer Green, from Squad Ulanti, and seconds later the marine’s body slammed into Samuel’s, sending both of them careening back over the hull near where Jada had been pinned. Samuel ended up soaring backwards and saw that another net projectile had barely missed him thanks to Spencer’s keen eye and quick reaction.

The rest of Squad Ulanti appeared over the spinward horizon of the frigate as they exchanged fire with another slaver who appeared to be on the run. Ahead of the slaver engaging Squad Ulanti were two more operatives dragging what Samuel could only think of as some kind of oxygen cage. It was a cube with metal edges and orange plexi-glass walls, and within it was at least eight or nine human bodies, all prone and stacked in the cube like corpses on a casualty truck.

Most of them were encased in nets from the trap-casters, though one or two seemed to be bound hand and foot by simple zip-ties. The marine had to begrudgingly give it to the slavers; they were efficient and effective at their chosen profession. As had been the plan with the engineers for the Reapers, it was likely that the slavers had targeted the Journeyman and Master Class rating engine crew, only, unlike the marines, had probably just killed everyone else.

“ Everybody move up!” shouted Boss Ulanti, her voice having taken a feral edge since last Samuel had heard it, “ We’re taking that ship!”

Samuel was happy to see that Squad Ulanti appeared to have avoided suffering any casualties, and as he and Spencer righted themselves and prepared to kick off the marine could see that Abasi Hondo was using his boarding knife to cut Jada free.

Hondo was an exceptional soldier, in Samuel’s estimation, and not just because he was from an immigrant family of Errolites. Most people from Errol either remained on their home world or, like the warrior, Imago, left it only to become mercenaries of one allegiance or another. Granted, being a Reaper was in its own way, a kind of merc lifestyle, but doing so as a life-bonded Grotto citizen was something else entirely.

Abasi’s family had, for reasons he had chosen not to share, expatriated from Augur Corporation and joined Grotto. The marine’s former platoon had been liquidated after the initial engagement with the enemy they now knew as the Gedra, and both Boss Ulanti and Boss Marsters had fought to keep him in Tango Platoon.

There were many platoons that had to be liquidated after crossing the Ellisian Line, though Samuel suspected that his former squad leader Soren Aiken, who rapidly ascended to a position of power within Reaper Command, had pressed the matter. The marine swiftly cut away Jada’s bonds and got her to her feet in time for her and Abasi to join Samuel and Spencer as they formed a second wave of marines to follow after Boss Ulanti and her group.

That was how it worked with the Reapers, thought Samuel as he took stock of how fluidly individual marines moved in and out of squads. He knew that if a call went over the wire for Squad Hyst to break off the attack and assist elsewhere it would be Spencer, Bianca, Jada, and Abasi who would follow him. Holland was, for the time being, now part of Squad Ulanti, even as Ben and Marcus had remained in the service chamber as part of the new Squad Marsters. Each Boss functioned like their own gravity well, and the rank and file marines moved in and out of orbit as needed. They would always reset when given the chance, and the usual faces would return to his command, though in the moment, it was the Boss that made the squad. Squad Hyst formed up and kicked off on the heels of Boss Ulanti and her hasty assault on the slave cutter.

AS they approached the cage the rearguard operative drew a fully-automatic sidearm, equipped with foregrip stabilizer and an extended magazine. It was just the sort of weapon that would be devastatingly effective in the close confines of shipboard fighting. Thankfully, it was less so in the vast expanse of the hull surface, though as the slaver sprayed rounds in a wide arc towards the oncoming marines it forced the Reapers to adjust all the same.

Boss Ulanti and Gretchen both seemed to have taken at least glancing blows from the operative’s salvo, though Joseph Candor and Holland continued unabated. Joseph sacrificed his trajectory in order to lay down suppressing fire that drove the operative behind one of the many gravity ballasts in this section of the ship. The operative was swift in reloading his weapon, as Samuel and his wave could see while they came up on his left flank.

Like Samuel and the rest of the marines, the slaver operative was a professional soldier, even if his loyalties lay with an otherwise dubious cartel of small slaver operations. The man would not be able to spend his considerable paycheck if he was dead, and it was clear that he was not inclined to make a heroic last stand against nine determined Reapers.