Sean-Michael Argo - Dead Worlds

“The angles are all wrong,” Samuel said under his breath, prompting a few sidelong glances from the Reapers in his vicinity.

“Copy that Reaper Command,” Shoto grumbled as she responded, reminding Samuel that his mic was still active, “How are legion vitals? They’re getting jumpy.”

“Green across the board, Warden,” said Samuel as he swiftly checked the body statistics for the platoon, “I am noticing that they aren’t checking the blind corners on the approach and back-shadows on the pass.”

“We’re performing the requisite anti-sniper sweeps,” Shoto said curtly, her voice taking an icy edge that Samuel imagined aided in her former career as a bondswoman.

“Line Warden Shoto,” growled Samuel as he decided that it was time to flex his command authority, if not to save face, but more to save lives, “Blind corners on the approach and back-shadows on the pass, there could be hostiles capable of employing tactics beyond human physical possibility. We’ve crossed the Ellisian Line. How copy?”

“Good copy, Reaper Command, and duly noted,” responded Shoto before she switched to the legionnaire channel and her voice piped into the com-beads of the convicts as she relayed the new field protocols.

Samuel and Shoto kept their communication limited to as-needed specifics, the same as the rest of the Reapers and Line Wardens, while the penal legion entered the city from multiple directions.

The odd angles of the buildings had begun to be a topic of chatter on the Reaper command channel as squad leaders began to share ground intel. The general consensus was that the buildings were constructed and oriented towards humanoid occupation, with little apparent defensive capabilities. The notation of defensive capabilities indicated that there had been no additional occupation by squatters, pirates, or rival corporations. Any such groups would have erected hardpoints and various fighting positions throughout the city to enable them to defend their claim.

While certainly, most modern cities in corporate space were constructed without defenses from ground invasions, most of their defense coming from orbital batteries and warships; it was a standard tactic to create fortifications during occupation.

Though all of the Reapers knew of the anomalous conditions of the mission, given that planets almost never remained at the same coordinates for more than a few days or weeks on the other side of the Ellisian line, it was still a sign that they were the first to properly explore the target site since whatever catastrophe befell it.

One platoon far to the north of Samuel’s reported observing grooved pathways underneath a damaged section of building, the wall having been knocked down by what appeared to have been a tiny meteorite. Other groups, as well as Samuel’s, had found standard meteorite damage, which was common on most all planets that had been floating through the void without the advantage of air shields or defense batteries, and it was a common part of the planetary life cycle. Photos were uploaded of the damaged wall and the Reapers instructed their platoons to look for corresponding grooves in the streets, only to find that they existed through the city.

At first they’d appeared to be a sort of open sewage system or guttering network, though with the new evidence from the damaged building it looked as if most of the buildings were slotted into the grooves and capable of moving along them. It was thought that perhaps the city was even older than they’d thought, and the grooves were there to help thousands of hands to push the cyclopean buildings into place as they were built block by block.

Most of the buildings looked to Samuel to be a cross between a pyramid and a sphere, and though they did seem to be constructed out of a conglomerate of molded beams and smooth blocks, he just could not pinpoint exactly how any of it was physically possible.

The blocks were a mix of smooth metal and some kind of glassy stone that registered as unknown in the Grotto databanks. Each platoon had a portable mining lab which allowed them to take samples and upload analysis as they passed through the city, and nothing they sent back could pierce the mystery.

As the platoons plunged deeper into the city the buildings became larger and more complex, until after a few hours it seemed as if the physics of the planet must be wrong somehow, as the increasingly bizarre designs of the buildings could not possibly be built by any process or laws of physics that was known to Grotto, possibly to humankind at all.

Samuel knew that the other Reapers were thinking the same thing he was, that despite the growing sense of dread there was a spark of greed that had begun to grow hot in the breast of the professional salvage soldiers.

If their salvage tools were able to be modified so that they could harvest even the raw building materials, it was indeed possible that this would be one of the greatest finds in Reaper history.

Samuel found that he was counting his fortunes before the city was secure, and worked to control his breathing and manage his expectations.

Shoot first and salvage second was a common phrase among the marines, though it was difficult to maintain that mental discipline when he and the other squad leaders knew that if they could secure the city, the sheer tonnage of the find would keep them earning those elevated hazard wages for months.

Grotto had indeed found an excellent motivational tool for the veteran salvage marines.

Just as Samuel was beginning to daydream about the pristine cabin on the edge of a great forest where he and Sura and Orion lived in peace and health the real nightmare of UK1326 began to unfold.

Suddenly one of the shoulder cameras of a legionnaire began to move strangely, and his vitals spiked into the red. His voice was muffled as if something was covering his mouth, but Samuel could tell through the legionnaire channel that the man was screaming.

A second legionnaire’s camera swept up to reveal something with a humanoid torso and too many legs descending from the fog just as their camera went dark, vitals spiked red, then to black.

“ Shoto, you’re under attack! Both flanks!” Samuel yelled into his com-bead as the Line Warden swept her gaze from left to right, her camera revealing nothing but empty city and confused convict soldiers, Samuel shouted, “ Back-shadows! Back-shadows!”

“ I see them! What the hell- ,” Shoto’s voice cut off as her camera revealed a bizarre hostile carrying one of her legionnaires up the sheer side of a building and into the thick fog above.

Samuel sat back in his seat as his mind struggled to comprehend what he’d just seen. The Reaper had, in his time, faced everything from mutants to marauders and it seemed like every stripe of scavenger the universe had to offer, not to mention Helion elites and security troopers. Nothing up to now had prepared him for the barrage of images he was seeing through the cameras as Shoto bellowed for her troops to form a defensive circle with her in the center.

Another legionnaire’s vitals spiked then blacked out. Gunfire erupted as convicts began shooting at the hostiles. Another legionnaire’s vitals went black as bullets riddled his body. Through the camera feeds Samuel could see sparks and scraps of metal flying off the arachnid body of a hostile that was attempting to drag away the man’s bloody corpse. The Reaper didn’t get the best look at the hostile, though he could tell from the fleeting images of it before the hostile dropped its prey and fled into the darkness that it was at least part machine.

He guesstimated that it was roughly two meters in size, so in order to scale the sheer walls of the buildings while carrying the full weight of the legionnaire it had to have tremendous strength. The humanoid torso had a head with a sunken metal face, more like a mask, and the arms of the hostile looked as if they had several small gun barrels mounted on them in addition to sharp hooked edges that enabled them to kill and haul away the bodies of their prey.