Samuel walked past Virginia and handed her his remaining magazine, which was only half-full anyway, then slung his rifle across his back before drawing his side arm and unsheathing his boarding knife. The remaining cor-sec troopers and welders had formed up in the center with the Reapers spread amongst them. It was going to be a long march back to the extraction point, and Samuel knew that despite Boss Marster’s hope that the recovery would draw most hostile attention he knew their retreat would not go unopposed.
“Vol was right, there’s nothing up there for any of these people,” breathed Virginia as she looked upwards while the platform rose through the breach, the lift wench groaning as it struggled with the weight of so many bodies, “No choice but a life-bond or the red list.”
“Most of the ones who qualify for a work assignment will choose the bond,” said Boss Aiken as he joined the two marines in watching the lift reach the top of the breach and begin disgorging its cargo of refugees. “And they’ll find meaningful assignments in the labor pool or cor-sec; at least until the Vorhold project is completed.”
“What then?” asked Samuel, his voice flat in anticipation of an answer he already knew.
“You’ve been around, Hyst, as have you, Tillman;” answered Boss Aiken, “You know just as well as I do that once Vorhold is scrapped only a small percentage of the bonded will be re-assigned within the Grotto workforce. The rest will be re-classified as non-essential and their employment will be terminated.”
“Without work they’ll default on their life-bond repayment and be dropped into the penal system within a few months of termination, especially since we’ve just cut up and sold off their entire civilization,” groaned Virginia as she stepped back from Aiken a few paces and turned her face away from the lift and the two marines.
“Certainly this is all speculation, Tillman, and I apologize if this line of conversation is upsetting,” said Boss Aiken as he looked to Samuel for support, “But this is how business is done. For one to rise, another must fall, it’s the Grotto way. It’s our way. You must see that.”
“I know, the Grotto way, they drilled that into us during basic,” grumbled Virginia as she squared her shoulders and did her best to shrug off her rising temper. “They’ve been conquered and there isn’t much profit in mercy. I see that very clearly, doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”
“This job will eat at you from the inside out if you let it, Tillman, your mistake is thinking that human rights matter to the Bottom Line,” Boss Aiken replied, reaching out to touch the base of the platform as it descended once more. He began waving on the next group of refugees while speaking through the com-bead, “No corporation is going to feed, clothe, house, and educate these people without some mechanism for a return on that investment. The only value these people have is their capacity for labor, and Grotto will extract that value one way or the other.”
“Slavery or the red list,” Samuel said into his com-bead as he helped an old man and several children onto the platform before giving a thumbs up to Boss Aiken, who then pulled the lever and sent the platform rising upwards, “Tough choice.”
“Tough galaxy,” agreed Boss Aiken. The three marines continued in silence as they moved group after group up the lift. Each time they loaded the platform, Boss Aiken looked nervously at his chronometer, and then over at the Basin gate, which still remained open.
“Hyst, it’s been four hours since we left the Basin and an hour since we’ve been back through the gate,” Boss Aiken stated while the last platform of refugees made its way towards the breach, “I can’t have viable military resources placed at risk any longer. I am already going to be called to face a board of inquiry for holding the gate open for the hour I’ve allowed. We have to seal it up and exfil.”
“There are still easily another ten loads of non-combatants who need the lift,” added Virginia, “Then at least four trips for Tango Platoon, cor-sec, and our gear.”
“All of that can be done after the gate is sealed,” Boss Aiken responded, and he looked as if he was going to say more when the low throated growl of the chain gun filled the chamber.
All eyes went to the gate and spillway directly in front of where the marines had constructed a hasty fighting position using their last scraps of flak board, metal sheeting, and the chain gun mounted on a hand-welded tripod.
Boss Marsters had requisitioned the chain gun from a fellow Boss in Delta Platoon, who had liberated it from one of the precious few cor-sec assault vehicles that had once patrolled the elite districts.
The Vorhold masters had intended for the handful of gun-trucks to deter any threat of civil unrest in the elite districts. They had performed admirably, but had now been cannibalized by the salvage marines. Delta Platoon had been pulled from downspire work and was being sent to scrap the small orbital station once used as a customs holding facility. With Delta Platoon going on a void mission they had little need of the chain gun, and the Boss was happy to send it downspire to help an old friend and comrade.
Since Tango Platoon had to leave the gate open behind them as they pushed into the Basin to rig the pylons for detonation, Boss Marsters wanted more than a cadre of cor-sec troopers with pistols to watch his back. After the three hour forced march back through the gate, Boss Aiken had relieved the cor-sec troopers of their duties and assigned them to crowd control.
Harold, the only rated heavy gunner left in Tango, was spitting rounds through the gate as Bianca fed the ammo belt and kept it moving smoothly.
“Marr, report!” shouted Boss Aiken as he and the other marines rushed toward the spillway, “Tillman and Holland, I want you working the lift, keep those people in order and shoot anyone who causes trouble.”
“Reapers downrange!” shouted Harold in between bursts of fire.
Boss Aiken, Patrick Baen, and Samuel arrived at the spillway gun nest and took up firing positions on either side of Harold and Bianca as they scanned for enemies.
What greeted their sight was at once inspirational and terrifying to behold. Several flares burned in the half-light of the Basin on the other end of the tunnel entrance, and the marines could see much of the partially submerged concrete flood chamber and support structure that divided the sluice pits of the interior and the Basin gate which they now guarded.
Slogging through the eighteen inches of liquid sewage, as fast as he could, was Boss Wynn Marsters, his shoulders weighed down with the armored body of Ben Takeda and from what Samuel could see, his best friend hung like dead weight. Wynn’s helmet had been burned, presumably by one of the slime rounds, which explained why no hailing had sounded on the com-bead.
In one hand he held Vol’s heavy pistol, apparently loaded with micro-flare rounds, which he periodically fired in different directions in what seemed to be an attempt to light up the chamber. The projectiles would embed themselves into the concrete support beams or the low ceiling and spit bright red flame and light for a few seconds before burning down to a dull glow that provided more ambient light for the area.
Samuel had seen Vol load those rounds before, though he’d never seen the ganger load the entire gun that way.
Next to him ran Boss Ulanti, helmet missing, but with her emergency re-breather strapped on. Slung across her shoulders was an unconscious Jada Sek. The armor of both women was gone and they were dressed in only the matte black body gloves Reapers wore beneath it.
As much of a relief as it was to see the four marines rushing towards the gate, the horror and revulsion that swept through the marines in the gun nest at the sight of what was behind their comrades robbed them of that relief. Thanks to the flare rounds, the chamber was partially illuminated in a dull red glow. From the darkness of the chamber beyond, a veritable wall of writhing giant bone worms had emerged. There were dozens of them slithering and thrashing through the water as they pursued the fleeing marines.