“Your gunslingers are fragged, this is all but over,” stated Womack as he looked at the staffers from his iron sights, the rifle scope having been slid into its alternate position, a maneuver common amongst the mercs when fighting in such close quarters. “One of you is going to take me to the drill; the rest of you will remain in this room until given further instruction. How copy?”
“We offer no resistance,” said a middle-aged woman who wore what looked to be an engineer’s jumpsuit, splattered with gore, her hands up with palms facing out. “I’ll show you the drill.”
The woman’s swift acceptance of the situation and willingness to aid the conquerors impressed Jada. It reminded her of the Helion staffers the salvage marines sometimes captured after void battles at the height of the Ellisian trade war. There was little one could do in the face of such bloody events, and Jada imagined that it was a terrifying thing to have a co-worker so coldly executed by an armored giant with a skull face. As Womack gripped the woman by the shoulder and placed the muzzle of his rifle into the small of her back, Jada found herself considering the actions of the day.
She’d learned years ago that in this universe, there were no heroes, only men and women trying to make their way. Some tried to go about things in an ethical way, or at least with a sense of community, and generally that approach worked out for people. Things got messy when one community found itself at odds with another, whether it was on the grand scale of Grotto Corporation against Helion Corporation, or something as small as this ink-rock facility and those who now fought to either hold it or seize it. Necrospace was a tapestry of commerce and conquest, and the merc realized that she would likely have shot the staffer just as Womack had, because it was an effective way to neutralize them as hostiles and transform the lot of them into allies with a single bullet. The civilian staffers were there for the paycheck, just like the gunslingers, and their loyalty to Basepholon was relative.
Taymar flanked the engineer, her massive armored frame offering a degree of protection for the smaller woman, sweeping her rifle back and forth across the hallway as the group moved towards the access stairs. There were a number of working elevators, though everyone knew that wasn’t an option given the circumstances.
It was just as well, as Jada could hear a brief but intense firefight begin and end perhaps only one or two decks above them. The gunslingers that remained were putting up a fight; she had to give them that, which was unfortunate as they had lost this battle on the ground minutes ago. The thought made her realize that being inside the compound had caused considerable static in her comm-bead. The merc realized that many of the people in the facility still trying to defend it might not know they were on the losing side.
“Engineer,” said Jada once she had used her HUD to activate the microphone on the underside of her helmet, “Where is the nearest broadcast terminal for the internal communication system?”
Womack pulled back slightly on the captive woman’s shoulder while still pushing insistently with the muzzle of his rifle. The woman swiftly nodded her head.
“The management suite is near the top, your people might already control it,” she answered, slowly pointing her finger towards a series of panels set into the wall near the front of the stairs. With her other hand, she folded down the collar of her jumpsuit to reveal a small pin mic affixed on the inside of the suit. “There are emergency comms that can broadcast across each duty station, anyone with a working pin will get it, but the planet’s surface messes with the broadcast. Anyone outside will just hear static.”
“I see where you’re going with this, Jada,” Womack said, nodding, and then gestured for Taymar to pull security on the stairs while he had Poe keep watch over the hallway, before turning back to the engineer. “Patch me in.”
The engineer used a key to open the panel. Inside was a set of speakers and mics set into the wall, with a keypad next to it. The engineer punched in a short code and the terminal went green.
“Mic is hot, sir,” said the engineer as she backed away from the panel.
Before Womack could speak, shots rang out from the stairwell and the mercs all turned to see Taymar firing downwards. Several bursts of fire answered hers. The merc stumbled backwards as some of the bullets hit her in the arm and shoulder, though she managed not to drop her rifle.
Jada sprang into action and took Taymar’s place on the stairs as the other merc regained her footing. Jada didn’t bother aiming carefully, more interested in spraying the stairs below with indiscriminate fire, driving anyone down there into cover while her team could get into position.
Taymar re-joined Jada on the stairs, and the two of them peered down their iron sights at what appeared to be a full squad of gunslingers attempting to push their way up the stairs. The two mercs engaged, and after a furious few seconds, the exchange of fire left two gunslingers dead and at least two more wounded and in cover.
Jada noticed that she’d taken a shot to the hand, which now didn’t seem to be working properly, but thankfully, it was her off hand. “Men and women of Basepholon,” boomed Womack’s voice suddenly, the sound of it coming from various speakers set into the ceiling throughout the compound. “In response to illegal trespass and operations, this facility has been assaulted by Merchants Militant in the name of House Indron and Grotto Corporation. All equipment and resources are to be rendered for procurement. All personnel are advised to lay down arms and make overt surrender. If there is not a Merchants Militant contractor in your immediate area, you are advised to remain where you are and await collection. Any resistance beyond this point will be subject to kill-on-sight processing.”
As soon as Womack finished his pronouncement, the gunslingers downstairs pitched their rifles onto the stairwell.
“We offer no resistance!” shouted an unknown voice from below. Jada kept her rifle trained on the target area as Taymar nodded to Womack and descended the stairs with her rifle at the ready.
“Friendly coming down! Surrender subjects, assume a kneeling position, hands interlocked around the back of your head! Wounded personnel, extend one hand with two fingers up!” shouted Taymar as she moved cautiously around the first bend in the stair, now followed by Jada, who had been replaced at the top by Poe.
“Shoot all non-compliants,” growled Womack, and Jada hefted her rifle in preparation for just that as she fell in behind Taymar.
There had been seven gunslingers. Three of them were pitched over dead and full of holes. Of the four who remained, three seemed uninjured. Jada marveled at how costly even that brief firefight with her and Taymar had been for the gunslingers, and was silently thankful for not only the power of her body, but the stout quality of her mag-armor.
An unenhanced human being would have been unable to wear such armor in the first place and that fact alone made each Dire Sword singularly deadly, even amongst their peers in the Merchants Militant at large.
Taymar secured the three able-bodied gunslingers by binding them together with a length of zip-cable from her utility belt. Jada briefly attended the wounded man, who was slowly bleeding out from a ragged bullet hole in the small of his back. Jada couldn’t recall clearly whether it had been her or Taymar who had shot the man, though such a thing mattered little in the frenzied chaos of combat.
The Dire Swords were not without a sense of propriety, knowing that every gunslinger or staffer captured represented an eventual positive value when the details of this mission were calculated.
It was less out of a sense of caregiving that Jada used her med-kit to swiftly apply a clotting graft to the man’s wound, but more a keen understanding of the Bottom Line.