Ellis threw a final defiant look at Jada and spun on his heels, heading towards the launch deck where the other Tasca operative assigned to Raid Alpha was tinkering with what Jada recognized as a stasis cage. It appeared to be heavily modified from the versions that she’d seen during her violent encounter with them back when the Reapers spent most of their time operating scrap wagons and picking the bones of void battles.
“You must forgive my associate; he is temperamental even on his best days,” apologized Najib as he turned to face Jada, his weathered face revealing a smile even though his eyes were some of the coldest she’d ever seen. “He’s one of the finest huntsmen in the cartel, even if he is somewhat new to the profession, hence his oversensitivity with regards to the opinions of others. I assume you do not approve?”
“The Merchants Militant are the finest killers money can buy, and our loyalty is always to the contract,” answered Jada as she fought through a wave of pain that crackled up from her spine to her neck, indications that her serum booster treatment was beginning to take effect. “We are weapons to be hired and we do what must be done to honor the contract. I know I cannot pass judgment on other professionals of violence, even if I personally find your chosen field to be particularly vile.”
“You kill people so that your employers can control their resources. We capture people so that our employers can turn them into resources. I find there to be little functional difference in the morality of our professions,” observed Najib, the smile never leaving his face as the two of them watched Ellis and Jean cranking the high-velocity nets through the spools of the casters. “Each and every one of us, from the lowliest salvage marine of Grotto to the most resplendent warrior of Errol, is a party to oppression. Moral relativism is the only way to maintain one’s sanity in this new, dark, age. I can hear the Grotto upbringing in your voice, so I am sure you know all about doing what must be done to keep your mind in one piece.”
“That sounded awfully rehearsed, do you have this conversation often?” asked Jada, allowing herself a grim smile as she went about checking the seals on her armor while they talked.
“All the time,” laughed Najib while the other Dire Swords of Raid Alpha began to finish their pre-drop checks and make their way to the dropships, “Slavery is a vital component of most economic models and an inconvenient truth. Even if some corporations choose to use penal codes or acts of war to re-classify those human resources, all of them work hard to keep it out of sight. Working alongside high-end slave hunters like us, well, that forces people to acknowledge it, and reminds them that they are party to it.”
“It reminds me of something my father said once, about his time in the Baen penal legion,” commented Jada while she checked her magazine and the safety of her sidearm before re-holstering it. “If you pay taxes, then you are part of the system and you have a share in every victory and every tragedy. I never gave it much thought until I became a Reaper; now, I can’t tell if I have PTSD or if everyone else does.”
“The universe is a hard place, and humanity hasn’t yet discovered a way to live in harmony with itself. In the meantime, we must each make our way,” agreed Najib before placing his helmet over his head and affixing the seals. “You can wrap yourself in platitudes and hope for the best, or you can open your eyes and see that only the strong survive. Nobody gets away clean, this is the job.”
“I’m not going to shoot you in the back, Najib,” said Jada as the two of them started walking towards the dropship. “That’s not part of the contract.”
The slaver laughed out loud, his shoulder shaking from it, and Jada found herself wondering which of them was worse, the slaver, with his threadbare philosophies about survival, or the mercenary, who killed for coin. She didn’t even have anyone she was taking care of, no loved one she fought for, and very little to do with the wealth she’d acquired.
At least the brash operative, Ellis, claimed to have people who were reliant upon him to get paid; she didn’t even have that flimsy excuse for the atrocities she inflicted upon the universe. She understood that if it wasn’t her standing with the rifle then it would be someone else, and she might as well fight and earn, but that line of thought, too, was threadbare.
We are the ghosts of good people, thought Jada as she looked upon the other members of Raid Alpha who had already boarded the dropship and strapped themselves in, fit only to fight monsters and tread upon the grey wastes of necrospace. Let those like Samuel Hyst convince themselves that they’d earned their peace. Jada growled inside her mind; this violent life was at least an honest one.
Perhaps that was why Najib’s cheap musings had struck her so profoundly. Out here on the bleeding edge, in the company of slavers and mercenaries, a person could wear their trauma on their shoulder and be met with understanding by those around them. There was no place for judgment in this vast nightmare of space, only the acknowledgement that they had all gone too far to come back.
They might as well get paid for it.
6. RAID ALPHA
“Overwatch reporting, one minute to drop!” the voice of Marcus came over the comm-bead’s company channel.
“We’re up against hollows, so remember center of mass and head shots are the only things that put ‘em down for good,” said Berg, using the raid channel that directed his voice to the other five mercs in his squad. “You can’t bleed out if you’re already dead.”
Jada looked at the warriors who surrounded her and wondered how many of them would die today. With every mission, there was an assumed risk; it was why the soldiers of fortune were as expensive as they were. For all their gene-therapy, costly armor, and advanced weapons, they were still mortal creatures and subject to the perpetual grind of time and chance.
Osric was a testament to this truth. He was the man who had replaced Mors as Strega’s battle buddy, bringing their squad back up to full strength. They certainly expected to need every available rifle at the ready.
There had been a robust security force of troopers protecting the excavation site, several hundred labor crewmembers and at least one battle tank. Whatever happened there went down fast, and it was a shame that the environmental interference was so thick that more recon data wasn’t available.
Jada could only assume the worst, that there was now hundreds of Hollow Horde down there. The re-animated bodies of the dead, modified with machine parts in the subterranean forges of the Gedra. However, this was not a tomb-world and that being didn’t appear to be one of the alpha cyborgs. None of it made sense, and here they were, about to assault drop into the middle of the deadly unknown.
Only those who fought as though dead would conduct combat operations in such a way, and that was both the gore and the glory of the Dire Swords at war.
The drop siren blared and the belly of the ship opened. Jada was immediately buffeted with the caustic wind that dominated the landscape. She realized instantly why the dropships were making wide circles just outside the excavation site. Jada leapt out of the ship and began her descent, taking note of the thick cloud banks that gathered over the excavation site, impressed that the recon scanners had been able to gather any intel at all.
She could see the engine exhaust ports of several other ships burning through the gloom and the dark shapes that leapt from their bellies. There were thirty-six Dire Swords dropping out of the sky to bring violence against whatever awaited below.
As Jada plunged through the bottom of the cloud bank, she was met with her first full view of the excavation site. It was shockingly unlit, as if all the power had been shut down. Not a single artificial light burned. Her HUD painted the ground below using sonar, so that at least Jada could direct her fall towards solid ground and keep herself from crashing into scaffolding or through one of the multitudes of bombed out buildings. No anti-air batteries opened up and no infantry rifles hurled rounds up at them. The mercs were greeted with an eerie silence as they began to engage their dropshields.