“You ready for this, Reaper?” spat Narek as he looked over his shoulder at Samuel, his clear faceplate not yet turned to the icy reflective blue that indicated the Helion lite power armor had been activated. “Hope you didn’t lose your edge after spending all those years pulling weeds and growing potatoes.”
“Turnips, actually,” said Samuel as he flexed his fingers and moved his rifle across his chest into the ready position, “Potatoes are for amateurs.”
Garn let out a subdued laugh as he thumbed off the safety of the mounted Fenrir weapon. The other mercs shared the cheap laugh, and Narek’s expression darkened. Samuel didn’t look away from the man, and they held each other’s gaze for a moment. It was hard to let go of old hatreds, and neither man appeared to be doing a good job of it. Samuel took a deep breath and then inclined his head towards the dark swirling columns of ink-rock debris.
“The dust we’re kicking up won’t register to them as a threat, given the chaotic landscape. The captain’s plan is a good one. Unless they have more sophisticated scanners that can cut through this mess we’ll be on top of them before they know we’re coming,” observed Samuel, making sure to key his voice into the squad channel so that all the mercs could hear him over the roar of the wind and the crunch of rocks under the all-terrain tires of the rover. “That means the drill will be active when we hit them.”
“Dammit,” grumbled Narek as he activated his Helion armor and turned to face the front of the vehicle. “Captain thinks of every little detail, no way he overlooked the most obvious problem. Bastard is gambling with our lives. Again.”
“What’s the problem?” asked Corin as he turned the wheel to avoid a large boulder that even the rover wasn’t going to be able to move over without being turned on its side.
“If the drill crew is fast enough on the draw they can spike a charge into the chute,” answered Garn from his perch behind the rest of the mercs.
“At best it slags the drill and forces us to dig our own chute,” said Samuel, “Which cuts deep into our timetable and expenditures, and we will probably miss the positive rate window at the exchange desk. Price could bottom out while we’re still trying to extract the juice.”
“At worst it’s a suicide bomb that takes out the whole compound,” said Narek as he cranked the dial on his rifle to prime the Helion hot rounds, the sound of it making Samuel’s trigger finger itch with troubled memories. “This is why I said we should never seize an active claim. Better to just defend our own.”
“Payout is going to be cherry though,” offered Jayce with a wicked smile as he checked the chamber on his auto-pistol and slotted home an extended magazine, his seeming eagerness to get into the fight making Samuel wonder what sort of merc work the young man had been doing prior to joining the Rig, “They did all the work, we’re just making some changes to the staff roster.”
Sura’s hair whipped about in the harsh winds that cut through the platform’s open structure, though with her goggles and the bandana she had pulled up over her mouth the swirling grit did not bother her eyes or hamper her breathing. She stood just behind and to the left of Captain Dar, with Braden standing back and to the right of him, all of them making sure that their hands were kept in plain view and away from their weapons.
The five men standing around them were respectfully doing the same, though she’d noticed right away that all of their sidearms were set loose in their holsters for swift drawing, and the two men with shotguns had left the safeties off before slinging them to the side.
She took in the sight of the platform around her while Captain Dar’s strong voice carried over the howling wind. She’d listened to him work his pitch as Braden drove the small ATV to the rendezvous point several miles out, where they’d met up with two of the rival prospector’s armed escorts. The men with shotguns had then led them here to the mining compound for a face to face with management. She smiled inwardly at how slick her captain could be when he wanted and admitted to herself that the man could probably sell water to a fish if he wanted to. As it was, the captain was attempting to convince the owners of the rival mining operation to sell him their current haul of ink-rock at a steep discount, saving them the hassle of shipping and saving him the trouble of mining it himself.
“You already have an operation in place, and I respect that. We aren’t here to dispute your claim, nor to attempt staking our own anywhere else on this world. We buy your haul and we leave, you keep drilling, and everyone has a chance to get paid sooner,” concluded Dar, having made his pitch twice now, this time in person to the executive of the rig, who appeared none too pleased that the captain had gone over his head and communicated directly with his operation’s owners. “Your superiors felt that this was a strong enough offer to warrant a tour of your facility and a core sample, hence the presence of my geo-specialist, Mr. Braden here.”
“Show me proof of funds or get the hell off my planet,” snapped the mining foreman as he pointedly ignored Dar’s gesture acknowledging Braden, the man’s rough hands and ink soiled coveralls marking his as a working man just as much as management. “That prospecting license gets you a meeting instead of a bullet, that’s all you get on good faith. Until I see a positive balance in a registered account there’s nothing else to discuss. Ackerman and Jema might own this outfit, but they aren’t running it and they never go stationside, so they don’t hear what we hear. Rig Halo has a clean official record, but the talk is that your positive reputation is starting to get stained with rumors of piracy.”
At that moment, Sura was keenly aware of their plan, and the implied accusation dredged up more than a few unsavory memories of past conflicts. During her brief time aboard the Rig, she had killed her fair share of men and women, but they were all defensive actions. Claim jumpers or violent squatters, and thus far she’d managed, with help from Dar, to rationalize and justify those deaths. This was a hard universe, she knew that more than most, but the Rig and its crew had never, to her knowledge, stooped to piracy. Things were different now, that much she knew, and the line between prospector rivalries and outright piracy had gotten blurred. It wasn’t just for Dar and his operation, but for every freelancer out there, licensed or not.
She had been afraid to ask Dar about what had happened since they’d parted ways, knowing that his answers would only complicate things between her and Samuel, as the marine was still adjusting his moral compass to the harsh realities of their new life. Then she thought of the captain’s true plan, their real purpose in this meeting, and she was forced to accept that her values were far more flexible than her husband’s. Part of it was pragmatism of course, but Sura suspected that she enjoyed the rush of danger more than she was prepared to admit to herself, or to Samuel. She had to fight the urge to rest her hand on the grip of the ganger combo revolver strapped to her hip, allowing it to rest beneath the folds of her long coat for a few moments more.
“Rumors always follow success, and we’ve had plenty of that. The trade war was hard on everyone, but we’ve made do without having to cross any lines I can assure you,” answered Captain Dar with open hands, before slowly lifting a small datapad from his chest pocket and tapping in an access code. “But I get it. Ackerman is resting comfortably aboard the Etheria, floating in orbit on the other side of the world, while you’re here doing the real work and taking the real risks. The money is real, look for yourself.”