As it was, Samuel knew in the pit of his stomach that this op wasn’t going to go smoothly. When there were survivors it never did. The Reapers had arrived swiftly after the battle, though Samuel knew that if he and his marines were disembarking into the ship then it was highly possible that others were as well. Even now, as Samuel leapt out of the exit hatch and flew through the zero gravity environment of the interior, he knew there could be pirates or scavengers just as heavily armed as he was lurking within.
The rest of Tango Platoon hurled themselves out of the wagon and began filling the landing zone. Samuel ignited his rifle lights and swept his weapon across the darkened chamber, the remains of a munitions storage area. He could tell from the blast points and the angle of the torn metal hull that one or more artillery projectiles had impacted and breached the room, after which the munitions cache had exploded and blown out much of the hull.
There were several interior hatches that were open, leading into the darkness of the ship, and Samuel knew that this must have been one of the critical hits that had ultimately killed the ship. Once the hull was breached the atmosphere would have bled out, carrying with it any crew or equipment that weren’t strapped down until someone was able to shut enough hatches to seal the area off. A single penetrating hit like this could wipe out entire decks if the ship’s crew didn’t react quickly enough.
“Listen up, Tango Platoon, there’s been a change of plans,” The voice of Boss Marsters came over the com-bead as the marines created a defensive semi-circle perimeter around the wagon, “We are leaving the metal where it is, but keep an eye out and put locator pins on anything that looks worth a second trip. Scans show that we have cabin pressure and survivors in some of the aft deck, looks like engine and hard services. That means we have high ratings that are likely to be among those survivors, which represent enough value to make them our primary acquisition target. They set up a distress signal, so they will be expecting us, but that doesn’t mean they’ll come without force. Keep your wits and try not to kill anyone who doesn’t give you a reason. Ulanti?”
“If they’re wearing engineer duds or have tech patches do your best to neutralize and capture,” barked Boss Ulanti as she made a show of using bonding tape from her hip belt to fasten the cylindrical shock stick to the end of her rifle like a bayonet, “The shocker in your standard kit has enough juice to ignite dead tech if the wiring is still undamaged, so it has more than enough to knock out a few Helion gearheads.”
“Mount your sticks and move out by squads,” ordered Boss Marsters as he finished taping his shocker to his rifle, “Boss Hyst, you take point; we move in twenty seconds, expect resistance and assume there will be competition arriving shortly.”
By the time the twenty count was up the fifteen marines had prepared themselves, all the while the ship rumbled with various impacts. Some of them, Samuel knew, were the other scrap wagons making their landing and disgorging other platoons, though any one of the many shudders could be from the afore mentioned competition. There was an entire battlefield to scavenge, and only half a dozen wagons were dispatched to the frigate. It had the potential to be the prize salvage, and if there were lurkers on the fringes of the debris field waiting to pounce and had the hardware to make a fight out of it; this is where they would strike.
Samuel gestured to Ben, who had swapped out his heavy machine gun rig for a breaching shield and assault shotgun, as was standard procedure for ship-to-ship engagements. With the grim visage of the man’s permanent face mask, Ben looked downright terrifying in the deep shadows and hard light of the wreckage Samuel thought to himself as he watched his best friend kick off and soar towards the open hatch on their left. The very sight of Ben Takeda had proven to be demoralizing to some of the less stalwart scavengers the squad had encountered, though Samuel suspected that such an advantage wasn’t going to be much of much use on this run.
Bianca Kade slid past Samuel, giving him a curt nod as she followed Ben. All things considered, the marine decided, that tiny acknowledgement signaled some measure of progress.
Things between him and Bianca had been somewhat strained ever since Samuel’s forced return to Tango Platoon, and not just because of the emotional intensity of their former separation.
In the brief time that Samuel had been away on Pier 16 before being recalled, Bianca had been promoted to Boss and Squad Hyst had become Squad Kade. According to Boss Marsters the young woman was the ideal choice, a decorated veteran, and had shown leadership traits worth rewarding. Though she had not led Squad Kade into combat, they had trained for a time under her leadership, and she had excelled.
Sadly, her promotion was short-lived, as was the pay raise, when the commission was returned to Samuel once he passed muster. Since then Bianca had only communicated with Samuel at the barest minimum level, as if she were simply another marine on the squad. However, as yet more and more combat missions were heaped upon their shoulders Bianca’s disposition towards him had softened slightly. Needless to say, they had not shared each other’s bed after missions as they once had. Samuel felt that he had enough to worry about just trying to stay alive, so the distractions of their past relationship were best left behind.
Samuel fell in after Holland Sager, the platoon medic, leaving Marcus Baen, a recruit from Baen 4 that had been folded into Squad Kade during the Reaper fleet’s brief rest and refit before the trade war officially began. Marcus still instinctively followed Bianca’s lead, as she was his first squad leader, though he had adapted well enough to the change in leadership. It had been a long war already, and Samuel was happy that he hadn’t been forced to learn any new names since coming back. The same could not be said for other squad leaders, as there had been casualties for both Ulanti and Marsters since the war’s beginning.
As Ben sailed through the darkness, the additional light tabs on his breaching shield gave the wreckage an even more sinister feel to it than it already had.
The marines were careful as they proceeded, checking their backshadows on the return and paying extra attention to dead corners. All of them knew that despite the danger in seizing a salvage claim so soon after the battle, as they moved through the spiraling corpse of the massive ship they silently acknowledged that it would have been hell to claim it once the site had been on the drift long enough for there to be an entrenched hostile presence. There were so many side hatches, narrow corridors, and dark chambers already, made all the more deadly by the many ambush zones created by the artillery ripping through the ship.
It was better this way, thought Samuel as he swept his rifle back and forth across the blown out corridors and shattered rooms while they pressed on, because their enemies would be on equally tenuous footing if a fight broke out.
“Hyst report,” said Boss Marsters in the com-bead, prompting Samuel to turn his head to the right and notice several of the lights of Squad Marsters moving through the ship one deck above them, such was the damage the vessel had sustained during the void battle.
“This place is a tomb so far, Boss, just empty rooms and lots of broken spaceship,” stated Samuel as he pushed his way through the ranks so that he could join Ben at the front of the line and see what the soldier was silently pointing at. “No tags dropped so far either, we’re still moving through what look to be munitions and gun crew quarters. From the scorch marks, I’d say there were tertiary explosions throughout the deck after the first cache went nova. Everything was either slagged or voided.”