There wasn’t a soul in the Reaper Corp who managed to last more than a few months who would have been happier working an assembly line. This was the kind of daredevil adventure that the propaganda films were made of, and suddenly Samuel felt very conscious about the vid-recorder rig that he had affixed over his left eye as it captured his dramatic course across the hull of the gun frigate.
The recorders had been Virginia Tillman’s idea, and she had brought several of them with her when she mustered back into the fleet. Virginia had been working on Baen 6 ever since leaving the corps, trying to start a labor union movement, with mixed results. Grotto, as a rule, was not pro-union, and in fact had used deadly force to suppress the last labor union over a century in the past.
Tillman’s organization was a somewhat underground affair, one that Samuel intentionally kept himself ignorant of, due to his position in the command structure. However, he generally agreed with Tillman’s ideas, and so when she had asked him to wear one of the rigs he had agreed under the condition that nobody but her know that he was doing so. The recorders were of Augur manufacture, and very high tech, so no one who wasn’t paying strict attention would notice that Samuel’s left eye was completely black as a result of the rig’s lens aperture.
The pro-union marine was hoping that she could capture the living, breathing, bloody reality that was the life of a salvage marine, so that she could organize a union movement within the corps. They had talked about it, realizing that true change, at least in Grotto, would have to start with those who had the power to do violence, and work it’s way back to the laborers. In her opinion, that change started with the marines, getting them better pay, benefits, living conditions, shore leave, and pension plans that only paid out once they were dead.
Samuel thought it was all a bit naively optimistic, but Virginia was a long time friend and ally, and he did agree at least in spirit with her ideas, so he wore the rig. Maybe now, Sura and Orion could actually see what he did for a living he thought as he moved his body to the left to avoid a small communications array as he shot across the hull. He wondered if it would make them happy or horrify them to see the kind of madness he endured for their sakes.
As Samuel neared the firefight the spinward drift of the frigate revealed the slave cutter coming up on the right side. It was moored to the hull with several cables that must have been deployed by individuals in void suits since the ship had no discernible grafting clamps which would have been expected of any ship outfitted for salvage operations.
To his eyes the cutter looked more like a raiding ship, meant for surviving the hard burn of a rapid descent into planetary atmosphere and then equipped with turbo-thrusters to get it back into orbit once it had pillaged its target. There was no doubt in Samuel’s mind that this was a slaver ship. That was confirmed when he saw the first of the enemy combatants emerge from behind an elevated heat vent in the frigate’s hull.
“Jada, hostile right!” shouted Samuel as he swept his rifle up to get a bead on the enemy and fired. The angle of the shot and his speed made the shot difficult and the round went wide.
Jada twisted at the waist and brought her legs around so that she could plant them on the hull and slow her movement, which was the only thing that kept her from being ensnared by the slaver’s trap-caster. The slaver’s high-velocity mesh net slammed into the hull just ahead of Jada’s body, the barbs that peppered the outer edge of the net burying themselves in the metal of the ship.
Jada sailed over the net and fired off several shots from the hip which missed the slaver, but did send him diving for cover back behind the heating vent. Samuel’s trajectory had been thrown off by his shooting and the marine slammed into a heating vent parallel with the slaver.
Despite having the wind knocked out of him the marine raised his rifle and fired several rounds into the deck and vent on the right side, hoping to drive the slaver out of hiding. Sadly, the enemy operative was made of sterner stuff, and did not let himself get spooked into running. Instead, the slaver launched himself out of the right side, a split second after Samuel’s bracketing fire, apparently understanding the tactic and confident that the marine would not sustain his fire.
Jada, in expectation of the slaver being driven into her field of fire, had advanced on his left side, exposing herself to the enemy’s new vantage point.
Samuel attempted to adjust his aim, though he was still recovering from the recoil of his first salvo and had used his off hand to steady himself against the vent. The marine got his first full view of the slaver, and he sucked in his breath.
The operative was using a light rating armored dropsuit with on-board thrusters, a piece of equipment that would allow him to move and fight in atmosphere, underwater, or in the void with equal efficiency. The cost of that suit, along with the man’s trap-caster and the other assorted weapons that Samuel could see affixed to the man’s tactical harness, was equivalent to a year of Reaper hazard pay.
This man was no scavenger.
The thrusters embedded in the slaver’s dropsuit allowed him to glide up and over Jada while firing his trap-caster on the move. The marine didn’t see the net coming for her until the last moment, as the mesh projectile only blossomed when it neared its target. Jada raised her left hand to shield herself instinctively, and the net enveloped her from thigh to head, the barbs sinking deep into her armor.
Jada screamed in pain as she was slammed onto her back against the hull by the force of the net, the rest of the barbs that weren’t piercing her drilled into the metal of the ship locking her in place. In the blink of an eye Jada was out of the fight. The gears at the center of the net ground themselves together and pulled the mesh tight across her so strongly that were it not for her combat armor it was likely that the mesh would have bit into her flesh in at least a few places.
The trap-casters were high end slaver tools, allowing them to subdue multiple captives with a single net magazine without harming their quarry beyond the restorative capacities of rudimentary med-bay facilities most slavers kept aboard their ships.
From what Samuel had heard, the sort of clientele who were in the market for slaves were usually not concerned with cosmetic damage, only that the assets could perform their duties, whatever those might be.
As the slaver’s trajectory brought him arcing over Samuel’s position the marine opened fire, this time scoring at least one solid hit. The rounds didn’t manage to punch through the operative’s armor, though the impact was enough to skew the slaver’s aim, the salvo of pistol rounds from his fast-drawn, off hand weapon raking the heat vent instead of the marine.
Samuel cursed aloud and kept firing, choosing to ignore the fact that the recoil from his shots had pushed him away from the heating vent and upwards from the hull. Several more rounds knocked deep scores in the slaver’s armor, though the enemy dropsuit held, despite the fact that now the slaver was listing due to one of his thrusters being damaged.
Samuel stopped firing and reached out for the communications array he was drifting toward and managed to keep himself from flying off into the void of space. The slaver had also begun to right himself.