Red list ships and Reaper tugs used them often, as most space salvage ended up in those lonely places. As Samuel thought it out, pulling up star charts in his mind’s eye even as the panic started to build in the back of his brain, he considered it likely that the Tasca cutter was attempting to reach either a Praxis Mundi outpost or one of the Augur research stations. There was nothing else out here on the frontier, except for a few pioneer communities, which turned out to be targets too juicy for the slavers to pass up.
Samuel realized that it was simple human greed that had forced this monster into his life. If the slavers had just gone about their business and completed their run without raiding Longstride, so much would be different. Men and women who were not dead would be working their homesteads, just like Samuel would be, raising his family and worrying more about Orion finding a girl at festival than preparing him for a fight. He’d thought when a Tasca operative gunned down Spencer Green, his friend, and fellow marine, that they couldn’t take anything more from him. The slavers would not leave well enough alone, and now Samuel found himself crouching atop a cryo-crate containing some kind of Gedra tomb lord. Whatever this thing was, it had more power than any Alpha cyborg, and it had to be the containment unit within the crate that kept its psychic lash from having more bite than it already did.
The marine swept away the last of the dirt to reveal the blackout plates that covered the cryo-crate, and as if those last bits of soil were holding back the presence within the energy surged through him.
Something hardened in Samuel then, a wound finally turning to scar, as he understood what he had to do.
Necrospace would never let him go, of that he was now certain. He was ashamed of his excitement and emboldened by his anger. Samuel roared in fury and ecstasy as he took a knee and slammed his fist into the blackout plate position where the occupant’s head would be.
“This is the job!” he roared through his tears at the crate, at the beast beneath within, at the universe itself.
He pounded his fist into the plate over and over, the armored knuckles of his glove making only the slightest scratch upon the reinforced metal.
“This is the job!”
2. PROSPECTORS
The engines of a starship could be heard in the distance, the sound of them filling the usually serene valley forest and causing flocks of birds to take flight.
It was a transitional period for the environment when the last vestiges of autumn were giving way to the first tinges of winter cold. The evergreens and ferns were wet with the heavy fog that had blanketed the valley before morning light had driven it away. Samuel could see darting shapes of grok rushing through the underbrush just inside the distant treeline.
Moments later the prospector ship Rig Halo dropped out of the low hanging clouds, like a comet falling from the sky to disturb the peace of what had been known as Hyst Valley to the locals of Longstride.
Samuel watched as the ship’s landing thrusters burned through the gently flowing grass of the modest clearing in which the Hyst family had built their home. Seconds later the support struts of the Halo tore great gouts in the soil as the starship completed its landing. The valley floor shook from the impact, which was less than the marine would have expected from such a vessel. While the Rig had been heavily modified with recon and combat capabilities, it was still at its core a rugged mining vessel, and no matter how many sleek armored veins and weapons arrays the crew put on it the beast would always be an ugly workhorse.
Samuel begrudgingly admitted he liked that about the Halo, and even as the ship had now come to symbolize everything he hated about his family’s predicament, the patchwork face of it reminded him of Tango Platoon. The Rig wasn’t that much different from the scrap wagons that Samuel and his fellow marines had built years ago to plow through the debris fields left by ship-to-ship void battles, or the armored speedboats they’d built to navigate the brackenworlds. Seeing the ship begin to power down, hull still smoldering from breaking orbit and descending through the clouds gave Samuel cause to sweep his gaze across the homestead that they would very soon be leaving.
Samuel took in the sight of their garden, a patch of earth brimming with fall squash and root vegetables. For a man and woman of Grotto to grow their own food from dirt that they owned was a rare thing indeed, in fact, unheard of in Samuel’s experience. There were a few people in the stacks who had a potted plant or two, but those were always weak and sickly things that did not thrive on recycled air and processed nutrients. He looked upon his workshop, a small building made of fab-planks in which he and Orion kept their skiff in working order, and where recently he’d found it necessary to patch and polish his combat armor.
The thought of violence made his eyes shift to the cabin, that icon of frontier freedom for which he and Sura, and Orion for that matter, had sacrificed so much to possess. It was a small thing in actual size, but for the former Grotto citizens, so used to living in the cramped hab-stacks of Baen 6, it had been a veritable palace.
Sura’s hand found his and squeezed.
Samuel turned his head and looked at his wife. He saw the streaks of tears on her cheek. As she used her other hand to wipe them clear he knew she was seeing their valley just as he was. Beside her stood Orion, and though he’d been shaken mightily by the trip to the crate’s burial site and his father’s subsequent outburst, the boy was visibly excited. Even after the forest, despite his fear, Orion had asked to accompany Samuel into the village, and onwards to the Praxis outpost if Samuel was able to find a bush pilot willing to make the trip. Samuel had refused, insisting the boy stay home, though when the marine returned from his journey, the news that Rig Halo was inbound had perked the youngster up considerably. For Orion, the sight of the Halo was the beginning of a grand adventure, even if for his parents it was the end of a fleeting dream.
“It was beautiful while it lasted, Samuel,” whispered Sura as she squeezed Samuel’s hand once more and looked him directly in the eyes. “No matter what happens, remember that. For a time, we had this, and nothing can take that from us.”
Samuel was about to speak, unsure of what to say but knowing she wanted his affirmation when the hatch of the Rig Halo hissed loudly as it opened. Sura turned her head at the sound, and from the way her expression changed, ever so subtly, from grief to something close to warmth, Samuel knew that Kelkis Dar was disembarking. The marine turned to look at the Rig and sure enough, he saw the spirited captain of the prospector ship marching down the gangplank.
Behind him came a grim man wearing a patchwork set of Helion battle armor, the sight of which set Samuel’s teeth on edge out of habit. The man was no doubt the ship’s security chief, with two of his hired guns walking side by side behind him. They were all armed, which made Samuel glad, as it meant that Dar had taken the marine’s assessment of the situation seriously.
It stung to see Sura react to Dar’s presence, though Samuel had long known that she and the captain had once entertained feelings for one another. That had been years ago, and they’d never acted on them, but it stung all the same. Especially now that the captain and his ship represented the Hyst family’s best hope for survival and escape. Samuel took a deep breath and did his best to let those thoughts go, shaking the past from his mind even as he tried not to think about the homestead they were about to leave as well.