Salvage Marines (Necrospace Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

M5597 was unknown.
    It had been ten standard years since then and the war with Hadrian had eventually ground to a halt as more lucrative ventures had presented themselves to both companies in other parts of the universe.
    Two weeks ago the branch ship that had sourced the mining compound, which should have been the ship to deliver the production yields all those years ago, had been sighted several systems away and flagged as a rogue ship, no doubt being crewed by pirates or independents.
    The companies that dominated the universe, though in constant conflict with one another, did ostensibly share information about independents and pirates, as both groups represented a challenge to corporate rule.
    Once flagged as a rogue vessel the ship would be ‘red listed’ alongside thousands of others. They simply ceased to exist as far as being under the protection or responsibility of any company. While this certainly represented a kind of freedom, Red Listed ships, and static communities for that matter, were completely on their own. They had no allegiance to anyone, which meant they also had no rights. Most Red Listed ships and communities quickly turned to piracy in order to survive, were wiped out by a corporate interest, or were simply swallowed by the void of space and never heard from again.
    A new regional manager on Grotto Prime, so far removed from the field that even the shift manager did not have their name in her briefing, had decided to classify M5597 as a REAPER objective.
    Samuel had listened attentively, not once flinching at the shameless bureaucracy and adherence to the bottom line that ruled Grotto society. He had long ago accepted that such things were unchanging. It made perfect sense to him that the managers, both old and new, made their decisions based on the profit and loss projections of their actions. Such was the Grotto way, and he had been raised in that world, as had the other hundred and forty marines.
    It was the logical choice now that the trade war was over and there was a new regional manager looking to boost his or her quarterly revenues and political status within the organization.
    Sending a REAPER fleet was relatively inexpensive, and since the cost of the entire facility had already been tagged as a loss, any salvage or resource yield would be pure profit. The shift manager went on to say that, as per standard operational procedures, the marines were to do their best to avoid further damaging the compound should they be met with armed resistance.
    It was that thought of armed resistance that hurled Samuel’s mind back into the present moment and he once more checked his safety and ammunition count.
    Squad Taggart had made planetfall roughly twenty minutes prior and though their drop-pods were outdated and uncomfortable, they were sturdy. As they’d been coming down, Samuel had found himself looking at the blast scarring on the interior of the pod, and realized that at some point in this pod’s history an incendiary device had gone off inside it. He hoped that the marines within had already exited the craft since salvage marines weren’t usually dropped into direct combat, though it was anybody’s guess what had happened.
    Record keeping was more concerned with resources expended and resources procured and there was little in the way of storytelling amongst the marines. They were a grim lot, being the lowest paid and most poorly equipped of the Grotto military even though they were always being sent into the unknown.
    As Samuel swept his rifle through the gloom of the corridor he found himself wondering if it might have been better to be a legionnaire. At least then he would have bio-implants to make him faster and stronger, an armored dropsuit, and access to the most impressive and deadly of armaments. However, he told himself, instead of prowling the dark corridors of mysteriously abandoned mining facilities in the middle of necrospace he would be in the middle of a firefight with enemy