Lights Out at Carvalho Mining - The Carcosa War
26 Aug 2022Benito Stone
The alarms were silent. The shouts had ended. All that was left was the soft whirring of the air handlers within the building and the soft hum of the distant power plant. I step over a female guard's body to enter the security office and cut open the lockers inside when I hear a distant shuffle. Shield goes up and I step out of the security office to find a pilot trying to crawl into one of the holding cells. He flips over as he hears my approach around the corner."Stop! Why are doing this? We're miners here not soldiers you god damned bastard!"
The plasma bolt has left a baseball sized carbonized crater in his abdomen but its not quite done the damage to be lethal immediately. He's missing a good bit of important stuff though so he's dead, his body just hasn't gotten the message yet. He must have crawled a good ways while I was clearing the remaining guards judging by the smear down the hallway.
He begins to reach towards a dropped pistol and I deliberately step on his arm and kick the pistol aside. A labored breath bursts loose. I kneel down next to him and raise the helmet visor as my shield drops.
"Why? Does it matter to you 'why' that much", I asked him in a calm soft voice.
"We were, just doing our jo.... bs and then you appeared, like a god damned angel of death. JoAnna had 3 daughters back at Amber Dock and", he abruptly stopped as though he'd forgotten what he meant to say. I gathered JoAnna was the guard currently cooling down in the security booth doorway.
"You just came and slaughtered us like pigs. We've done nothing to anyone, ju....st min....ers". He trailed off in a fit of coughing. He slid a bit more to the wall and propped up against it. Trying to put on his best defiant face.
"Angel of death", I chuckled. "First time I've been accused of being an Angel".
"If it matters to you, the reason this all happened is simple. Your bosses sent you here. To this place and we don't want you here. They don't care about that. They think they 'say' and we will 'do'. They figure this whole system belongs to them no matter what we say and so they go on trying to exploit it. They don't care any more about what happens to you than I do. You want someone to curse in your dying breath, curse them. You're the third crew I've erased from here, I'm sure you wont be the last".
The expression on his face was hard to read; pain, disbelief, horror, resignation maybe more all mingled together at once.
"They didn't tell you that did they? They are so desperate to try and keep their claws on this place they will feed you and every JoAnna they can get to fill the settlement to this meat grinder. Well Societas Eruditorum killed you just as much as I did. There's your 'why'".
I stood up and began to unholster my Tormentor as I said "Well, its on to whatever's next for you".
"Fu....ck y....ou" he sighed out as he rolled a grenade from behind his back to just past his feet, a triumphant smile on his face. "Shit" was my first thought, but he didn't cook it off so it was not an immediate explosion. I had lucked out he didn't know how. Shields back up and visor down as I took a big step backwards to the corner. The concussion was tremendous but the shield held. As the smoke cleared the area was a shambles. Fire poured from the wall as almost the only light and the holding cell doors were caved in. What was left of his lower body was painted on the walls. His upper body was a pummeled sad mess. I dropped shields again, tilted my head and gave him a nod. "Good death", I murmured.
I stepped back into the security office and returned to cutting the locker open. Another crew, another chance to capture some useful loot. On the way out, in the soot on the floor, I scrawled out: "Regards from Robardin" and the "RR" I'd left those other two times and made my way to the power plant.