Dead Worlds (Necrospace Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

mixing with smaller clouds of his own red blood as he and the creature tore into each other.
     
    Samuel was unsure how long he’d been unconscious, though he knew it could only have been a few seconds. He was in pitch darkness and could still feel that he was underwater through the holes in his suit. It was the thought of what nasty microbes and toxic materials that might be seeping into his body that galvanized him to action. The marine ignited several light-sticks one after the other and let them fall around him to illuminate several meters of submerged chamber.
    At his feet Samuel could see the body of the ganger he’d shot slowly being sucked down into the thick muck that covered the chamber floor. There were chunks of tentacle everywhere, all slowly sinking down to join the ganger. Whether he’d killed the creature or not, Samuel couldn’t tell, but it had to be one tough monster to survive all the bullets and severed tentacles. He hoped it had crawled back to whatever hellhole it called home and died of its wounds. He couldn’t move much and was relieved when he saw the wake and shadow of a skiff making its way over to him from the grating area where the machine gun used to be.
    Someone from the skiff lowered a gaff pole into the liquid and friend or foe, Samuel decided he’d rather be out of this murky mess than in it, regardless of who might be hauling him up.
    “Prybar, you are one unkillable son of a bitch!” shouted Patrick as he hefted the marine’s armored bulk onto the small skiff.
    Samuel struggled to find a witty response, though was simply too spent to vocalize much beyond a weak smile and a groan as his fellow marine helped him take off his helmet. Samuel’s armor was pitted and slimy from the toxic water, and the marine could already see the flesh of his wounds turning a sickly shade of white and green. Patrick followed his gaze and nodded as the skiff pilot; a marine recruit that Samuel seemed to recall was named Holland, cranked the motor and headed back to the shattered dock.
    “We got lucky, old pal, if you hadn’t knocked out that shooter’s nest we would have been fragged,” Patrick said as he opened the squad med-kit and began dosing Samuel with vial after vial of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and a few painkillers, “Those gangers with the big gun and those wall crawlers had us so busy we didn’t notice their backup.”
    “There were four small access tunnels that they’d covered up with canvas painted to look like the walls,” explained Holland as he moved them closer to shore, taking care not to move too quickly to avoid hitting any partially submerged scrap metal. “Before we knew it, dozens of those hive scum are charging at us with everything from axes to clubs.”
    “The others?” asked Samuel in a voice thick with painkillers as he struggled to maintain consciousness, “Are they…”
    “Kade did just fine. Takeda got clipped early in the shootout, but we held our own, and no fatalities.” Patrick grinned as he patted Samuel’s shoulder before his face turned sour and he looked back at the oncoming docks, “Cor-sec got chewed to pieces though, sixty-percent casualties. Between us three, I don’t think cor-sec had any business being down here.”
    “Agreed. It’s like they’re just everyday civilians who happen to have a gun and a badge and think that makes them hardcore enough for this kind of stuff,” grumbled Holland as the skiff reached the last section of the dock that was useable as a mooring. “They’re good at pushing around working stiffs, but these downspire gangers are out of their league.”
    “Cor-sec is bringing up reinforcements to fortify this area so they can prep it as a salvage hub,” Patrick observed as he and Holland helped Samuel stagger off of the skiff and across the dock towards the beachhead.
    “So, we’ll be moving on down the line, eh?” mumbled Samuel as his comrades lay him down on a stretcher next to Ben, who sat upright