scoundrelstars

[scoundrelstars]

Prize Specimens

[118.M42]

Talmora felt the shuddering screams grate against her mind as she walked the halls of the fleshweaver ship. They pervaded these ships, so long had they been witness to the suffering of those within their walls. She steeled herself, pushing the insistent rush of psychic pain away with an effort of will.

The rush could be intoxicating. Thrilling. And she knew that to take that power from pain would lead her down a path that was not easily turned away from. But not impossible.

The tall Drukhari she followed had done so at no small cost to himself. Saeval had been an Archon of the Dark City once. A trueborn noble of Commoragh. Saeval, the Viper of Adanto, corsair lord of the Scoundrel Stars, had given it all up to walk the Seventh Path, renouncing his kabal and influence to follow the Emissary of Ynnead. As had she.

Saeval strode purposefully, never stopping, not letting himself drink in the power that overflowed from the ship’s oubliette-laboratories. This was a ship of the Epicurean Demise, a coven of haemonculi known for their impressive displays of gleefully perverse fleshcraft. Their summons to the ship had been calculated. A temptation. The master Epicure was offering the sickly-sweet cup, beckoning the two Ynnari to drink. Talmora brought her psychic will to bear, shielding them both.

The archon stopped. Turning his head, he scowled down at her.

“Don’t.”

He was wiry and lean, with pointed features and long ears. Only now, after many cycles in service to the Whispering God, had his skin begun to take on a healthsome pallor instead of the alabaster perfection or the gaunt corpseflesh of the typical Commorrite. His armor was the color of bleached bone, daubed with the bright, shifting psycho-reactive tableaus of the Ynnari festival colors.

Talmora could sense resentment radiating off him, tinged with shame. The Drukhari, on the whole, were so stunted in their psychic development that few could hide their thoughts from one who had walked the Witch Path.

“And why not?” she asked. “We walk the Seventh Path both. Do not shun my aid.”

The muscles in Saeval’s jaw clenched and released. “I do not need to be coddled from this,” he motioned expansively with one hand to the ship around them. “I chose the Seventh Way, turned from your ‘Path of Damnation.’ But it was my choice. Do not think to take that from me.”

“You would feel this? Imperil your soul by walking the precipice of temptation?”

“Do you not see?” said Saeval, shaking his head. Talmora felt something like scorn emanate from him, “It is the resisting that brings strength. This is something the Asuryani will never understand. The strength of will that drives you to tear down the universe in the pursuit.”

“We resist,” said Talmora, scowling. “Our entire existence is resistance.”

Saeval laughed, sharp and derisive. “We?”

“They.”

“Do not confuse the Asuryani Paths with resistance. It is avoidance. They lock away parts of themselves as to not confront their whole being.”

Talmora withdrew he protection from him with a snap and the Drukhari took a sharp breath, shuddering as he closed amber eyes. A low growl escaped his lips as he stalked forward once more. She sighed and fell in step.

It was an old argument. One that the two of them had been having for cycles. It had been difficult at first, trusting their kin from the Dark City, but Yvraine had brooked no arguments. Though she had been of Asuryani origin, it had been in Commorragh where the Emissary had first spoken to the Whispering God. To deny any Aeldari the chance to fight for the Seventh Path, the one path through the long night of the Fall and into the new dawn, was out of the question.

So it had been up to them to get used to each other.

After a moment, Talmora spoke. “This is deliberate.”

“Yes.”

“Vesryn is goading us.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not bothered by this?”

“She’s the master Epicure. A haemoncula of great skill does not survive to be be so without knowing how to...entertain.”

Talmora’s armor pinged against her mind, warning her of airborn toxins that pervaded the air as they grew close to the Grand Abattoir. Her helm sealed itself against it, but Saeval remained uncovered. He showed no sign of the noticing the ever-so-slightly lethal air, save for the small twitch of one eye. So casual was the Drukhari use of poison that the longest-lived of them developed immunities to a wide assortment of virulent toxins, either through exposure or fleshwright design.

They climbed a grand stair beneath a vaulting dome open to the void. Waves of torturous pain lashed at her mental barrier and Talmora grimaced as she shored up her shield. Ahead of her, Saeval weathered the storm as a beaconhouse against the waves. At the summit of the stairs, they found themselves at the upper rim of an amphitheater that comprised the entire fore section of the ship’s dorsal side. Oval tiers of seating descended downward towards the stage. It was both arena and operating theater all at once. A place to witness the dark spectacle of the coven of the Epicurean Demise.

In the tiers, the lords and ladies of the Dark City lounged, taking in the myriad agonies the Epicures had to offer. Drukhari, corsairs, and the lesser races who courted their favors watched with rapt attention as the flesh-sculptors administered their art.

At the center, two haemonculi worked at separate slabs. Monomolecular scalpels flashed and whining circle-saws whirred through exposed bone. The two competed fiercely against each other to create the most artful monstrosities from their screaming subjects. Wracks, the pitiful servants of the coven, scurried about the arena, assisting their masters. They carried the tools of the wicked chirurgeons, presented syringes of sickly chemical cocktails, and restrained the poor souls under their knives; they were held fast to the slabs, never allowed to escape into unconsciousness.

The screams echoed around the theater, a near-constant refrain. Talmora felt her gorge rise, but Saeval put a hand on her shoulder, guiding her through the tiers. They wended their way past groups of Lhamaeans, a coterie of Hekatrix wyches, and more. All had come to bask in the display of the Epicureans’ creation.

An entire section of seating was reserved for the Epicureans themselves, where the members of the coven could observe the contest with a critical eye. They lounged beneath a fug of psychotropic poisons and mind-altering drugs. Talmora’s helm fed warning pulses into her psyche as they moved amongst the distorted aeldari, warped beyond their natural forms through self-experimentation. Few paid the Ynnari any heed, their attentions focused completely upon the arena.

A wrenching scream echoed through the amphitheater and a sigh rippled through the collected Drukhari. One of the haemonculi had injected his subject with the first of seven syringes one of his wracks presented him. The creature that had once been a human thrashed on the slab, veins standing out stark against its skin as the blood within turned to black acid. The fleshweaver deftly reached for the second.

Talmora felt a hand on her shoulder. She’d been watching the display for too long, not realizing she’d stopped to see the obscene display of suffering. Waves of pain ecstatics washed against her mental barrier, threatening to overtake her. Saeval had broken her reverie and Talmora was able to shake herself, turning away from the arena with a clenched jaw. She pushed more of her psychic energy into the barrier.

“Come,” Saeval murmured, “the Mistress awaits us.” He motioned to the high box built into the Epicurean seating. Entrances to the box were flanked by muscular wracks, their faces hidden behind blank masks and their skin stretched to ripping over hyperplastic musculature. Multiple arms held the tools of gross surgery: razor-edged cleavers, flesh hooks, glistening macroscalpels. Above the box, perched placidly atop the grand observation pod, was a hulking monstrosity of sutured flesh and protruding bone. One of the Epicures’ grotesques; they were pitiful and terrible creatures, their minds long since tortured out of them, knowing only their masters’ commands. A juggernaut of distended flesh and chemical-induced rage.

The Ynnari ascended the steps to the observation pod and were let through by the masked wrack guards. They were greeted by an astringent cloud that hung in the air and reeked of antiseptic and ammonia. Talmora’s armor systems shrilled warnings and even Saeval reached into his belt pouch to retrieve his armor’s menpo. He fashioned the snarling muzzle armor over his nose and mouth and the automated gel membranes adhered to his face. It had been forged into the likeness of a skeletal maw and it articulated as his jaw worked, giving him a savage mein.

Inside, a figure stood looking down through the observation window, breathing deep the psychic pain from each tormented scream. Saeval and Talmora stopped some distance away and bowed.

“Saeval,” said Vesryn Thithe, the Mistress of the Black Appetites, high haemonculus of the Coven of the Epicurean Demise, “it’s been an age. When were we together last?”

Vesryn Thithe cut a figure that was striking in its disquieting allure. She was a caricature of the Aeldari form, her body and limbs elongated and painstakingly sculpted. Ebon skin was stretched taut over a musculature that had no natural origin. The only blemishes were where the skin was an angry red as it puckered around newly-grafted flesh and alchemical shunts. On her belts, she carried surgeon’s tools of exquisite make and finely articulated flesh gauntlet glittered with sinister vials and syringes. Most disturbingly, her spine pressed against the skin of her back and Talmora could see subdermal mechanisms articulating with it. A osseo-metallic tail curled about the Haemonculus, a horrific combination of bone and metal that coiled like a serpent around the lissome Drukhari.

“Not since the fete in the phial gardens of Celda. You were demonstrating your newest philters on the gladiatrix aspirants.”

“And you convinced the bothersome Duchess Keya to get herself killed in the arena.”

Talmora saw Saeval’s eyes glint. He was smirking beneath his mask.

“A humble contribution to the better of High Commorragh. She was getting a bit too full of herself. Has she recovered well?”

Vesryn waved a dismissive hand. “I haven’t had the chance to revive her. Perhaps when her wyches stop mewling for their Succubus in a tencycle or two.” She stalked around the two with a languorous air. Saeval didn’t turn. Talmora followed suit, but kept her mental senses trained on the hungering pit that was the Mistress of the Black Appetites.

“My companion,” said Saeval, “Talmora of the Seventh Path, seer of Iybraesil.”

The haemonculus’ tail propelled her suddenly and she flowed in close to Talmora, black eyes studying her ghosthelm as if she could see to the face beneath. This close, small flesh hooks could be seen drawing the skin of Vesryn’s face taut, their bronze chains disappearing into alabaster hair. Talmora had to stop herself from recoiling.

“Greetings, Mistress Vesryn,” Talmora said.

“How are you enjoying my exhibition, Talmora of Iybraesil?”

The farseer’s mind was assaulted by the mere presence of the haemonculus. Vesryn’s entire being was a wretched, pained thing, reveling in the cruelty all about her. Talmora swallowed hard, glad for her helmet to hide her expression.

“Truly a spectacle,” she said, her voice more sure than she felt. She motioned to the observation window and the two Epicures torturing their subjects in a show of deft torment. “Are they yours?”

The haemonculus withdrew, chuckling. Her heeled boots touched the deck as she strode to the window once more. “You’ve schooled her well, Saeval! Not many of the Asuryani pay visit to my theater. How fare the crones of Iybraesil?”

Talmora rankled, but didn’t let it show. “We need your aid.”

She caught Saeval’s irritation at her directness, but ignored it. As one who walked the Witch Path, she could verbally spar with the best of them, but the grisly surroundings made Talmora wish to begone from this place.

Vesryn smiled and looked back at them, “And what do the Ynnari need from the Epicures? The covens have rejected Yvraine’s claims.”

“An offer, fleshweaver,” said Saeval, stepping forward before Talmora could answer, “Our lady Yvraine has received a vision that portends a time of strife among the mon-keigh.”

“When are the humans not in strife?”

“Not such as this. They war against not only themselves, but the orkead.”

A scream from the amphitheater floor echoed up through the tiers and Vesryn closed her eyes, drinking it in. Talmora even saw Saeval stiffen. She wished to reach out to him, but remembered his words from before and left him be.

“Why should I agree? The coven is quite content as it is.”

Talmora shook her head. “Is it? You prefer this backwater spur of the webway to the Dark City itself? Or is it that Vect has become so overbearing as to force out those who don’t bend the knee?”

Vesryn scowled. “I will not hear speculation of the intricate nature of Commorragh from you, Asuryani.” She spat the word like an insult.

“I walk the Seventh Path, stitcher,” retorted Talmora.

“Enough,” commanded Saeval, stepping between the two. “My mistress comes with an offer, Vesryn. One that will bring you favor in the arenas of the City.”

“I’m listening, archon.”

“A system ripe with specimens, orkead and mon-keigh. They are at their prime, killing each other in untold numbers. The fields will be rife with suffering for your coven and all of your guests. Yvraine herself offers our aid in prosecution.”

“Guests…” murmured Vesryn, sharp teeth biting one finger hard enough to draw blood.

“Guests. Put on a show. The trueborn will not be able to resist a foray.”

Vesryn’s mood shifted as the thought took her. She clasped two hands in delight, her tail whipping in pleasure at the thought. Talmora shuddered at the sadistic glee of the haemonculus.

“Oh, a cavalcade! It has been an age since the last exhibition,” she crooned. She stopped and looked back at Saeval. “What does the Lady of the Dead get out of it?”

“The humans are kept occupied for a time, the Epicures take the choice specimens, and the trueborn are impressed. And Ynnead gains a...powerful ally in Commoragh.”

“You search for something,” smirked Vesryn. “Is it something interesting?”

Talmora, who had regained herself, said, “Ancient clues along the Seventh Way.”

Vesryn waved a hand dismissively. “Pah, I want none of that. Yvraine is too anchored to the past. But, you have sparked the idea in me and I am in need of something to divert my interests. Send your coordinates to me and bring your warriors to bear. I have a show to put on.”

Below, the fevered-pitch surgeons had come to a crescendo, their victims so pumped full of osseo-virals and macrosteroids as to be unrecognizable flesh-hulks. They writhed on the slabs, unfortunate wracks straining to hold them fast. One of the two haemonculi lowered a blank mask over his screaming victim, sealing his face away and marking it as a thing, now, not a being. With a flourish and a bow, the victorious haemonculus loosed his creation upon the arena.

With a muffled bellow, the grotesque broke free. The other haemonculus scrambled out of the way in an undignified crawl. He loosed his own, unfinished creation and the two met in a welter of gnashing teeth and rending claws.

By the time the spectacle was over, all that was left was a wretched creature sitting in the remains of its adversary. Flesh, blood, and bone littered the operating arena. Wracks had died and only one haemonculus stood remaining. He smiled up at his Mistress and sheathed his scalpels with a flourish.

Vesryn Thithe looked down from her box and clapped serenely along with the roar of the crowd. Behind her, the Ynnari had already gone.

[scoundrelstars]

I LOVE reading your fiction, especially your Imperial;l Knights "Becoming" series! Keep up the good work!!

Aw, thanks! I feel bad that I haven’t posted in a while. I’m busy working on some 40k campaign documents for a local event.

[scoundrelstars]

Bad Moon Rising

“Da best means of attack is wiv a really really Big One, right, wiv lotsa Boys an’ dead-big shooty things an’ wot ‘ave ya.” --Smartboy Ozguhk Braynfinga

[118.M42]

Warrakka threw what was left of the human vox transmitter off the plateau with a mighty heft of the klaw. The Warboss snorted with satisfaction, his challenge sent to the newest contenders to his supremacy.

“More powah!” he bellowhowled, flexing the muscles taut beneath green skin. His red eyes were alight with ghostlight. “Everything it gots!”

Skizzgog scampered around the great arcing machines, his white coat trailing around his ankles, throwing switches and pounding on gauges. He even used his fingers to push the needles of some onto the numbers that he wanted. But there was no denying it. There just wasn’t enough power in the Mutygenerator.

The four giant transformer towers spat green lightning that arced over the Warboss’s throne dais. While the majority of it was drawn to the big Ork’s body, it lashed out at random, scorching metal, overloading systems, and burning snotlings to clouds of cinders.

“Ain’t no more powah, boss!” yelled Skizzgog over the electric hum of the ramshackle machines.

One of the towers burst, sending a fountain of sparks into the air. The huge coil was launched into the sky to land amidst the mob of boyz congregating around the foot of the dais, crushing several. And while Skizzgog was happy to see his creation go up in flames so beautifully, he did not look forward to rebuilding it. But if the boss wanted to push the thing to its limits, then who was he to argue?

In a brutal fit of anger, Warrakka caught one of the bolting gretchin and hurled the unfortunate grot into the hodge-podge assembly of levers, dials, and readouts that served as Skizzgog’s control panel. Metal cracked under the power of the throw, the grot’s brain leaking out over the precisely and orkish-ly calibrated controls. A gout of green flame incinerated much of the bare wiring that held the thing in working order and the Mutygenerator died, it’s towers falling silent.

There was a moment of quiet before the Warboss rounded on his Mekboy, fire in his eyes.

Skizzgog did his best not to recoil from his boss. To show just enough spine as to be seen as strong, but not enough to be considered a challenge to the hulking ork. Warraka stalked over to him and lashed out, grabbing Skizzgog by the front of his labcoat.

“Wot’s wrong wiv it?!” he bellowed, flecks of spittle hitting Skizzgog’s cheeks.

“Come on, boss! Ain’t no need ta get rough with yer Mekboy, roight? We just need more’a da Horderock!”

Skizzgog carefully extracted himself from Warrakka’s grasp and hurried over to the complex and indecipherable machinery at the back of the Warboss’s throne. He hauled on the grip of a cracked glass cylinder, a lump of grey rock suspended inside. The crevices and cracks still glowed like an ember with green light. The power inside the Horderock had been almost completely spent by the machine.

Skizzgog presented it to his warboss with trepidation. Warrakka seized the container in the grip of his klaw, crushing it with a hydraulic whine. He threw the wrecked mek-work off of his dais and rounded back on the mekboy.

“Make dem humies work ‘arder. Ship em to da belt if ya ‘ave to. If they don’t bring me more…” Warrakka wrapped one green fist around Skizzgog’s head, bringing him close to the warboss’s snarling face, “FEED ‘EM TO DA SQUIGS!”

Skizzgog had retreated away, his mob of gremlin grots hard on his heels, eager to be out of the raging Warrakka’s sight. The Mekboy made his way through the horde camp--the boyz called it a camp, but in reality it was a bastion of orkish fortification that had been erected amidst the husk of one of the old humie cities. Spires of scrap and hodge-podge towers were held together with the usual orky cunning. Smoke billowed from Big Mek workshops and wardancer tire fires to hang low over the cityscape in a yellow fog of soot and grime.

He scampered across one of the old highways, cracked and cratered from non-stop warfare, and barely avoided a pack of roaring trukks as they barreled down the causway. Several of his snotlings were not so lucky, crushed beneath the spiked wheels of the Speed Kult vehicles as they raced by, exhausts belching sparks and flame. One of his gretchin cackled at the sight and Skizzgog punted the cheeky grot back onto the road and into the grille of a whizzing trukk. The mekboy had himself a laugh before prudently moving away from the racing trukks lest he suffer the same fate.

Through crowded streets, he passed boyz loungin’ and scrappin’ and dicin’ teef away. They were all waiting on Warrakka’s next big WAAAGH!

The squig pits were raucous and alive with a press of green flesh. Boyz crowded around the sunken foundation of a bombed-out warehouse, fenced in with barbed wire and scrap metal sheeting. Skizzgog pushed his way through past yellow-clad flash boyz taking bets and screaming odds pulled from the recesses of their greedy brains.

“Out da way, ya gobs!” Skizzgog bellowed.

Seeing the Boss’s Mek, parts of the mob tried to move out of the way, but the press of bodies was just too great and Skizzgog found himself climbing over orks and grots, metal-shod bootz digging into the faces of the rabble. More than once he had to clobber the head of the ork he was climbing on to make him stand still.

In a billow of his grimy white lab coat, he found his way over the mob and into a clearing that had sprung up around a pair of grim-faced nobs guarding the entrance to an audience box suspended by a rusted-out crane arm stretching over the pit. The area of calm seemed to be just the size of the huge orks’ reach with their choppas. They gave Skizzgog the once over with beady red eyes. The mekboy merely gave them his toothiest scowl, which was enough to see him through. His position as Warrakka’s personal Big Mek had some perks.

With a tremendous leap, Skizzgog jumped across to the suspended metal platform, making it sway slightly as he landed. The thing was so massive, even his bulk did little to move it. Inside, looking down at the pit below, an ork the size of a killa kan lounged on an assortment of torn mattresses, looted couches, and colorful cardboard.

Big enough to be a warboss in his own right, the leader of the Bad Moon clan was the very image of an idle ork. Nekkruncha had flash armor painted a garish yellow strapped over his bulging frame and a bionic eye that shone an evil red in the dimness of his hanging lair. All manner of shootas and ammunition were strewn about his cushioned throne, one hand idly stroking the nearest while the other stuffed seared meat into his mouth.

“Skizzy-boy!” the Bad Moon grinned with a mouth full of misshapen teeth. “Izzat Warrakka I ‘ear ragin’?”

“He needs more Horderock. Says we should put more a da humies down in da mines.”

Nekkruncha cracked the bone between his teeth and let the marrow drip onto his tongue before tossing it over the side of his box. The Bad Moons boss grinned wickedly.

“Humies is only good for one fing, Skizz my lad. Workin’ and screamin’. Eatin’ too if they gots meat on ‘em.”

The crowd of orks below roared as the gates to the squig pit opened and a huddled group of humies was prodded out with an electry-fied poker. They were dressed in the remains of the ornamental robes used by the humies’ bookboys. Chains of office hung limply around their necks and they stumbled barefoot on the broken stone and ground glass that was the arena floor.

A group of grots was cranking lustily on a wailer siren while another was pulling on chain pulleys and cackling. At the other end of the arena, those pulleys lifted a reinforced grating to a passage that led down into the warrens beneath the pit. Blue sparks and manic laughter echoed up from the darkness, followed by guttural, animal gibbering.

Louder and louder, the sounds came until a squig the size of an ork burst out into the arena, herded by a mob of snotlings with sparking goads. The squig was little more than a fanged maw with legs and malicious eyes. Leathery orange skin made the electro-prods little more than annoyances and it lashed out at its handlers, capturing one of the snotlings and chewing with glee before going back to snapping at the squealing runts.

“S’my best squid, dat is,” said Nekkruncha with obvious pride.

He had every right to be. Flesh-eater squigs were rare and highly sought after for their teef-laden mouths. An ork who owned one could set himself up as a Nob and Nekkruncha had an entire stable.

The humies cowered in behind some of the torn wreckage that littered the pit, trying to go unnoticed. But the huge squig had caught the scent of something other than its usual fare. It sniffed and snuffled around the arena. When it finally discovered the hapless humies, they scattered, running for their lives to the laughter of the ork crowd.

One by one, it caught the humies and snapped them up between its fanged jaws. Screams of fear and pain echoed around the arena to mix with the roar of ork bettors and the snickering of grot menials.

The last humie alive, a female in blue and tan coveralls was prying at some fallen rebar that had been lodged in some of the debris, bending it up in an attempt to pull it free. She looked over her shoulder and screamed, working the metal back and forth in a vain attempt to break the metal rod loose.

The squig, drunk on its own gluttony, rushed headlong towards the woman with its cavernous mouth wide, its teeth, lips, and chin covered in human gore. Clawed feet dug into the dirt and sent the big animal hurtling at its hapless prey.

In a frantic moment of fear-born speed, the humie woman dove out of the way of her fanged death. The squig, not having the brains or the reaction speed to stop itself, impaled itself onto the sharp rebar rod the girl had frantically been trying to pry free.

Its feet scrabbled at the ground, but it couldn’t pull itself free from the twisted metal that had stabbed into its brain. It spasmed in its death throes and went still amidst silence from the gathered ork spectators. The snotling herders gathered around the dead flesh-eater,

The woman pulled herself to her feet, standing on shaking legs. Tears streamed down her face and she sobbed, shaking.

Nekkrusha was in a rage. He let out a roar and surged from his throne, one meaty hand grabbing a massive snazzgun next to him and hauling it to the railing of his hanging box. Belts of mismatched ammo trailed behind him. The Bad Moons boss opened fire down into the pit, sending spumes of rock and metal into the air where each shell ripped into the earth.

The woman went down in a spout of blood as the big rounds tore into her body. Gruesome wounds sucked at the air and crimson stained the arena floor. Nekkrusha fired until the bandoliers feeding into the snazzgun ran their course. The woman, the dead squig, and the snotling herders were chewed up in the unrelenting hail of lead from above. All the while, the boyz cheered.

“DAT WAS MY FAVORITE SQUIG!” he bellowed.

Nekkrusha rounded on Skizzgog, breathing hard and a wicked smile on his toothy face.

“Look at me, Skizz-boy. I’m gettin’ all emotion-like. Distraught, I am. Truly.”

“Nuffin like a good squig, I always says,” hedged Skizzgog, not wanting to draw the clan-boss’s ire down on himself.

He threw his snazzgun back onto the cushioned throne before sinking down into it himself. His mekaniacal eye glowed viciously in the half light of his box.

“Da big boss wants more rocks? Fine. S’all dese humies’r good for anywhichways. But one thing, Skizzy-my-lad. Warrakka best give us a fight soon ‘cuz my boyz is gettin’ real restless-like. You tell ‘im dat if I gets more-a dat shinerock for him, us Bad Moons get first pick o’ da loot. First in da fight, first to da pile.”

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 8

Naemi looked over the devastation being wrought on the once-proud hive city of Scarist. Imperial artillery had opened fire, engulfing much of the spires to flaming ruin. It seemed they had gotten away just in time. Having ditched their limo, they flew high over the carnage in the belly of their airlifter. She was almost sad to leave it behind.

Colonel Sorn sat heavily, having gone down the line checking each of his soldiers. Of the original compliment that had set out, barely half of them remained. Naemi felt leaden. Heavy. The rush of their frantic flight had worn off and now her body complained every time she tried to get it to move. Corporal Caissy was laid out on the floor in between Reddy Mercier and Sergeant Alcoin with a look of pain on his face. Ribs broken, leg smashed, she wasn’t sure how he’d kept going all that time.

She glanced over at the Hellbats’ commander, expecting some of the slyness to return now that they were safely away from danger, but the man was haggard and distant. She was probably the same. Naemi still held Iterator Soldatta’s book in both hands, unwilling to let it go even for a moment. As if putting it down would cause it to disappear. She traced her fingertips over the ancient raptor imperialis etched into its cover and looked back down the row at the unusual crew who had brought her this far.

History deserved to be remembered. In some form or another. Whether it was in great works of high Iterators or the eidetic memory of one historator. She brought the book close to her chest, wrapping an arm around it protectively.

Men and women like these should not be forgotten to the mists of time. And she vowed to make sure they didn’t.

We made it through. Like I said, pretty disappointed I didn’t make the cut, but I’ll try again next time.

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 7

Naemi screamed into her vox link, “Dustman! Troublemaker ten! We need evacuation right now!”

They roared down the rockcrete culvert, Starborn hot on their heels. The city’s river basin was completely artificial, consisting of a series of interconnected, sloping drainage channels big enough for a company of Leman Russ tanks to ride abreast. Having been cut off from fresh water for months, Scarist’s channels were dry, giving her and the Hellbats a route to escape. If they didn’t get run off the ‘road’ first, that is.

Word had apparently spread through the Starborn that a force of Imperials had infiltrated the city in advance of even the main scouting force of the invasion. The fastest of the cult had taken to their own vehicles and given chase. Only three of whom were able to keep up with Caissy’s driving and Naemi’s memorized mental image of the Scarist’s roads and now-dry waterways.

Two groundcar limos teeming with screaming cultists vied for the lead, trying to catch up to them before the other. Weaving recklessly across the culvert, their chromed exhaust pipes spat flame as they gunned their engines. They sprayed autogun fire, more as a way of urging their crude machines on than for effect. Slugs chattered off the pavement around them and bounced off their limo’s armored skin with metallic tings. The third vehicle in pursuit was an hulking Goliath Rockgrinder groundtruck. It lumbered after the Imperials like a bull, bashing its way through obstacles with the power of its massive drilldozer ram. Sorn had taken up Caissy’s hot-shot rifle and had joined Reddy and Abel in firing out of their back window. The red beams seared the air, filling the limo’s cabin with the stink of ozone.

The clarion vox set buzzed with static, but Dustman’s voice crackled through. “Read you, Troublemaker! What’s your status?”

“Right here, take that passage!” said Naemi, pointing to a fast-approaching tributary that branched off of their drain channel. Caissy spun the wheel hard, sending the big groundcar into a slide, drifting into their new heading. “We being chased by Starborn and need help!”

“Air support!” corrected Sorn, not taking his eyes off vehicles following them.

“Air support, we need air support! We’re heading westward through the city’s river culverts followed by three hostile vehicles!”

“Troublemaker, Dustman. Be advised: air support 10 klicks out.”

“How’s it coming on that miner?” asked Sorn. He took aim and fired another red lance of light that burned a hole into the chest of one of their pursuers’ outriders. The body fell off the side of the groundcar and was crunched under the Rockgrinder’s wheels.

“We’re there, chief!” shouted Lufleur wildly.

She and Sergeant Alcoin had been jury-rigging her hellgun’s power pack into the energy leads of the mining laser. He pressed the button to retract the limo’s skyroof and Lufluer hauled the big weapon up, bracing it against the lip of the roof. The telltale whine of capacitors charging preceded an intense yellow light as the powerful laser was unleashed.

The lead cultist groundcar erupted into a ball of flame as it punched through the engine block and slagged the entire front end. It spun into the side of the Goliath, but its drilldozer shoved the wreck aside with a spray of sparks and a wash of flame.

The woman let out an exultant cry and shouted, “Again, Sergeant!”

Capacitors charged again and she fired, but the second car had more time to react. It swerved and the beam went wide, digging a molten furrow into the rockcrete. Not to let that deter her, she took aim as the weapon charged. Autoguns returned fire from the remaining limo, causing her to duck into the cabin for cover.

Naemi was clutching the Rise of Empire to her chest and trying not to look back. She concentrated on the drainage culvert ahead and did her best to navigate. She led them through half-flooded tunnels and sloping channels. They pulled out onto a straightaway and she dared a look behind. The cult limo was almost caught up with them, the Rockgrinder not far behind. They couldn’t lose them.

Ahead, a bridge spanned over the drainage channel, with tunnels going underneath. She pointed to one and chimed through the vox, “Through that one! Lufleur, hit the roof!”

“What?”

“The tunnel! Hit the roof!”

They roared into the tube of the tunnel, the noise of their engine rebounding with a snarling echo. Ahead, she could see daylight at the other side, but Naemi knew to wait. Wait until their pursuers had no choice but to follow.

She saw the lights of their enemy’s groundcar flare to life in the tunnel’s darkness and she yelled, “Now!”

They were passing right under one of the bridge’s most vulnerable sections when the searing yellow beam of Lufleur’s mining laser lashed out, cutting through the cement and steel of the bridge’s structure. A low rumble started to follow them as the beam bit deep, cutting support struts and slagging rockcrete. Chunks began to fall, clattering off the roof of their groundcar and growing into an avalanche as the weight of the tunnel collapsed in on itself.

The amber ray flickered and cut out, the hellgun power pack they’d jury-rigged to the mining laser completely spent. Sorn and the Mercier boys had stopped firing through the rear window and simply watched the cascade of rebar and broken stone. The two young sharpshooters were whooping as they saw the pursuing cultists crushed by broken blocks of rockcrete. They erupted into the bright light of the open air just as a great cloud of dust and debris billowed from the ruined tunnel.

They slowed, watching their handiwork.

“Nice one, professor,” grinned Lufleur.

Naemi stared back at the ruined tunnel, which was burning itself into her memory. “Thanks…”

“Corporal, what say we get the hell out of here,” said Sorn, “before more of ‘em show up.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Caissy.

“We may not have to wait that long,” said Naemi, pointing.

The wreckage pile had begun to smoke and shudder. A keening hiss echoed down the culvert followed by the grinding of metal on stone. A red-hot glow began to shine from the heart of the collapsed tunnel as molten rock and metal seeped from the spaces in between the twisted rebar and broken rockcrete.

“Time to go!”

Tires squealed as the Hellbats peeled away, engine roaring. Behind them, the huge Goliath Rockgrinder burst through fallen tunnel exit, its drilldozer blades eating through reinforced rockcrete and the mounted incinerator turning anything that was left into molten slag. As soon as it was clear, cheering cultists appeared out of hatches and began to fire their autoguns at the retreating Hellbats. Slugs caromed off the pavement and off the sides of their groundcar, buzzing like insects as they flew past.

Their limo lurched as one of the tires blew, pierced by a lucky slug from the zealots. Their rear end started to slide out of control, fishtailing out dangerously. Caissy worked frantically to keep the car under control. Lufleur and Alcoin, having not been strapped in, tumbled around the cabin as they swerved. Naemi screamed and clutched at the handrail protruding from the passenger’s dash. They careened through the drainage channel, sparks flying out behind from the bare rim. With a savage jerk of the wheel, they were back in control. Barely.

They’d lost speed, letting the Goliath with its gibbering crew close in on them. Their shots grew wilder and one enthusiastic cultist had taken to unleashing great gouts of flame into the air from the roof-mounted incinerator.

“Boys! Put that flamer down for me, would you?”

“Yes sir!” piped the Mercier brothers.

The smell of ozone filled the cabin once more as the two sharpshooters battled with the bounce and drift of their limo’s back end, sending red lances of laser light through the broken rear windshield. Hellgun capacitors whined and the snap-crack of their firing added to the din of the chase. Sorn keyed his vox, moving forward in the limo to let the two brothers do their work.

“Dustman, Troublemaker one! Evac is going to be hot!”

“Read, Troublemaker one. Command advises rendezvous along the Cisternway.”

“Cisternway, copy.” Bullets chattered off the side windows, sending cracks through the clear armaplas and Sorn turned to Naemi, asking, “Can we make it?”

“We might. But the Cistern’s a dead end. If they’re not there when we are, there will be nowhere to go.”

“Well, let’s just hope they’re on time.”

A Goliath was not a fast vehicle, but it was implacable. And with one of their wheels limping on a rapidly deforming rim, it was able to gain on the Hellbats’ limo, even despite Caissy’s driving. It was close enough now that everyone in the groundcar could hear the screaming of the Starborn cultists even over the thundering of both vehicles’ engines. They were close enough to use the incinerator, but the Hellbat snipers put any who manned the weapon down with searing holes in their chests.

They raced down the huge culverts, neck and neck. Naemi knew the city cistern wasn’t far, but the huge Goliath Rockgrinder was coming up on them fast. It bristled with mutated, purple-skinned metamorphs that snarled down, screaming in an alien tongue. The let out a ululating cry as they finally caught up with the wounded limo and the blades of the drilldozer spun up with a deadly whir.

“They’re comin’ in!” shouted Alcoin, unloading his hellgun at full auto, laser blasts splashing off the Goliath’s armored hide.

“Brace!” shouted Sorn.

The Hellbats scrambled to one side of the groundcar, as the cultist pilot veered hard, driving its drilldozer into the side of the limo. Screeching metal and shearing blades filled Naemi’s vision. They screamed and Caissy pulled away, but the dozer had bitten deep into the frame of the car and rent a huge hole into the side and roof. Metal tore and the majority of the armored side paneling came away, leaving them open to the air.

Without a roof and sides, the once gleaming limo swerved violently away, riding up onto the sloping sides of the drain culvert. With superhuman strength, the metamorphs that rode on the exterior of the Goliath began to jump, aiming for the half-destroyed limo. However, with most of the cabin torn away, every Hellbat had a clear shot at the boarders. The scions unleashed their hot-shot rifles in controlled bursts, filling the air with spears of red light. They shot the xenos out of the air, their bodies hitting the ground and smearing the pavement with blood.

“We’re almost there!” shouted Naemi as the limo crashed back down onto the level surface of the culvert’s bottom.

“Dustman, Dustman!” voxed Sorn. He pulled free his power sword and snapped it on, the blade shining bright blue as the energy field came to life, “Heading south on the Cisternway! Any assistance would be much obliged!”

They were driving hard towards the city cistern, an enormous man-made lake that provided water for the lower quarters of Scarist Hive. It was fed by a network of aqueducts that ran from the outlying lands and dumped into the huge rockcrete pit that served as the basis for the lake. It was down one of these that the Hellbats were driving hell-for-leather.

Xenos landed hard on the back of the limo, despite the concentrated efforts of the Hellbats’ rifles, their claws digging deep into the metal and hanging on. One pulled itself up into the cabin only to be met with Lufleur’s gauntleted fist, smashing it in the face and sending it sprawling away onto the speeding rockcrete. Sorn sheared the hand off another and booted it savagely in the stomach, sending it to the same fate. The Merciers were up against the driver’s cabin, firing non-stop. Grim-faced, Naemi held the Rise of Empire under one arm and brought up her pistol in the other. There wasn’t much navigating left to do. They’d either make it to the Cistern in time for air support to find them or they’d be eaten alive by these slavering alien metamorphs. And, by the Throne, she wasn’t going to go quietly.

Her gun whined and kicked again and again. She wasn’t even sure she was hitting anything, but they had contained the boarders towards the back of the limo. Sorn and Lufleur had taken it on themselves to keep them at bay. Sorn swung his sword in controlled arcs, cleaving the corralled cult acolytes with his crackling blade. Lufleur fought with a barely-contained savagery. The big woman landed vicious blows with her fist or the long battleknife she wielded, smiling all the while. But they could only repel so many.

The Goliath was coming back in for another swipe at them. It drew closer and Naemi could see that the giant incinerator had been swiveled towards them now that the Merciers were no longer keeping the crew of the huge truck honest. If that thing unleashed its flame on the uncovered limo, they’d all be fried.

A prayer touched her lips as she raised her hand, both eyes open and aiming down the barrel of her pistol, the frenzied cultists on the incinerator clear in her sights. For once in her life, she didn’t remember what she’d said.

Her finger squeezed and her gun kicked and bright red light filled her vision. The beam seared out of her gun and...missed. She’d missed. It had gone  wide. Dread dropped into the pit of her stomach. Until she saw a small flame sprouting along the prometheum hose along the barrel of the incinerator. The cultist fired, a manic grin on his face. The weapon was flooded with the flammable liquid, hit the rupture Naemi had caused, and exploded in a brilliant gout of flame. The Goliath shuddered and swerved, but the big truck was made to withstand rockslides and cave-ins. The top hatch slammed shut and it veered towards them again, drilldozer blades spinning.

“It’s going to ram us again!” shouted Naemi.

The vox blared and Caissy grunted, “Hellbats hold on!”

As fast as he could, Caissy threw the wheel over and slammed on the brake, sending the limo into a mad drift. Caught unawares, the Goliath kept its speed and juked to the side, trying to hit them, but they weren’t there. Tires screeching, bare rim throwing a shower of sparks, the Hellbats hung on for dear life. The xenos metamorphs who hadn’t been prepared flew off and were sent skidding across the ground. The corporal stomped the accelerator savagely and the engine sang, the whine of superchargers adding their high notes to the basso growl. They surged ahead of the Goliath, its roof still ablaze with lethal prometheum. But not for long.

“That won’t work twice!” called out Caissy.

“Maybe it doesn’t need to.” said Colonel Sorn, shielding his eyes and looking skyward.

Over the chaos, there came the unmistakable sound that lifts the hearts of Guardsmen across the galaxy: plasmajet engines of allied air support.

Two Imperial flyers tore through the air, close to the ground along the Cisternway. One the bulky shape of Dustman’s transport, the other the sleek form of an Imperial Navy Avenger Strike Fighter. The huge underslung bolt cannon opened fire with a murderous sound. Explosions tore up the pavement behind the limo as the bolt shells came onto their target. The large bore, armor-piercing rounds tore through the heavy armor of the Goliath and exploded inside, tearing gaping holes in the groundtruck. The shockwave of the enemy’s demise sent them skidding to a halt under the jetwash of Dustman’s lifter. The Avenger screamed away, its mission complete, to find more targets within the theater of the Imperial invasion.

“Troublemaker, Dustman. I hope you don’t mind, sir, but I brought a friend.”

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 6

Hydraulics whined as the data-crypt’s armored door shifted the rubble. The Imperials emerged from the armored vault and into the weak sunlight, coughing and sputtering in the cloud of stone dust that clogged the air. The Archive had been reduced to a smouldering pile of rubble and twisted rebar, but the hardened structure of the vault had survived, letting them ride out the collapse in the dark of the crypt.

“Can you walk?” Sorn asked Caissy.

The corporal had come to as they’d huddled around him, with lamp packs illuminating Lufleur’s hands as she injected pain killers into his arm. He was conscious, mobile, and alert, but Naemi could see him wince with every movement. The man was in bad shape.

“Sure thing, chief,” Caissy replied with an expression that could have been either a smile or a grimace. He put one arm around Abel’s shoulders and he limped out into the shifting light.

“All right, spread out. We have to get out of here,” Sorn checked his chrono, “we’re not going to make the rendezvous if we don’t find some wheels.”

Naemi emerged, shielding her eyes with one hand and clutching the Rise of Empire to her chest with the other. She fell in next to Colonel Sorn as they climbed over broken marble, ferrocrete, and gnarled metal. Her mind seemed numb; she was having trouble keeping a coherent stream of thought. She tried not to see the mangled bodies amidst the wreckage, but they were everywhere, made worse by the fact that she knew she’d remember every one of them perfectly. The rush of the frantic melee was gone, its razor’s edge had dulled in her, leaving behind a full-body ache.

“Is it always like this?” she asked.

Sorn helped her over a jagged piece of support stone as they made their way towards what had once been the grand foyer of the Archives. His usual sly expression had been replaced with one that was gaunt and serious. “Yes.”

He didn’t offer any more, but Naemi found that she didn’t need it. She’d wanted field work and this was it. War. It was down to each person how they were affected. She just had to keep going and deal with the memories later. They continued on through the broken Archives in silence, with only the sound of the Imperial bombardment against Scarist’s shield to break it.

They reached what had once been the main gate, now collapsed and splintered. Due to the destruction of the support pillar in the center of the building, it had collapsed inwards, leaving the street and much of the main driveway intact. And with it, the groundcars the cultists had arrived in.

Sorn keyed his vox. “Might have something here.”

The Hellbats converged on them as they inspected the vehicles. They were gaudy limousines, low to the ground and painted orange and purple. Reinforced grilles shaped like livestock catchers were mounted on the fronts for plowing through crowds and busting through barricades. They were based on a common make of groundcar in this sector, but Naemi was surprised at how similar they were to the other accounts of xenos cult modifications she’d read about. Whatever malign intelligence motivated these zealots maintained similar tastes, no matter where it cropped up.

“Found something too, chief.”

Lufleur’s voice was a bit strained as she and Reddy Mercier appeared. She was lugging a long-barreled mining laser that she’d scrounged from the wreckage of the second floor balcony.

“Beat to hell, but I can get it working.”

“Same could be said for this hunk of junk,” said Caissy, leaning heavily on the hood of one of the cultist limos.

“Mount up, then. We don’t have much time.”

Naemi’s brain was galvanizing slowly, but she brought the map of the city to the front of her mind. “We can’t get back through the tunnels. The lift is buried under the building.”

“Can we get through to the evac point?” asked Sorn.

“We could take surface roads,” said Naemi.

Sorn shook his head. “I’m pretty sure they know we’re here, professor.”

She cast about mentally, churning through routes and surfaceways. Scarist Hive was a maze of roads, alleys, sewers, and forgotten arteries that weaved their way through the enormous city according to a long-lost and arcane design. If the Starborn cultists knew there were Imperials in their city, they’d be spotted from before long, even in a cult limo. They had to find another way.

“Maybe,” she said, coming on an idea, “maybe there’s a way. With water sources cut off by the siege, the drainage culverts might be dry enough to drive through.”

The sound of revving engines echoed through the streets and the Hellbats shared a look. Those could only be more of the Starborn coming to investigate what happened to their comrades and to see the collapse of the Archives. They had to get out of there.

“Looks like we ain’t exactly spoilt for choice, professor,” said Sorn, pulling open the passenger door of the limo, “Abel, you’re driving.”

“I can do it, sir,” said Caissy, moving to the driver’s door. “Can’t shoot, but I can still spin the wheel.”

“All right, then. Professor, you’re up front. You know the way out of here.”

Naemi followed the scions into the groundcar. It was spacious inside, bedecked in the finest materials the Starborn hive scrapings could cobble together. Thick carpet and overstuffed seats had been installed, stolen from the luxury homes up-spire. The electronics flickered to life as the corporal crossed the wires, attempting to get it started. He grunted as the engine came to life with a deep thrum. Tires squealed as they pulled out and onto the main stretch of road, weaving through abandoned vehicles and fallen light posts

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 5

The narthex had erupted into a warzone. Marble cracked and wood splintered as heavy slug rounds caromed off of walls and makeshift barriers. The grand hall of the Archives was swarming with cultists dressed in the makeshift uniforms of the Hallowed Starborn, torn orange coveralls and grey miner’s pads.

To a man, they were grotesque. Those that weren’t mutated with clawed arms or fanged maws had a sickly, purpleish complexion that made them look so alien as to be unmistakable as what they were. They shouted and screamed in a language that seemed to be a mix of Low Gothic and a frantic gibbering that grated against her ears like sandpaper.

Clutching The Rise of Empire against her chest, it took all of Naemi’s willpower not to scream over the vox. She was hunkered down behind the heavy marble of the High Archivist’s desk and kept low as autogun rounds ricocheted close to her head, sending shards of stone flying.

On either side, she heard the snap-whine of the Hellbat’s hot-shot lasguns as they answered the cultists’ barrage. Despite their lackadaisical demeanor, they fought with a precise and well-practiced ease, killing with brutal efficiency any that dared get close. As far as she could tell, there was no way into the narthex save for the main archway, which the Higarans had barricaded with toppled bookshelves and data units. However, that meant there was no way out either.

“They’re ain’t goin’ to wait much longer before they rush us, chief!” hollered Alcoin. He held the right side of the archway with Leger and Monpremier, both firing with discipline over their barrier. The air reeked of ozone as the beams cut the air with a constant rate of fire.

“I see ‘em, sergeant!” replied Sorn. He had his power sword in one hand and his hot-shot pistol in the other.

In the great hall of the Archives, the Starborn cultists ebbed like waves. Every time a group of them would muster the nerve to surge forward, they were repelled by the withering fire of the Hellbats.

“Enemy heavy weapons, second floor balcony!”

In the gallery, cultists were hauling bulky mining lasers up onto the rubble piles and chittering excitedly. Banners with crude icons carved from scrap and festooned with miner’s ID badges shook frantically, working the cultists into a fever.

“Reddy, Abel. Fire on my target!”

“No angle, sir!”

Sorn snapped off more shots at a group of Starborn that were taking cover behind some of the Archive datastacks. “Syvette! Can you reach the pillars?”

“Negative, sir!”

“Hellbats, ready to repel!” he shouted, skidding on his hip in next to Naemi behind the desk.

Almost as soon as the words came out of his mouth, the air screamed as the mezzanine cultists opened fire with their heavy rockcutter lasers. Yellow beams of coherent light smashed into the barricades, vaporizing the material in noxious clouds. They swept back and forth across the archway and the Imperials kept their heads down.

Through the cloying dust, alien horrors came screaming. Three-armed monsters with clawed hands and gibbering maws. They were met with a fusillade of  las-fire that brought the first rank down, but more came on. They hurdled the dead and crashed into the narthex with a vengeance. Leger went down under the ferocious assault, bloody claws tearing into the soldier and cutting off his screams as they sliced into his throat.

Lufleur bellowed and opened up with her meltagun, cutting a swathe across the oncoming xenos with the anti-tank weapon. The gun screamed as it vented super-heated gas in a beam that blasted the Starborn hybrid morphs. Sorn was in the thick of it, his power sword a slashing blue arc that cut weapons, arms, and heads clean off.

Naemi was sick and light-headed. She couldn’t breathe. She pried the omnishield mask off of her face, gulping in air as she cowered behind the desk. The stench of blood and cooking flesh filled the air and she wretched. Hugging her tome close, she peered over the edge of the desk. The Hellbats fought furiously to hold the archway, but were being pushed back into the narthex by sheer weight of numbers. With one hand, she fumbled with the holster on her thigh, pulling out the hot-shot pistol Lufleur had given her. She searched for some steel in her soul and found it there, however small. They were dead, but she wasn’t going to be the one who didn’t raise a hand to help those who had brought her this far.

She flicked the safety with her thumb and felt the capacitors come alive as they drew power from the pack. She steadied her aim against the lip of the desk as the world narrowed. Naemi’s heart pounded in her ears. The trigger seemed stubborn against her finger. Something inside her rebelled against pulling it; like her hand wasn’t communicating with her brain.

“Shoot,” she whispered to herself, lost amidst the din of battle, “shoot.”

Sorn swirled, his long coat fluttering around him as he brought his saber slicing down through the shoulder of a snarling hybrid. The power field flared and he cut the alien into two smoking halves. From the dust, more came on. This time there was no wall of energy to meet them. Hellbats fought hard and Monpremier went down as a cultist caught him with a slug round to the gut and a pipe to the face.

Amidst the mob, the high-pitched whine of another power field wailed. Too late did he see the screaming xenos bearing down on him with a crude power hammer. Meant for breaking boulders and super-hard ore, it would pulp him with even a glancing blow. He brought his sword around, but Sorn could tell he was too slow.

A lance of red light impacted the zealot’s chest, burning through the padded armor and incinerating the flesh beneath. The impact steamed as the lasbeam boiled the blood in the hybrid’s chest cavity and it fell backward, dead. Behind him, Naemi was holding her pistol in two hands and shaking. Her jaw was clenched tight over the scream trying to escape her.

“Nice shot, professor!” Sorn said, firing his own pistol into the onslaught.

He saw the woman’s face and the fear that was plain on it. They had to get out of here and soon or their position was going to be overrun. More than it was already. There was one hope left for them. “Caissy, you better be on your way or we’re all done for!”

Over the vox, the driver’s voice crackled. “Speak my name and I shall appear, chief!”

A tremendous shockwave rocked the Archives as one of the walls exploded inward, blasting chunks of stone and glass into the mass of alien bodies. Some were knocked down by the blast and buried under the rubble that fell. Others were caught by splinters of glass and twisted rebar. The roar of an engine drowned out the screams as the midnight blue Taurox crashed through the hole made by the meltabombs Caissy and Aime had set to blow. The quad-tracks churned over the dead and broken bodies of the Starborn as it bulled into the teeming mob.

The turret on the roof spun up its twin gatling cannons with an electric whine followed by a deadly chatter as rounds ripped through the alien assault. The Hellbats rallied, pincering the hybrids remaining in the narthex against the armored flank of the Taurox, cutting them down with precise lasfire.

The big assault vehicle spat fire and thunder as Aime went to work with the main turret and Caissy gunned the engine, smashing through bookshelves and cogitator banks to disrupt their assault on the beleaguered Hellbats in the narthex. The rotary cannons took a heavy toll on the ground floor cultists, leaving behind a wake of death and brass casings.

Screams from the second floor balcony echoed over the carnage and Naemi looked up to see the mining lasers cycling up once more. The very air seemed tortured when they fired, their beams lashing out towards the Taurox, digging molten furrows into the marble floor. Caissy tried to dodge them, but there just wasn’t enough space to maneuver with the big vehicle. He threw it into a skid, coming around a wide-based pillar, but a beam caught him in the side, burning a raking trough through the crew compartment. The gatling cannons went silent as Aime was cut in down inside.

“Not looking good, chief!” voxed Caissy as another mining laser hit him. “Aime is gone, fuel tank’s ruptured.”

Sorn and Naemi looked on as one of the quad-tracks blew and the Taurox began to list to one side. The colonel barked, “Get out of there, Caissy!”

“Negative, sir,” the vox was garbled as it came over their earbuds, “We still got one trick left!”

With one final effort, Caissy stepped on the accelerator, pushing the limping Taurox into a headlong dash towards the support pillars holding up the balcony on which the shrieking xenos had refuge. The treads bit into the marble, dragging the ruined drive track along in a shower of sparks. Caissy looked back into the crew compartment at the meltabombs he and Aime had set to arm. There wasn’t much left to do now except hope it would make it just a little farther.

Caissy keyed some runes on his wristcog and the bombs, squat black canisters maglocked to the bulkhead just above the fuel tanks, clicked over to green. He set them for impact detonation, leaving nothing to human error. He hoped. The scarred corporal locked the steering, kicked open his door, and took a leap.

The APC careened into the support pillar beneath the xenos heavy weapons, exploding in a blinding fireball as the melta charges detonated. Even as far back as she was, Naemi was knocked down by the blast and felt a wave of heat wash over her. Next to her, Sorn had taken cover behind the heavy marble desk. With a furious leap, he was up and over, sprinting out into the Archives proper.

“Caissy!”

“Covering fire!” ordered Alcoin as he recovered, pulling himself up and reorienting.

Outside the narthex, everything had started to collapse. With one of the huge support pillars destroyed, the entire second floor balcony had caved in. Clouds of stone dust and mortar obscured his vision, but the bright red lances of hellgun fire speared through the billowing murk to keep any cultist foolish enough to get in the colonel’s way honest.

The loud crack of stone and the groan of metal tolled the battle-damaged Archives’ death knell. Naemi scrambled for her discarded omnishield mask and keyed her vox.

“Colonel, this whole place is going to come down!”

“I see him! Pull back to the vault!”

Through the smoke, Sorn saw Caissy lying on the marble like a discarded toy. The corporal been knocked a fair bit away by the explosion; hopefully, the carapace armor had protected him from getting his internal organs pulped by the shockwave. With no time stop, he tucked into a roll, hooking one arm under Caissy’s leg and coming up with his body in an over-the-shoulder carry.

The entire massive edifice seemed to sway, the giant pillars that held the massive weight of the building sheared sideways, threatening to collapse. With Caissy’s limp form on his shoulders he began to run as fast as he could back towards the only place in the whole Archives they might survive. Those cultists who weren’t crushed by toppling datastacks or falling masonry, scurried away like rats from a sinking ship, disappearing into hidden tunnels.

In full battle-rattle, Caissy was heavy and Sorn’s legs burned as he sprinted towards the narthex. He saw the lights of the Hellbats’ lumen packs as they scanned the roiling dust. He burst through to them, his boots barely clearing the lip of the vault door.

“Close it up! Close it up!”

With an immense clang audible over the collapse of the Archives’ main hall, the massive ceramite door shut behind him. Sorn collapsed onto his knees, Lufleur and Reddy already taking Caissy’s weight off their colonel’s shoulders.

Lights flickered and dust shook loose as the Archives collapsed around them.

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 4

The low growl of the engine echoed strangely along the walls and off into the darkness. They’d been driving for almost an hour down a series of winding subways and rail tunnels that had been used to ferry workers out into the mining pits. Now, illuminated only by the floodlights of their vehicle, the tracks were empty.

Inside the Taurox, things were quiet. The Hellbats sat watching the shadows cast by the floodlights. Reddy and Abel sat with their eyes glued to their wristcog dataslates which showed live pict-feeds from the pair of servo-skulls that roved in front of and behind them. They cast about with auspex readers, scanning the darkness for things unseen. They were moving closer and closer to the heart of Scarist Hive and the odds of them going undetected were shrinking by the moment.

Naemi concentrated on the map in her head, seeing more than what the dataslate on her arm could show her. They were close to the Archives now, barely blocks away from city center. She was amazed they’d made it this far without encountering any of the deranged cultists that had taken over the hive. By all accounts, they had swarmed up from the underhive and taken control of every major building, system, and office in the city. Perhaps none remained down here. The Archives was on the surface, however, and a lump formed in her throat at the thought of facing down those killers.

She shook herself mentally and steeled herself. They’d have to get there first.

“It should just be up there,” she said in a whisper.

“Lights ahead,” said Sergeant Alcoin.

“Abel?” said Sorn.

“Yessir.”

With two fingers, Sorn punched runes on his wristcog and brought the view from Abel’s servo-skull onto the bulkhead pict-screen. It hovered high in the tunnel, creeping along ahead of them. The tunnel widened out into a large railway loading area for people and cargo that would have gone down to the mining pits. Only a few of the vapor lamps were still on, but the pools of light revealed the grand vaults of the Archives stop, where countless scribes would bring their daily tabulations and recordings to be stored at the end of each shift.

“I don’t see anyone.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of any of those tunnel scuttlers. Makes me nervous,” said Sorn.

“Think the Hallowed Starborn cult is big on reading?” asked Naemi. Her voice was strained, but the Hellbats chuckled around her.

“No I don’t, professor. All right, Caissy, bring us in. Aime, look alive on those guns.”

The Taurox pulled into the train station and up onto the equipment loading ramp, its treads biting into the fractured tile and ruined mosaic floor. They came to a stop and opened the back hatch, piling out with guns ready. Caissy and Aime stayed aboard, covering the Hellbats’ advance with the heavy guns.

Water dripped from pipes in the vaulted ceilings, lending the loading platform an echoing, spectral quality. Naemi was squarely in the middle of the formation, protected by Scions on either side and a slab of armoured vehicle at her back. She still wasn’t used to the carapace armor she’d been fitted with, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it looked and she found that her movement was mostly unrestricted. They slunk quickly to the grand staircase that led to the surface. Wrought iron gates had been reinforced with heaps of scrap metal welded together across them to form an impassable wall much like they had encountered on the surface.

“We’re blocked, sir,” said Reddy over the vox, “should we blow it?”

“Maybe not,” said Naemi, searching her memory, “there’s another way, I think.”

She broke away to the side of the main pedway where she followed a pair of tramrails sunk into the floor. They led to a loading ramp that was closed off with two heavy blast doors and big enough to move mining equipment on and off of the trains that would depart from the platform. A freight elevator. And it went up to a storage garage on the surface, adjacent to the Archives. This was their way up. She found the control panel under a pool of light cast by one of the few remaining lamps that shone.

“Can you get it working?” said Sorn, coming up next to her. He made a series of hand motions to the other Hellbats and they fanned out around them, taking covering angles, some facing the elevator and others the approaches.

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

She pulled her Logos icon from underneath her chestplate and turned it over. From the back, she unspooled a fine interface lead that she plugged into the elevator call panel. The solar icon around the stylized tome lit with green light as the cipher-gheist inside did its work. With the scrape of metal on metal, the doors to the freight elevator ground open and glowglobes flickered on inside, revealing a platform big enough to hold a full dump-loader.

Satisfied that nothing was going to jump out at them, Sorn motioned the Taurox forward. With a low grumble, it moved up the loading ramp and onto the elevator. Aime rotated top turret to face back the way they’d come. The brake lights cast a sullen red glow out into the darkness. The Hellbats followed their vehicle up the ramp and took defensive positions along the outer edges of the lift platform. Naemi unplugged her icon and followed.

The doors slid closed with the push of a control rune and the platform lurched upward.

They were dumped out into the storage garage meant for the Archives adepts, mine-boss vehicles, and materiel destined for the railway below. A quick jog up the ramps brought them to ground level where the garage connected to the Archives. They stopped in front of the doorway that led to the building next to them.

“Caissy, Aime. Stay here with the Taurox and keep our getaway secure.” Acknowledges came back from the two troopers and Sorn continued. “We’ll be in an out before anyone knows we’ve been there.”

Naemi followed the Hellbats through an archway that led to the Archives’ main foyer, using her icon’s cipher-gheist to get them through the biomantic scanners and lockouts.

The main hall of the Archives was a soaring edifice of rib-vaulted stone and stained glass, but its grandeur was despoiled by looting and vandalism. Scrivener’s desks were overturned and staved in, the tall tome-stacks had been pushed over, scattering books, dataslates, and mnesis-tapes all over. The great stained glass windows that had once shown the full glory of the Administratum were smashed and huge sack-cloth banners painted with the Starborn’s heretical symbols hung in their place.

“Spread out. Search pattern delta-tertius,” came Sorn’s order, “I feel like a whiskerfish in a river full of swampcats.”

The two servo-skulls that accompanied them zoomed ahead, their auspex scanners searching the darkness for threats unseen. The Mercier boys followed close behind, disappearing into the ruined stacks, their hot-shot lasguns held at the ready. Lufleur hefted her own weapon, a heat-scarred meltagun, and moved quietly for a soldier of her size.

It was eerily quiet amid the stacks. The musty smell of old paper and books made it through the omnishield mask that covered Naemi’s face. It almost comforted her. It was familiar, yet sinister, reminding her of the scriptorum back on Terra, but tainted by the smell of smoke and fresh aero-paint.

Her vox crackled in her ear. “Found something.”

They passed into the great narthex where the High Archivist would have watched over the entrance to the data-crypts, the repository for the planet’s most sensitive and important knowledge. Abel and Reddy were already there, standing over the cracked marble desk and a mound of blue cloth. As she drew near, Naemi realized it was the High Archivist’s corpse. Blood had seeped out onto the white stone floors and dried to a dark brown.

“Been here for a week, maybe?” said Abel.

“Went down fighting,” said his brother, pointing to the huge chunks blasted out of the stone desk.

Naemi stared down at the High Archivist’s body and swayed. Dead eyes stared up from a slack-jawed face.  She felt bile rise in her throat and had to look away. She felt a hand on her arm.

Sorn steered her away from the corpse and towards the data-crypt’s doors. “Come on, professor. The quicker we can get into those data-crypts, the faster we can get out of here.”

“Right,” she said, swallowing hard and unspooling her Logos icon’s interface lead once more.

The back wall of the narthex was dominated by a heavy vault door. A gene-scanner and voiceprint analyzer would have to be passed for the High Archivist’s key to be accepted, but Naemi wouldn’t need to go to such lengths. She prised the front panel off of the crypt’s access cogitator, mouthed a quick apology to any red priests who might be watching, and connected her icon to a data port hidden within. Once again, her Logos icon glowed green as the cipher-gheist went to work.

Runes and tech-script scrawled along the pict-screen as the panel went haywire. A loud clunk echoed through the Archive as the data-crypt’s maglocks disengaged and retracted. Lufleur hauled on the huge door and it swung open, revealing a cavernous structure built of ceramite-reinforced steel and it stretched back into the darkness. Rows of glowglobes clicked on in succession, flooding the data-crypt with clinical, white light. Towers of datastacks and mnemono-matrices rose from the floor, lights winking across their surfaces in dizzying patterns. Along the outer walls, bookshelves containing musty scrolls, tomes, and volumes were neatly organized. It seemed that the Hallowed Starborn hadn’t managed to get into vault. Naemi’s heart leaped at the prospect of the Iterator Soldatta’s greatest work still being intact.

“Neatly done, professor,” said Sorn, coming to stand next to her.

“There’s still power, which is better than I’d hoped,” she said, stepping over the threshold, “The stasis vault should still be functioning. We might even find Soldatta’s work undamaged!”

“Let’s have ourselves a look,” drawled the colonel. He motioned quickly with one hand and Leger and Monpremier bustled in with their equipment. Out of their packs, they brought out black plastic boxes with retractable cables. The two troopers went to work connecting them to the stacks’ dataports, flipping the small switches on their boxes. Small red lights blinked as their exhaust fans revved up with an electric whine.

Naemi started to speak, but remembered the colonel’s face the last time she asked what he would do with the data he was taking from Scarist’s vaults. She decided not to press the issue. Hopefully, she’d be well out of this Emperor-forsaken subsector before it came back to bite her. She affected to not see them and push on deeper into the data-crypt.

The two of them proceeded towards the far end of the chamber where a glass panel separated a section of the vault off from the rest. Arcane machinery hummed around it, projecting a stasis field to keep the contents within protected from the ravages of time. At the center of the stasis chamber, atop a small plinth, Naemi could see the object of her quest. The Rise of Empire, Iterator Soldatta’s greatest work, was a tome the size of a paving stone and engraved with the head of an eagle over crossed thunderbolts.

Naemi began to manipulate the stasis controls though her Logos icon. She could have shut the entire chamber down and retrieved the book, but there was a chance that the Archives might survive the Imperial assault on Scarist and she wanted to keep the accumulated knowledge of the planet safe within the time-warping fields. The entire data-crypt was hardened against attack and she would give it good odds to survive even an orbital lance strike. By adjusting the edges of the field generators in a precise way, she could open a path through the stasis chamber and retrieve the Iterator’s tome without disturbing the rest of the precious objects inside.

The vox channel came alive and she could hear Reddy’s voice whispering, “I’ve got movement out here, chief.”

“Visual?”

“I’ve got mining vehicles and groundcars pullin’ up to the front of the building. They’re packed to burstin’ with some of the meanest characters I ever did see. I think they know we’re here.”

“Pull back to the crypt, we’re almost out of here,” voxed Sorn before giving her a serious look, “Wrap it up, boys. Time for us to go! You too, professor. If you’re gonna grab this thing, it’s got to be now.”

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 3

The first 500 words of this part is the original pitch sample I submitted to BL.  I liked it because it had a good set of action and a splash of character. Ah well.

“Was this part of the plan?” Naemi had to scream to hear herself over the roar of the engines. She was thrown against her harness as they went into a jarring bank to avoid incoming fire.

She couldn’t see Sorn’s face hidden behind the omnishield masks that they all wore, but she could hear the grin on his face as he responded calmly over their voxnet. “Don’t pay heed to stray flak, professor! Think of it like a little rain!”

She couldn’t help but mind it. She and her Hellbat escort were crammed into the troop compartment of a Taurox assault vehicle, which was, in turn, mag-locked to the belly of a Sky Talon lifter. She wasn’t a woman that was inclined to pray outside of ritual obeisance, but as another explosion rattled them, she screwed her eyes closed and tried to remember her orisons. She had the picture of the prayerbook clear in her mind’s eye, but she couldn’t focus on the words.

“Oh Throne, please…”

A small chorus of laughter sounded in her ears. She’d still been transmitting. A groan escaped her.

“Cheer up, professor,” came Abel’s voice, “Reddy here cried like a baby on his first real drop!”

“Tears of joy,” piped Reddy indignantly.

The pilot of their Sky Talon, call sign “Dustman”, crackled over the vox, “Troublemaker, Dustman. Final ready check.”

“This is it, boys and girls!” announced Sorn, slapping a bulkhead rune-switch with the palm of his hand. The crew compartment lit up with sullen red lumen lamps, “Hellbats signal ready!”

“Troublemaker two is go!” Sergeant Alcoin’s voice said and his squad rune turned green on the wristcog dataslate on Naemi’s wrist.

“Troublemaker three is go!”

“Troublemaker four, go!”

Down the line, the Hellbats signaled ready. It was silent for a heartbeat before Naemi realized it was her turn. With an explosive breath, she shouted, “Troublemaker ten, go!”

Sorn’s voice, usually smooth and unhurried, had gained a wild edge to it, “Troublemakers signal green, Dustman. Bring us in!”

“We’re in for some chop, Troublemaker.”

“Rev it up, Caissy! Alcoin, engage the chutes!”

Dustman threw them into a vicious dive towards a network of mining trenches that spiderwebbed out from Scarist Hive. Anti-aircraft fire exploded around them as they weaved. They pulled out of the dive and Naemi was crushed into her harness as they leveled out, meters from the ground.

Corporal Caissy put his foot down and the Taurox came to life. The big engine added its own roar to the cacophony. Alcoin punched several runes on the control console and gave his commander a thumbs-up. The high-speed quad-tracks churned the air as they tore over the landscape under them. Sorn pressed the bulkhead rune-switch again, changing the lumen lamps from red to green.

“Go for drop!”

“Emperor protects, Troublemaker.”

With an lurch, the mag-locks released and the Hellbats let out a warcry. Naemi couldn’t help but join in as they dropped like a stone.

She felt weightless as they plummeted downward, the straps of her harness biting into her shoulders to keep her in her seat. A high-pitched whine shrieked above them as the grav-chutes jury-rigged onto the Taurox’s chassis kicked in, slowing them just enough so they wouldn’t be smashed apart by their landing.

They hit the floor of the mining trench, bouncing with spine-shattering force and skidding tailways before Caissy brought them back on track with a savage twist of the steering wheel. The tracks bit into the loose gravel and they were off, barrelling down the mining trench at speed.

Naemi’s heart hammered in her ears and her breath came in gasps. “Are we on the ground?” she asked over the vox.

“We sure didn’t miss it,” said Sorn, unfastening with his harness. He tapped Aime on the leg and motioned to the top hatch of the Taurox. “I don’t want anything gettin’ near us.”

“Yessir,” he acknowledged and climbed into the gunner’s position to man the double gatling cannon mounted on the roof.

Sorn stood swaying at the front of the transport, one hand steadying him against the roof. He pulled a switch and the armour panels on the viewports retracted, finally giving Naemi a view of their surroundings. They were racing by decrepit out-structures and equipment, long since abandoned. Overhead, the anti-aircraft fire still thundered at the first wave of aerial bombardment, but down in the mining trenches, it was comparatively quiet.

Ahead, the spires and rockcrete of Scarist rose like a malignancy to tower over them in the distance. Crude designs had been painted on the city’s walls in she shape spined serpents that coiled around a star. They bulled through a ramshackle collection of makeshift shelters left behind by the drudges and menials that had toiled in the trenches before they’d risen up against their Imperial masters in the name of the Hallowed Starborn.

“Doesn’t seem anyone’s home. All right, professor, which way?”

Naemi unbuckled herself and poked her head up between Caissy and Alcoin. “There. The entrance to the serviceways are beyond that grate.”

The Taurox slowed, coming to a stop in front of a massive steel grate that barred the way to a dark service tunnel that ran into the bedrock. Huge braces made of scrap metal had been set against the gate by retreating Starborn cultists, barring their way. They’d been dug into the rockcrete of the tunnel and welded in place.

“Somone don’t want us to get in,” said Alcoin.

Lufleur began undoing the clasps on a weapons locker in the floor. She fished out one of the melta bombs she’d brought with her. “Want me to knock, sir?”

“Would you kindly?”

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 2

The two wended their way out of the sprawling command bunker and into the grimy rain of Rescalia. Each drop prickled at her skin and she pulled her coat’s hood up over her head to protect herself from the astringent drops. Sorn seemed unfazed by the weather and continued his sauntering pace down the main thoroughfare of the camp.

The Imperial staging camp was an enormous clearing that sat atop what had once been a mountain, long since mined flat and outside the range of Scarist Hive’s main defensive guns. Armor, aircraft, and troops all bustled about, preparing for the first assault.

“This your first time in the field?” asked Sorn.

“My first time off Terra,” said Naemi, stepping carefully over ruts left in the mud by a heavy Leman Russ battle tank.

“I’d reckon an adepta of the Collegia Afrikasa would be more politic.” He drew out each syllable of ‘politic’ in his slow accent. “Never try to convince an Inquisitor to do somethin’ they don’t want to.”

Naemi found herself frowning at Sorn, who didn’t break stride.

“You read my file, so I read yours.” Sorn raised his left arm, displaying the gauntlet he wore. Inlaid into the armor, a dataslate glowed with her picture and her entire dossier. Sorn scrolled through it with one finger. “Naemi Vandenbergh, daughter of menials who earned her place in the Collegia on Afrik before being scooped up by the Logos Historica Verita in the first induction by the Lord Regent himself. Truly a story to inspire the masses.”

Naemi narrowed her eyes as they walked, wary of the seemingly lackadaisical military man. He gave her a sidelong look, his hands in his pockets. “You’re trying to impress me.”

“How am I doing so far?”

“Not nearly as well as you think.”

Sorn stopped in front of a long barracks that had been constructed from pre-fab panels and ferrocrete. The number nine was stenciled onto the corrugated roller door set into the side.

“Look, Miss Vandenbergh. How often is history made by askin’ permission?”

Naemi gave the colonel an appraising look, considering. One hand idly touched the Logos icon she wore around her neck. Maybe he was right. She knew she could commandeer almost any military asset in the execution of her warrant, within reason. And the Tempestor Prime of the 9th Higaran Hellbats had taken an interest in her case. She shuddered at the thought of Drant’s fury if he were to find out, but the thought of an iterator’s first-hand account of the Great Crusade being lost forever steeled her against fear.

She nodded firmly. “All right. I’ll concede that you may have a point. What I don’t see is what your Hellbats get out of it.”

“I told you, professor. We can help each other. We get you into the Scarist Archives and you’ll help us by using that,” he pointed to the Logos icon she wore, “to open up the data-crypts.”

The icon, in addition to being a symbol of her station, was the vessel for a complex machine spirit that could grant her access to records and reports that were locked behind even the most complex cipher-wards.

“What’s so important in the data-crypts?”

Sorn smirked and shook his head. “Sorry, that ain’t part of the deal.”

“I’m not sure I like going in without all the facts.”

“Well, there’s only three Scions regiments on-planet. Ground pounders won’t get you into the city in one piece and if you think any of the other by-the-books types are willing to take you, then you’re welcome to try. Drant’s got ‘em all whipped into line.”

She raised one eyebrow skeptically. “But not you.”

“We’re a fan of longshots here in the Ninth,” said Sorn with a grin, “You want to get into the Archives and we can get you there.”

Naemi was silent for a time, analyzing her options. “Fine. I’ll get you into the crypts.”

“Excellent!” Sorn smiled and pressed an intervox call button set into the wall of the bunker. A buzzer sounded briefly and the roller door began to crawl upwards. “Welcome to the Hellbats, professor.”

Inside, lumen-globes lit a garage of midnight-blue assault vehicles, cogitator banks, and weapon racks. Soldiers in every state of uniform milled around cleaning weapons, servicing engines, or dozing anywhere their bodies could fit. Overall, Naemi counted at least thirty men and women.

“Look alive, boys and girls. We got ourselves a dance and the music’s startin’.”

The Scions of the Hellbats piled in around their commander, who was shucking off his dress coat. Naemi felt herself taking a step back before mentally chastised herself. It wouldn’t do to show the intimidation she was feeling. Field work meant dealing with rough characters and, by the Throne, did these Hellbats look rough. An older man with a white scar running down his face and neck stepped forward first. He spoke with the same slow drawl that Sorn did.

“She’ll do it, sir?”

“Yes she will, Cal. That means you’ll be leading the Ninth in the main theater itself. I’ll be taking the professor in as planned. Round up your bats and uplink with the belfry, you’ll receive formal orders as soon as.”

The man called Cal gave Sorn a stern look before nodding with a “Yessir” followed by a bellow, “All right, Nines! Fall out and put on your dancin’ shoes. I want to see everyone in full battle rattle by the time the CAG has his birds all gassed up!”

“First squad, on me,” said Sorn.

The majority of the Hellbats broke away at a quick jog, back to their barracks, to find their shoes, Naemi guessed. A few stayed back, looking at their commander expectantly.

“First squad, this is Naemi Vandenbergh, historitor extraordinaire and the whole reason we’re goin’ on this picnic in the first place. Professor, these are the people who will be gettin’ us in and out of Scarist Hive in one piece.”

Sorn went around the small circle of Scions, making the team’s introductions.

Sergeant Alcoin was a man with a dour face and sallow eyes. The strange humor that seemed to infect Sorn was absent in him. Troopers Aime, Leger, and Monpremier nodded and smiled a warm welcome to her before being sent off haul in a small holotank from an outer room.

“The Mercier boys, Abel and Reddy,” motioning towards two young, gawking soldiers with ruddy skin and fair hair. They were the spitting image of each other and, to Naemi’s eyes, very young to be soldiers.

“Best sharpshooter in the Ninth, ma’am,” said one, “my brother’s a close second.”

The other looked indignant, “Not a chance, ma’am. It’s the other way ‘round!”

Sorn raised one hand and continued down the line. A man with sharp features, dark skin, and a mat of scar tissue on the side of his shaved head was introduced as Corporal Caissy.

“Best driver in the Hellbats,” said Sorn proudly, “We ready for action?”

“As ready it’ll ever be, sir. The red priests tried their best with the grav chutes, but they just weren’t meant to hold something this big. There’s a chance they’ll short out if we push ‘em, they says.”

“Then we’ll just have to get in real close, won’t we?”

A woman practically the size of an ogryn with a square face and short-cropped hair touched one finger to her eyebrow as she was introduced. She had an air of jovial aggression about her that shone through her eyes as she gave Naemi an up-and-down look.

“Finally, Syvette Lufleur, our weapons specialist. Think you can kit the professor out?”

“I might have somethin’ that will fit her.”

Sorn clapped his hands together with a light in his eyes. “All right then! Leger, bring up the map on that thing and let’s figure out where we’re goin’ to drop.”

“Map might be a problem, sir,” said Leger, “the belfry says no one’s mapped Scarist Hive in the last two hundred years. S’why Drant is having such a bad go of gettin’ inside the city.”

“Bring up the orbitals, then. We’ll play it by ear.”

Naemi did not like the sound of that. Whatever ‘it’ was, she wasn’t going to leave something as important as this to people who didn’t even know the full layout of Scarist, no matter how skilled of soldiers they were.

“I thought you already had a plan,” said Naemi Her fingers clenched hard around the Logos amulet she wore.

“I do,” said Sorn, crossing his arms and frowned down into the holotank, “but there’s always an element of improvisation to war. That’s a lesson you learn on Higara.”

“Oh no,” Naemi sighed. “I know the city, colonel. Tell me how we want to approach this thing and I can get you a route.”

“Ain’t you from Terra, ma’am?” asked one of the Mercier brothers, punching buttons on the holotank as Leger tried to bring up orbital scans.

“Yes, but the Logos has access to practically every screed, tome, and datasheet in the Imperium. I studied everything I could about this benighted place on my transit from the throneworld. I saw the original foundation documents for Scarist. Every drainage ditch, sewer system, and maintenance tunnel. It’s all up here.” Naemi tapped her temple.

“You’re sure, professor?”

Naemi pulled back her long hair, revealing a cranial sheath that ran up her neck and into her head. “Eidetic memory, colonel. I don’t forget anything.”

Lufleur clapped Naemi on the shoulder and laughed. “See, Abel? That’s what you get with a real education!”

She swallowed hard, but felt a smile creeping onto her face. Things were moving so fast. She’d barely been planetside for three hours and now she was about to be in the midst of the largest Imperial assault in the subsector’s history. She’d checked the numbers. As she was lead away to the armory for her own ‘dancing shoes,' she wondered again if field work really was her calling after all.

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 1

Well, it’s official. Got the rejection letter from Black Library this afternoon, so I can post this story. Disappointing, but not unexpected. Still stings, though. Anyway, this was written before I’d locked in the backstory for Col. Sorn, so he’s got a drawl.

If there was a downside to having a pict-perfect memory, it had to be that Naemi would never forget such a miserable world as Rescalia. She’d arrived on a Munitorum supply ship over the murky ball of a planet and suffered through a jolting descent through acidic rain clouds that streaked her lander’s windows with grime. Despite the sprawling cities that covered much of the hive world’s surface, she’d set down on the flattened top of a mountain that had been strip-mined away, well outside the largest hive on the planet, Scarist. It was from here that the Imperium was going to retake the city.

It was also where she first started to doubt she was cut out for field work. The Master of the Logos himself had asked her personally to make the journey and she’d been so eager to say yes, she hadn’t stopped to think of the enormous headache the whole thing would be. Or the danger she’d be in. She’d jumped at the chance to finally take the step up from scribe to field agent for the Logos Historica Verita and now she was having second thoughts.

Or at least attempting to. It was hard to form a fully coherent train of thought in the face of the collected military might of the subsector. She stood illuminated by the grand holotank at the center of the amphitheater at the heart of the Imperial command bunker. The assembled lords, officers, and warriors of the Imperial forces that were to take back the planet were arrayed around her. She could feel their eyes burning into the back of her head. But it wasn’t the regimental commanders of the Imperial Guard or the stern Sororitas canoness that transfixed her, it was the intense gaze of the Inquisitor that stared down from the command pulpit. He was flanked on either side Astartes warriors clad in black, save for the silver armor of their left arms. The Deathwatch.

“—and it is by holy order of the Lord Regent that I must discharge my duties, my lord. Even now, in this time of war,” Naemi finished, her voice shakier than she had hoped.

Silence reigned in the amphitheater, with only the strange, soft chanting of the Mechanicus priests to fill it. Kaldier Drant, Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos was a spare man in hooded armor. The baleful red glint of his augmetic eye looked down at her from within its shadow.

“I am fighting a war,” his voice was nasal, but filled with the surety of complete authority, “A war against a foe so insidious, so utterly inhuman, as to go beyond your reckoning. And you want me to spare the weapons I must wield to fight this enemy? For what? The words of some bygone philosopher?”

“My lord, Iterator Soldatta is more than just a philosopher! He was a master rhetorician, chronicler, and thinker. It’s the only known copy in the galaxy of his magnum opus Rise of Empire. If the Logos could obtain his work, it would be an invaluable look into the intent of the great men and women during the times right after the Great Here—”

Drant cut Naemi off with a chop of his hand. “Spare me the history lesson, historitor. While you may have the warrant of the Lord Regent, I am charged with the will of the Emperor Himself and the prosecution of his holy war against the alien. Your petition for a contingent of forces for the Logos Historica Verita is denied. Once this war is won and the enemy’s works put to the torch, then you may follow and retrieve any artifacts still intact.”

“My lord, please. If the shelling goes ahead as you’ve laid out, the city’s Archives are sure to be—"

“Enough. I’m ordering the attack to go forward as planned. We will crush these Hallowed Starborn with full might of the Emperor’s wrath. This war council is dismissed.”

The amphitheater was filled with sudden conversation as the gathered military men and women broke up. Drant retreated beyond a pair of blast doors along with his Astartes guard. Naemi stood before the holotank, feeling her neck and cheeks burn. The leather of her dataslate’s cover creaked as she gripped it, white-knuckled. She thought she’d feel tears, but her eyes were dry, replaced with an anger at being dismissed so easily. She grit her teeth and turned, hoping to catch General Laursen of the Imperial Guard before the command staff left. However, she was brought up short by a man that put himself in her path, a crooked smile on his face. He was tall and drawn, like a whippetreed, with dark features that spoke of years under alien suns. He wore a uniform of midnight blue chased with red and brass, plus a crusher cap that he touched the brim of with one finger in the approximation of a salute.

“Historitor?” he spoke in a languid drawl that flowed like sapsyrup. He held out one hand, “Javier Sorn.”

“It’s a pleasure, um...”

He motioned towards the brass eagle embroidered onto his epaulets. “Colonel. Higaran Ninth, ma’am.”

“The Hellbats,” she murmured.

Naemi’s memory flashed back to the pages and pages of force organization she had taken in on her Warp journey. The Higaran Ninth Chiropterans, known as the ‘Hellbats’ in their dossier, were Tempestus Scions of dubious reputation. What reports she’d managed to read had been heavily redacted. Others had been put under seal that she couldn’t break. What she had noticed, however, was a pattern of disciplinary charges attached to their file. An expression flashed across the colonel’s face like heat lightning. She couldn’t tell if it was a grin or a grimace. His blue eyes didn’t give anything away.

“Take a walk with me, professor.”

“I’m not a professor. Well, not anymore. I’m a historitor.”

“I’m aware. I just don’t like bein’ so formal,” he said in that strange unhurried accent. He turned and motioned for her to follow. “I think we might be able to help each other out.”

[scoundrelstars]

League of Traitors

We fight the Long War, not through vain notions of duty and honour, but through a far purer purpose: hatred. --Ferrous Ironclaw, Warsmith of the Iron Warriors

[118.M42]

The tortured thrum of the void engines echoed throughout the Hangman’s Shadow like a heartbeat. Pict-screens shone sullen red, casting the cluttered Workshop in a bloody hue. The vaulted compartment echoed with the sounds of forging metal and agonizing screams blending together in a discordant symphony.

The Workshop was a nightmare combination of fabricator’s shop, surgical suite, and sorcerous library. Mortal men and women were strung up on steel trusses, skin and muscle flayed from their bodies to reveal bones upon which articulated mechanical arms carved blasphemous runes with lascutters. Maulerfiends, unholy amalgams of flesh, fire, and steel were chained to the decking in rows, their balefire hearts banked low. Occasionally, the screams that echoed through the Workshop would flare the daemon-engines to lash out at the mortal slaves who tended them, but they were in no short supply.

The ship lurched suddenly and Halaphus Stein, Warsmith of the Iron Warriors, grimaced as he mangled the exposed brain of the man he had on his table. He was a lord of the IV Legion, but centuries of mechanical adaptation and transplantation had elevated him to something that was so much more. He was clad in armor of gunmetal that shifted and moved with a mind of its own. Cabling and articulated tentacles coiled about him like living things, draping him in an unsettling mechanical cloak.

He’d been in the middle of hard-wiring the unfortunate’s synapses to a delicate, eight-pointed cogitator star that would have fed the brain with an unending stream of crushing dreams so vivid as to be real. Hours of work ruined.. Instead of a powerful testament to the Ruinous Powers’ revelations, he was left with a drooling vegetable. He remained calm; he had left emotion behind in another age. His prostheses, however, had their own reactions. His cloak of mechadentrites lashed out with a rage all their own and hurled the failed experiment across the Workshop, leaving trails of blood and spinal fluid where it streaked across the deck.

Mechanician slaves scattered out of his path as the metahuman warrior retrieved his cruel-looking war axe and stalked out of his lab.

The bridge of the Hangman’s Shadow was a thing of precision horror. Legion serfs, mutated beyond recognition, had become one with the machineries and consoles of the great ship. Distorted faces pressed against the fabric of the bridge’s walls to whisper dark secrets or maddening truths in languages long dead. Dataslate screens, holo-tanks, and auspex displays flickered with leering daemons who were drawn to the ship’s fell presence. Only the chosen of the Dark Gods--or those who had left their humanity behind--could command a glorious amalgam of machinery and warpcraft like the Shadow.

The ship rocked again as Stein came through the bridge doors. Something was hitting the void shields, the Warsmith could feel it.

“Report,” ordered Stein. His voice was a deep, digitized rumble.

Baltarius, Stein’s second, was hunched over the railing of the command pulpit, issuing orders to scurrying slaves, ship’s officers, and stoic Iron Warriors. He was clad in his battleplate, his helm mag-locked to his belt. Stein’s mechatendrils writhed with displeasure at the breach of protocol.

Baltarius saluted with one fist. “Warsmith. The sensorium has picked up a group of unknown ships in-system from the translation point. Initial scans reported they were scrap, but as soon as we began our acceleration burn, they opened fire with long-range ballistics.”

The Warsmith strode to the ship’s command throne and sat, his thrashing cable cloak snaking to interface with the Shadow’s systems. Sensory data flooded his mind and he began to take in the tactical situation. The ship was burning steadily towards Vraesis, the misbegotten star at the center of the system. Stein had expected more Imperial activity, even here in the far reaches of the heliosphere, but sensors picked up nothing. Only the strange foe-signs milling just off the ecliptic of Vraesis V. Auguries and scrying put a heavy Imperial presence in this sector, but so far, there was no sign.

The Iron Warrior continued. “The Tyrant of Enmity and the Bilious Prize, along with their tenders, have powered to full yield and are proceeding at full burn sunward in pursuit.”

“Enemy strength?”

“Unknown, lord. Auspex findings for all active threats read as system debris until they engaged. All active foes have changed course away from pursuing ships.”

Another missile on a ballistic course reached them and exploded in a blaze of nuclear fire. Hangman’s Shadow’s void shields flickered, but held. The plates of Stein’s armor trembled in annoyance as the squirming fleshmetal shifted. The enemy was so far away that the incoming missiles were unpowered by the time they got in close. This made them easy targets for point defense and maneuver, but even so. They were proving to be an exasperating navigational hazard.

He was a master of mechanology and yet he recognized nothing of the readings coming in from the sensorium. The enemy ships were of unknown design, built in ways that defied all logic. A more in-depth study was needed. Preferably when his fleet wasn’t taking fire.

But for now, he needed to reign in the fools racing in-system.

Stein stood, cabling unspooling  from his harness, letting him walk about the bridge while still being plugged into the bridge systems, and took his place on the hololith communion pad at the center of the bridge’s great gallery. He banged the butt of his warcog axe on the deck.

“I want Antaryon and Mortekai. Now.”

The fused vox-slave let out a gurgling acknowledgement and the hololith pad ignited with ghostlight. After a short moment he felt the data handshake through his neural uplink verify the connection to the Tyrant of Enmity and the Bilious Prize. At least those two were still coherent enough to answer their vox.

Ghostly figures appeared as if through mist. Motes of light coalesced in the hololith to form the hulking figures of two massive Astartes.

Antaryon, lord of the Sons of the Butcher, was a towering pillar of fury. The hololith light seemed to dance and burn around him. His battleplate smouldered like black iron out of the forge and he wore a cloak of ragged skin taken from his defeated enemies. He paced, dragging the tip of a savage daemon blade across the deck of his bridge, leaving furrows of tortured metal. Stein’s tendrils recoiled in disgust, but the Warsmith himself showed no reaction to the wanton destruction of his ancient voidship.

In contrast to the Khornate lord’s impatience, Mortekai of the Mouldering Claw, was a languid presence, wholly unperturbed by the sudden summons of the nominal master of the the entire raiding force. The hololith motes danced around his projection like flies. His green Terminator plate was distended and cracked, Bilious fluid leaked from the joints and rotten flesh spilled from rents in the once-proud armor. His enormous bulk was carried by a horde of gibbering daemons that shouted and gamboled around him. The lord of contagion picked at the rusted surface of a cruel axe that rested across his swollen gut.

“Stein,” Antaryon spat, “what could you possibly want now?”

The insubordination would have rankled ordinary men, but Stein let it pass him by.

“Return to formation,” he said, “Sensorium readings do not support this course of action. Caution is required. Enemy strength is unknown.”

“Caution is cowardice and I do not follow cowards,” growled Antaryon, “This foe is mine. I’ll offer their skulls to the throne and yours too if you get in my way.”

“So impatient!” chortled Mortekai. He spoke like he had fluid in the lungs and the nurglings that held him jeered and echoed his words, “I must say that I am eager as well. We don’t want to let the enemy die without the seven blessings.”

“There is an asteroid belt between the fourth and fifth planet. Enemy ships appear as dormant debris. Calculations point to an ambush there.”

“I do not need a lecture on how to wage war from a glorified servitor. Nor will I be taken by surprise by Imperium dogs. There’s nothing in this system that could pose a threat to the Tyrant.”

Stein contemplated letting both of his “subordinate” warbands rush to their death. Would the Despoiler praise his foresight or punish his wastefulness? Losing two complements of Astartes warriors could be a black mark against him.

His contemplations were cut short by his vox-slave’s pained announcement of an incoming message.

“It is from the fourth planet, my lord. Enemy transmission!”

“Main viewer,” said Stein, “We shall see the face of our enemy, my lords.”

On the bridge’s massive pict-plate, the image of an Ork of truly massive size fuzzed into view. It sat upon a throne of scrap, weapons, and crude effigies atop a plateau of alien green stone. Crackling emerald energy danced in crystaplas bottles that were tended by smaller orks in white coats and set into carved alcoves within the stone. The sky was clouded by the exhaust of a legion of orkish vehicles idling below the throne dais.

“Well, well, well,” grumbles the Ork, “wot ‘ave we ‘ere? Puny ‘umies makin’ their way inta Warrakka’s system? S’been a long while since we fought any ‘umies!”

The image resolved even further and Stein was able to make out the truly incomprehensible armor in which the Ork was clad. Stacks belched black smoke and crude hydraulics powered a savage pincer claw that looked like it could cut an Astartes in half with ease. Muscles bulged beneath leathery green skin and red eyes flashed with brutal cunning.

“You’m be in my sights now!” it bellowed, stomping on one of the grots that was scampering around the scrap throne, “You’m be eager for a fight! But don’t go tryin’ ta be sneaky! Only Orkses can be sneaky! SHOW ‘EM BOYS!”

Threat warnings lit up the sensorium as the Ork Warboss’s order burned like fire through the system. The entire asteroid belt seemed to light with red foe-sign as dorman ships came online at the huge Ork’s word. Antaryon’s ship was barreling straight into what looked like an asteroid fortress bristling with ship-killer weapons.

A savage smile split Antaryon’s face. “This is more like it! Weapons to power! Bring reactor up to maximum yield!”

Stein dismissed the holo-ghost of the Khornate lord and went back to studying the Ork’s ferocious countenance. All along his body, strange electrodes were burrowed into his flesh. Arcs of emerald power crackled from the strange electro-bottles that surrounded the dais. The white-coated orks that scuttled around the ramshackle machinery started gibbering excitedly. Their boss’s ire was up.

“We’ll kill ya just like da other ‘umies! We gots da Horderock! FIGHT DA WAAAGH AND DIE LIKE DA REST! I’M DA BIGGEST, BADDEST WARBOSS AND YOU BOYS ARE GONNA FIND OUT!”

All around Warakka, his minions were dramatically throwing switches on their machines with great showers of sparks. More green lightning streaked and cracked, rending deep furrows into the dais. Most was drawn to the electrodes in Warrakka’s flesh and he bellowed as the power coursed through him. Muscles bulged and grew as the energy danced into him. The chords in his neck strained as the Warboss hunched over in pain.

The machines sputtered and started to explode, causing the Orks to start jabbering excitedly. Warrakka howled as he grabbed his vox-caster and started laughing. It seemed to Stein that the Orks eyes were looking through the vox and right at him. His tendrils thrashed with excitement.

“You think you gots what it takes, ‘umies?” he growled and crushed the caster in one massive hand. The vox went dead.

Stein turned to Mortekai, who was watching bemused through the hololith. “Make sure Antaryon doesn’t get himself killed. It seems the Orks have our warpstone.”

[scoundrelstars]

BECOMING, Part 4

<<Previous

[108.M42]

She was floating, as if submerged in dark water. She couldn’t see anything past arm’s reach. Her entire body was numb and weightless. She tried to moving herself, but the motion was slow. Casting about, she searched for anything to fix her senses on.

“She’s young. Younger than when I took the Oath.”

A voice came from all around her, welling up from the darkness in a rush of echoes. It was strong and sure of itself. Esperanza could hear the grin on the speaker’s face.

“That’s the fashion now,” said a second voice. A placid tone. In control. “Enemies at the gates, you know.”

A third voice, high and sweet, echoed around her, but took on a distinct direction this time. “Let me see you, girl.”

A touch grazed Esperanza’s shoulder, making her jump. A figure of light coalesced into the shape of a woman, appearing before her and holding her out at arms length. She was smiling at Esperanza and giving her a look up and down like an aunt that hadn’t seen their niece in years.

The woman was the very picture of a Teliodes Grandee. Self-assured and possessed of a confidence that shone from bright blue eyes, the Knight commanded attention. She wore a flowing gown of midnight blue shimmersilk that incorporated a bronze armored corset filigreed and engraved to exquisite quality. More armor was sewn into the skirt of the dress, like tassets in a suit of plate.

Esperanza’s gaze was drawn to the scars that ran up her arms in jagged wounds. Similar scars had been ripped into one side of her neck and down into her chest. They stood out stark white against the bronze of her skin.

She smiled. “Esperanza.”

“You know me?” Esper asked, her mind recovering from the shock of the woman’s appearance.

“Of course. Through the Throne we can know a great many things.”

“A ghost…”

“A crude understanding, I suppose, but for our purposes yes. Do you know me, child?”

“You’re the Cavallera. Lady Melassa,” said Esperanza. She tried to do her best court bow, but it was like she was underwater. Still, she sketched a clumsy bow as best as she was able. “Gatekeeper during the Defense of Camarinas.”

Melassa’s smile turned rueful. She reached up a hand and touched Esperanza’s cheek with her palm. “You studied the lineage scrolls at the very least. But a Knight is more than a bloodline. It’s the honor that comes with it,” she said and sighed, “I’m sorry for this, Esperanza.”

Looking deep into those bright eyes, Esper could see the regret there, but there was a hardness to them that couldn’t be denied.

“Sorry for wh—”

Pain, searing and all-consuming, flowered out from behind her eyes. Esperanza’s world went white as she screamed. She collapsed to her knees, hard ground coming up to meet her. Fingers clawed at the skin of her face and her cries echoed around the empty void.

She couldn’t think, couldn’t feel. The agony robbed her of all sense of place in the world. All was pain.

Gradually, the pain lessened, and she was left panting and incoherent. She tried to move her arms, but found they were too heavy to lift. An incessant sound, like a warning klaxon, was buzzing I her ear. She opened one eye, trying to see what it was, but found a very different scene from the one she had just left.

She was clad in a suit of Knight armor and stood at the main gate of the fortress of Camarinas, but all around, the great city crumbled. Acrid smoke rose into the air from fires left burning and the sky hung low with dark, menacing clouds. Screaming filled her ears, guttural sounds that roared from thousands of throats. It rose and fell in a dizzying chant punctuated by the roaring of crude engines.

Esperanza turned, and saw, stretching out over the plains, a green tide. Crazed Orks leapt over burnt-out husks of main battle tanks and troop carriers. The clawed feet of scrap-metal walkers ground corpses of men and women into the dust of what had once been rolling golden fields.

They stormed towards her, most on foot, but some in ramshackle ground vehicles made from the scrounged-up scraps of groundcars, tanks, and other materiel they’d looted from all over the planet. The smokestacks of savage walkers belched smoke and sparks. The ground quaked with tread of the sheer number of them.

From behind her, the fortress’s guns opened fire with a roll of thunder. Large-bore guns trained their sights on the tide of junk-metal that was shambling towards them. Explosions blossomed like incandescent flowers as they were blown apart and their fuel reserves detonated.

The first of the Orkish walkers reached the base of the causeway ramp that led up to the massive main gates of Camarinas. Esperanza felt her left hand raise, pointing a hand towards the closest. She clenched her fist and unleashed a chattering barrage from the Avenger gatling cannon.

Armor-piercing rounds tore into the Orkish walker, rending gaping holes, sending shrapnel flying, and green blood spraying. The munition hold was hit and blew the walker apart in a deadly storm of steel splinters and burning fuel.

Her shoulder-mounted pintle stubber sent a rushing group of greenskins scampering for cover, leaving six of their number bleeding in the dirt. Esper took a powerful step forward, her Reaper chainblade revving as she drew down on another walker.

For hours, it seemed that she held the causeway. The fingers of her left hand burned with the overheating barrels of the gatling cannon, her right cramped from the jam in her blade, caught on shards of steel. She cycled the blade, using the Reaper’s furious powerplant to clear the teeth.

A triple-blow of impacts hit her, causing her to stagger in the armor. Damage runes flashed on her hololithic displays, angry red warnings over the shoulder and back. She turned, bringing her ion shield to bear against this new threat, but nearly caught her breath.

Shambling towards the causeway was the biggest construct of Orkish engineering she’d ever seen. Crude by the artistry of her own Knightly armor, it was nevertheless a behemoth of impressive size. It was a machine that crackled with thunder and belched fire. A distended armored belly crawled with a horde of Orks all jeering for blood. It did not look to be an agile thing. Each of its steps cracked stone and left crushed bodies in footprints, but it was an ungainly amalgam of stolen parts, guns, and Orkish mechanical revelry. The greenskins called it a Gorkanaut. A foul avatar of their xenos gods.

It brought one of its arms around and Esperanza saw the rotating barrels of its cannons start to spin. With a swipe of her controls, she interposed her ion shield. A rain of lead hammered against the shield in an unending torrent. Her shield bucked and juddered under the onslaught, but her readouts told her it wouldn’t hold.

She had to do something. With a scream, she pushed forward, step by step. Missiles spat from the tubes on the walker’s back and exploded all around her, cratering the causeway. Pushing farther and farther, she brought her own cannon to bear.

The barrels cycled and spat fire. Esperanza grit her teeth as the ammo counter dropped low. AP shells caromed off the Gorkanaut’s thick steel and fizzled against an energy field projected from the generator on the thing’s back. Her counter reached zero and her gun fell silent. It would be a matter of close-in blade work now.

Metal screeched and engines roared as the two giants clashed. Her Reaper blade bit deep into the belly of the Ork behemoth, but the walker’s power claw latched onto her pauldron and sheared it off with a howl of ripping adamantium and cracking ceramite.

Esper’s hand cramped. The Reaper blade was stuck. The Orks riding in the walker’s stomach where she’d hit began to storm out. She could feel hands ripping and tearing with crude blades at her arms. With a titanic effort, she pulled her chainblade free and shook herself to throw any greenskins off her carapace. She revved the blade and cleared it again, ejecting steel dust, bone shards, and green gore.

The Ork mob swarmed her again and she unloaded with the heavy stubber and spit fire with her underslung flamer. Orks screamed as they died, but still rushed on. The Gorkanaut brought its claw in for another swing, but Esper brought her cannon arm up to intercept. The claw cut deep and grabbed hold, wrenching the entire assembly downward. With the groan of shearing metal, the gatling cannon was ripped from her body and tossed aside. Esperanza screamed as pain flared up her left arm.

In rage, she charged into the walker. Orks were trampled under the Knight’s feet and armor crunched as the two behemoths met again. The walker’s cannons fired at point blank range. Shells ripped into her suit’s undercarriage, taking a terrible toll on the Knight of House Teliodes, but Esperanza didn’t care. She led with her Reaper blade, thrusting forward to chew into the walker’s leering head.

Her chainblade bit deep and she cried out as she put every fiber of herself into the cut. Her powerplant flared and the blade’s engine roared as adamantium teeth tore through armor, cables, ammo stores, and into the Gorkanaut’s burning heart.

Warning’s blared in her cockpit and sigils flashed across the screen warning her of the huge fist coming in. The Ork walker’s massive claw hammered into the vulnerable underside of her armor where her arm had been ripped away. Power fields crackled and hydraulics whined as the claw tore into critical systems.

Esperanza’s vision, her actual vision, not her auspex inputs, was blinded as daylight lanced into the cockpit as the claw found its way to the very heart of her armor. She screamed and tried to turn away, but the Gorkanaut held tight, even in its death throes. Knowing that she couldn’t get away, she plunged her own blade deeper into the Ork walker’s heart. It would die with her.

Esper gasped for air as her eyes snapped open. A hand pushed down on her chest as she tried to bolt upright. Her breath came in panicked gasps and she searched frantically around. She was back in the void, on her back, with Melassa leaning over her.

“Shh, shh, shh,” Melassa soothed, “You’re all right.”

“M-Melassa…” Esperanza could feel tears streak down her cheek as she looked up into the Knight’s sorrowful face, “I died…”

The Cavallera shook her head. “No. I died.”

“Th-that was y-you?”

“You are me and I am you. That’s how it is when you pilot the armor. We are all a part of you.” Melassa looked up and another woman knelt down on the other side of Esperanza.

She was lithe and strong, with uncharacteristically blonde hair cropped short. She wore a fur-trimmed flight jacket like those of the family armsmen. Teliodes eyes looked down at Esper with the same hard sorrow as Melassa had.

The Cavallera’s mouth pursed into a tight line and nodded to the other woman.

“Sabrona.”

Esperanza’s frayed thoughts managed to weave themselves back together enough for her to recall Lady Sabrona, the most recent pilot of this Throne. She’d been known as the Lioness of Lariat, heroine of Molvex V.

Sabrona put her hands on Esperanza’s face, cupping her cheeks with warm palms.

“Do you have anyone to live for?” she asked. Sabrona’s voice was a raspy contralto.

“Mother and father, my brothers and sisters, family…” Esperanza said haltingly. It took everything not to flinch away from Sabrona’s touch.

“Family is worth dying for, but who is worth living for?”

Around her she could sense the presence of countless women, each watching the one who would join their ranks. Esper squeezed her eyes tight, more tears falling down her cheeks as her body shuddered in the aftermath of her death. “Javi…”

Sabrona nodded sympathetically, “The low-born boy. A pure, young love,” she mused, “One of the most Knightly of ideals. Hold onto that, Esperanza. Hold on and it will see you through.”

“S-Sabrona, please,” Esperanza didn’t even know what she was pleading for.

“I’m sorry,” said Sabrona.

The white-hot pain seared through Esperanza once more, sending her to another battlefield and another death.

[scoundrelstars]

BECOMING, Part 3

<<Previous Next>>

[108.M42]

The huge compass rose platform descended into the depths of the fortress’s foundation with a mechanical groan. The cheering of the crowd and the exultant horn blasts of the Knight armors followed them, echoing around the metal shaft. Blast doors ground into place above Esperanza, shutting the sound away and leaving only silence to hang between the four solicitants.

She sighed, pulling back the hood of her cloak. “All right, Vel?”

Veldtren Agon, firstborn of House Agon, was a spare girl of an age with Esperanza. Her red hair was coiffed into a chin-length bob that framed a face of pale skin gone slightly green with nerves. She clutched the edges of her cream-colored cloak with white-knuckled fingers. And though she wasn’t outright shaking, the girl looked about as frightened as Esper felt.

“I’m okay,” she said. Her voice was small and high-pitched, but, to her credit, it didn’t quaver. “I just want to get this over with.”

House Agon was relatively new on Higara, having earned their land and title only one generation earlier when Veldtren’s father had ridden to the aid of the Grand Duke against a thousand-legged serpent of living metal on the dead world of Scoriax. They had four armor suits to their name and only two pilots. There was a lot of pressure on a solicitant, but Vel was carrying the propagation of the House on her shoulders. And with Throne acceptance rates as low as they were… The leaden weight of dread in the pit of Esperanza’s stomach grew that much heavier.

“Get this over with? Ha! Spoken like a true pretender!”

Stensa Ursline had taken off her carved mask and flexing her hands as if preparing for a fistfight. She was big, built like a tank with the muscles to match. She had forgone any pretense of following captial trends and had adopted pure utilitarianism. Close-cropped hair, sleeveless tunic, and steel-shot combat boots. The House of Ursline were brutes and Stensa Ursline was no exception. Esperanza was convinced there was an Ogryn in her family tree.

Stensa strode over to the other two girls and folded muscular arms across her chest, a sneer on her face.

“They’ll be scraping you off your Throne, Agon.”

Veldtren quailed, but Esperanza stepped between them, her temper flaring.

“Back off, Ursline. We’re all about to risk our lives and you want to start some petty House groxshit?”

“Yeah? I just want to be sure I don’t have some soft upstart getting in my way down in the crater fields,” said Stensa, she leaned forward, getting into Esper’s face, “There’s actual danger down there. Not that a ‘quater baby like you would know anything about that.”

Esperanza’s face flushed with rage and her hands balled into fists. “Keep talking and you won’t even make it to the Chamber of Echoes.”

From behind Stensa, Coran Al-Sabir put one arm in between them. He hadn’t bothered to remove his mirrorsilk veil, but apparently he could see well enough to try and separate the two fuming young women.

He was lightsome and strong, as was typical of the Knights of House Al-Sabir. Long hunts through the northern jungles tracking all manner of megafauna that dwelled beneath the impenetrable canopy served to make nobles that were cool under pressure. Coran’s voice was placid, but Esperanza could sense the tension in his body.

“My ladies, can we save this until after the Becoming? I don’t want to have to call medicae down here. That will only cast a pall over all of our names.”

Veldtren put a hand on Esperanza’s arm, trying to pull her away, “Esper, please.”

Stensa broke away first with a snide grin. “Fine by me. I’ve got bigger things to worry about than some pretender House thinking they can make it through the Oath.”

Coran sighed and Esper let her anger flow out of her with a breath. The sudden flash of rage had replaced the gnawing fear that had ridden in her gut, but it was back as soon as the anger had passed. Veldtren’s hands were shaking on her arm, but she was looking determinedly towards the walls passing by them as the platform descended.

“Look,” she said, “there’s something there...” Veldtren reached out with one hand to touch the slow-moving lift shaft. Her hand recoiled as she recognized what it was. Esperanza grimaced. She knew what they were. Her mother had told her when she’d been preparing her daughter to face the trial ahead.

Names. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Each one intricately carved with care by the Sacristans who toiled daily in the Chamber of Echoes, keeping the sacred archeotech of the Thrones Mechanicum functioning. Though Higara didn’t acknowledge solicitants who never emerged from the Chamber, the Chamber of Echoes never forgot. Each name was a mark of shame and a mark of honor. Despite failing to accept the Oath, those that died had the courage to try.

Esperanza wondered if her name would be carved into this wall. She decided that she wouldn’t be looking for any Teliodes. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know how many of her family hadn’t made it through the Becoming.

A wide set of blast doors emblazoned with Higara’s planetary crest over the Imperial Aquila came into view. The platform lurched and came to a halt with the whine of hydraulics. The doors opened with the grinding of ancient machinery and the protestation of metal. A low cloud of sweet incense seeped from the room beyond as the doors opened.

The four solicitants emerged into a chamber of  black stone cut into the foundation of Camarinas itself. It was the shape of a long hall, with bays that stretched off into darkness, each containing a single Throne. Few glowglobes lit the Chamber and the status runes and readouts from each Throne Mechanicum cast the whole place in a fey light. Sacristans clad in red moved placidly through the rows of the ancient technology, chanting the canticles of activation and swinging thuribles that trailed white smoke.

They stepped up onto a vestibule where four of the hooded Sacristans awaited them. She recognized Amulus D’este, House Teliodes’ High Sacristan, standing with his arms in his voluminous red sleeves. Beneath the robes, he was hunched and wizened, with most of his extremities having been replaced by cybernetics long ago. And despite being an adept in the orders of the Genetor, he had replaced his eyes with augmetics once they’d begun to fail him. The old Sacristan had served the Teliodes family for generations, repairing both the Knight suits and the Knight scions as they were sundered in service to the Imperium.

Each of them presented themselves to their respective Sacristans and were led away into the maze of Throne bays. Amulus gave no sign of encouragement or word of caution as he led her to the section of the Chamber that stood below the great Teliodes banner hanging from the ceiling. Esperanza had known the man since she’d been a nursling, but he was difficult to read at the best of times. Now, the man’s face was solemn as he spoke.

“Honored lady,” he said, his voice filtered through the vox-box in his throat, “before you lies the legacy of House Teliodes. Within one of these sacred Thrones, you shall find your destiny or your doom. Choose carefully.”

D’este swept an augmetic arm across the twelve Thrones Mechanicum that belonged to her House. Esperanza took a tentative step towards them before turning back to Amulus.

“How do I know which one to choose?”

D’este bowed low, the red robe of his station stretching across the strange metal ribs of his back. “That is part of the test, my lady.”

Doing her best to ignore the knot in her gut, Esperanza nodded and stepped amongst the Thrones. They were low, pod-like constructs of shining metal and wire, with a reclined seat set into the center of each one for a pilot. At the base of the head cushion, she caught the glint of the neural spike that would connect her with the Throne’s systems. Runes of blue and red winked at her in the gloom of the Chamber, alternating to some ancient signal known only to the secretive Sacristans.

She wandered through the Thrones, touching each one with tentative fingers. She hoped one of them would call out to her, make itself plain. Choose me! it would cry. But nothing so obvious was forthcoming from the cold metal.

Beside each Throne, the honor roll of previous pilots waited atop stone pedestals. Perhaps here was where she would find her inspiration. Reverently, she chose the nearest to her and unfurled the scroll. The list of names read like a grand tale of heroism. Knights, where they served, where they fell, the foes they fought. These were the ghosts that lived on inside the Throne Mechanicum. She re-furled the honor roll and moved onto the next. The story was much the same. Esperanza was in awe of the men and women who had rode before her and lived on in these ancient devices.

It wasn’t until she’d reached the seventh of the twelve Thrones did the words leap off the page. House Teliodes had always been one of absolute primogeniture. Son or daughter, it was the firstborn who was destined to lead the House. However, the Throne Mechanicum was a fickle machine and it was known that some only accepted male or female solicitants. Esperanza scanned the honor roll and it read like the greatest women in House legend.

Lady Sabrona Teliodes, High Shield of the Molvex campaigns. Contessa Jolianne Teliodes, who fought the hell-forged engines of the traitor uprising of Scorra III. Cavallera Melassa Teliodes, Gatekeeper who defended the Camarinas keep against the WAAAGH! of Mondrakka Fyagutz for three days before falling against the scrap-heap machines of the greenskins. Esperanza scrolled further until she found what she knew would be at the very beginning of the roll.

Despite the stasis fields that preserved each scroll, the ink was faded, barely legible and written in the most archaic High Gothic she’d ever encountered:

Dame Raquel Teliodes - Fell’d at the reclaymacyon of Molech agaynst the traytor House Daevine. Didst heroycally lay downe her lyfe for the defense of Seuitonius Thucidides Terryn.

She breathed in sharply. This was it, Dame Raquel’s own Throne. Or, at least what was left of it. The thing had probably been rebuilt by the Sacristans so many times that none of the original parts were even left from the time when Raquel had earned her title. She could almost feel herself being drawn to the thought like a physical pull. Was it hubris to try to claim Raquel’s Throne? Her hand reached out and touched the metal around the lip of the pod, worn to a shine by countless hands.

No, she was a Teliodes. If the ghost of Dame Raquel found her wanting, then she’d know for certain it was true. She climbed in.

Esper settled herself into the gel-padded seat. It was reclined enough so that she was looking at the vaulted roof of the Chamber and it cradled her in hapto-reactive controls. The Throne Mechanicum whirred to life, red lumens around the rim bathing her in their soft glow as the machine powered up. Hololith panels flickered to life and slid into place around her and control sheathes attached themselves to her gauntlets and greaves. Articulated data leads snaked from the sides of the pod and connected to the dataports at her shoulders, elbows, and knees, sending a wave of feedback through the electro-reactive mesh of her bodyglove.

It was like being in the center of a holo-tank. Displays and readouts were projected all around her in constructs of light. She raised one hand and saw that her gauntlet was haloed in datafeeds and touch controls.

Directly in front of her face, the main display flashed to life with the words “ALIGN FOR UPLINK” in crimson. A cross-shaped reticule appeared below the words and Esperanza moved her head to look at it. It moved around the display until it brought itself to the center of the projection, perfectly above her face. She wondered at it, but the cross flickered into a green circle.

Without any more warning, the neural spike at the base of her headrest shot forward into her skull.

[scoundrelstars]

Herald of Woe

“Carry me not away, for I see the light of the Emperor.

Hold me not back, for His strength fills my limbs.

Break not my spirit, for faith’s fire burns in my Soul.”

- Confessor Senco Jastonne, “Exhortation of the Steppe“

[121.M42]

The Archbasilica of St Serenna stood like a fortress, the stark white stone shining like a beacon against the gray winter sky. Standing tall at the apex of the dome, the saint smiled down, cast bronze with one hand outstretched to the masses that thronged the St Serenna’s Square far below and the other holding the grand sword of the Imperium to her breast.

The shrine’s fortress complex stood vigil on the cliffs above the hive of  Honsharl, the saint watching over the teeming masses that packed the Square. They rose to their feet and fell to their knees as one, in time with the fiery sermon of the Confessors standing upon the pulpit, every word broadcast by the laud-hailers to the thousands that packed Serenna’s Square and the millions throughout the hive.

Javier Sorn watched through the stained glass of the Shrine of the Resplendent Heart, far above the Square. The Archbasilica was peppered with small shrines dedicated to Imperial saints that looked down upon their supplicants who prayed at their feet. The booming exhortations of the preachers far below barely a murmur through the thick white stone. Silence hung heavy in the air, thick with incense from the censers burning at the base of the statue of Saint Katherine. Whispered prayers echoed down the long hall of the shrine.

Below, the preachers shouted and gesticulated, their sermon moving the masses to fervor. Inside the shrine, however, there was a deeper, more personal prayer. A type of prayer that made Javier vaguely uncomfortable being a party to. As if he were intruding into a personal conversation. At the saint’s feet, Emmaline, Canoness of the Order of Our Martyred Lady, knelt, her head bowed, her lips moving in prayer. Her fingers counting the beads of her Rosarius as she completed each litany.

Javier stoically looked away out the window, the stained glass turning the massed crowd below a myriad of colors. Years of military service let him stand without fidgeting, his crusher cap under one arm and the other held behind his back at ease. If there was one thing that a Guardsman knew how to do, it was wait.

A rustle of fabric announced the end of Emmaline’s prayer. The Canoness stood, bringing her lips to the Rosarius before slipping it beneath the collar of  her crimson battle habit. She was tall, practically of a height with Javier in his jackboots, and her frame was lithe and strong. Her face was framed by a mane of thick brown hair that spilled over her shoulders, but it was lined with stress and scarred by a cut that started at the hairline and ended on her right cheek. She turned from Katherine’s statue and sighed.

She greeted him, her voice cool on the stones of the shrine, “Colonel.”

Javier came to attention before giving Emmaline a small bow, “Canoness.”

She held out a hand, her scarred face breaking into a smile, “Javier, it’s been too long.”

“Two years,” said Javier, clasping her hand in his, a grin coming across his own face.

Emmaline placed her hands on his shoulders, holding him out at arm’s-length and giving him a once-over. “And already with the Colonel’s stars. Either the brass is getting smarter or more foolish.”

“You can never tell which,” said Javier, “that’s the secret to command.”

The Battle Sister laughed and let him lead the way out of the shrine. The ancient doors squealed on their hinges, but they opened out onto a tall, marble hallway that shone in the sunlight filtering in through rows of stained glass arch windows.

“I’m about to go to drill,” Emmaline said, her long legs keeping stride with Sorn, “Will you join me?”

Javier held out a hand, “Lead on.”

The two wound their way through the Archbasilica, descending towards the ground level. They passed rooms of children taking lessons from stern priests and sanctuaries awaft in sweet incense. All the while, the words of the preachers grew ever louder.

“How long have you been dirt-side?” asked Emmaline.

“We made planetfall just before morning over Honsharl,” said Javier.

“Some of the novices claimed they saw shooting stars just before daybreak.” “Dropships, more like. Reentry heating. We’ve set up camp at the aerodrome.”

Glow-globes slowly replaced the natural sunlight as the two made their way deeper into the basilica’s fortress complex. The Canoness stopped before a set of reinforced steel doors and held out her hand to the panel that stuck out from one side. With a squeal of binary machine-speak, the great doors slid apart with the groan of hydraulics.

Inside, Javier was greeted by smell of sweat and more incense. The room was long and reinforced, with cloth banners bearing a cross topped with a skull, the insignia of the Order of Our Martyred Lady. Rows of  empty black power armor stood suspended in maintenance and donning bays with red-robed techpriests scurrying between them. At the far end of the hall, Javier saw a table of the signature red boltguns of the Order in various stages of disassembly and cleaning. Throughout the hall, Battle Sisters worked or prayed, each trained eye noticing their Canoness and the midnight-uniformed man that accompanied her.

Emmaline made her way through the rows of armor, Javier trailing behind. He tried not to notice the whispers that followed him through the door to the Canoness’s private chambers. Her room was well-kept, if spartan. A spare bed and washbasin occupied one corner while her personal shrine dominated the other. A desk jutted from the wall, made of the same white stone that seemed common in the basilica. She sat behind it in a straight-backed Somwood chair, motioning for Javier to take one of the two opposite her.

“How bad is it?” asked Emmaline. She idly activated the cogitators hidden in the desk and a brass panel slid back to reveal a pict screen. “They don’t send Guard regiments to shrine worlds without reason.”

Javier scowled, pulling off his black leather gloves and laying them inside his hat on the seat next to his.

“Command doesn’t know. Astropathic intelligence had a read on a strange signal coming from the system and brass redirected my regiment here.”

“Psykers,” Emmaline spat the word.

“Not this time. The Scourge,” he pointed upwards, indicating the warship that had entered orbit hours before, “picked up strange readings outsystem. A massive signature headed on an intercept with Iscarion.”

“Kinetic bombardment?” Emmaline asked, her brows knitting together.

“It’s too big. On top of that, the astropathic choir aboard the Scourge has been sent into seizures from the sheer presence of the thing. At the same time, Lord Captain Clemente intercepted this.”

Javier reached into his pocket and produced a datastick. He handed it to Emmaline who inserted it into the desk’s cogitators. The pict screen showed static before resolving into a distorted vid feed from a servo-skull’s ocular recorders . A beady eye was looking directly into the camera and stubby fingers pried at the housing around the lens. Javier caught glimpses of greenish skin and yellowing teeth longer than his fingers. Bestial grunting came from the thing as it put the servo-skull into its mouth. There was a loud slap, like a hammer hitting meat, and the camera fell to the ground with a clatter. Sounds of a pitched fight with guttural shouts and and the whine of hydraulics was followed by the sound of cracking bone and spraying blood.

The pict shook and was lifted into to the air, face to face with the largest Ork Javier had ever seen. Even the normally unflappable Emmaline put fingers over her mouth. It was a huge, hulking thing like none Javier had ever witnessed before. Slabs of muscle strained against the leathery, green skin. Bandoliers of ammunition of every discernable type were draped over his hulking frame and he had strapped sheets of metal to himself in crude armor. Chitinous plates had been bolted to the armor in several places and he wore the skulls of xenos around his neck and a pair of especially large ones had been fastened around his shoulders like pauldrons. The Ork looked into the camera and smiled.

“Dis bain’t no humie head! Dis be one o’ dem floaty ones!” it’s voice boomed inside the massive barrel chest.

There was scraping and shaking as the huge Ork found a resting spot for the servo-skull. Beneath a hodge-podge of glaring lights and burning braziers, a makeshift throne had been constructed on a scrap-metal dais. Orkish sigils and effigy burned around the throne. The Ork stomped back into frame, dragging what looked to be the mangled corpse of the servo-skull’s previous owner in a mammoth mechanical claw that he wore over one massive arm. Smoke belched from the exhaust of the claw as the Ork threw the body at the foot of his throne. He mounted the dais and turned to face the servo-skull’s camera. Behind him, more Orks loomed. Each held a pole with different pennant printed on crudely stitched leather of xenos origin.

“Roight! I be Warboss of this ‘ere rock! Name’s Gurdraka Skullkrumpa and I be bigger an’ badder than any Ork or bugboy ‘ere! You fink you can beat me? Come an’ FIGHT!” Skullkrumpa smashed the claw into the arm of his scrap metal throne, sending shrapnel zinging away, “I be callin’ all Orkses to fight! Dis here rockship’s gonna take us and smash us right into the humies! Join up, squig-brains! I BE CALLIN’ DA WAAAGH!!!”

With a mighty heave, he lifted the remains of his throne and hurled it at the camera, cutting the feed.

“Light of the Emperor,” Emmaline breathed, “a space hulk.”

“Early projections put the hulk at over two thousand megatonnes,”  said Javier as the pict-screen changed to a system-wide projection, the star Caro in the middle and the planets following orbits. Blue blips showed in-system traffic and an aquila marked Scourge’s position in Iscarion orbit. Past the outermost planets, a mote labelled “UNKNOWN OBJECT” pulsed sullen red.

Emmaline touched the blip and the projected course traced itself in red through the system to intercept Iscarion. Information on velocity, mass, volume, and every other statistic the augurs could divine scrolled down the side of the screen in red text. Next to the arcing orbital tracer, a time-to-intercept counted down.

“Five days,” said Emmaline, her face hardening, “Will the Scourge make a stand?”

Javier grimaced, “She’s a cruiser, not a battleship. And even if she weren’t, it would take a salvo of Nova Cannons to destroy the hulk entirely.”

“So she won’t engage?”

“If the hulk has no drive power, the Lord Captain will attempt kinetic bombardment at range in hopes of breaking the hulk apart before it reaches Iscarion.”

Emmaline looked Javier in the face, reading his expression, “What worries you?”

“I’m no voidman, but it just sounds like the hulk will come down in fragments rather than in one piece. Like shrapnel. And if it’s crawling with greenskins, that will make my job that much harder. Not to mention whatever else is on that hulk.”

“You think there’s more besides the Orks?” asked Emmaline, looking at Javier over twined fingers with furrowed brows. Javier was reminded of his Progenium schoolmistresses. Grilling each student until they received the answer they were looking for.

“Look at what the greenskins are wearing. Skulls and skins like none I’ve ever seen. Bones and chitin adorn whatever weapons they wield. And no sanctioned psyker I’ve fought with has been affected so strongly during any campaign I’ve served against the Orks. They’ve been fighting something on that hulk and I’m not eager to find out what.”

“Why come to me with this?”

“Only two regiments were aboard the Scourge. If orks or other xenos gain foothold on Iscarion, we won’t have enough Guard to repel invasion.”

“Commandeer the Planetary Defense Force,” replied Emmaline, “They’re required to surrender command to any Imperial Guard general officer.”

Javier sneered, “Don’t think I wouldn’t. But I’m not the ranking officer planetside. Brigadier General Laursen has that honor. The PDF generals have already petitioned him for a defense council.”

“Which he’s agreed to,” Emmaline sighed and quoted, “‘A war waged by committee is already lost.’ Now it becomes clear. There has been no greater gathering of entitled fools than the general staff of the PDF and the Governor’s palace.

Javier leaned forward, “But if the Sororitas were to mobilize, perhaps you could find some Ecclesiarchal loophole--”

“To put your company out of the chain of command? No. The Church is bound by the Decree Passive.”

Javier gave the Canoness a small smile and sat back in his chair. “Is that why there’s an entire rack of meltaguns outside?”

“I’m already in a loophole,” said Emmaline, a grim smile on her face, “I’m sorry to say there’s not much the Sororitas can do. You really think the hulk will make it to the surface?”

“Like a scattergun. And we won’t have time to sit debating. Especially in the face of public panic. I’d be surprised if the newsvids don’t have the exact tonnage of the hulk by now.”

“There are not so many of us as you think, Javier. You know as well as I we’ll barely have enough to defend the Archbasilica, let alone take the field. I’m sorry.”

Javier exhaled heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I know, but I had to try.”

Emmaline smiled ruefully. “For a soldier, you don’t abide taking orders well.”

He stood, gathering his hat and returning the smile with a crooked grin that they both knew was false. “One of my many failings.”

She rose and extend her hand, which Javier took in a soldier’s grip. With the other hand, Emmaline made the sign of benediction over his forehead.

“Thank you, Sister.”

“The Emperor Protects.”

[scoundrelstars]

BECOMING, Part 2

<<Previous Next>>

[108.M42]

“My lady, it’s almost time.”

Nazarena was keeping a careful eye on the chronometer as she and Ysmin finished fussing over Esperanza’s body glove. Her ladies-in-waiting had been practicing the ceremonial donning of the traditional pilot’s suit for the last week, determined to get it everything just right.

The two girls had sequestered their charge in her apartments, fussing over every detail of Esperanza’s appearance. Every eye on Higara would be on the latest class of noble scions undergoing their Rituals of Becoming and it would not reflect well on the House to be underdressed. Sunset was close, the horizon sky was beginning to shift from deep azure to shifting violets and Esperanza knew it was time.

The suit itself was made of a body-hugging electroreactive mesh that would contract in response to augury input from a Knight’s armor. In concert with the mind impulse unit at the heart of the Throne Mechanicum, the suit allowed pilots to feel what their armor felt and gain the critical sense of spatial awareness that every warrior needed.

Ysmin finished pinning an elaborate plait in her raven hair, lifting it away from the puckered red skin around the synaptic jacks freshly implanted at the base of her skull. The recently-healed flesh felt hot to the touch and stung gently in the cool air of the castle apartments.

The two of them stepped back and let Esperanza pull on the control gauntlets that would complete her panoply. She nervously examined herself one last time, making sure everything was as it should be. The suit itself was a lustrous black, almost silken, material, and spider-webbed with bronze circuitry. Dataports were interlaced into key positions at the elbows, shoulders, and sides of the knees. More of the intricate wiring was inlaid into her gloves and boots. Nazarena and Ysmin nodded their approval.

“Ready,” said Esperanza. She’d stayed mostly silent throughout the entire process, only speaking to answer questions about fitting and comfort. She’d been afraid that her voice would have quavered, betraying the flutter in her stomach to her two friends.

“You’re ready,” said Ysmin, with a surety that made Esperanza smile, grateful for her friend’s confidence. It didn’t do much to ease the silvery fear that coursed through her, but she was glad for the support.

Nazarena took up the long silken cloak that had been draped over one of the ornate chairs in the dress. It flowed in her hands like water the color of night, the blue-black cloth drinking in the light from the glowglobes set into the dressing mirror. Emblazoned on the dark fabric was the rampant white Lion of Teliodes. Two silver clasps fastened the serous garment to her shoulders and Esperanza pulled the deep hood over her head.

Fully clad in the raiment of her house, she took a deep breath and let it go, keeping the shudder in it under control.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Ysmin and Nazarena made way for the sweep of her cloak and hurried ahead to open the carved double doors that led out of her rooms. In the long gallery, slanting orange light was streaming through the towering windows, setting the white marble in a fiery cast.

Esperanza strode down the hallway as she had a hundred times before. Her feet carried her on their own, her mind lost in keeping the silvery flutter of fear in her stomach from overwhelming her. Her boots were soft on the carpet, the cloak a soft swish. The only thing that broke the silence of the fortress was the thundering of her heart in her ears.

Finally, she arrived at the antehall, a chamber of vaulted white stone and gilt frescoes just before the Camarinas’ Grand Hall. Tapestries and trophies hung from banner poles jutting from the columns that rose away into the darkness of the ceiling above. Upon entering, Esperanza was greeted by the sound of a great many people talking all at once.

Groups of noble families, all dressed in their finest attire, were circulating throughout the room in a complex web of social niceties and deferences. Fashions from all across Higara swirled in a dazzling display of the planet’s elite. The House of Al-Sabir, the Furuys-lords of northern jungles, were resplendent in amber bodysuits, stylishly slashed to show silver silk beneath.  House Ursline mingled with their long-time allies, House Agon, both from the High South and both clad in ceremonial armor made from the Caldera Serpents that dwelled in the volcanic craters there.

“Esperanza!”

As she descended the steps and spotted her two older siblings, Astrela and Toma, making their way through the crowded antechamber. The twins were some decades older than her and quite the pair, bedecked in the newest capital fashions and representing the Teliodes colors. Tall and lithe, they were the picture of Higaran equatorial nobility. They both had the bronze skin, raven hair, and piercing blue eyes of true scions of the House. Toma looked every inch the Grandee, the midnight blue of his suitcoat complemented by the white Steppe Lion mane that adorned the collar and flowed down his back. Astrela had taken the opposite approach, her white dress seemingly made of one strip of cloth that had been wound around her body to great effect. She’d eschewed the long hair that was current Camarinas convention and had shorn her hair short, displaying the cranial implants at the base of her skull for all to see.

Toma hugged Esperanza and brought her in conspiratorially between him and his twin sister.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Of course she is,” whispered Astrela, a wide grin on her face, “she’s a Teliodes. ‘Victory or the Gates.’”

Esperanza took a deep breath, glad of the strong presence of her siblings. “I’m ready.”

Toma put his hands on her shoulders, looking down into Esperanza’s eyes. She looked up at him and saw through the smile on his face to the worry beneath.

“What is it?”

“Just… don’t force it. When you’re down there.”

“Stop it, Toma,” scolded Astrela, “she’ll be fine. Just make sure you let the ghosts know you’re in charge.”

She nodded dumbly, trying to absorb the conflicting advice. The two of them were experienced Knights, prodigies and crowd favorites. Together, they had felled the Leviathan Wyrm of East Higar. Fought back-to-back against greenskin hordes. Even destroying a xenos witch-construct of the Aeldari. Whatever guidance they could give her, however contrary, was a precious thing.

“Come on, we’ll be announcing you,” said Toma, guiding her to the base of the steps leading up into the Grand Hall.

Beside her, the other Houses were readying their candidates that had come of age. She knew each of them, having faced them across the sparring arena ever since she had been big enough to hold a sword. Coran Al-Sabir, Stensa Ursline, and Veldtren Agon.

They were all products of long and noble lineages dating back to before the Imperium of Man spanned the galaxy. Each was archetypal of the character of their Houses. Coran Al-Sabir was thoughtful and quick. Stensa Ursline was stubborn as a grox. And Veldrtran Agon was putting on a brave face. Of the four of them, odds were against even two surviving the Becoming.

But they had to do it. Not only for the honor of their Houses, but for the protection of their people. The Oath of Becoming was what they were born to endure. Trained from childhood to pilot the great Knight armors into battle against the foes of humanity. To glorify the name of the Emperor in valiant combat against the great darkness of the galaxy. It was their honor and it was their burden.

Trumpets blew a fanfare and great war horns sounded, signalling the start of the procession. They passed through gilded doors big enough for two Knight Armors to stride abreast and into the Grand Hall of the Fortress of Camarinas.

The rafters of the hall stretched high into the darkness, eighty meters or more, and the galleries and platforms that jutted from its walls were packed with the planetary elite. Administratum dignitaries, scribes, and logos-historitors chronicled every step the solicitants took as they entered. The High Sacristan, an imposing figure of fused cybernetics and withered flesh wrapped in the red of Mars, was accompanied by a retinue of Mechanicum priests. He rode an anti-grav platform that hovered over the heads of the gathered nobility, forever apart from the rest of Humanity.

By far the largest group were those that thronged the ground floor of the Grand Hall. The assembled noble Houses had turned out in force to see the newest Knight hopefuls. Each had brought a suit of armor to represent them, tapestries and honor scrolls hanging from the huge war engines. They towered over the assembled crowd, machines built for war, but restrained by honor. Bound by duty.

Esperanza recognized the heraldry of each in turn, having learned the heraldry of every Higaran House by long lessons unders strict lineage historians. Defiance of Fire, Sword of Hashan, Ironbreaker, and Irascible Foe. She knew them all by heart. Their presence loomed, making her feel small as she passed beneath the martial machines.

All eyes were upon her, weighing down her limbs and making each step an effort of will. She pushed through, determined not to hesitate. The four solicitants  swept down the hall, followed by their familial escorts. Floating servo-skulls equipped with pict-capture lenses buzzed around them, capturing the moment from every angle.

By tradition, each of them hid their face--Teliodes and Agon with deep-hooded cloaks, Ursline with a furred mask, and Al-Sabir with a veil of mirrorsilk. Only after they emerged from the Chamber of Echoes would Higara know their face. For while the Becoming was a celebration for the great Houses of Higara, it was also a wake. The Oath was a cruel thing, leaving only a fraction of those who attempted it alive.

Their procession came to an end at the foot of the throne dais which rose from the marble floor beneath soaring stained glass windows, alight with the orange fire of the setting sun. Three tiers of white marble steps held the assembled highborn of Higara, from the smallest and least influential on the bottom tier to the Houses that could lay claim to the throne just below the top level. The highest tier, just below where the Grand Duke sat, was the smallest and was the traditional place for the Keyholder Barons of the six High Fastnesses.

Esperanza searched the tiers until she found the faces she so desperately wanted to see. The Marchesa of the Meditara Steppe, Camila Teliodes, looked on from the second tier, her hand clasped fiercely over that of the man next to her, the High Shield Arturo Teliodes. Her mother and father. They watched with tears in their eyes and Esperanza’s heart lurched in her chest. She wanted to reach out, to run to them, but knew there was no way she could.

The solicitants came to a halt upon the six-pointed compass rose that had been laid into the stonework before the throne dais. Each sank to one knee, bowing low before the Grand Duke. His Grace, Arai Tyto of Higara, pilot of the legendary Thousandfold Blade, stood and looked down upon the Knight candidates that had been brought to him. He was a severe man with a voice as deep as the Sea of Scorn.

“People of Higara, rejoice! A new cycle brings a new Becoming!”

Tyto spread his arms wide and and the Grand Hall erupted in applause. The Knights’ warhorns sounded, commencing the ceremony. Esperanza’s heart leapt into her throat as she stood, but she put steel in her spine. She’d been born for this.

[scoundrelstars]

BECOMING, Part 1

Do not measure yourself against those who walk before you. Pray to make their ghosts smile with your daring.  -Higaran proverb

Next>>

[108.M42]

The clink of rapiers was muffled by the falling snow, rare so near the equator on Higara. The arming yard of the great fortress of Camarinas had been cleared for morning lessons, but the fat flakes had tenaciously stuck to the ground despite the efforts of the castle footmen. This made it all the more treacherous for the two boys facing off on the smooth stone of the fencing ring.

In the covered arcade, Esperanza Teliodes watched her youngest brother, Isaac, take an aggressive posture against the first son of House Andrade, Jessua. Both were of an age with each other, ten years, and had been competing for as long as they’d been alive. They were either the best of friends or the most dire of rivals. It seemed to be one and the same with boys.

They trained beneath the watchful eye of a dour slab of a man with storm-grey hair pulled into a tight queue and a scowl beneath his beard. Beloran Varillo was her father’s Master at Arms and he oversaw the training of all new Knights who were chosen to undergo the Becoming. A duty with which he took exacting care. He brought his hand up and stared stonily at the two young boys.

“Begin,” the old knight declared, bringing his hand down in a chop.

Isaac rushed forward, hoping to overwhelm his opponent with the ferocity of his attack, but was forced to spin away from a canny riposte from his friend. The Andrade boy was not quite so eager to get into the fray and took his time, waiting for an opening. They circled each other, making exploratory probes with their foils, each trying to figure out where to go next.

Esperanza tried to concentrate on the boys’ form, knowing that Isaac would ask if she’d been watching. However, she couldn’t focus. Her stomach was tied in knots. She wanted to pace, but knew that would be inappropriate. Should she return to her rooms? Pray at the chapel? She’d been through so many ceremonies in the last week that she balked at the idea. The thought of another dry sermon by the fortress’s bishop repelled her.

She was a mess of nerves, but was determined not to show it. Noble bearing was of the utmost importance and she wondered sometimes how her mother was able to keep so calm. The Marchesa Teliodes was an impressive woman, both in person and on the field of battle. Her grand tapestry was hung in the main hall of Camarinas, depicting her myriad of victories of the enemies of the Imperium. The greenskin menace of Iscarion, Farrovar’s armored insurrection; She was a living legend on Higara. It was like she was in her armor at all times. Esperanza hoped she could learn that too. All she had to do was survive until the next sunrise.

“Your brother is learning quick, my lady. He’ll make a fine Knight,” said someone behind Esperanza. She could hear the smirk in it.

“Javi!” Her face split into a smile as she turned.

A young man stood beneath the arcade holding two steaming mugs of what smelled like coffee. He was dressed in the military fatigues of a Higaran armsman, but sported the fur-lined flight jacket unique to the House Teliodes. Javier Sorn’s face was sharp and bore a lopsided grin, with the blue eyes sparkling at her excitement. She barely recognized him with his short-cropped hair. Esperanza had to stop herself from running over to him, but still moved so quickly as to be un-ladylike. She threw her arms out for an embrace, but was stopped by Javier with the strategic proffering of one of the mugs.

Esperanza came up short, taking the mug in cold-numbed hands to hide her disappointment. Looking up, she saw the same feeling flash over Javier’s face before it returned to his air of good-natured mischief. Of course. It wouldn’t be proper for a lady of House Teliodes to be seen hugging a low-born soldier. They were old enough to know better. It felt as if a lead weight had dropped into her stomach.

“It’s good to see you, Esper,” whispered Javier.

Determined not to let herself get dragged down by the restrictions of Higaran social mores, she put a hand on his arm and squeezed. It was the best she could offer in so public a space. “It’s good to see you, too. I can’t believe you’re here. I thought infantry training wasn’t completed until spring.”

“Well, you know me. Found a way to cheat my way through the placement exams and got out early.”

While she had no doubt that Javier Sorn could successfully find a way to cheat on any Munitorum infantry exam, she doubted he would have needed to. Throughout their childhoods, he’d been the one to always scrape himself out of trouble on wits alone. ‘Too clever by half,’ Suzera had once said. Esperanza doubted that there was any way the Imperial Guard let recruits on leave early. Something was going on with him.

“Oh really?” she asked incredulously. She’d turned back to the sparring ring where the two ten-year-olds had devolved into a shoving match. She leant on a balustrade that crossed one of the arcade’s arches.

Javier joined her, his shoulder touching hers, “You don’t believe me.”

“No Munitorum clerk is going to let you out of their sight. I think they call soldiers like you ‘flight risks.’”

“I told them that I had something very important to do. Someone I knew was going through her Oath of Becoming and I had to be there.”

Esperanza sighed, looking down into the steaming mug. Her reflection stared back at her, distorted by the ripples in the drink. “When will they notice you’re gone?”

“Two days, I think. My barracks officer owes me.”

“Owes you? You’re a recruit.”

“Doesn’t stop me from beating him at cards. Anyway, I bet him a bottle of Teliodes wine that he was bluffing and he doubled down to try and make me fold out.”

“Marero would have your hide if he found you taking bottles.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t lose. The old drunk was bluffing, I could tell straight off.”

“I’m glad you came,” said Esperanza, “it means a lot.”

“As if I would have been any use to anyone. I’m a nervous wreck.”

“I’m the one looking death in the face, here.”

“You? You’ll be fine! I’ve got an audience with the High Shield.”

Javi was deflecting again, butEsperanza perked up, “You’re meeting with my father?”

“I’ll tell you later. After you come out of  Chamber of Echoes.”

Esperanza felt a nibble of pique, but was interrupted by Isaac running over to them. Sir Varillo was not far behind.

“Esper, Esper, were you watching?” asked her brother. His youthful energy was a balm to the anxiety that gnawed at her. He pulled up short as he recognized who she was standing with. “Jav, you’re back!”

“I said I would be, my lord,” said Javier. He put his mug on the railing and sketched a bow to the ten year-old. “Sir Varillo, an honor.”

“Hmph,” grunted the Master at Arms. Careful eyes watched the scene from beneath dark brows.

“How is Terrassa?” asked Isaac eagerly, “I’m dying to see the city!”

“Very loud and very few swords. It might not be to your taste, my lord.”

“I want to see the voidships!” exclaimed Isaac, caught up in his imagination paying no real attention to Javier.

“Well, it just so happens I brought one with me.”

From out of his flight jacket’s pocket, Javier produced a small replica of an Emperor-class battleship. He presented it to the boy with a flourish. Small hands snatched the plastic toy and his eyes went wide with joy.

“Isaac,” Esperanza chided, “show your gratitude.”

“Thank you, Jav!”

“It’s my honor, my lord.”

The boy scampered off towards the castle doors, making engine noises and flying his ship through the air. The three of them watched him disappear inside. Sir Varillo turned back to Javier and looked severely down at him.

“I wasn’t aware that the Munitorum gave recruits liberty during training.”

“Ah, no. I was summoned by His Excellency.”

“Then don’t keep him waiting.”

“You are quite right, Sir,” said Javier, “I merely came to wish Lady Esperanza the good luck. You have downstairs’ full confidence.”

Javier bowed and retreated. Esperanza was sad to see him go, for she burned with curiosity. For a moment, the dread that had been sitting in her gut was forgotten and she realized that may have been Javi’s intent all along.

“Don’t lose sight of your Becoming, my lady. You should be in the chapel, looking to Him on Earth for guidance.”

“I’ll lose my mind if I have to listen to the bishop drone on.”

The old Knight gave a rare chuckle. “It’s better than wandering the halls. Gives the mind something to focus on.”

“Do you know what Javier’s meeting with my father about?”

“No. And you should avoid becoming too familiar. After your Becoming, there will be no room for low-caste foxes like him.”

Esperanza’s jaw clenched, a sudden flash of anger welling in her chest. “What room is in a Lady’s life is for her to determine, Sir Varillo.”

Varillo gave her an appraising look, but knew when to stay silent. Esperanza turned and strode off towards the apartments, fuming.