Why do they call him Angel?

[Decadent]

A pleasant female voice filled the shadowy, stained, rusting and otherwise disgusting corridors of the Acheron Heavy Cruiser that acted as the flagship of Chai the Corrupted’s fleet. It sounded hideously out of place but none of the myriad passengers, a motley mix of men, women and marines, displayed anything more than curiosity as to what the speaker had to say.

“Ladies, gentlemen and strange tentacle creatures, we are approaching the Drakente Deep Space facility, where our great Lord Chai has business. To ensure one part of the business goes well, I shall be going with him. As per usual, the control room is out of bounds, and will be guarded by big, serious guns, and also by big, serious men with big, serious guns, who will be ordered to shoot anyone who isn’t me on sight. As I understand it, they don’t have a sense of humour or an understanding side, so I wouldn’t suggest attempting to appeal to either. Those who are part of the landing delegation, please proceed to Airlock P-15. The rest of you miserable lot are on docked duties. Daily fire drills are STILL compulsory, but the rest of the training sessions are optional. That is all.”

Two members of the Bloody 8’s Traitor Guard were doing guard duty in the control room, their death’s-head masks hanging from their belts. They looked at the speaker, a woman in a slimmer version of Astartes power armour sat at the centre of a huge nest of wires and cables, all of which, like a river’s tributaries, could be traced back to her head. She sat there with her eyes closed, and her mouth hadn’t moved once during the announcement. One of the pair had never been into the control room before, and looked slightly confused.

“Well that was weird...”

The voice filtered through an overhead speaker, not broadcast throughout the ship this time, it was just for the two guards.

“Not weird at all. I’m completely interfaced with the ship through my brain, so I just use the intercom system to speak, now shut up, I’m trying to dock.”

The two guardsmen shut up. The woman’s face seemed to take on a more concentrated expression as she looked out through external monitors at the dock, firing off forward and retro thrusters in order to align the ship with the port. Eventually there was a hiss as the clamps enabled and the walkway attached itself and pressurised. The woman opened her eyes and stretched, then made a gesture with her hands. The cables attached to her head decoupled from the ones leading to the rest of the ship, falling to hang from her head like silver-tipped dreadlocks. She got to her feet a little unsteadily, and the two guardsmen helped her find her balance. She closed her eyes and shook her head, then thanked the two guardsmen and strode towards the P section of the ship.

There was a small crowd outside the airlock, which was easily wide enough to fit a Baneblade through. In the middle of it all, towering over the rest of the people, was Chai himself. He was busy shouting orders to various groups before they left through the airlock. The woman elbowed her way through some of them to get to the massive man, jumping up and down and waving her arms. Chai spotted her and shoved his way through a group of guardsmen until they reached his personal entourage, then turned to her.

“Any problems Erica?”

The pilot, Erica, smiled at the imposing figure and shook her head, Chai didn’t strike fear into her the way he did most people.

“No my lord, not a single one, the docks here are absolute cake to get into. Although while we’re here, can we get someone to look at engines seventeen, fifty-three and eighty-four? Their response is ten percent below optimal.

Chai nodded. It was impossible to read his face due to the featureless horned helmet he wore. He began to turn away and start marching out of the airlock when Erica tapped his gauntlet again.

“Where we going boss?”

He grunted.”

“To see Angel.”

“Who’s he...and why's he called angel?”

“He’s the leader of a group of mercenary renegade Space Marines...and as for the other half of the question...you’ll see when we get there...”

[Decadent]

This is the first part of a hopefully long-ish story, one thing i would like to point out i, dispite tha fact that the characters are mostly khornate, this doesnt mean that they are frothing beserkers, even in battle...this story is to show the more 'warrior' rather than 'madman' side of khorne

 

And Erica is NOT a female space marine, she's just wearing power armour