The Inquisition III

[Taranis]

If Leto is a pseudonym for Fabius Bile it will seriously jeopardize the coming of part IV. :(

 

Well, the dark side has never been my strong side. I believe I ment Ahriman instead.

 

It makes me wonder. Using artillery, and apparently guard, requires discipline, organization and resources. Who will the force holding the bridge be? And why shoot before identification? Something to ponder until all is revealed...

[Lady_Canoness]

If Leto is a pseudonym for Fabius Bile it will seriously jeopardize the coming of part IV. :lol:

 

Well, the dark side has never been my strong side. I believe I ment Ahriman instead.

 

It makes me wonder. Using artillery, and apparently guard, requires discipline, organization and resources. Who will the force holding the bridge be? And why shoot before identification? Something to ponder until all is revealed...

 

Can one Space Marine make that much of a difference though? Something fishy is a-foot no-doubt, but are our heroes seeing the whole picture, or only part of it?

[Aqui]

but are our heroes seeing the whole picture, or only part of it?

 

This the problem. As resourceful as they all are, I doubt very much that they can see very much at all. I think this "Leto" is himself a pawn of someone else, and that Godwyn, Aquinas etc, are Pawns of a Pawn. As powerful as a Space Marine Psyker is, even they aren't all seeing.

 

Will be interesting to find what happens :lol:

 

As for the last bit with Nerf and Spider as snipers. Nerf's attitude towards sniping and his professionalism in that skill reminds me of this bloke B) Spider, I think, should she be able to finally attain balance with her psychic abilities, could end up being a good sniper herself......

[Olis]

Nerf's attitude towards sniping and his professionalism in that skill reminds me of this bloke

 

Oo, hey, Saito. That now adds an extra dimension to Nerf in my mind, now you've said that. :lol:

[Aqui]

Nerf's attitude towards sniping and his professionalism in that skill reminds me of this bloke

 

Oo, hey, Saito. That now adds an extra dimension to Nerf in my mind, now you've said that. :lol:

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one, especially as I recently say the episode about Saito (forget which episode, but it's the one where he was explaining how he first met "Major" Motoko Kusanagi in SAC:2nd Gig, as a Sniper on the other side)

[Olis]

I've seen that. Not for a while, but I've seen it. Might have to put GitS again sometime soon. B)

 

(I'd better stop talking about it now as it's very :lol: )

[Aqui]

I've seen that. Not for a while, but I've seen it. Might have to put GitS again sometime soon. :)

 

(I'd better stop talking about it now as it's very :lol: )

 

Yes, it is :( However, the point I was trying to make is that for me at least Lady_C conveyed well how a good sniper could/would/should act. Dispassionate. patient, totally aware of their surroundings, and most importantly knowing when to move on and not be obsessed about getting the target above all else.

 

As ever, I look forward to the next part B)

[Olis]

Just thought I'd let you know, Lady_C, that I've pinched a little inspiration off of you. :D

 

I GM a Dark Heresy group and they are between missions right now, so I thought the part of the story so far involving a mercenary war and it's trappings was a fabulous idea for the next leg of the narrative. I hope you don't mind my blatant thievery. ;)

[Lady_Canoness]

I don't mind in the slightest, Olisredan. Just remember that something sinister has to be going on in the background!

 

In other news, part 20 should be around by this weekened. Hint, it involves a BEACH, a TANK, and spooky discoveries in the WOODS!

[Lady_Canoness]

*Part 20*

 

By mid-morning Princeton moved the HCC up to Descanso Crossing with two squads of Cadian infantry in support. When no resistance was met they sounded the all-clear, the engineers dismounted to examine the land bridge, and Nerf and Spider came down out of the hills to a warm welcome.

“Good work clearing this mess up, Catachan,” Lieutenant Hope shook his hand as he and the girl approached the idling transport, “very neatly done.”

Similarly abbreviated words of praise were echoed throughout most of the crew, and both Nerf and the teenager became something of a symbol for how the mission as a whole could get things done. The all important first-contact – the mission’s trial by fire – had gone well, and both the Cadians and auxiliaries seemed better for it. News that the land-bridge was passable came as a further boost to morale, and by early afternoon the cratered remains of Descanso Crossing were being left behind as Princeton turned the T-41 east to follow the river three days out to where it met the ocean and skirted the very edges of what was said to be Oberon’s largest continental forest.

 

Moving at optimal speed and making good time, they met hostile contact on both the first and second days down the river as they passed through the smouldering remains of several riverside fishing towns.

Resistance on the first day was light: the enemies being in small enough number to be dispatched and routed by the recon teams alone. They were human, not alien, the Cadians reported, and were poorly armed and organized – fleeing as soon as the first shots were fired.

The second day was harder, and the recon teams had to fall back in the face of dug in infantry positions with the support of a light tank at another fishing town. These enemies were also human, but were better organized and equipped – something that had not been true of the foes they had faced on Oberon thus far.

Dismounting two squads, the Cadians inflicted heavy casualties on enemy infantry before the HCC itself broke the enemy lines and disgorged auxiliary assault troops into the town heart to mop up any remaining resistance. All told, the fire-teams, assault units, and rooftop gunners on the T-41 tallied up thirty-four confirmed kills in return for one dead and three wounded. The enemy armour escaped, however, but not before a lucky shot from its main gun pierced the T-41’s hull and killed a further two auxiliaries.

 

“I don’t recognize the chassis,” Princeton commented, looking at stills of the black silhouetted enemy tank as the sun dipped over the horizon at the end of their second day along the river. “It has a small bore cannon here, likely a forty millimetre,” he waved his fingers towards the turret, “two sponson mounted machineguns, and a missile rack on the top.”

“Smaller than a leman russ,” Lieutenant Hope noted where she and Godwyn were standing with the Major going over the end of battle reports, “likely faster too.”

“Before I came to this world, various traders in underground markets were selling quite a lot of military hardware to this planet,” the Inquisitor noted, “but even so I am assuming that these vehicles would require some kind of base to rearm and refuel.”

“Not necessarily,” Hope pointed out. “Light armour in particular is designed to be fairly easy to maintain in the field. All they really need is somewhere to park it, and enough oil, fuel, and ammunition to keep it going; all of which could be kept onboard.”

“It has un-avenged blood on its hands,” the Major said in way of a conclusion to their discussion, “and that means we hunt it down.”

 

Judging by the tread marks left behind, the enemy tank was headed in the same direction they were along the river towards the ocean, but for the entirety of the third day they saw nothing more than the traces of its passing, and when they reached the beach on the fourth day even those were gone. Not that it mattered, for as soon as they saw where the vast blue oceans met the golden shore just about everyone had something else on their mind.

“I’ve never seen anything like this!” Spider exclaimed in barely restrained joy as she and every other auxiliary who was able crammed onto the HCC’s upper deck. “It’s – it’s – wow!”

Even the Cadians seemed a little less grim with the sun on their faces and the sea breeze blowing through their close-cropped hair.

Sensing that the men under his command could use the opportunity to unwind, Princeton ordered the HCC to stop, and that volunteers (all of whom were Cadian) build barricades closing off three-hundred metres of beach so that everyone else could take the afternoon off and enjoy the new-found beauty of the scenery that placed them between blue sky, blue ocean, golden sand, and green forests.

Guards were posted, and guns at the top of the transport were manned, but other than that they were free to strip off their armour and leave their weapons aside as everyone got to enjoy the boons of sun, sand, and water.

Some of the aux stripped right down and dove in the surf, others challenged each other to wrestling on the shore – something Andre won without effort – and others still simply basked in the sunlight or slept in the shade. One even managed to catch a fish – something he held aloft like a trophy until his hands started to blister and Tweed told him that the fish’s scales were toxic and that he’d need to be looked at immediately – at which point his day got a lot worse.

Nerf and Mercy frolicked in the ocean’s spray for hours on end – letting loose like children in the cool, clear water after what felt like ages of being trapped between dirt, dust, and metal – while Spider watched from closer to shore.

“C’mon kid! Get in here!” the muscular Catachan tried coaxing her in past her waist. Mercy was laughing silently, up to her neck in the water.

The teenager shook her head. Dressed only in her under-clothing and displaying almost the entirety of her body-covering tattoos, Spider had never seen so much water in her life and didn’t know how to swim. If she went any further she was certain that she’d drown in the waves.

Nerf was still trying to convince her when Mercy’s head slipped under the water, and before either of them noticed the assassin had pulled the girl’s legs out from under her and submerged Spider completely under the surface – something that amused the Catachan immensely, and even got smile out of the teenage psyker once she pulled her hair out of her eyes and coughed up the salt water she’d swallowed.

Further up the beach in the shadow of the HCC, Princeton had called together a meeting of his officers in a shallow dug-out in the sand. Uniforms were optional, given the occasion, but everyone was wearing one. The Major, Lieutenant Hope, Jim Edwards, all five sergeants, and the two corporals of the headquarters staff were in attendance. Godwyn and Aquinas had also been invited. Their weapons leaning against the sides of the dug-out, everyone sat cross-legged in the sand as Princeton went over several charts and discussed what he thought lay ahead.

“The beach keeps going for another two days worth until we get to here,” the Major traced his finger along the shoreline until he reached what looked like a large bay several dozen kilometres wide cutting into the landmass on the chart. “Recon teams aren’t there yet, but as we can see on the map this area is noted as once being a commercial port, meaning that we can expect to find some developed areas.”

“It could be where we find our tank, sir,” Hope added, looking to Major for approval.

“Could be,” he agreed, “though either way we should expect to find resistance. Our approach, however, will depend on the tides,” he said, pulling out a nautical map of the same area and laying it overtop the other. “At low tide there is lots of sand on an even gradient, but at high tide we could find ourselves swamped. Recon will give us more details closer to the objective. Once we clear the port, there is a well-used rail-line that should be able to bring us further south and past the forest. Now – ”

But they couldn’t hear him continue: the sound of Cadian auto-cannons firing had suddenly drowned out his voice.

Everyone in the dug-out quickly flattened themselves along the sand before grabbing their weapons and looking every which way.

People were shouting.

“Contact south!” Princeton shouted out. “Move! Move! Move!”

The officers clambered out of the dugout and dashed over the edge. Godwyn was about to follow them with her pistol drawn but Aquinas held her back.

“This is not our fight,” he said, and, remembering that she was supposed to be a trader, Godwyn reluctantly agreed, keeping low with the space marine long after the others had left.

About a kilometre down the beach, the light tank had reappeared and was firing on their position. Most of its shells were landing in the walls of sand that the Cadians had constructed as barricades – blowing huge fountains of dirt and mud high into the air – but rockets were sailing high over the barricade and falling at random on the beach with thumping explosions.

The gunners on the roof of the HCC were returning fire and had their ranges down after the first few shots, but even so they had suffered casualties. The tank’s sponson machine guns were firing high so that bullets whizzed overhead, bounced off the hull, or sometimes landed just right to smack into soft flesh and drop a man screaming onto the deck.

The battle raged for three full minutes of non-stop firing, at which point that tank managed to pull away and withdraw without any traces of serious damage.

On their side, Princeton lost three Cadians on the roof of the HCC, one dead and two wounded on the barricades, and one dead aux on the beach. Andre had shielded several aux from the worst part of a shrapnel blast and his back was pretty cut up, but the Ogryn only grinned, and once Tweed had helped him remove the chunks of metal from his hide he seemed okay. All things considered, however, they’d been badly mauled, and Princeton wasn’t about to wait around and give the enemy armour another opening. Everyone was back aboard the HCC in scant minutes, and the transport’s tremendous rumbling engines powered it forward through the sand walls and down along the shore, leaving their brief hours of respite behind.

 

Godwyn was in the armoury when they brought the dead in and lined them up along the floor. Each was already bagged and waiting to be filled with Tweed’s homemade embalming fluids when the chief medical officer and the herbalist entered. The two men checked each body and wrote out a tag including name, location of death, and time of death, which they attached to the zipper of each body bag. Princeton had decided that the bodies would be taken with them until a more appropriate time for burial, but they were running out of space to store them in the med-bay – the original designers of the HCC not intending it to be a combat transport – and as such empty living compartments were quickly transformed into crude ice-boxes used to store the dead.

“Sad business, war,” Tweed said with a miserable shake of his head as he closed the bag of a dead Cadian female and attached a tag with her name on it.

Godwyn didn’t say anything. So far as she knew, Tweed might be sad because he couldn’t harvest the Cadian’s badly damaged organs to use for his own purposes. “You’re not a soldier, Tweed,” she said instead; “Why are you here?”

“These Cadians are honest people,” Tweed said in an oddly sentimental tone, brushing his greasy black hair out of his face, “and Princeton and his lot are good sorts. Justice did them well.”

“Who is Justice?” Godwyn asked, knowing that she’d heard the name mentioned before.

The scrawny herbalist shrugged. “Ask them,” he said, then bowed his head in a brief prayer for the deceased before moving on.

 

After the attack on the beach, Aquinas spent much more time with Spider. He said that he could feel their goal approaching through her, but also that he had noticed much in the way of disturbances as they moved further south along the edge of the continental forest. What these disturbances were he could not say other than that someone, or something, had at one time gone to great difficulties to make them so, and that likely the forest itself – and perhaps even the war – were by-products of such a process.

“The Imperium has not come to this world for a reason,” he confided in her early in the morning after the attack. “We should not assume that the mirror’s being here is chance, and I think it likely that whatever hid it here has been hiding other things as well.”

The thought of more secrets buried on Oberon intrigued her, but Aquinas asked that she heed his warnings:

“Know that Spider’s focus beyond this point is paramount if we are to succeed in finding the Mirror of Isha before Leto. She is our most valuable asset.” He paused to make sure the Inquisitor followed him. “I would ask that you remind your Catachan of this finer point as it may be beyond him.”

Reluctantly, Godwyn did as the librarian recommend, though Nerf, predictably, did not handle it well:

“Wait a minute,” the Catachan was standing now, making the bunk room seem that much smaller with both he and the Inquisitor on their feet, “you’re telling me that I’m putting the kid in danger, and that the space marine who shares nothing with us somehow knows what’s best?”

“I didn’t say that, Nerf,” Godwyn replied crossly.

“No, you didn’t,” he agreed gruffly, “he did, and you’re just repeating him.”

“Don’t act like a child! There is a lot more at stake here than your dislike of Aquinas!”

Nerf shook his head in disbelief. From the top bunk, Mercy was watching the exchange dispassionately.

“Is that even the truth?” he demanded. “I haven’t seen one thing – not one Emperor-damned thing – to prove that we’re here for any reason other than what he says! He could be lying through his teeth and we’d never know about it until we were up to our necks in this s***!”

“If that is the way you feel, then walk!” Godwyn challenged her agent; “there are plenty of mercenaries here – you could join any one of them and they’d take you with open arms!”

The Catachan backed down like she knew he would, and, shaking his head again, he sat back on his bunk with a disappointed groan.

Letting the silence build between them, the Inquisitor bided her time before she sat down beside him – placing her human hand on top of his as she did so.

“I need you here, Nerf,” she said softly, gently squeezing his rough fingers. “I don’t want you to leave, and I know you’d follow me to hell if you had to – and don’t ever think that I’m not thankful for that – but we can’t always do things the way we want them to be. This job isn’t easy, but it’s what keeps us alive, keeps us going when everything else in the galaxy would make us stop.”

He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes and saw that she was looking back at him; he knew she was right, and they had both been through enough to know how things had to be done.

“She’s a good kid,” he said at last, “she deserves something better to come out of her life.” Turning away from the Inquisitor, he looked up at Mercy who watched them in silence from the top bunk; “but no-one ever gets what they deserve, do they?” he said.

The mute killer didn’t have to speak – her silence said more than words could. No, no-one ever did.

 

The Catachan seemed a little less cheerful after that, but he wasn’t the only one, and it appeared that everyone aboard the transport was feeling the effects of their first defeat. Twice the tank had fired on them and drawn blood, and on both occasions it had managed to escape. Princeton had called back his reconnaissance units to try and find it, but the fast moving and lightly armoured outriders had found nothing.

“All it has to do is move through the surf for a few kilometres and then drive into the forest at high tide,” Lieutenant Hope explained at supper on the evening of their third day moving down the pristine coast. “It’s small enough, and there is no way we could find it.”

Talk of the tank and the Cadians’ inability to track it down dominated mealtime discussions and had set everyone on edge. No-one looked wistfully at the sand and the waves anymore, and the gunners on the top decks were always scanning the way ahead and behind them just in case it’s dark silhouette should appear with guns roaring. It wasn’t fear that gripped them, but loathing – loathing that a single vehicle a fraction of their size could kill their people and get away unpunished. Though Princeton and his Cadians would never admit to it, the tank had gotten under their skin.

“It’s not that simple!” countered the Engineering Officer, Jim Edwards, “this is a beach! There are only two ways it can go from here: north or south. Yet our recon boys missed it, and so did we. So where the hell did it go?”

“I said it went in the forest.”

“We would have noticed if it had tried that!”

The wiry and hot-headed engineer had been going at it with the Lieutenant for the past couple days – a coping mechanism, perhaps – but the Major wasn’t going to have any more of it.

“Alright, that’s enough!” he said, terminating the discussion between the officers to his left and his right. “I don’t want to hear any more about the tank. We have a new objective starting tomorrow, and I expect you to set an example by dedicating all of your attention to it. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” they agreed.

The new objective, as Princeton had described it, was designated OP1 – Objective Port 1. Recon had arrived on site earlier that same day and reported seeing a fortified compound sitting about a half-mile outside of the port facility on the north side of the bay, making it invisible from the beach, and meaning that they would have to enter the bay in order to see it. Luckily, recon’s sweep of the area had noted that both the compound and port looked deserted, and that no resistance was expected. Never-the-less, Princeton had determined that the compound would be cleared and secured prior moving on to secure OP1, though reaching the compound with the HCC would prove difficult.

Land access to the bay was cut off by dense forests to one side and the ocean to the other, making travelling across the exposed sands at low tide the only way it was accessible for the HCC– something that would delay them an extra day as they waited for the tides to change, and leave them open to fire from the compound if it were to be suddenly armed.

With that in mind, the Major decided that a small strike force would be sent out at dawn to cut through the forest, bypassing the tides, and reach the compound in advance. A small team could move quickly, he reasoned, and would be able to infiltrate and secure the compound without alerting any hostile forces that might be lurking nearby.

At Godwyn’s insistence, she, Nerf, and Mercy would be part of the team going through the woods.

 

*

 

 

The sun’s red rays were just starting to peek over the ocean when the six-member strike force set out onto the sand and followed the T-41’s shadow up the shore into the forest. Nerf was in the lead with Andre being a close second while Godwyn, Mercy, the aux named Bonis and the Engineering Officer followed after them in a staggered line as they left the open beachfront and passed between the wind-beaten bark of the outermost trees.

“This remind you of home, Catachan?” Bonis called up the line, the light machinegun he carried clunking against his armour and other equipment he’d fastened about his person.

“Not really,” Nerf replied, the Ogryn behind him turning its big bald head to look down at the man who’d asked the question; “at home there isn’t this much sand.”

It was true, and even as she walked through the exposed roots of trees Godwyn’s feet were kicking up showers of beach sand.

“That doesn’t matter guys,” Edwards, the token Cadian on the team, spoke up from somewhere around the back of the group, “just focus on getting through this while it’s still light out!”

According to the Major, cutting through the forest and into the bay on foot should take them to mid-afternoon – making it a good eight to ten hour march – though most importantly everyone needed to be ready for the possibility of fighting a numerically superior foe once they got there. In preparation, they’d been armed to the teeth with enough firepower to lay waste to a platoon, with a further arsenal of tube launchers, demolition charges and other weapons that were carried by Andre, including a single heavy bolter that the Ogryn carried like a lesser man might carry a rifle.

It was all a little much Godwyn thought, as any enemy they encountered would be easier to best through stealth and intelligence than through sheer weight of fire. Did Princeton expect them to fight his battles all on their own? Carrying a lasgun with an under-slung grenade launcher as well as her heavy pistol, she wouldn’t put it past him, though then again the Major might simply have been accounting for the Ogryn’s preternatural ability to make noise as the brute crunched through the undergrowth with the subtlety of a drunken grox – something he continued to do until Nerf stopped the column two-and-a-half hours later.

“Hold up,” he said, raising a closed fist in the air.

Everyone instinctively dropped into a low crouch behind the nearest cover they could find – Andre somehow managing to uproot a dry bush as he did so.

“What is it?” Godwyn asked in a low voice, stepping carefully up beside him with her weapon halfway raised.

Wearing his camo cloak and carrying his auto carbine close to his chest, Nerf nodded towards the nearest tree:

“What does that look like to you?” he asked.

At first, Godwyn saw nothing – just a tree like any other tree in the forest – but looking closer she noticed something that she otherwise would have missed.

“That’s… ? What is that?”

The Catachan hadn’t missed it – to him it probably stood out like a flare in the night sky.

Godwyn stepped up to the tree and ran her gloved fingers over the bark.

“You tell me,” Nerf replied, “I just know that it doesn’t belong there.”

What her agent had spotted looked to Godwyn like slash-marks – perfectly straight, long, and razor thin slash marks. There were at least a dozen of them, if not more, all cutting into the bark of the tree.

Some of the others had moved up and were starting to peer over her shoulder.

“What is that, Godwyn?” Edwards asked, his eyes alternating between the person and the tree behind his glasses. She didn’t bother answering him, mainly because she didn’t know what she’d say.

“Your knife please, Nerf,” Godwyn asked, holding her human hand over her shoulder to accept the blade as the Catachan passed it pommel first.

The marks were very thin – thinner even than the knife’s edge – but some of them were deep. She’d never seen anything quite like it.

“Is this important?” the Cadian asked once she handed the knife back to her agent, “Can we keep moving at least?”

“Hey, Godwyn!” Bonis called from another tree several metres away before she could answer the engineer; “We got more of them over here!”

Altogether, they found seven trees with the strange lacerations in their bark, all of which stood more or less along a single pathway.

“And the branches,” Godwyn noted once they’d found the seventh tree, “all the low lying ones have been stripped off in this direction.”

The Catachan grunted in agreement. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking we should leave,” the Cadian interrupted, “we’re not here to look at trees.”

Godwyn was in no position to oppose him: she was, after all, just a trader along for the ride. “Alright,” she said, “let’s move out. There’s nothing more to see here.”

The look in Nerf’s eyes said he believed the exact opposite. In truth, so did she.

 

They walked in silence for the next few hours, stopping once in a clearing to eat some of their packed rations, but otherwise following Nerf wherever he led them with Andre’s constant crashing as the only sound. In some parts of the forest the trees grew so close together that the sun, by now crossing its zenith in the sky, couldn’t pierce through to the forest floor, while in other places wild grasses grew in the many metres of space between massive trees.

“Something is real funny about this forest, boss,” Nerf confided in the Inquisitor at some point around their seventh hour of marching as he led the team down a dried up river bed that ran underneath the canopy.

“What?” she asked him, knowing that the sound of Ogryn’s plodding footsteps behind them would keep their words from reaching anyone else’s ears.

Her agent gave her a sideways glance, then looked up at the trees around them. “No animals,” he said, “not a single Emperor-damned one.”

Now that he mentioned it, she’d noticed that too, and had not seen so much as a cobweb in the trees.

“Aquinas mentioned that this forest might not be natural,” she said.

“F***.”

The word summed up how Godwyn felt as well.

“Just get us through this,” she told him, “we’ll worry about that later.”

 

They hadn’t gone very far, however, when Nerf stopped them again, though instead of trees, this time it was a body.

“Looks like it’s been here a while,” the Catachan shook his head as the others gathered around for a closer look, “but I’d say that he and the trees back there had a common enemy.”

Crouching down beside the corpse, Godwyn had to agree.

Suffering from extreme exposure to the elements, the skin had receded around the skeleton and the soft tissues had all but vanished, but even so the Inquisitor could tell that, whoever it had been, they had not died well.

“Multiple lacerations about an inch in width,” she noted, poking at the crisps of skin with Nerf’s knife as Bonis cringed in disgust from over her shoulder. “Looks like they went right through out his back… and cut clean through everything in between…”

Andre’s face sank into an unhappy frown. “Painful,” he said.

“Oh yeah,” Nerf nodded. “He went down screaming… for all of ten seconds.”

Whatever had killed him severed the bone cleanly and seemed to focus on the central body mass – though the few lacerations to have hit the arms looked as if they’d been gruesomely effective, removing the limbs entirely. He had likely died from critical organ failure or blood-loss as a result.

Stepping up beside the Inquisitor, Mercy gave the corpse a curious look, then, without pause, picked the severed arm up off the ground and drew her sword.

“No! Don’t do that!” Bonis tried to warn her, but it was too late: in one whistling stroke of her sword the assassin had cut the arm in half and let it fall to the ground.

The aux looked mortified. “That is really f***ing bad luck, woman!”

Edwards, who had been silent up to that point, swore loudly and kicked the ground, staring daggers at the giant when he next looked at her.

Godwyn, however, retrieved the arm her lover had dropped: like the cuts that killed him, Mercy’s sword had sliced clean through the dead man’s bone.

 

The sun was setting behind them over the forest when Nerf finally led the way out of the trees and into a windswept meadow of wild grass that sat on a hill overlooking the bay. They were late by a couple of hours and the light was fading, but to the west of where they walked on the hill they could see the long grey piers of the port jutting outwards into the water, and closer still, not more than a half-kilometre away, the black curtain-walls of what was likely their objective. Recon had said it was deserted, but the members of the strike force new better than to take chances and approached it cautiously using the tall grass and brush for cover.

The wind was picking up in the bay, and overhead in the sky a storm looked to be building further south.

Andre was the first to the wall and he edged around it carefully as Godwyn and the others covered him from varying distances. It wasn’t very high – maybe twenty feet at most – and was made of rockcrete sheathed with tar. The gate houses, of which there were more than one, were of prefab design and made of metal, and posed no problem for the Engineering Officer to open.

Behind the wall was a bunker complex with several relay dishes spread along the roof, and, like the wall, its angled sides were black with tar.

“Doesn’t look like it was meant to withstand any serious bombardments,” Bonis commented with a sneer of distaste after they’d cleared the bunker’s exterior and Edwards was working on the door. “Any arti worth its name would pound this into dust in a matter of hours.”

Resting the heavy bolter across his massive shoulders, Andre snorted and spat a great gob of green phlegm onto the brown dirt – grinding it in a little with the steel toe of his humongous boot. “Wasn’t big guns that got the people ‘ere,” he grumbled with a glowering look on his oversized face. “Place is standing. People aren’t.”

While they were talking, Godwyn was examining some of the weathering on the walls. The bunker had stood here for a while – it’s pitted and scarred surface proved that – but the razor thin slash-marks that scored the black tar were fresh. Walking slowly after her, Mercy traced the grooves with the tip of her sword.

“Door’s open!” Edwards announced from the front of the bunker, and, with the Ogryn covering their backs from the outside, the strike force went inside with weapons raised.

The recon team was right: the place was empty.

 

The tide was at its lowest a couple hours after sundown, and about an hour after that the running lights of the HCC could been seen in the distance advancing over the beach.

“I want a full report, Godwyn,” the Major said as he dismounted the transport and entered the compound as the Cadians moved out to secure the outlying areas surrounding the bunker.

“No contacts throughout the entire day, sir,” the Inquisitor replied, raising her voice to be heard over the combined roar of the HCC’s engines and the winds that were racing inland from the sea. “We didn’t fire a single shot.”

Princeton nodded and Godwyn followed him into the bunker, the noise from outside suddenly abating as the complex’s main doors closed behind them.

“What about in here?” he asked, his face turning upwards towards the line of glow-globes that led the way forward along the reinforced rockcrete corridor.

“Exactly as we found it,” she reported, her voice suddenly sounding very loud in the noise-deadened structure. “Not a soul inside and auxiliary power running flawlessly. Edwards is down a few levels seeing if he can get the main generator operational again.” She didn’t mention the long, thin scratches she’d found on the walls both inside and outside of the bunker or her suspicions about them. They’d probably mean nothing to him, and, as a trader, they shouldn’t mean anything to her either.

“What kind of resources are here?” the Major asked next, likely trying to assess the strategic value of the building they were now standing in.

Godwyn made a show of shrugging. “Strong walls and a lot of electrical equipment,” she said, purposely vague, “my guess would be some kind of regional command.”

The Major gave her a long look. She made sure to squirm under it.

The queasy feeling in her gut was growing quickly now that it was night, and she didn’t want to be stuck with Princeton for the next few hours: one way of making sure that didn’t happen was to get herself dismissed by not being up to the task.

Her ploy worked.

“Get some rest,” the Cadian commander said, “I’ll come and find you in a couple of hours.”

 

They parted ways as Princeton called in the rest of his headquarters staff and handed watch of the T-41 over to Lieutenant Hope. He wanted to get the bunker operational before daylight and exploit whatever advantages he could prior to moving on to OP-1 in the morning. The trader, he said, had done more then enough for the time being. Godwyn thanked him, and then quickly left to find her companions.

She really wanted to speak with Aquinas, but the space marine had stayed aboard the HCC. Instead she found Nerf hanging around one of the sublevels with Bonis, talking a little and scrounging through an empty kitchen facility as they looked for something to add to their rations.

“What’s up?” the Catachan looked up nonchalantly as Godwyn appeared through the door, though his tone quickly changed when he saw the look on her face; “Something wrong?”

Bonis stopped what he was doing and looked up at the Inquisitor as well. “Looks like you’ve seen a ghost or something…”

It was hard to explain, so she didn’t, but the more she pieced together what they’d seen that day, the more she felt that something was very wrong. She needed to speak with Aquinas.

“Have you seen Mercy?” she asked.

Nerf shook his head; “No, I just assumed she was with you.”

“Well she’s not,” Godwyn replied, ignoring the look on the auxiliary’s face as Bonis tried to piece together what she and her agent were on about, “we need to find her.”

The Catachan dropped what he was doing and followed her out of the kitchen. After a second’s delay, Bonis picked up his light machinegun and came along too.

“What is it Cass?” Nerf called after her as she started to jog through the empty corridors of the sublevel, looking into every room she could find.

“Mercy?” she called “Mercy!?”

It was a mad dream to think that the mute would answer her, but at this point in time Godwyn just wanted to find the lithe killer. She wandered off a lot and always came back eventually, but this time ‘eventually’ wouldn’t cut it.

“Mercy!?”

“Talk to me Cassandra!”

“Mercy!?!”

She banged open the third door in a line of empty dorm rooms and found Mercy just standing there, holding something up to the light of a glow globe.

“Mercy?”

The assassin turned her head towards Godwyn in the doorway. She didn’t smile. Her head almost brushing the ceiling, the long-limbed giant was too busy looking at what she held between the index and middle fingers of her right hand. Her face said that she knew what it was – that she’d been looking for it.

Even from the doorway, with Nerf and Bonis behind her, Godwyn knew what it was as well. In a way, she too had been looking for it.

Held in Mercy’s two long fingers was a small, translucent disc – razor edged and impossibly thin.

Shuriken.

 

---------------

 

Only a few chapters left, and the action is going to heat up fast! Can you see what is coming? Can you guess what will happen?

Personally, I hope you keep guessing right up until I lay it all out for you :lol:

[Aqui]

Only a few chapters left, and the action is going to heat up fast! Can you see what is coming? Can you guess what will happen?

Personally, I hope you keep guessing right up until I lay it all out for you :yes:

 

Riddle me this then:

 

Shuriken.

 

Eldar perhaps? Also looking for a certain Mirror?

 

Not sure if Dark Eldar use Shuriken weapons, but it's either of them ;)

[Lady_Canoness]

Riddle me this then:

 

Shuriken.

 

Eldar perhaps? Also looking for a certain Mirror?

 

Not sure if Dark Eldar use Shuriken weapons, but it's either of them ;)

 

 

Dark Eldar use Splinter weaponry - similar yet different from Shuriken - it is safe to assume that the Eldar are involved with their Mirror, but in what capacity? What will it cost our heroes to find out? ;)

[Taranis]

Riddle me this then:

 

Shuriken.

 

Eldar perhaps? Also looking for a certain Mirror?

 

Not sure if Dark Eldar use Shuriken weapons, but it's either of them ;)

 

 

Dark Eldar use Splinter weaponry - similar yet different from Shuriken - it is safe to assume that the Eldar are involved with their Mirror, but in what capacity? What will it cost our heroes to find out? :cuss

And how many factions are at work here? Eldar, indigenous humans, the empire of man, two different marines and?

 

 

I'm greatly looking forward to you description of the Eldar and especially the warp spiders. ;)

 

This appears to be really psyker heavy real soon. ;)

[Aqui]

I'm greatly looking forward to you description of the Eldar and especially the warp spiders. ;)

 

Howling banshee's for me ;)

[Lady_Canoness]

Being an Eldar player myself, I fully intend to do the enigmatic aliens justice in multiple guises ;)

[Aqui]

Being an Eldar player myself, I fully intend to do the enigmatic aliens justice in multiple guises ;)

 

I used to field a Biel Tan army back in the day. The few mini's I kept after selling everything, included Jain Zar. If I ever find it amongst all the stuff left at my parents, I'll be a happy bunny indeed (not to mention an old Bloodthirster and Leman Russ mini....) ;)

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

very suspenseful :)

 

excellent work,as usual

 

Eldar, those filthy Xenos rear their heads! they are my regular opponents, so I have a particular love/hate relp with the Eldar haha, which makes me like to see them in works, both doing well and getting crushed by the Imperium!

 

very interested in seeing what happens next, keep up the good work

[Taranis]

Being an Eldar player myself.

 

Me too. There are too few Eldar stories to be found. I'm expecting great things now :)

[Olis]

Hmm. Eldar. I wonder how they are going to introduce themselves into the story proper...

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

Hmm. Eldar. I wonder how they are going to introduce themselves into the story proper...

 

An ambush? what else can one expect from those sneaky pointed ears!

[DeathWatch997]

Undeniably BEAUTIFUL! Most amazing story I ever read about the universe of space marine's (generally)

You should write a book Seriously!

Amazing! Truly Amazing Keep up the good work.

[Lady_Canoness]

You honour me, Deathwatch.

 

I'll keep writing for some time yet ^_^

[Lady_Canoness]

*Part 21*

 

Battle, war, bloodshed. All very clear, all very vivid. She could see the death all around her, hear the discharge of weapons and the screams of pain, smell the burning ozone as las-fire chewed up the night sky, feel the heat around her as the grass caught fire, taste the blood and dirt on her tongue. She was really there. This was really happening.

The Cadians in their silver armour were being slaughtered.

All around her people were fighting, and dying, but even so she could do nothing. She couldn’t scream and couldn’t move. She was a mute witness to a massacre.

Spider woke with her heart racing and her hands clutching the pillow. No blood, no fire, no death; she’d been dreaming.

A cooling breath escaped her lips and she blinked. She should be used to this by now. Vivid dreams haunted her every night, but not all of them had been true. She’d lost count of how many times she’d seen her own death when she was younger, but she’d gotten past that, mastered her fears, and was finding new ways not to be afraid. Still, she wished she could dream of other things.

The hand resting on her pillow rubbed up and down the fabric. She smiled – Spider had lost count of how many times she’d wished it was Nerf instead of that bland cushion – how many times she wished she was touching his hard chest instead of this soft headrest. He’d be warm and strong, and hold her close in his arms. With him she’d feel complete and happy, safe from the rest of the galaxy and whatever else there was out there. He would protect her, and touch her – with him she’d be a woman.

Her hand snuck between her legs, and, still smiling, she closed her eyes.

Blood.

In an instant her eyes opened. Her heart was racing, and her hand retreated.

Fire.

Something was wrong.

Death.

She sat bolt upright in her bed as the door to the compartment flew open and Aquinas quickly stepped inside, closing it again behind him just as quickly. His eyes shot in her direction.

Do not speak. She felt him think inside her head as he held up a warning hand. Wait.

Spider did as she was told and waited. Even fully clothed she was shivering, and her thoughts flew to the safety of the others, wondering where they were and what was happening.

Silence. The Librarian cautioned her. Control your emotions.

She did as she was trained and quickly expelled everything but the immediate from her consciousness. There was nothing but the room: the four walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Everything else ceased to be, and soon the compartment ceased to be as well. Her mind was blank, erasing her from the minds of others – a defence Aquinas had taught her to use when other psykers were near.

That will do, he told her after some immeasurable period of time had elapsed. Follow me.

Turning slowly towards the door, the space marine produced a dimly glowing sword from beneath his coat – a weapon she’d never seen him carry before – and placed a hand on the door. At his beckoning, Spider got up, and followed him cautiously into the corridor.

Everything was silent.

Placing one foot slowly and silently in front of the other, the space marine led the teenager down the corridor until they reached a ladder leading to the deck below. Once there, he waited, and the girl felt him send his feelings outwards from his body into the rest of the vehicle. When he retracted them again, he quietly sheathed his sword and descended the ladder – his booted feet softly clinking against the metal as he did so. Not needing direction, Spider followed him down as quickly as she could, sticking to him like a shadow.

They didn’t meet another soul as they moved downwards through the HCC. Where were the Cadians? The auxiliaries? Anyone?

Wait here, the space marine cautioned her, and, seeing that she did not follow him, he crept around a bend in the corridor and disappeared.

Shivering, Spider waited for him. She wasn’t cold, but there was a chill in the air that she could feel in her very soul. Instinctively, the teenager looked back down the corridor the way they had come: the lights pulsed and hummed but nothing moved – nothing broke the feeling of emptiness she could feel around her.

She closed her eyes: the battle continued raging inside her head. Was it true? Was everyone fighting?

Aquinas reappeared around the corner and hurriedly summoned her to come closer.

“We cannot stay here,” he warned her, “though if we are to succeed in leaving, you must do exactly as I say. Do you understand?”

She nodded quickly. There was a look of disquiet in the librarian’s eyes and it frightened her, but, putting her faith in the space marine, she followed him closely as they went downwards further-still in the direction of the armoury.

 

*

 

The Major and his headquarters staff were examining a holo-display of the local geography when Godwyn barged through the door to the control centre with Nerf, Mercy, and Bonis following closely on her heels.

“What is the meaning of this intrusion, Mrs. Godwyn?” Princeton demanded, a look of annoyance written across his hard features as her presence doubtlessly interrupted whatever it was he’d been discussing with his soldiers prior to her arrival.

Godwyn didn’t have time for niceties, or to explain things the easy way, and instead slammed her lasgun into the holo-projector so that it broke up the feed.

“You need to listen to me, Major, and listen to me now!” she told him, necessity heating her words as the other auxiliaries spread out behind her. They still had no idea what she was going to say.

“Watch your tone, civilian!” the officer barked at her. “You’re speaking to your commanding officer!”

“And you are speaking to an Imperial Inquisitor!”

The word hit him like a smack in the face; an impact that Godwyn then doubled by slapping her Inquisitorial rosette down beside her lasgun on the holo-projector – the green projection showing the silhouette of the skull and letter I hovering midair. Princeton was speechless and his men backed away, as did Bonis.

“Now listen,” she began, her words as hard as the glare she was giving the soldier in front of her, “because if you don’t this might just be a very short meeting.”

The Major’s eyes moved from the rosette back up to Godwyn’s face. He was listening, but he was also angry.

“I have reason to believe that there are Eldar xenos operating in this immediate area,” she said, “and that they are aware of our presence here.”

Behind her, Nerf shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“What the hell kind of a story are you trying to spin, Godwyn?” Princeton demanded.

“The kind that will save your life!” she shouted at him, leaning over the holo-display so that he could look into her eyes. “Now I suggest that you mobilize your men and hunker down, and, while you do that, pray to the God-Emperor that He gives a damn about what happens on this world right now!”

“You blaspheme…”

“And I’m prepared to do a lot more!”

Cowed, the Cadian commander swore through his teeth. “Get me the Lieutenant!” he shouted at the soldiers behind him. They hurried to obey, and he turned back towards Godwyn: “I sure hope you know what you’re talking about,” he said, wielding his worlds almost as if they were a threat.

“Sir…”

Both the Inquisitor and the Major spun in the soldier’s direction as he stepped up to report. The other Cadian was still struggling with the comm.

“Sir, the Lieutenant is not responding.”

“Why the hell not? Is the feed dead?”

The man shook his head and tried to keep his voice strong; “No sir. The feed is live, but there is no-one at the other end.”

Princeton swore aloud: “Get every squad we’ve got outside the walls on the comm.! Get every last one of them inside the perimeter now – dammit – now!”

“Yes sir!”

The Cadian raced back to the comm. and Princeton sank his fists into the projection table opposite Godwyn.

“What the hell am I dealing with out there, Inquisitor?” he demanded. Sweat was forming on his brow and his eyes were starting to bulge, but to his credit the Cadian was fighting hard to keep control of the situation.

Inquisitor Godwyn, however, had no such illusions. In fighting the alien race known as the Eldar, control was the first thing one lost.

“Sir! They’re all gone, sir! No-one’s on the comm. outside the perimeter!”

“What!?!” the Major was yelling.

“Boss?” Nerf jumped to the Inquisitor’s side; “What are your orders?”

She turned her head slowly in his direction. There was fear in his eyes, but it was a controlled fear – a fear he could master. That was good: she’d need him strong if they were to have any hope of survival.

“Nerf,” she told him quietly while Princeton was still trying to reach his Cadians beyond the walls, “it’s time for us to leave. I will need you and Mercy to stay with me no matter what. Clear?”

“Crystal,” he replied, gritting his teeth in preparation for the fight he felt coming. “I’ve got you covered until we march right into the Emperor’s golden halls.”

He took a step back and told Mercy exactly what Godwyn had told him. The assassin remained stone-faced and her eyes darkened. She was ready.

“How many men have we got inside the compound!?” the Major demanded, picking up a nearby lasrifle and priming the chamber.

“Twelve inside and twenty-two aux outside!”

“Do the aux have comm.?”

“Negative sir!”

“Well s***,” Princeton threw the rifle’s strap over his shoulder and fitted his combat knife onto the bayonet lug. His soldiers did likewise. “Get everyone up in the main hall,” he said, “and tell them to be ready for war. Cadia needs her sons.” He turned towards the Inquisitor and the three people standing with her. “Godwyn, are you coming?”

She picked up her borrowed lasgun and keyed the firing primer. Behind her, Nerf tightened the strap of his rifle around his shoulders and flicked his carbine over to automatic. Mercy drew her sword. Bonis swallowed and looked like he might be sick.

“I am,” she said. “May the Emperor protect us all.”

Princeton nodded solemnly before heading to the door. “A damn fine day to die a Cadian,” was all he said.

 

*

 

The T-41’s armoury was clear when they got there, but even so Aquinas barred the girl from setting foot inside the large compartment.

Visibly, nothing seemed wrong: the lights were functioning, all the weapon lockers were neatly stowed and tucked away, and even the work surfaces looked as if they’d just been cleaned by the quartermaster… except there was no quartermaster, or anyone else for that matter. The entire transport appeared to be empty aside from the two of them.

“What is it?” Spider asked in a nervous whisper as the space marine held her back. She could see rifles and machineguns no more than twenty feet away across the armoury floor with plentiful ammunition nearby, and, while she wasn’t a good shot, she’d definitely feel better with more of a weapon than the silver-bladed knife on her belt. Still, the space marine would not let her past him into the room, nor would he set foot inside himself.

This place is marked, he warned her; they will know we are here the moment we step through that door. It is a trap they have set for us.

The girl swallowed the lump in her throat and fear gripped her heart. Who was they? Did it matter?

For a moment, she could feel herself being back in her cell hiding under blankets and crying in fright as the footsteps went by her door. It was helplessness in the face of certain doom when hope was extinguished and an all-consuming terror enveloped one’s being. It was a nightmare from which there could be no waking.

Spider.

The librarian forced the feeling from her mind.

Do not give in to fear.

She bit her lip – bit it until it hurt. She would not give in to fear. That part of her life was over. She had buried it.

The space marine let her go and retreated from the armoury door. Follow me.

They were retracing their steps – heading back upwards through the HCC – until they were in a section of the transport that Spider had never seen before and stopped in front of a door labelled ‘Environmental Control’.

Open it. Aquinas commanded.

She got to work right away. It wasn’t a hardpoint, but the door was pressurized and she had to crudely hack her way through several pressure gauges before the door accepted an override and unlocked with a loud popping sound.

Inside were enough pipes, cylinders, and canister tanks that the girl could have easily mistaken it for a secondary engine if it weren’t for the lack moving parts and noise. The room was tiny and cramped with hardly enough room the two of them, but the space marine followed her in all the same and closed the door behind them.

Spider wanted to know what they were doing there amongst all the piping but the space marine ignored her inquisitive thoughts, and, as he struggled to turn around in the tiny space, directed the teenager towards the controls fastened at different points around the compartment.

Undo them all, he instructed her, and, while he watched, Spider scrambled between the machinery in the room and started pushing things at random.

The first to go was the primary power – plunging them into pitch darkness for two terrifying seconds before the red back-up lighting kicked in; second were the warning claxons – ear-splittingly loud wails that reverberated from the metal walls with such ferocity that it seemed to be coming from inside their very heads; and lastly were the fire suppressants – jets of water and billowing gas from the ceiling until they were soaked and could hardly see more than five feet in front of them.

Enough, Aquinas told her just as his student was about to pull a fourth lever; this will suffice.

Struggling out of the environmental control room and down the corridor like blind, deaf, and drowned rats, the space marine led Spider by the hand back down through the decks. She couldn’t hear, she couldn’t see, and the constant pelting of water and billowing gas made it just about impossible to feel as well.

She started to cough.

Aquinas’ ice blue eyes appeared before her in an instant. Breath as little as you can, he said, these gases will render you unconscious if you inhale too much at once.

Covering her nose and mouth with her hand, she nodded, and felt them moving forward once again.

They must have been near the armoury when the space marine froze – Spider almost walking into him as he stopped suddenly in front of her.

Come on!

He started to run – dragging the girl with him – and took to the halls with great speed. At one point she tripped, but Aquinas wasted no time in scooping her up and dashing forward with the girl in his arms.

They were through the armoury, down the connector to the rear access ramp, and then –

Aquinas stopped so quickly that she could feel his feet skid a few inches across the deck. It was quieter here, the alarms weren’t so loud, and the fire suppression seemed to have stopped as well. Before she could think, however, Spider was weightless, falling through the hair before slamming painfully against the metal wall and landing upside down on the floor as she was cast aside.

The librarian was still in the middle of the room, the glowing blade of his sword now burning a bright blue as he held it up in both hands ready to strike.

Righting herself, she shook the pain from her mind and tried to focus. What was happening? Her eyes traced over the sword wielding space marine before lazily tugging their way towards the ramp – their one way of escape. It was closed, and blocking it was a… was a…

Her eyes widened and she lurched back against the wall in terror as her throat tightened enough as if to strangle her.

Standing opposite the space marine and blocking their escape was monster with green, segmented skin, an oblong head with red glowing eyes, and a pair of vicious golden tusks that jutted out from each side of its smooth face. It was tall – huge even – but was crouched low to the ground like a stalking predator. Its hands – if they could even be called hands – were mismatched: one, a gigantic bone-crushing claw, while the other held a chainsword both long and deadly.

“Stand aside or be felled, Eldar,” Aquinas hissed.

The alien seemed to bristle with indignation – becoming even larger in Spider eyes – and the tassels attached to the back its head shook in fury.

“So be it!”

Roaring in a terrifying show of rage, bolts of psychic lighting shot from the librarian’s eyes and mouth – momentarily cowing the alien as energy danced off its green skin – but as the space marine lunged with his sword the Eldar twisted even faster and danced aside – a loud hiss escaping its tusks as what looked like golden specks of light flashed across the room and bounced from the metal surfaces like enraged insects.

Cowering on the floor, Spider shrunk away into the corner of compartment and covered her head with her arms just as Aquinas rounded on his opponent and lashed out against it with long sweeps of his bladed, though the alien ducked and twisted away, parrying the blows with ease. With a flick of his wrist, the space marine hurled the alien against the compartment wall and crushed it to the ground with a tremendous crash, but the creature still rolled clear and struck out with its foot to catch Aquinas in the chest as he closed for the killing blow – knocking him back as the Eldar regained its feet in the blink of an eye.

Blade clashed on claw and whirring chainsword chewed on air, but neither was superior as the two warriors fought with unimaginable speed and savagery in the bowels of the HCC.

Aquinas swung his blade two handed onto the green alien only to be snagged by its claw – a diamond hard knee slamming into his midsection for his efforts – but as the space marine reeled away he redoubled his efforts and threw back his enemy’s assault with renewed vigour – the blue blade painting a tapestry mid air as the speed of its movement challenged the ability of the eye to follow.

“You will fall!” he bellowed, throwing coils of roiling lighting at the alien – pinning against the wall from the might of his psychic onslaught – but even so that was not enough to kill it, and the creature was back on its feet with weapons poised to strike.

Enraged, the space marine loosed a tremendous roar and charged – his sword two handed for the kill as he brought it down in a tremendous arc.

By some wretched means the alien was quick, however, and it parried the sword away with its claw – like swatting a fly – before striking out with its own sword once the space marine’s guard was down. At that very moment it could have been over, but Aquinas dropped his sword, and with both hands he grabbed the alien’s sword arm and twisted – a sickening snapping sound filling the air – throwing the alien’s weapon clear and dropping it onto its front. Without uttering a sound the beast tried to rise, but Aquinas still had its arm, and stomped down hard on its shoulder – pulverising the joint. He did this again, and again – then stomped down on its head, its neck, and its head again until it stopped moving.

To make sure it was dead, he drove his sword two-handed through its back.

“I fear no alien,” he said, kicking the corpse off his blade as he pulled it free once more. Standing tall, he then turned to where Spider was hiding in the corner, and beckoned her to him.

Blinking in shock, she was slow to get up and her limbs were shaking. Aquinas, however, had put the battle behind him, and were it not for the bloody sword in his hand and the defeated alien lying crumpled on the floor the entire battle could have well been a figment of her imagination.

“Come,” he said softly, “the others will have felt this one’s death. We must leave quickly.”

 

*

 

Twelve Cadians in silver amour met them in the main corridor of the bunker complex. There were no speeches, no chants and no choruses – only grim faced warriors following their Major as he marched them towards the large doors that sealed the bunker. No sounds save those of marching feet. No looks save those of determination. Guns were up and pointed forward as the Cadians closed on the adamantine portal that stood between them and whatever waited outside in the dark.

Godwyn, Nerf, Mercy, and Bonis were at the rear of the Cadian formation. None of them spoke or even wondered what was happening outside. Their thoughts, for the time being, went no further than the opening of the door they were steadily approaching.

“Cover! Cover!” Princeton directed his Cadians behind the shelter of broad rockcrete-reinforced beams that went up the sides of the walls and across the ceiling. “Sergeant, the door.”

His men stacking up in cover behind the rockcrete fixtures, the Major himself joined the group closest to the front, and a lone sergeant cautiously approached the door and accessed the panel beside it. As the sergeant’s fingers traced across the appropriate key sequence, Godwyn and her team took cover nearest to the back. Bonis was talking to himself – his eyes staring unblinkingly at the door.

With a slow hiss, the door ground open. Rifles were raised, breaths were held, and eyes squinted to take aim at whatever might be on the other side.

But no-one fired.

Standing amongst the corpses of a score or more auxiliaries was Andre the Ogryn, his eviscerator chainsword purring in his hands.

He was not alone.

While the Cadians behind the opening door held their fire, the lumbering Ogryn was turning round and around on his feet and swinging helplessly as a lithe figure dressed in bone armour with a mane of crimson hair danced around him in flowing, faultless movements that he could not hope to keep up with. Though he dwarfed the strange dancer and any blow that connected would kill it outright, his sword only ever sank into the dirt, and when it did the bone-white opponent would open up another long rent in his flesh with one of the two gleaming swords it held in its hands.

Andre was bawling in pain and anguish as the creature systemically cut him apart with a dozen flawlessly timed blows until at last him made one final lunge, missed, and his head came off between the passing of both blades and dropped onto the ground – the look of fear still etched on his face.

The Ogryn’s killer looked through the door, and Godwyn looked back into a screaming warmask of hatred and death.

Howling Banshee.

“FIRE!”

Princeton’s command snapped everyone from their momentary trance and lasguns leapt to life – painting the night’s blackness with dashes of murderous energy. The Eldar warrior flipped backwards head-over-heels; seamlessly dancing, twisting, and floating through the torrent of fire as not a single gun could draw a bead on her.

“Kill it! Kill it!” Princeton was ordering them, but soon the Eldar was gone, and not a single man or woman could say that Andre had been avenged. For a brief second their firing stopped almost as if in disbelief. Was it over so soon?

The Eldar are a deviant, deceitful race, however, and Godwyn knew from knowledge sorely won that the aliens did not leave survivors.

The first silver armoured Cadian died as his head came off above the jaw in a spray of blood that painted his comrades – the second died just as quickly when his heart and lungs were ruptured and exploded out of his back in a spray of gore – the third went down as he was cut in two, and only then did the survivors have time to register that they were under attack.

“Taking fire!”

Two more went down behind cover – their blood slicking the ground and coating their fellows.

Gripped by panic, the surviving Cadians started to shoot back.

They never even saw the shooter.

From behind Godwyn, Nerf and Bonis were unloading fire into the darkness. The Cadian in front of her screamed and fired his lasgun – a second later he fell out of cover with his neck shot out.

Nerf clicked empty, ducking back into cover to reload.

Bonis died – his chest torn open and blood painting Mercy with red spackle that she didn’t seem to notice.

“Smoke out! Smoke out!” Princeton yelled, and his surviving Cadians threw as many smoke grenades as they could through the opening, though before they did Godwyn thought she caught a glimpse of a sinister warrior in midnight armour firing at them with a colossal weapon from behind a death’s head.

Deadly fire still raking down both sides of the hall, the clouds of smoke engulfed the night air in a fog of grey.

“Forward!”

Princeton was up and charging with his silver armoured Cadians at his back. It was madness, it was suicide, but for Godwyn it was also a diversion.

Lasgun ready, she fired a grenade round through the open door and raced down the hall with Mercy and Nerf keeping pace. In a second she was out the door and felt the earth beneath her feet. Somewhere through the fog she could hear the banshee wailing and the Cadians screaming, but Godwyn took a left at the wall and set off at a run towards where she knew there would be an opening in the curtain wall. If they could make it to the grass they would have cover, and if they made it to the forest they might have a shot at escape.

A head came off somewhere beside her and painted her face with blood. The banshee screamed again, closer this time, and Godwyn felt her nerves seize in momentary paralysis. She was falling – downwards, face first into the dirt – but long arms scooped her up under the armpits and carried her onwards as Mercy caught her fall.

“Run! Run! Run!” Nerf was shouting, and she heard his weapon fire through ringing ears.

They made it to the door, and Godwyn was back on her feet. Nerf stopped and fired behind them.

Outside of the wall the night was clear with no aliens visible in the tall grass.

More shooting behind them.

Godwyn turned around to see Nerf and three Cadians following her, one of whom was Princeton. Slowing down, the Inquisitor raised her rifle and fired several shots back the way they came.

She could no longer see any Eldar.

“Make for the treeline!” Princeton was barking, his face covered in dirt and blood. “Go! Go! Go!”

He turned to run, but the vary air seemed to crackle and burst in front of him, and in a flash an Eldar warrior stood where before there had been nothing. Princeton died before he could make a noise – two talon-like blades impaling his chest and skewering him like an animal – and the two Cadians died just as quickly as they were cut apart into bloody chunks of meat by the alien’s guns.

Nerf was firing point-blank at the alien warrior – his bullets hitting Princeton as well as his target – but no sooner had it killed then the Eldar vanished in a flash of light – the corpses the only marks to its passing.

Back in the complex something exploded – a giant plume of flame leaping high into the night sky and turning it orange in its fiery glow.

“Keep going!” Nerf was yelling, and he dashed forward through the grass to where Mercy was waving for them up ahead.

The warrior reappeared in a heartbeat – firing on arrival.

Nerf flattened himself on the ground as the razor-edge cloud of projectiles scythed through the grass. Godwyn turned and fired, but it vanished just as a lasround would have punctured its chest. In a fraction of a second it was back – further away this time – and blasting a veritable screen of death in their direction as both Godwyn and her agent dug into the ground to avoid being killed.

A sharp whistle sliced the air, and again the Eldar disappeared – Mercy’s sword sailing end over end through where its head had been no more than scant seconds before.

“Come on!” Nerf was helping Godwyn to her feet, “that f***ing thing could be back at any time!” The Catachan in the lead, both of them tore towards the forest.

Another section of the bunker complex exploded in a ball of flame.

Looking back over her shoulder, Godwyn saw two shapes chasing after them through the grass. Fearing the worst, she stopped and sighted, but the forms of Aquinas and Spider quickly grew in her sights and she held her fire.

“Keep moving to the forest!” Aquinas shouted at her, and she turned around and kept running.

The space marine overtook her in no time with his huge strides, but Spider was slower, so she waited until the girl was safely past her before she picked up speed and kept following the others.

They made it to the tree line without further attack, but even so they kept going – going for what felt like forever until Spider’s legs could no longer carry her and she crashed into the dirt of the forest floor.

“Stop!” Godwyn called, her chest heaving underneath her coat. “Stop!”

Gradually, the others gathered around as Godwyn helped the teenager back to her feet, but girl was too out of breath to thank her and simply sank back to her knees.

Nerf was drenched with sweat and panting hard, though amazingly he still had is auto-carbine and anti-materiel rifle.

Mercy was looking around wild-eyed, she’d lost her sword, and there were twigs and leaves in her red hair.

Aquinas, on the other hand, didn’t look out of breath in the slightest, and might as well have just come from a nice walk instead of fleeing for his life.

Godwyn doubled over, her hands resting on her knees, and tried to catch her breath. Her chest was on fire, and her thighs felt like jelly, but at least she was alive and in one piece.

“Take a moment to gather your strength,” the librarian was saying as soon as she cared to listen. “We are safe, for now.”

 

--------------------------

 

The Eldar show thier hand! Did anyone think one of our heroes might not make it past this point?

Some pretty close calls if you ask me :tu:

[Olis]

Tbh I thought Aquinas might have fought his last there, perhaps dying alongside his opponent. I'm almost disappointed he made it. :)

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

I was right! Ambush!

 

sneaky filthy Xenos....