Awake - An Eversor Assassin Story

[Vulpine]

Awake

by Vulpine

 

This is the second short story of 5 that I wrote. Who can't enjoy a story about an eversor assassin ? Hope you enjoy it at least!

 

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He lay awake.

 

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He remembered the Eversors face. A twisted grinning scull. His memory of a Evorsor stalking down a dark corridor had been the thing that kept him awake for four weeks. This was a dream, but It couldn't be as Kara was awake.

 

The image of the Evorsor made a bead of cold sweat drip down Karas neck making his spine twitch. His image of the Evorsor coming down the corridor became worse as it came closer he could see from the darkness behind, two more, each as scary as it's predecessor, pounding down the corridor aswell. His body felt heavy and Kara could not move it, almost as if his neck had been severed. His eyes were shut but he was awake.

 

The image of the Eversors made him breath heavy and hyperventilate as he felt them come closer. The intense fear made Kara want to scream but he could only force his body to do a quiet purr.

 

Karas eyes opened. He was vertical. Kara was finding it very difficult to recall memories. Who or were was he?

 

He Floated in a blueish greeny thick liquid. He gasped at first expecting to fill his lungs with the turquoise gue. His mask was held tight against his face keeping Kara from the gelatine that surrounded him.

 

Kara felt a tingle on his upper arm. The tingle had annoyed Kara for weeks but this was the first time his eyes were open. He moved his body in the jelly, like walking in space he slowly shifted his body round. On his upper arm was s large scar, from his shoulder blade to his elbow, along the scar a metal spiderlike machine moved along firing a red light onto his damaged skin. He pawed at it, making it recoil into a port inside the pod.

 

Kara could see outside. To his left were 5 more cyan filled pods running along a grated walkway. He could make out the creatures inside the pods. He flinched as he realised the faces. The grinning, leering faces of the Eversors.

 

Kara started to panic and span his body around. Pulling cables and leads out of hid body. He clawed at the tubes and pipes running into his chest. Something caught his eye infrount of him. There were pods across the walkway also. He stopped moving as if to hide from the assailant that inhabited the nearest pod. He stared into the pod. The lifeless Eversors across from him floated and lay asleep.

 

Kara then focused on his reflection. He could hardly make his own features out. He could just see the light reflecting off his bold head, and the vast opposite of the shadow cast by his deep set eyes. Karas memory started coming back to him as he made the reflection out. He must have been having a nightmare. He looked at his reflection and made out, not a bold head, but that of a Eversors. Some memories came back, he had been a Evisor for a long time. Surly it was just a dream. But he was not dreaming as Kara was awake.

 

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"right what do we have here Serge?" the tec priest mused to his partner,

 

"must have be the shaking from the asteroid field" Serge replied looking at the damage inside the pod and then back to his robed master.

 

Serge started pumping the large rubber handle outside the pod, forcing the Amniotic fluid out of the pod. As His master, Kalor checked the life signs of the body inside.

 

The glass door automatically released as the pressure equalised.

 

"It still gives me the willies opening these things," Serge swallowed hard, looking up at Kaylor from his hunched form.

 

"I'm guessing that was a hint was it Tec adept" Kalor muttered, putting emphasises on the last two words. Kaylor had been in charge of Serge for over 8 years but they were more than priest and adept now. As they worked maintenance together on the large ship they were partners or even friends more than master and servant. As they would trawl the mile long dark corridors, walkways and scaffold for days without seeing anyone the formalities of rank had almost disappeared. Except of corse when Kaylor found a job that he did not wish to do. However, occasionally Serges request were accepted by his friend.

 

Kaylor grabbed the heavy slab of a door and pulled it. He wished for a bionic sevo arm as he pulled with his might to get the bulky door open. Then as he looked upon the body that inhabit the pod he wish he did not have bionic eyes, as he would have welcomed blindness.

 

Kaylor and Serge staired at the Evorsor hanging in the pod.

 

"Throne, he must of been thrashing in his nightmares to make that kinda mess!" serge stated as his looked at the Eversor covered in snapped cabels, pipes and wires. The last dropes of liquid dripping of every curve of it carapace.

 

"Don't be daft Serge" Kaylor corrected him, "Eversors have no dreams when they sleep. They have no memory, no dreams, no fear or feeling. But I've worked on the Eversors for 62years now and it still gives me the nutss working on em! Even tho they are dead to the world, fast asleep"

 

But the Eversor was not asleep, Kara had laid there for ages, wide awake. He detected the two techies coming down the walkway, his ears pricked as he heard them a mileoff walking along the metel grated floor. He felt his body become heavy as the liquid seeped from around it, he could here the techies chat, and he could smell there fear. He could feel them tremble as they pushed the cables back into his body. He felt a odd pointless human urge to go, boo! This was a odd feeling, why would he wish to do something so childlike. This thought was interupted as his nerves received pain signals spiking up his body as a large spiked conduit was pushed into his spine. He did not scream or wince, but he was certainly awake.

 

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Kara had now been awake without sleep for over 6 weeks. Around 2 of these he was wide awake. Since he had been plugged back in by the techies over a week back, messages were occasionally being placed into his mind.

 

Like a mad man listening to the wipers in his head, he received new combat data and skills, straight into his brain.

 

When his schizophrenic voices that came down the cables into his mind were silent he managed to put some memories together from his earlier life. The memories were long gone, not so much a jigsore with missing peaces as most describe memory loss. More like a bag of jigsor bits all from different jigsors and puzzels all in one box. The thing Kara was bringback were instincts. But not like the ones of how to kill or stalk. But the instinct to laff, or cry, the reteaching of emotions .

 

Then the thinking stopped. A sudden wave of information was being crammed into his head. Like a smoking hot javlin into Karas brain the info was forced into his mind. His body felt hot and aced. His mind was being scrambled and filed with maps, target information, dropsite data, enemy numbers and locations, evac points, statistics and background info.

 

He felt heavy again, he watched as Serge emptied his pod. His door was pulled open. A order to step out came into his mind from his schizophrenic friend. Three of the outer Eversors already stud on the walkway next to Serge, Kaylor and two servitude. Tarq, Halo and Narlerqu, the information and statistics of the other three evisors were already in Karas head.

 

They all grabbed their equipment from the cabinet to the left of the pods with synchronous movement. They then marched down the corridor to the one man drop pods.

 

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The Mission ran throug Karas head as his drop pod fell towards the planets surface.

 

The Governor, Kapell who ruled the agri world had not paid his thieves. Not due to unwillingness, due to lack of funds. He had offered the imperium more grain but the neighbouring Armageddon sector did not need grain. Kapell was given a deadline for more armed troupe but delivered less than half of what was demanded. He begged the imperium, but the deadline was up. An example had to be made.

 

There was a drop zone for each of the Evisors as the exact location of Kapell was unknown. The target wad Kapell, his parents, his wife Nissa, her parents and his two children, Drain and Cale.

 

The drop pod hit the ground with a force that would kill a normal man. The snow on the ground jumped into the air and did what most snow does not do again, As Kara left the pod the snow fell again, the snow had been given a second chance, unlike Kapell.

 

Kara soon picked up to a bonding jog as he made his way through the fog towards the entrance. Out of the fog leered the plain featureless, snow capped, domed cathedral that Kapell used as his abode.

 

A guard stud by a small door in a gray drab and tatty uniform. The guard was lucky. He did not see what would have been the most terrifying sight. The grinning scull mask that Kara wore leaping out the white fog.

 

The guard felt nothing. His head was severed, with the blissfull, slack jaw dozey look on it. Although Kara cannot remember, Most heads that he had removed on other missions had a screaming look or a terrified jawgritted face. This guard was lucky. The power sawed hissed as the blood was burned of it's blade.

 

The door was unlocked, Kara slipped inside and peered up the long corridor. The drab informal walls and ceilings . The floor much the same except for a long tatted burgundy rug that would have one been a regal red.

 

Kara could see the entrance to the chambers around 100 metres away and a guard in his stone coloured uniform between him and the door. This guard would not be as lucky as the last this guard would see Kara before he died.

 

Kara started bounding along the burgundy carpet. Stims automatically emptying themselves into Karas blood stream. The guard stud in compleat terror as he saw the hyena grinning mask. He flinched as Kara pounced towards him.

 

Kara was in mid air, passing along side the stunned guard, the eversor claw flicked out passing like a hot knives through butter across the guards midriff. The carpet, in one patch at least was restored to it's original colour.

 

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Kapell sat on cushion in the middle of the large throne room, unaware or the nightmare that stalks him. He held his six year old in his bear like grip in one arm while he played Krish with his young teenage son. He was letting his son win as his wife and her pet Quniks entered. The Quniks ran over, tung hanging out of it's mouth to it's masters, scattering Kirsh peaces alover the flore. Kapell grabbed the Quniks in his other arm, "calm it Toby" he shouted at the Quniks. It was amazing, Kapell thought, that he ruled a planet and made millions do what he requested but could not control his Quniks. His wife Nissa started to giggle, but the giggle suddenly stopped.

 

Kara stepped into the chamber. The hole family were silent, even the Quinks. Information from Tarq the lead Evisor filled one eye. The Parents and Parents inlaw had been terminated. Kara unholsted his pistol and aimed it at the hole family,

 

"Traitors must be punished" Kara hissed. He pulled the trigger but it locked. Have I left the safety on? surly not, Kara mused. He glanced at the side of his weapon, it was clearly marked to auto. Thought not, only a green guardsman would do such a thing, not a member of Evisor temple. Was the gun jammed? Even more unlike. He tried again but could not delete the family. The family did not move, the look of shock still pasted on there faces. They watched as his pistol hand began to shake.

 

The paused scene was suddenly broken as the large doors at the bottom of the room fell of thir hinges, forced by melta bomb blasts.

 

Halo and Narlerqu came charging towards the family. Kara instantly swivels on his feet as if enemy had entered the room, he puled his pistol towards them asif enemys, not brethren. Kara strafed the pair, to stop there actions. Allowing the kick of the gun to pull the bolts across both of his comrades.

 

His mask alerted him to "friendly fire!" it also made note that Halo was dead but Narlerqu had only received a flesh wound. This reading suddenly changed when Halos self destruct activated and Narlerqu was evaporated. Kara instictavly turned his gun back to the family,

 

"run you fools, run!"

 

As the family ran Kara could here his Inquisitor commanders in orbit asking for explanations and reports on what he was doing. As he started pulling the cables from his receiver he felt the information stream updating Tarqs mission parameters.

 

Tarq voice came over the radio, "Kara, unarmed your self and come to me, you are unstable and must be terminated"

 

"I cannot Terq, I cannot lose what I have just found. I'm leaving now"

 

"Kara, I will find..." Kara pulled the radio cabel out if the socket.

 

"I am awake now" He whispered to himself.

 

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[paulJam]

Good read but i have difficulty imagining an eversor so lucid.

Not enough raaaage stims dispensed obviously.

Is there a motive for why the eversor decided to turn?

[Vulpine]

Just that somthing was wrong in his tank. For some reason instead of deep sleep he was awake thinking and remembering feelings that had once been suppressed. Not really that he turned, just couldn't bring himself to kill a family (including children) like he had a bit if a brake down.

 

My spelling is poor. I spell as it sounds usually. I have Dyslexia, so I struggle with spelling and grammar. So eventually I could get a mate to prof read and edit for me.

Thanks

[paulJam]

More detailed C&C now i'm not typing on my phone, take it or leave it.

While i don't want to harp on it and i totally respect that it's your story and your take on it, it seem a bit contraray to the (little) info available (plus i'm a fan of the eversor as a wh40k character).

 

'These psychotic assassins are trained to be utterly ruthless and completely dedicated to the Imperium...' that's from the main white dwalf article (also on lexicanum).

would a few weeks reflection be enough to revert the agent to humanity? would a reverted agent still kill the guards on the way in?

the WD blurb implies that even without the enhancements they're pretty unpleasant, hardcore, psychotic types.

would the type of person recruited, ganger, fighter, etc revert to a state that was in any way humanitarian anyway?

 

'into a special drop pod... The pod is then launched at the target planet where remote links activate and begin to reanimate the Eversor while fine tuning his body for the task at hand. By the time the drop pod lands on the planet, the assassin is fully awake and ready to begin his task' from'... this one is unsited (lexicanum).

while not cannon (possibly); given the level of of psychosis of (most) eversor i took this as being a reasonable precaution to stop them tassie-deviling out on the ship and handlers.

 

'large amount of drugs and modification used to make the Eversor into an unstoppable killing machine are highly addictive and without them the assassin will surely die.'... this one is unsited (lexicanum).

... and explode. so, potentially, crypto-statsis (which they are using) by-passes or maintains the chemical addiction at a minimum level to stop them exploding.

once released the addictive chemicals should be 'activated' again, overriding his new niceness anyway ?

 

anyway i did enjoy your story angle and the story as a read, i just had difficulty alligning the end result with how it hapened.

looking forward to your next stories. write on.

[Vulpine]

I take all that on board... But I don't think he's 'turned' or become good/bad... I just think he's gone haywire. He could be eating his on boots in the next part. He's just had somthing wrong in his head, a mix of old bits of memory's and feelings and having new info placed in his head has confused him.