Rapid Fire Challenge #4: May 2018

[Dosjetka]

Prompt: Induction

 

Maximum length: 500 words

 

Deadline: 31st May 2018

 

Where to post submissions: in this thread

 

Note - please make sure all submissions adhere to the forum rules. Any entry that breaks one or more rules shall be removed without notice.

 

Thank you to @Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch for their suggestions which inspired this month's prompt.

[Race Bannon]

The Chaplain waved a hand inviting the Scout Marine to step forward.  Wearing a cloak made from feathers of a Kiavharan Roc, Chaplain Corix was presiding over tests of martial skills.  To one side of the black-armored Marine stood Shadow Sergeant Sodav, who oversaw the Scout's training.  Through the raven-skull styled helmet, the Chaplain ordered, “Brother Haqe, take the mark.”   

 

The 10th Company veteran stepped forward without hesitation, confident in his abilities, and into a circle on the ground as a servitor walked toward him.  Lifting the Heavy Bolter, the servitor also bowed his head obediently to the nascent Space Marine.  Haqe lifted the weapon, and tugged at the ammunition box clipped behind him.  With ease, the box fit into the receiving carriage with a click and he slapped it to tighten the seal. The Servitor scurried away beyond Haqe’s attention.

 

The grim pontifex of the Chapter cocked his head slightly, and then nodded.  “Begin,” he growled.

 

Turning, Haqe spread his legs to support himself and unlocked the safety.  Squeezing the lever, the Heavy Bolter responded with sustained thunder.  Each bolter shell roared toward the Ork-shaped target.  Upon impact the detonation blasted chunks from the gelatin-filled dummy.  Haqe had faced the real threat in the jungle of Elor Secundus, among other Imperial planets, and knew the danger Orks presented to the Imperium.  Once the dummy was utterly destroyed, Haqe released his grip and the Heavy Bolter became silent.  Glancing at the counter, only four rounds were spent.  Good for a stationary target.

 

As expected, doors to the rear of the long room opened and three more targets appeared, rapidly moving toward Haqe.  Looking downrange, he hesitated from surprise.  They were Orks, alive and sprinting.  Saliva spilled from their giant mouths as they screamed with guttural fury.  Haqe quickly shifted from surprise to disgust and leaned forward, clutching the trigger.  He responded to Ork battle cries with metallic righteousness.

 

The center Ork buckled from the explosive ammunition striking his chest and then ripping open his ribcage.   Haqe turned at the waist to down a second Ork, blasting legs apart, its torso falling into more bolter rounds that followed his fall.  Turning again, Haqe chided himself as two rounds were wasted between targets, but the last Ork’s head pulped when the next shot caved in his skull before erupting in a spray of organic debris.

 

Several seconds passed as Haqe waited for another surprise.  He looked first to the Chaplain, and then to Sodav.  Both seemed relaxed as if they expected what just happened.  Haqe engaged the safety on the Heavy Bolter.

 

Corix took a step forward and said, “Well done, Brother.  The Dirgesingers will be made stronger with your aim.”  Sodav nodded with approval.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

There’s so much more I wanted to do with this, for want of 25 more words....

 

Anyway though, here it is, bad as it may be....

 

Heuris stood at attention in the depths of the Dawn Blades 4th Company’s Strike Cruiser.

 

 

Seven other novitiates stood in rank with him, arranged in a 2x4 block. They were all fresh from the scout company and were all that remained of their snake block. Their armor shone under the bright lights of the drillground overheads, and their fusion reactors hissed under the noise of the ship herself.

 

 

In front of them stood a grizzled posthuman in gunmetal grey armor, a mark of the Chapter’s veterans. And he looked mad. He stormed up to the block of snakes and began to speak.

 

 

“Alright, you rattlesnakes! You’re members of the fourth company now, so I want you to stand up straight and honor the relics we hold! You will act worthy of them, you will not disrespect them, and if you EVER let any of them except the armor come to harm, then I will have you flogged until you drown in your own blood!”

 

 

He stepped back a pace and rounded on Claiv. “You! Tell me, what are the proper venerations to assuage the irate machine spirit of one of a Whirlwind Scorpius?”

 

 

Claiv spoke with the surety only hypnoindoctrination could instill. “I don’t know sir!”

 

 

“What was that, rattlesnake?” shouted the Samurai.

 

 

“I said I don’t know, sir!”

 

 

“He doesn’t know,” the elder marine scoffed. “He doesn’t know!” An armored hand came up and struck the novitiate with an open palm across the voxgrille.

 

 

“That’s what I’m here to remedy! I am Company Master Sergeant Caldistan! You’ve all had your sorry hides handed over to me for your education and integration into the Fourth Company, the Forgehold! You will obey my orders. You will do what I say, when I say it, and the only one who can countermand me is the Solis-Imperator himself! Understand?!?”

 

 

“Yes Master Sergeant,” chorused the novitiates.

 

 

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Caldistan yelled back.

 

 

“YES MASTER SERGEANT!” They screamed.

 

 

He smirked. “Good. Now then, follow me. We will be touring the vaults of the Strike Cruiser. Touch anything, and you will spend a month here scrubbing everything with a toothbrush. Without a serf’s help.”

 

 

With that, he led them into the vaults. They were dimly lit, and recesses every twenty feet held concealed automated defense systems. A single misstep would fill the hall with mass-reactive rounds and bouts of promethium.

 

 

Fortunately, as Astartes they could observe precisely where to step by observing the Master Sergeant. Soon they arrived inside the vault proper where they found a red-robed Techmarine.

 

 

“Master Sergeant, are these the new initiates?” he rumbled.

 

 

“Yes, Techmarine Losamn,” the sergeant nodded.

 

 

“And they are willing to take the oath of the fourth company?”

 

 

“Yes.”

 

 

“Then let them speak it. Novitiates, repeat after me: I swear to protect my company’s relics, to place them above personal glory, and to place them above my life if necessary.”

 

 

They did so.

 

 

“Welcome to the fourth company, brothers,” Losamn intoned.

[Mazer Rackham]

I trust this falls within scope:

 

They call me a bully.  Some of them do anyway - I treat that with the contempt it deserves.  The ones that have bloodied noses or wounded pride.  It isn't hard.  This life is not as grey as some may think.  When the Tyrant wants something done, it gets done, no exceptions.  I didn't need to learn that - I just knew it, from long before, when my masters were Lords and Ladies and I was just a farm boy.  I showed them then.  I laughed as I shot them down in the city of their own birth.  Of course some of us - I looked across the bridge - had regrets.  I was not one of them.

 

I stand and watch as the Imperial cruiser burns beneath our lance batteries.  It is a simple thing, to give a warning and not to be heeded.  I look back at the brother sprawled across one of the deck consoles.

 

"Why Gadatus?" He does not ask why I have struck him down.  I know him too well.  He does not ask why I have mutinied, why half his squad has risen against him.  It is simple.  The Tyrant wills it.  For too long has this Veteran, this haloed hero been allowed to decry the new Chapter - no, our new Legion.

 

"The Imperium has no business in our homelands.  You know the will of Huron."  He stares up at me, suddenly knowing.

"He has admitted you to the inner circle then."

It is not a question and I nod.  I think back to the shadowed night I am called before the Throne in the Palace of Thorns.

"You know what must be done. You will be rewarded."  Commodus flanked my liege.  He was right of course, the Maelstrom was ours to claim and our blood had been spilled so that the gates of hell may be held shut.

 

The Veteran Sergeant I have followed for a century slowly pulls himself to his feet.  I do not move, neither do the rest of us.  I believed in him once, but when he failed to take the Claw and Star and failed to embrace the obvious order of things, I could not do other than to unseat him.  When the order came through to our warship, the Incandescent and as ranking officer he refused.  I knew then it would propel me onwards.  It would elevate me.

 

I stood before the Tyrant as he armed me with an artisan Bolt pistol and a Storm Shield.  My old Sergeant has gone - sent to the Deathwatch to be enrolled and die there.  It is a simple thing - this life is not so grey as people think.

 

I think back to this now as I stand ready in the boarding torpedo, sluicing through the void towards the Star Jackal - a Strike Cruiser of the Marines Errant.  My Retaliators and I scream three words as we breach through tortured metal and Bolter fire:
"For the Tyrant!"

 

MR.

[Son of Sacrifice]

Nice exercise here guys, thank you. I have enjoyed reading the above. I knocked this together in about an hour, nice to get some practice in 

 

The Rhino rocked and jumped, and for an impossible moment seemed to tumble before it crashed down and I blacked out. My enhanced physiology kicked me awake like a tug on the starter cord of a generator. There was a screaming in my head that I knew to be psycho indoctrination. ‘Survive!’ I was jammed tightly into my seat by the restraint harness. I kept a combat knife in a sheath in my boot but it was nowhere to be seen, lost somewhere beneath the equipment that had been scattered in the crash.

 

Tyrell groaned from his seat next to me. He was dying, I could smell it. Outside there was a boom like artillery fire and the whole chassis vibrated. The robot was coming back. I consciously slowed the pounding of my hearts as I sought clarity of mind and reached for the bolter beneath my seat. The restraint held me locked in place and I had to strain and claw at it but finally the weapon was free and in my arms. I racked the cocking handle.

 

Sergeant Rylan was opposite me, his jaw had been torn off in the crash and he was unable to talk, but he fixed his stare on me intently. ‘Survive!’ I gripped the harness firmly with one hand, and slowly but with great effort tore it out. I turned back to Sergeant Rylan but in the dim emergency lighting I could see that he had expired. I looked around at the rest of my squad. I was the only survivor. So be it. At some point, far away from here I would mourn them, but not yet. First I would avenge them. I grabbed what gear I could and hurried out through the emergency hatch. I ducked beneath the overturned vehicle.

 

The robot was an ancient, flagitious thing that had been created in a time before remembering. It was tall and armoured, and stood on two legs like a man. Its arms ended with cannons that spat blistering phosphor laced death. Its armoured shell had been daubed in unholy oils and records of its grim achievements had been written in blood across it’s flank. It raised itself up on one leg and lashed its other out, caving in the battered rear door of the rhino. The vehicle rocked again under the assault, and pulling my camo cloak around me I repositioned, slithering across the remains of a low wall and into the shelter of a bombed out administrative building.

 

The robot bent at the waist and peered inside the rhino. I don’t know if its sensors picked up the breaching charge that I had clamped under Sergeant Rylan’s seat, but it had clearly been programmed for aggression, not caution. There as a whoosh of flame and sparks, and the robot’s upper body was melted into hot, glowing liquid, fused forever with the burning tomb of my comrades and my mentor.

 

I leant back against the wall and activated the teleport beacon, my first mission accomplished.

[Aqui]

The voice intoned a catechism, one Sister advocate Myal had come to know so very well over the years. Beyond was a dark room, cold and musty. Stepping forward five paces, she waited for the next verse before moving again, another five paces and stopped.

 

“Et qui non peccat, accedentque. Diligenter; Ante oculos tenebris, tuum est officium illustrant!”

 

Myal stepped forward again, her breathing was now shallow and rapid. The final test was close and to fail was not an option. In the entire history of the Order, no one had failed. No one.

 

“Myal. Accedentque aliquando magis, ut dignum est te probare Fleur. Illustrant ac tenebras!”

 

Sensing someone behind her, she ducked and rolled towards the nearest wall. Hoping she had reached the torches, she reached out and found one. Twirling it in front of her, it struck something else. Sparks allowed her to see for the first time since the final test began. A hooded figure stood in front of her. It sprang forward and thrust their metal pole at her. It hit her face, slicing skin. Myal snarled and ran her torch against the cobbles. The tip caught fire and she could see clearly now. Circling, the figure lunged again, the pole punching her in the stomach. Myal turned and kept the other in front of her. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to anticipate the next attack. It came bare moments later, as the figure twirled the pole, feinted left, then immediately hit her head to the right. Angry now, Myal threw the torch to the floor. It was not balanced and the flames were more of a hindrance than a help. The other paused, before lunging again, but Myal was ready this time. Grabbing the metal weapon, she pulled quickly, her fist connecting with cartilage. Falling backwards, the figure raised its hand. It was over. The hood was pulled back, revealing another Sister, her face looking sheepish. Helping her up, she could feel her eyes boring into her. The fight wasn’t the test. This was the final test.

 

“Why did you drop your torch, Sister? It illuminated the way.”

 

Myal paused. “The torch was a tool. A means to an end. True illumination comes from within. Our Faith burns within us! We must not rely on tools. To the faithful, we must be the Torch!”

 

In the shadows, the Canoness smiled...