The damned frontier

[Evz]

The Solar Hymn drifted in orbit of the backwater Feudal World of Elrica, the local star causing the portside to glitter. Between Elrica and the Kurgan Worlds was a system of heresy and lawlessness, Utriti. Elrica had been affected greatly. Not only have pirates been constantly raiding from both heretic-held systems but famine and natural disasters have wracked it, and it was the last stop before entering a damned frontier. Rogue Trader Hector Sando stood watching the desert planet's surface while he curled the weight before him, the planet's primitive spaceport only a rough, gray and glittering spot. On the surface, Inquisitor Eli Celt would be with his people, collecting whatever supplies they required on this fool's errand. Hector was already sweating. Lord-Inquisitor Ivar had sent Eli and his team to free the Kurgan Worlds and had hired Hector to ferry them in along with a penal legion, a regiment of mercenaries, along with a company from the Astra Militarum regiment of Catachan.

 

The waiting was killing him. Footsteps echoed behind him and he turned to see his sister Rhonda alongside First-officer Castinus and voidmaster Titus. Castinus looked constipated. Hector stood before them, naked above the waist with his thick chorded muscles relaxing. He let out a breath and picked up his water bottle, running a towel over his shiny bald head.

 

"News from the Inquisitor?" Another woman showed up, sporting a form-fitting bodyglove with tactical webbing. She walked into the gymnasium carrying a dataslate.

 

"The heretics have been running their operations from Mortia VI." Hector raised a brow.

 

"The hell are you? I don't recognize you." He said, confused.

 

"I am Lord Ivar's interrogator." She replied without the slighted hint of agitation. A servitor waddled from the far side of the room and handed the Rogue Trader a pipe. He lit it.

 

"You working with Eli, then?"

 

"I am."

 

"Ivar send you?"

 

"Yes and no. I volunteered, as I was led to believe that the archenemy's forces were arriving long after they did. Years in fact. I had planned on investigating the cults in the frontier systems to uproot it before it could take hold. I did not. I have failed."

 

"It's personal then. I see." Hector looked to Rhonda. "And you are all here to tell me we are to be getting underway."

 

"Aye." Castinus said. As the interrogator left, he seemed to relax.

 

"Did she tell you her name?" Hector asked. They all shook their heads.

 

"No. The voxmaster has stated that Eli's team are on their way back to orbit." Hector sat upon his weight bench and nodded.

 

"Well, I'll finish my sets and get to the bridge." They left. Everyone seemed on edge. He was used to the adventurous life and had fought many heretics and pirates. He fought alien beasts. Explored space hulks and dead world research stations. He never thought he would be getting sent into a nightmare where entire worlds were ruled by the archenemy. The Rogue Trader was not terrified in the least, just anxious and tense. He sighed, let out a breath and pushed the bar upward. Focus on the sets.

[Urauloth]

Promising start (I assume there will be more of this?) and it's good to see some life in this subforum! Keep at it.

[Evz]

Eli, dressed in his discreet robes, wandered the dusty, crowded market streets. Marko, the rogue trader dynasty's seneschal, accompanied him along with several other members of the retinue. The seneschal was just going over the final lists of supplies to be brought to orbit, a process that could take a day or two at most. Eli was overseeing things personally, as he required specific things to do his duty.

 

There was a crash. Marko looked up. The local tavern erupted with activity. A rough hillman was thrown out the window, glass shattering across the sand. Eli charged, Marko in pursuit. The Inquisitor's hand was on his stubgun. Marko sighed as he entered the chaotic tavern.

 

Bas, the youngest of the rogue traders, was held against the wall by one of the hillmen. The roughian was repeatedly punching him over and over. The lad's face was a mess of bruises and blood. The other two laughed. Bas' bodyguard was on the ground, a smoking wound from a lasbolt in his heart. "Pretty boy comes to our turf, eh? Think he can walk all over us, eh? Gotta pay a toll ya know" The second guy grabbed Bas' cane rapier from him but froze when he looked to the door. Eli, gun in-hand didn't have to turn. Starn, a great technobarbarian warrior and part of his retinue, stepped into the tavern. He looked down at the bodyguard, and then at Eli, and then at Bas and the hillmen. The first bandit charged, screaming with a cudgel. Starn was quick, drawing his monorapier and lopping off the ganger's arm. He fell, blood pooling. The second ganger dropped the cane sword and bolted, crashing through a window on the opposite end. The one holding Bas was occupied, punching the boy over and over. He had some kind of berserker implant, and his right ear was gone, replaced with a layer of iron. He laughed.

 

Starn reached out and grabbed him by the forearm mid-punch. He lifted the hillman into the air and crushed the bone. The man screamed. Marko dashed over, collecting the cane and the young trader. He looked to Eli. "We should leave."

 

"The others should be at the spaceport..." Eli said, his voice barely audible over the screaming man now writing on the floor. Starn tossed the boy over his shoulder and they took their leave of the broken tavern. The hard times had not even begun, Eli thought to himself.

[Evz]

The ride to the spaceport was uneventful, done by local groundcab. Eli leaned his bald head against the groxhide seat’s headrest. Starn was beside him and Bas across, now covered in bandages from Marko’s medkit. Marko himself had remained in the dense market, hunting down supplies. Two day’s time they’d leave for enemy territory.

 

The cab stopped. Eli cocked an eyebrow and leaned out the window. A car was blocking their street. A truck pulled up behind them. Hillmen poured out, clutching knives, wrenches, swords and primitive rifles. Eli stepped out but not before Starn. A fight broke out immediately. Blood flew. Eli punched a ganger’s nose with his bare fist then shot another in the chest. A third jumped on his back. He felt a knife slash at his chest, stopped by the armored bodyglove he wore beneath his robes. He pulled the man forwards, toppling him onto the man he had just punched. A sword dashed in front of him, falling to the street as Starn lopped the arm off. Screams were heard. Eli turned to see the car blocking them pull off quickly down the street. Eli shot another hillman and jumped into the cab.

 

”Follow that car!” He shouted to the servitor driver. Starn did not need him to finish. He was in debt to House Sando for their aid to the Throne, he would save their kin. The cab jolted over a bump, flying after the car. Stalls and gates were crashed, people jumped out of the way. The chase led Eli to the slums, and then the outskirts. They were taking him to the desert, to the muted brown hills these people called their home. He checked his pistol’s ammunition, reloaded to be sure and realized he had not yet let go of the knife the ganger attacked him with. His weapons were aboard the ship, so this would make do. He leaned his bald head back against the headrest and sighed, highway blasting by and the sun’s heat washing over his scalp.