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Post by Warork on Jul 30, 2016 17:16:09 GMT
Rook recalled a rumor that circulated in the guard forces that had landed on this planet just a week or so before that the Administratum was projecting the rough estimate of an average guardsman life expectancy within the forge world's combat zone to be fifteen hours, (specifically fourteen point five seven seven, repeating decimal of course, but Administratum adepts always seemed to make things much more complicated than they needed to be.)
It was this memory that flashed through his mind as an ork horde filled his weapons' scope that made Rook realize he was living on borrowed time...
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck..." Rook gibbered to himself as he desperately tried to get the weapon to fire again even as its barrel glowed and steamed slightly from the rapid shots he had sent out just moments before. He could feel his hands tremble with the force of adrenaline as he tried to work the weapon's meachnism to no avail.
'Fucking stupid rookie move, you dumbass.' Rook berated himself 'A lascannon against a horde of charging orks? How the fuck d'you make it this long in the guard?'
The trooper was so caught up in his sudden panic that he never even heard the far off sound of someone yelling right next to him behind the ringing in his ears or the alien death screams outside the building. The first indication that told Rook something was happening he felt rather than heard...a sudden crack-whumpf shook the small building so violently Rook dropped the lascannon in surprise and looked behind him for the source of the noise...only to see the dust and masonry clouds settling from where a new doorway had been made and the bright sunlight outside streamed in.
Rook sat there for a moment...stunned into inaction.
"You have got to be FUCKING KIDDING ME." He heard himself shout in disbelief.
That chickenshit stormtrooper had left him to die...what a piece of---
"WAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
Before Rook even knew what he was doing, he was springing up and into the room full of weapons, years of training and self preservation skills asserting themselves as the sound of rapid bootfalls outside and alien grunts filled his slowly clearing ears.
He knew it didn't matter but he grabbed the heavy stubber anyway.
He knew it didn't matter but he spun it around and propped it up on the table in front of him anyway.
He knew it didn't matter but he tilted his helmet to the side so he could rest his cheek on the weapon's stock and aim down its sights.
He knew it didn't matter but he racked the slide on the weapon's ammo belt anyway...twice for good measure.
Rook knew that the last few seconds of his life wouldn't matter to anyone or anything in the end but when the first shadow crossed through the doorway beyond he squeezed the trigger and held it there, feeling the gun roar and buck in his hands.
"RIGHT HERE YA GREEN CUNTS, COME GET SOME!"
Rook had always told himself that when the end came for him that he wouldn't go quietly...so he whooped and he felt the blood rush in his ears and smelled the smoke of burning rounds being spat from the business end of his weapon. He did it for all the guardsmen who never got to choose the way they died.
He did it because in the end it didn't really matter.
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Post by halonachos on Jul 30, 2016 17:29:11 GMT
Nathanial waited for Rook to leave until he noticed a distinct change in the noises coming from the stockpile, the smell of the air changed as a the loud burping of a stubber replaced the whine of a lascannon. With a glance through the hole he could see that the guardsman had blatantly ignored all orders and was standing his ground against the Orks. "Stupid fether, damn it." was all Nathanial could mutter as he put the hammer on his back and brought not only the gamma gun but the macrostubber to bear. The macrostubber in his left hand allowed him to more accurately aim the gamma gun at the onslaught. He moved steadily closer to the stubborn trooper and failed to flinch even when the grenades finally went off underneath several Orks, enough to kill a man but sadly only enough to delay or piss off an already battlelust filled Ork boy.
"I said we needed to move!" Nathanial yelled at the trooper, "Why in the Emperor's name do you never listen to me?" he chastised the trooper as the macrostubber and gamma gun focused on tearing into Ork flesh. "Now come on, we are wasting time and we need to commandeer that wagon." Nathanial attempted to communicate as such with turning his head towards the hole.
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coolyo294
Iconic
Slayer of Demons
Posts: 1,169
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Post by coolyo294 on Jul 30, 2016 18:42:50 GMT
Shooting, moving, shooting, moving. There was space for little other in the trio's mind as they ran for the alley. Bullets whizzed dangerously close past their heads, but luckily orks were awful marksmen. They returned fire, felling a few of the greenskinned bastards but mostly just keeping their heads down as they escaped. Quin's head bobbed unconsciously. Knowing their luck so far, she was going to end up with more brain damage than she already had.
Finally they reached the alley. The General and Balalaika ran in first, then Korina threw Quin in after and dropped her weapons.
"Take her, get back a ways." The Interrogator ordered. "I will do something to cover our escape."
She closed her eyes and began to mutter sacred hymns. Inside her head she could feel the gates that sealed her power unlock and the power of the Empyrean spill into her mind. Grotesque whispers assailed her, but she shut them out as she focused the energy. Rapidly the temperature of the surrounding air dropped to freezing and a rime of frost began to cover every surface. First fog formed, then ice crystals began to coalesce from the accumulated moisture. As they formed a painful burning spread from the tip of her fingers all the way to her shoulders, but Korina gritted her teeth and ignored it. She was almost drawing on too much power in her haste to buy them time, but her training barely managed to keep it under control for the time being. If she continued any longer the powers of the Empyrean would surely overpower her, with deadly effect.
Luckily she did not need to continue any longer. An ice wall, thick and hard as plascrete and three meters tall now spread out across the entrance to the alleyway, barring entry for the orks. She could still hear their bellows from beyond it and did not know how long it would hold, but for now it would hopefully buy them enough time to escape. As she reached down to pick up her wargear she noticed that the skin on her arms was blackened and discolered and some of the flesh on her hands had sloughed away. Irritating, annoying, and a reminder why she should never push her powers like that. It would require treatment eventually but for now they needed to keep moving. It hurt to hold her weapons but she did so anyway. She couldn't show weakness in front of either of her subordinates.
As she emerged from the psychic fog, the red pupil of her bionic eye glowed balefully through the mist. The general, Quinn, and the sniper were both rimed with frost, though the Valhallan didn't show any signs of being cold.
"That will buy us time. Now let us keep moving, before they break through."
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Post by Darko on Jul 30, 2016 19:00:08 GMT
The first four, five, then six orks through the scorched arch doorway of the bombed-out command centre were riddled with heavy-calibre rounds that decimated them. The bodies began to pile up in the doorway, blocking access and granting a precious few seconds of calm as Yorck rushed over to Rook and hurriedly spoke. The grenades' delayed detonation finally happened and there were anguished, guttural yells from outside. It was difficult to tell how many of the lurching figures outside had been killed or injured.
Then the carnage of battle resumed. Ork boyz piled through the empty window frames, jagged axes and swords still stained with dry blood eager to receive a fresh coat of paint. Crude pistols blasted holes in the wall behind them, most shots missing, however one embedded itself in Rook's flak plate with a heavy impact that he felt right above his heart, however he didn't even fully register the impact as he continued to unleash a torrent of death from the end of the stubber's barrel. Yorck killed orks from another window with his pistols, no greenskin able to survive the sheer magnitude of firepower.
However, in a few seconds everything changed. A terrifying warcry behind them elicited a rare sense of fear from even the hardened stormtrooper as he suddenly realised his error. The rest of the orks began to pile through the hole in the back wall scant meters from where they were standing. Yorck barely had time to change his stance in his heavy carapace armour and gun down a single ork with his macrostubber, a hail of bullets blowing a dozen holes in its torso and head, before another one barreled into him. Yorck collapsed on top of a metal table, the sheer combined weight of him and the ork tackling him forcing the piece of furniture to split instantly. Feeling the implacable weight of the thunder hammer on his back as he hit the ground, Yorck gasped, all of the air forced from his lungs.
Rook spun, holding the heavy stubber one-handed and steadying the belt feed with his free hand. It strained his muscles but he held a firm grip for several seconds, knowing that any inaccuracy on his part would be mitigated by the sheer rate of fire at such short range making it impossible to miss. The firepower dropped two more charging green brutes before the hammer clicked down on thin air and the last few orks rushed in for the kill. Bullets whizzed past him, one grazing his right arm, tearing fatigues and leaving a bloody trail across his bicep. He saw the one to his right tackle Yorck, and then there were three more still coming at him. With all his might he threw the useless heavy stubber at the closest, hitting it directly in its ugly, bestial face and disorienting it for a few precious moments. That gave him enough time to grab his newly claimed meltagun from nearby and raise it directly into an ork's chest, its cleaver inches from his head when both the blade and the upper half of the ork wielding it melted away in a stream of super-heated air. The smell of flesh disintegrating so close to his face was overpowering even with the omnipresent stench of human waste coating him from head to toe.
A brutal ork chainaxe revved violently and came down on Yorck's helmet, cutting through the thick armaplas and ceramite layers and he could just feel the teeth threatening to bite into his head when he pulled the trigger of the macrostubber, tracing it up the ork's body. Considerable blood and gore splattered onto his upper body as it groaned and died, collapsed on top of him. The chainaxe dropped loosely from its grip by his head. Xenos blood obscured his visor as he struggled to heft the corpse, dropping the macrostubber to swiftly wipe his visor clean.
Nearby Rook had the meltagun hacked from his grip by another opponent. A meaty, grubby hand lunged forward and tightened like an industrial vice around his throat, pushing him back several steps against a wall. The ork roared as it drove him backwards, spittle projecting from its stinking mouth into his face. Rook spluttered, the pressure on his throat instantly intolerable. His right arm naturally tried to tear the grip free but to no avail. His next thought was to reach for his power knife and he felt his fingers curl around its handle, pulling it free. Before he could strike the ork brought its own rusty sword down on his right hand, cutting it free from around its own throat grip. Rook screamed in agony, but the overwhelming adrenaline already coursing through his veins kept him focused and aware even as he saw the finishing blow about to land. In one swift move his left arm shot out, plunging the power knife straight into the side of the ork's head, the knife's power field passing through the ork's helmet like it wasn't even there. The ork's eyes rolled upward and it slowly collapsed as its body realised that its brain was dead.
Meanwhile, Yorck had barely thrown the corpse to one side before the last two orks seized upon him. A quick glance to his left a few seconds earlier through the blood-stained lenses of his helmet told him Rook was occupied fighting a greenskin that pushed him out of eyeshot. He had no time to worry about his companion however, the two new problems in his life suddenly occupied his full attention. He tried to fire the gamma pistol - empty. His heart skipped a beat. A single gunshot resounded. Red hot pain shot up his right leg and Yorck winced, his mind racing and scarcely processing that he'd been shot in the shin somewhere below the knee. One of the greenskins laughed, an unpleasant noise in any situation, as it placed a heavy foot across his throat. The other raised a crude chainsword that buzzed through the air and chewed through his chest plate, the venerable metal armour protesting against the onslaught. He felt more pain as his armour began to buckle under several repeat blows and suddenly his chest felt wet, a jagged wound torn across his front. His heart pounded in his chest like never before, his strength was ebbing fast, he couldn't reach the thunder hammer from his current position. Where was the Emperor's salvation? Would the darkness take him first, and then he'd see the golden throne? Everything... started... to get... so dark... and sleepy...
Then an unfamiliar sensation passed over him. His body was numb from pain, at least several flesh wounds must have been inflicted, but this sensation was different. The weight of his ever-present helmet was gone, torn off by the closest ork who raised a comically over-sized pistol - a bastardized bolt weapon - and placed it against his temple. He closed his eyes, a whispered prayer on his lips.
He heard the shot. His ears were ringing like bells of the grand chapel of the Ecclesiarchy on holy Terra itself, and yet he realised he was not dead. He opened his eyes, shakily raising a hand to his head, feeling blood. How... how had the shot missed? Then he realised that it wasn't his blood. It was ork blood. Time was passing in slow motion, and he blinked repeatedly and gasped down ragged breathes as the weight was removed from his throat. The world snapped back into focus. He looked up. The first ork's throat had been sliced open, spilling warm blood onto his bare face. It toppled over next to him, clutching its throat desperately. He looked into its alien eyes as it desperately struggled against the inevitability of death. He saw its panic, its fear, its realisation that its existence was over. All these things he had felt with such certainty mere moments ago. The difference... he had his faith. He saw the absence of faith; of something greater in the ork's eyes, and he realised that in that moment, that was all that separated him from the disgusting xenos creature next to him.
A hand clasped his own before he even regained his senses, and he felt himself being pulled upright and propped against a wall. His turned, starting to recover his wits. The fight was over. He never thought he'd be so grateful to see Rook's face. The man was panting heavily, covered in xenos blood, and perhaps some of his own. He slumped down next to Yorck, who spared a glance at the other ork. It lay still, bleeding from two dozen savage stab wounds. They sat there for awhile, both unsure of whether to laugh, cry, rejoice and praise the Emperor, or any one of a score of other emotional responses.
After a little while of sitting in silence, the ringing began to abate and Yorck felt like he could actually think straight again.
"We're alive," he said.
"Yeah," said Rook. "We are."
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Post by Warork on Jul 30, 2016 20:17:22 GMT
Silenced reigned in that room. Silence and smoke and the smell of blood and the taste of adrenaline.
"You are, without a doubt, the worst guardsman I've ever met." Yorck said, breaking the silence.
"I'll take that as a compliment." Rook panted. The two were slumped on the room's far wall, the scene before them was a charnel house of warm green bodies and their dark fungal fluids. The corpses lay in all sorts of twisted positions, their visages slack jawed and glassy eyed. Rook had nothing but contempt for each and every one of them.
"No, I mean it." Yorck got out between breaths "You're terrible."
"I'll be sure to write home about--" Rook stopped the sentence halfway through as he made a familiar movement to grab a lho stick from the carton he kept in his helmet...
Only now was he realizing that the fingers he would normally use for this mundane task were no longer attached to his arm...
He held his right arm out in from of him...and noticed he was distinctly missing five digits and a hand that had been there a few minutes before...they were replaced by a red, bleeding stump and the white of bone that had been hacked clean through.
"Huh." Rook said flatly. "That's gonna make zipping my fly a bit more difficult."
Rook looked around the room as his stump continued to bleed freely. Should he...should he look for his hand? Should he do something else? What...what was the protocol for a severed hand? Rook heard a slight, dry chuckle from next to him and looked over to Yorck.
"You know how to fix that, right?" He asked, blood staining his amused and weary smile.
"Do I look like a fucking medic?"
"It needs to be cauterized you idiot."
"Oh."
Rook thought about that for a moment before pulling his laspistol out of its holster and holding it in its left hand. He held what was left of his right arm in front of the gun's muzzle but before he could proceed, something poked him in the shoulder. Rook looked over to see Yorck prodding him with the power knife's handle. Sometime during the battle it must have fallen from Rook's grip, he wasn't sure how Yorck had found it from where he was sitting. The battered stormtrooper nodded at the weapon.
"You're gonna wanna bite down on this."
"O-okay." Rook said, his voice trembling as he took the blade in his mouth and bit down hard on the handle.
He once again held his right arm out in front of the laspistol's muzzle. Seconds dragged on into a minute and he was still sitting there, frozen like a statue. Finally, just as Yorck was about to say something, Rook lowered his arms and sighed.
"Guess its your lucky day, glory boy. You're gonna get to shoot me after all." Rook said ruefully after spitting out the power knife. "I uh...I can't...I can't do it."
Rook handed Yorck the laspistol and held out his arm stump, sucking wind through his teeth as the pain slowly kindled its way past the adrenaline. "Make it quick. We gotta get out of this mess you put us in."
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Post by Darko on Jul 30, 2016 21:11:09 GMT
General Bastille raised an eyebrow at Korina's psychic display. He was in the midst of over-charging his borrowed laspistol, but still paused when he saw the psyker's injuries. He didn't comment. "You are correct, however unless you have a better idea we need to find somewhere to go to ground," he said as the group of four hurried down the alley. In the distance, the rumble of numerous cantankerous engines grew closer. "The orks are on high alert and we have no chance against the entire horde. Fortunately we may not be the only survivors. Others were left behind as well - I heard some of the orks talking in their crude language about small pockets of resistance, although they were non-specific about the details. Our best hope is to get out of immediate danger and try to link up with other survivors, likely hiding in the city somewhere."
"Everything feels very dizzy... Oh Korina... what happened to the Inquisitor, Korina? She told me about that special box... but we can't let the xenos get it! No-no-no-no, that would be very bad!" Quinn began to ramble, some awareness returning to her troubled and traumatized mind.
The familiar raucous of crude engines caused the group to look up, seeing the other ork fighter circling overhead.
"Damn them to the warp, they'll be tracking us unless that aircraft loses our trail," fumed Bastille as they reached the end of the alleyway, opening out onto a wide road filled with craters. "We're too exposed and our options are limited on foot. We could try to reach the airbase several kilometers east, but I fear it will be overrun by now. We could hole up in one of these nearby manufactorums - they are resilient, ancient buildings, particularly the closer we get to Salvator's centre. Or perhaps that Omnissian shrine across the way would--" The General immediately stopped talking and readied his pistol at the sound of approaching danger.
A pair of looted Leman Russ battle tanks trundled into view at the far end of the road where it split into a junction. Slowly but surely the tanks began to turn and approach. The top hatch on the lead vehicle opened and an ork whose face was stained black with engine crease raised a simplistic spyglass to scan the street for prey. At the other end of the street a trio of warbuggies sped past, headed in a different direction. The ork's mobilized forces had arrived, and they were hunting humans.
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Post by halonachos on Jul 31, 2016 3:05:10 GMT
Nathanial ignored the laspistol and placed his helmet back upon his head, a light breeze brought the stink of dead xenos into his mask from the new gash in the top. "After all the times you have blatantly ignored my orders, you feel as if you can even think that asking me to do anything for you is okay? It's not trooper, I have not yet given you permission to die and I fail to believe that cauterizing your wound just to be shot would be a good use of ammo. According to regulations I would be flogged for wasting a round, wasting valuable material to cauterize a wound, or both." with a heavy and painful sigh he made his way over to the defeated Rook, "We still have a job to do, my leg hurts more than ever and I refuse to march on it. I suggest we finally steal that battlewagon and make our way to whatever they were heading too." he tossed a glance at Rook from over his shoulder, "Besides, you can get a new hand when this is done with. Probably not as flesh covered, but a hand that works. Maybe a new brain as well, if you had run out that hole I made like I had told you to then we wouldn't be in this condition." he was quiet as he looked at the battlewagon and rested against the charred opening of the stockpile, "I believe you owe me that much... Rook. Perhaps even owe the world and the Emperor that much, think about it. There was a needle rifle there, a prime weapon for a sniper like our quiet friend, weapons used primarily by Inquisitors and I count at least two members of the Inquisition in our numbers, and even a plethora of weapons for a special weapons trooper such as yourself. This isn't punishment, this isn't torture, this is divine intervention. He wants us to deliver these weapons to our comrades, He wants us to take that battlewagon, He wants us to save this planet and it's people from the Orks. We owe them this much, now get on your feet, stop bitching about your hand, and let's go.".
He felt done chastising the soldier, surely he would think of things to say along the way but somehow the wounds he had taken it out of him. Maybe he had lost too much blood.
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Post by Darko on Jul 31, 2016 22:28:22 GMT
"No," whispered Korina. "We let these tanks pass and then we get out of this area. Too many hostiles on high alert and my only concern is ensuring this box reaches safety. Everything else is not a priority."
"Including survival," muttered Balalaika under her breath. She glanced up, noticing that storm clouds were on the horizon. "Before the battle began, I heard from a Tech Priest that this world has radiation storms. I hope he was joking."
"I've never met a Tech Priest with a sense of humour," replied the General, sparing a troubled look to the sky. "And I can confirm that one wasn't joking. Locals take radiation pills on a monthly basis to build up immunity. We didn't plan to be here that long."
"Quiet," hissed Korina as the defaced tanks trundled closer and closer. Glancing over her shoulder back down the alleyway, her advanced bionic eye detected cracks beginning to form in the ice wall. The orks were breaking through.
The four of them pressed themselves against the alley walls, staying low to try and avoid detection. Balalaika's camo-cloak was strewn over herself entirely, and she was almost imperceptible to the naked eye.
As the tanks passed, the ork commander protruding from the turret copula of the lead vehicle continued gazing around. Unfortunately, he happened to gaze left, directly at them. Recognition began to form on its tusked face. A single red beam preceded half of its head burning away in a flash. The ork immediately slumped over - dead. The sound of the shot was almost entirely drowned out by the coughing engines of the tanks, and they continued trundling down the street, unaware of what had happened. Korina glanced at the General, his recently over-charged laspistol still hot around the barrel.
"I didn't survive three crusades by being a bad shot," he smiled curtly.
"Not bad," said the Valhallan approvingly.
Several city blocks of sneaking later, having avoided almost fifteen separate ork patrols through a combination of skill and the orks' own complacency, Korina stopped. The others stopped behind her - Quinn, then Balalaika and the General bringing up the rear.
"I hear gunshots," she stated flatly, frowning as she tried to determine the location.
"I don't hear anything," said the General.
"No, she is right. Trust me, I have excellent hearing. Those are... those are Imperial weapons, I'm sure of it," Balalaika added.
"Which way?" Asked Korina.
"Follow me."
Balalaika took the lead and they swiftly crossed the street, moving through a ruined hab block, stopping as a rabble of orks came into view and headed in the direction of the gunshots. Their barbaric war chants and quick pace ensured that they payed no attention to their surroundings. Slowly, the group of four followed, moving quickly and quietly. Rounding two more corners, they stopped behind a pileup of ruined, burning groundcars just outside a large complex with a chain-link fence. It was broken in several places, and the large iron gates had been forcibly knocked open by some sort of vehicle. Looking through her scope, Balalaika spotted a rhino APC further inside, flipped on its side and burning. The ork horde joining the frey were clearly not the first to arrive, and as she surveyed the scene further, the others alert for signs of danger behind them, she spotted the source of the familiar weapon reports.
She lowered her rifle and turned back to the group. "Sisters of Battle, surrounded in cover but holding their ground. Looks like some sort of manufactorum and warehouse complex, very large. Seems like they were hauling cargo and fighting to protect it, but the orks took out their rhino."
"Hostiles, six o'clock," Bastille piped up. Sure enough, another mob was approaching - this time storm boyz with hap-hazardous rocket packs strapped to their backs in a crude imitation of Imperial assault troops. "Those orks will negate the Sisters' cover, and they'll chase us down like dogs if they spot us. Either we move into that complex to support them or we escape while we still can - either way, we do it now. I may be a General but you're Inquisition and this is your team, so I'll defer to your judgement. But those are the first friendlies I've seen since I was captured, besides yourselves. We may not stumble upon more any time soon. I say we get in there and give those xenos bastards hell, and show them Caedis Five still belongs to the Emperor."
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Post by halonachos on Aug 1, 2016 2:58:46 GMT
The side of the battlewagon was a welcome respite from the short walk, or endeavor as one might call it, from the stockpile. He felt overly tired for such a trivial chore, he hadn't been this tired since that time he took a slug to the arm back home. It was a tough fight, the gangers were pretty well armed considering their position in the underbelly's totem pole. He remembered getting knocked to the side, a numbness followed by a burning sensation, and then blood everywhere. He was sure he would have died if not for the local medicae staunching the bleeding. "OH!" the revelation struck him harder than any of the Orks had. "I need to stop bleeding, that would help.". He pulled out a roll of bandages from his webbing and began to unravel them until he noticed an audible 'squelch' issue from the roll. "They're covered in filth... of course the department munitorum in all of it's infinite wisdom have failed to make water-tight containers for their bandages.
He sat back against the battlewagon and let his head fall back until his helmet met the ramshackle vehicle with a thud. He closed his eyes and began to quietly mutter litanies to himself and pulled out his macrostubber. The trooper had a good idea, using a hot muzzle to cauterize a wound and he was intent on utilizing it. Two shots rang out from the weapon and before the smoke could flit away from the weapon it was buried in Nathanial's leg as deep as he could manage. He knew it would cauterize the majority of the superficial bleeding and eventually the other deep vessels would clot. He felt a broken bone and knew he was lucky that the shot had only destroyed his fibula. His tibia was most likely fractured but still mostly usable. He then pulled a piece of flat steel from under the battlewagon and grabbed the next piece of scrap metal that resembled a rod and laid them on opposite sides of his legs before tying them together with the otherwise worthless bandages. "There, that will help brace it for a bit."
Next was his chest, luckily the tiny medkit held a small needle and thread along with some antiseptic. He opened the bottle of antiseptic and dropped some on his chest wound before slowly sinking the suture into the bottle. He waited a few seconds, said some more litanies and then began to stitch the wound together before firing another round and applying the barrel to the most egregious bleeds.
"You know, Rook, I wasn't always this tough." the storm trooper held back anguished screams. "You see, I used to be just some guy on a planet who's sole purpose was quelling any kind of disagreement to the governor. Whether it was a shopkeeper, a peddler, another politician, or some kids who didn't know better. I was there to deal with them. I will tell you one thing, you never feel tough when your main targets are unarmed people." he helped himself up on the side of the battlewagon and tested out his brace. There was some looseness in the bottom tie but he would correct that soon. "Then I got excited, for once our enemy had guns and quite a lot of them I may add. THey had holed up in a walled off hab block and I decided to use a crashed Valkyrie to ram through the gate, the resulting explosion took out the wall, roughly a dozen gangers, and of course a few housing units. However I had used a mostly functional crashed Valkyrie and that made some people upset and I found myself in a penal legion."
He looked at Rook to see if he was even paying attention, "If you want to talk about being forced to fight you haven't seen anything until you've been in a penal battalion. You say you were conscripted and that you didn't ask for it, well I will tell you that being conscripted and dieing with glory is better than being forced to charge through open ground against a mass of stubbers and heavy bolters while artillery rains all around you just so you can die without disgrace. Any honor a member of the battalion earned didn't get him a medal, it got him recognition as a decent person. Not great, just decent. I did a lot to earn back any sort of honor, I dug a mine underneath enemy fortifications and detonated tons of explosives underneath them to cause a breach. I dragged others from hellholes just so they could have a chance to continue a fight for redemption. One time I laid in the middle of a field for a day just so I could plant a bomb on the undercarriage of a traitor unit's leman russ. Do you know what happened each time, Rook? Merit for causing a breach, demerit for wasting explosives. Merit for saving the life of a fellow soldier, demerit for saving the life of a penal legionnaire. Merit for destroying an enemy armored vehicle, demerit for destroying valuable equipment. I could have destroyed all of the Chaos gods and I would only be deemed as decent... that was until a wandering Inquisitor saw me in action and then saw my record. I was saved by the Inquisition, saved from that indignity of doing heroics just to be deemed an average citizen."
"But you Inquisition types, you don't exactly act wonderfully and tell the truth." Rook replied coarsely.
"Yes but I know that if I died in the Inquisition there would be a few dozen people who would recognize the sacrifice that I had made and that was better than none." the trooper sighed, "Have you ever stared a greater daemon in the eyes, Rook? They have a maddening presence about them, just being on the same planet as one is enough to cause a small sense of dread, but being in one's grasp and direct line of sight is... well rather difficult to describe. You feel as if your innards are liquid, your mind is a scrawled children's drawing, and your muscles are nothing. You are useless and helpless against such a creature, but after that first time I learned to deal with it. It wants you to scream, to suffer, to let it know that it is supreme and that it is going to do the same to every single person on that planet. You don't scream and it upsets the creature, you show an inkling of resolve and it moves to strike to remove you of any such strength, and if you fight back then Chaos loses just a tad bit of it's strength. Enough for you to put a plasma shot into it's face." the storm trooper mimicked a pistol shot with his fingers. "I went from fighting unarmed Imperial citizens to fighting the manifestations of mankind's greatest enemies. As I have said, there's no honor in fighting children, but there is a great reward for fighting the stuff of children's nightmares and I thank the Emperor for sending that Inquisitor to that battlefield that day and I thank him for every day I have survived since then. He gives strength to those who let him in, Rook, strength that can be used to conquer daemons of the warp and those you harbor in yourself."
He knew he had talked for quite some time, in another life he could have been a priest and simply spread the word of the Emperor. For now his only audience was a one handed guardsman who simply wanted it all to end.
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Post by Warork on Aug 1, 2016 6:48:16 GMT
'Fuck it.'
Those were the only two words that his mind could conjure at this point. Less than five minutes out of a scrap with what seemed like every goddamned ork on the planet and Rook was already being subjected to another sermon courtesy of the only other motherfucker in the room that had been lucky enough to still be breathing by the end of it.
Rook watched the bastard walk away from him; Yorck's words echoing in the distance of his mind like the braying of a jackass in the countryside. He could only stare, eyes fixed on the stormtrooper's backside as he continued his tirade...he didn't hear a word the man said, his own thoughts were much too loud.
'One round in the back of that other leg...' He pondered as he sat there, his grip loosening and tightening on the grip of his laspistol, 'one round to drop him would be all it would take...That power knife in his spine, that plasma gun on the table...'
There were just so many ways that Rook could see this little problem of his disappear forever. The bastard wouldn't even know it...nobody who had ever crossed Rook had ever seen it when he ended them...
'Not the Commissariate, not the Adminstratum, not the Arbites...Nobody.'
Rook's finger tightened on the trigger of the laspistol, he could feel the resolve in his hand, the confidence spurred on by the fact that he had done this before. Survival was in his DNA. It was as much a part of him as his name; it was who he was.
Living to see another day; that was the Guardsman's life...and he would be throne damned before he let anyone...anyone...get in the way of that.
One quick motion, one squeeze of the trigger would be all it took. Yorck had his back turned, it would be so simple to...
'No.'
A curious voice and a curious feeling in Rook's gut...he could feel that resolve that had been so strong a moment before ebbing away. An instinct he could barely name had taken over his senses in that moment, it told him something he had known for years but had nearly forgotten in that moment of unbridled anger; some enemies came at you with cleavers and monstrous roars...some wore a uniform just like yours.
Either way when fighting an enemy timing was everything.
'Great God Emperor...'
He heard his mind's voice pray, his eyes drilling into Yorck as the man limped away.
'Watch over your servant...'
Despite the fires still burning outside the building, Rook felt the temperature inside drop suddenly...or perhaps that was just the rage in himself cooling down to an iron core of determination...whatever it was, it chilled his bones to the marrow.
'And bestow upon him the skill and patience...'
He watched Yorck go...The man was still talking. Rook imagined he would be yammering up until the moment one of the two killed the other. It was strange, Rook had never fancied himself a fortuneteller, but in that moment he was never more certain of anything; Rook or Yorck, one would be the death of the other at some point...The only question was when.
'To time the moment
And make the kill.'
Rook had been fighting orks long enough to know that their leathers made a decent binding for a bandage made of their garments. He also knew that though the rough, crude and itchy clothing that they wore was usually not fit for use on an open wound, their grog was almost always strong enough to act as disinfectant...and orks rarely went anywhere without a can of their shitty brew close by.
But cauterizing a severed wrist stump in a rubble fire...that was new. It was a good thing some of that ork grog had been left over...the strength of its taste alone was enough to make Rook forget about his nerve ends being roasted on an open flame.
The battlewagon...they had finally reached it. The two of them leaned on it for support, the pain of their wounds reducing two battle tested veterans of the wars of man to grunting, grimacing, squirming piles of misery...
'And the motherfucker is...STILL...talking.'
At least what Yorck was talking about now was a bit more interesting. Rook would have never pegged the man for being in a penal legion in a million years. Rook had seen penal battalions, he had a few of his comrades sent to them...hell, he had almost been sent to one himself a few times.
Rook wiped bullets of sweat from his brow with the grimy sleeve of his fatigue. He could feel his body on the brink of shock but willed himself to hold on. He must have lost more blood than he thought because he was sure he was seeing shadows move around the corner of the wagon's backside--
'No...no those are definitely real.'
His laspistol was already in his hand again, with his bad arm he shoved Yorck to one side despite whatever protests he had to offer and crouched down next to the vehicle's wide tracks. A pair of beady, animal eyes peered back out at him from underneath it.
Rook didn't even say a word. He just unloaded the pistol into the wagon's underside.
The next thing he knew, the little green scurrying bastards were everywhere; pouring out of side hatches and jumping off turrets, gibbering and screaming in their alien tongue as they ran in random directions away from the wagon. Rook raised his pistol to shoot one as it ran past him only to have the weapon's magazine whine and die. He settled for kicking it square in its ass and sending it head over heels through the air.
A few seconds passed as the two guardsmen watched the gretchin run off into the city, leaving them alone with their prize.
Rook turned to Yorck...a million things ran through his head that he would have liked to say to him. He hesitated. After a moment he simply shook his head, walked past the stormtrooper and started throwing the gear they had been fortunate enough to keep from the stockpile into the back of the wagon...all the while thinking of the two words that had been keeping him sane in all these years of insanity.
'Fuck it.'
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