#Naemi Vandenberg

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 4

The low growl of the engine echoed strangely along the walls and off into the darkness. They’d been driving for almost an hour down a series of winding subways and rail tunnels that had been used to ferry workers out into the mining pits. Now, illuminated only by the floodlights of their vehicle, the tracks were empty.

Inside the Taurox, things were quiet. The Hellbats sat watching the shadows cast by the floodlights. Reddy and Abel sat with their eyes glued to their wristcog dataslates which showed live pict-feeds from the pair of servo-skulls that roved in front of and behind them. They cast about with auspex readers, scanning the darkness for things unseen. They were moving closer and closer to the heart of Scarist Hive and the odds of them going undetected were shrinking by the moment.

Naemi concentrated on the map in her head, seeing more than what the dataslate on her arm could show her. They were close to the Archives now, barely blocks away from city center. She was amazed they’d made it this far without encountering any of the deranged cultists that had taken over the hive. By all accounts, they had swarmed up from the underhive and taken control of every major building, system, and office in the city. Perhaps none remained down here. The Archives was on the surface, however, and a lump formed in her throat at the thought of facing down those killers.

She shook herself mentally and steeled herself. They’d have to get there first.

“It should just be up there,” she said in a whisper.

“Lights ahead,” said Sergeant Alcoin.

“Abel?” said Sorn.

“Yessir.”

With two fingers, Sorn punched runes on his wristcog and brought the view from Abel’s servo-skull onto the bulkhead pict-screen. It hovered high in the tunnel, creeping along ahead of them. The tunnel widened out into a large railway loading area for people and cargo that would have gone down to the mining pits. Only a few of the vapor lamps were still on, but the pools of light revealed the grand vaults of the Archives stop, where countless scribes would bring their daily tabulations and recordings to be stored at the end of each shift.

“I don’t see anyone.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of any of those tunnel scuttlers. Makes me nervous,” said Sorn.

“Think the Hallowed Starborn cult is big on reading?” asked Naemi. Her voice was strained, but the Hellbats chuckled around her.

“No I don’t, professor. All right, Caissy, bring us in. Aime, look alive on those guns.”

The Taurox pulled into the train station and up onto the equipment loading ramp, its treads biting into the fractured tile and ruined mosaic floor. They came to a stop and opened the back hatch, piling out with guns ready. Caissy and Aime stayed aboard, covering the Hellbats’ advance with the heavy guns.

Water dripped from pipes in the vaulted ceilings, lending the loading platform an echoing, spectral quality. Naemi was squarely in the middle of the formation, protected by Scions on either side and a slab of armoured vehicle at her back. She still wasn’t used to the carapace armor she’d been fitted with, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it looked and she found that her movement was mostly unrestricted. They slunk quickly to the grand staircase that led to the surface. Wrought iron gates had been reinforced with heaps of scrap metal welded together across them to form an impassable wall much like they had encountered on the surface.

“We’re blocked, sir,” said Reddy over the vox, “should we blow it?”

“Maybe not,” said Naemi, searching her memory, “there’s another way, I think.”

She broke away to the side of the main pedway where she followed a pair of tramrails sunk into the floor. They led to a loading ramp that was closed off with two heavy blast doors and big enough to move mining equipment on and off of the trains that would depart from the platform. A freight elevator. And it went up to a storage garage on the surface, adjacent to the Archives. This was their way up. She found the control panel under a pool of light cast by one of the few remaining lamps that shone.

“Can you get it working?” said Sorn, coming up next to her. He made a series of hand motions to the other Hellbats and they fanned out around them, taking covering angles, some facing the elevator and others the approaches.

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

She pulled her Logos icon from underneath her chestplate and turned it over. From the back, she unspooled a fine interface lead that she plugged into the elevator call panel. The solar icon around the stylized tome lit with green light as the cipher-gheist inside did its work. With the scrape of metal on metal, the doors to the freight elevator ground open and glowglobes flickered on inside, revealing a platform big enough to hold a full dump-loader.

Satisfied that nothing was going to jump out at them, Sorn motioned the Taurox forward. With a low grumble, it moved up the loading ramp and onto the elevator. Aime rotated top turret to face back the way they’d come. The brake lights cast a sullen red glow out into the darkness. The Hellbats followed their vehicle up the ramp and took defensive positions along the outer edges of the lift platform. Naemi unplugged her icon and followed.

The doors slid closed with the push of a control rune and the platform lurched upward.

They were dumped out into the storage garage meant for the Archives adepts, mine-boss vehicles, and materiel destined for the railway below. A quick jog up the ramps brought them to ground level where the garage connected to the Archives. They stopped in front of the doorway that led to the building next to them.

“Caissy, Aime. Stay here with the Taurox and keep our getaway secure.” Acknowledges came back from the two troopers and Sorn continued. “We’ll be in an out before anyone knows we’ve been there.”

Naemi followed the Hellbats through an archway that led to the Archives’ main foyer, using her icon’s cipher-gheist to get them through the biomantic scanners and lockouts.

The main hall of the Archives was a soaring edifice of rib-vaulted stone and stained glass, but its grandeur was despoiled by looting and vandalism. Scrivener’s desks were overturned and staved in, the tall tome-stacks had been pushed over, scattering books, dataslates, and mnesis-tapes all over. The great stained glass windows that had once shown the full glory of the Administratum were smashed and huge sack-cloth banners painted with the Starborn’s heretical symbols hung in their place.

“Spread out. Search pattern delta-tertius,” came Sorn’s order, “I feel like a whiskerfish in a river full of swampcats.”

The two servo-skulls that accompanied them zoomed ahead, their auspex scanners searching the darkness for threats unseen. The Mercier boys followed close behind, disappearing into the ruined stacks, their hot-shot lasguns held at the ready. Lufleur hefted her own weapon, a heat-scarred meltagun, and moved quietly for a soldier of her size.

It was eerily quiet amid the stacks. The musty smell of old paper and books made it through the omnishield mask that covered Naemi’s face. It almost comforted her. It was familiar, yet sinister, reminding her of the scriptorum back on Terra, but tainted by the smell of smoke and fresh aero-paint.

Her vox crackled in her ear. “Found something.”

They passed into the great narthex where the High Archivist would have watched over the entrance to the data-crypts, the repository for the planet’s most sensitive and important knowledge. Abel and Reddy were already there, standing over the cracked marble desk and a mound of blue cloth. As she drew near, Naemi realized it was the High Archivist’s corpse. Blood had seeped out onto the white stone floors and dried to a dark brown.

“Been here for a week, maybe?” said Abel.

“Went down fighting,” said his brother, pointing to the huge chunks blasted out of the stone desk.

Naemi stared down at the High Archivist’s body and swayed. Dead eyes stared up from a slack-jawed face.  She felt bile rise in her throat and had to look away. She felt a hand on her arm.

Sorn steered her away from the corpse and towards the data-crypt’s doors. “Come on, professor. The quicker we can get into those data-crypts, the faster we can get out of here.”

“Right,” she said, swallowing hard and unspooling her Logos icon’s interface lead once more.

The back wall of the narthex was dominated by a heavy vault door. A gene-scanner and voiceprint analyzer would have to be passed for the High Archivist’s key to be accepted, but Naemi wouldn’t need to go to such lengths. She prised the front panel off of the crypt’s access cogitator, mouthed a quick apology to any red priests who might be watching, and connected her icon to a data port hidden within. Once again, her Logos icon glowed green as the cipher-gheist went to work.

Runes and tech-script scrawled along the pict-screen as the panel went haywire. A loud clunk echoed through the Archive as the data-crypt’s maglocks disengaged and retracted. Lufleur hauled on the huge door and it swung open, revealing a cavernous structure built of ceramite-reinforced steel and it stretched back into the darkness. Rows of glowglobes clicked on in succession, flooding the data-crypt with clinical, white light. Towers of datastacks and mnemono-matrices rose from the floor, lights winking across their surfaces in dizzying patterns. Along the outer walls, bookshelves containing musty scrolls, tomes, and volumes were neatly organized. It seemed that the Hallowed Starborn hadn’t managed to get into vault. Naemi’s heart leaped at the prospect of the Iterator Soldatta’s greatest work still being intact.

“Neatly done, professor,” said Sorn, coming to stand next to her.

“There’s still power, which is better than I’d hoped,” she said, stepping over the threshold, “The stasis vault should still be functioning. We might even find Soldatta’s work undamaged!”

“Let’s have ourselves a look,” drawled the colonel. He motioned quickly with one hand and Leger and Monpremier bustled in with their equipment. Out of their packs, they brought out black plastic boxes with retractable cables. The two troopers went to work connecting them to the stacks’ dataports, flipping the small switches on their boxes. Small red lights blinked as their exhaust fans revved up with an electric whine.

Naemi started to speak, but remembered the colonel’s face the last time she asked what he would do with the data he was taking from Scarist’s vaults. She decided not to press the issue. Hopefully, she’d be well out of this Emperor-forsaken subsector before it came back to bite her. She affected to not see them and push on deeper into the data-crypt.

The two of them proceeded towards the far end of the chamber where a glass panel separated a section of the vault off from the rest. Arcane machinery hummed around it, projecting a stasis field to keep the contents within protected from the ravages of time. At the center of the stasis chamber, atop a small plinth, Naemi could see the object of her quest. The Rise of Empire, Iterator Soldatta’s greatest work, was a tome the size of a paving stone and engraved with the head of an eagle over crossed thunderbolts.

Naemi began to manipulate the stasis controls though her Logos icon. She could have shut the entire chamber down and retrieved the book, but there was a chance that the Archives might survive the Imperial assault on Scarist and she wanted to keep the accumulated knowledge of the planet safe within the time-warping fields. The entire data-crypt was hardened against attack and she would give it good odds to survive even an orbital lance strike. By adjusting the edges of the field generators in a precise way, she could open a path through the stasis chamber and retrieve the Iterator’s tome without disturbing the rest of the precious objects inside.

The vox channel came alive and she could hear Reddy’s voice whispering, “I’ve got movement out here, chief.”

“Visual?”

“I’ve got mining vehicles and groundcars pullin’ up to the front of the building. They’re packed to burstin’ with some of the meanest characters I ever did see. I think they know we’re here.”

“Pull back to the crypt, we’re almost out of here,” voxed Sorn before giving her a serious look, “Wrap it up, boys. Time for us to go! You too, professor. If you’re gonna grab this thing, it’s got to be now.”

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 3

The first 500 words of this part is the original pitch sample I submitted to BL.  I liked it because it had a good set of action and a splash of character. Ah well.

“Was this part of the plan?” Naemi had to scream to hear herself over the roar of the engines. She was thrown against her harness as they went into a jarring bank to avoid incoming fire.

She couldn’t see Sorn’s face hidden behind the omnishield masks that they all wore, but she could hear the grin on his face as he responded calmly over their voxnet. “Don’t pay heed to stray flak, professor! Think of it like a little rain!”

She couldn’t help but mind it. She and her Hellbat escort were crammed into the troop compartment of a Taurox assault vehicle, which was, in turn, mag-locked to the belly of a Sky Talon lifter. She wasn’t a woman that was inclined to pray outside of ritual obeisance, but as another explosion rattled them, she screwed her eyes closed and tried to remember her orisons. She had the picture of the prayerbook clear in her mind’s eye, but she couldn’t focus on the words.

“Oh Throne, please…”

A small chorus of laughter sounded in her ears. She’d still been transmitting. A groan escaped her.

“Cheer up, professor,” came Abel’s voice, “Reddy here cried like a baby on his first real drop!”

“Tears of joy,” piped Reddy indignantly.

The pilot of their Sky Talon, call sign “Dustman”, crackled over the vox, “Troublemaker, Dustman. Final ready check.”

“This is it, boys and girls!” announced Sorn, slapping a bulkhead rune-switch with the palm of his hand. The crew compartment lit up with sullen red lumen lamps, “Hellbats signal ready!”

“Troublemaker two is go!” Sergeant Alcoin’s voice said and his squad rune turned green on the wristcog dataslate on Naemi’s wrist.

“Troublemaker three is go!”

“Troublemaker four, go!”

Down the line, the Hellbats signaled ready. It was silent for a heartbeat before Naemi realized it was her turn. With an explosive breath, she shouted, “Troublemaker ten, go!”

Sorn’s voice, usually smooth and unhurried, had gained a wild edge to it, “Troublemakers signal green, Dustman. Bring us in!”

“We’re in for some chop, Troublemaker.”

“Rev it up, Caissy! Alcoin, engage the chutes!”

Dustman threw them into a vicious dive towards a network of mining trenches that spiderwebbed out from Scarist Hive. Anti-aircraft fire exploded around them as they weaved. They pulled out of the dive and Naemi was crushed into her harness as they leveled out, meters from the ground.

Corporal Caissy put his foot down and the Taurox came to life. The big engine added its own roar to the cacophony. Alcoin punched several runes on the control console and gave his commander a thumbs-up. The high-speed quad-tracks churned the air as they tore over the landscape under them. Sorn pressed the bulkhead rune-switch again, changing the lumen lamps from red to green.

“Go for drop!”

“Emperor protects, Troublemaker.”

With an lurch, the mag-locks released and the Hellbats let out a warcry. Naemi couldn’t help but join in as they dropped like a stone.

She felt weightless as they plummeted downward, the straps of her harness biting into her shoulders to keep her in her seat. A high-pitched whine shrieked above them as the grav-chutes jury-rigged onto the Taurox’s chassis kicked in, slowing them just enough so they wouldn’t be smashed apart by their landing.

They hit the floor of the mining trench, bouncing with spine-shattering force and skidding tailways before Caissy brought them back on track with a savage twist of the steering wheel. The tracks bit into the loose gravel and they were off, barrelling down the mining trench at speed.

Naemi’s heart hammered in her ears and her breath came in gasps. “Are we on the ground?” she asked over the vox.

“We sure didn’t miss it,” said Sorn, unfastening with his harness. He tapped Aime on the leg and motioned to the top hatch of the Taurox. “I don’t want anything gettin’ near us.”

“Yessir,” he acknowledged and climbed into the gunner’s position to man the double gatling cannon mounted on the roof.

Sorn stood swaying at the front of the transport, one hand steadying him against the roof. He pulled a switch and the armour panels on the viewports retracted, finally giving Naemi a view of their surroundings. They were racing by decrepit out-structures and equipment, long since abandoned. Overhead, the anti-aircraft fire still thundered at the first wave of aerial bombardment, but down in the mining trenches, it was comparatively quiet.

Ahead, the spires and rockcrete of Scarist rose like a malignancy to tower over them in the distance. Crude designs had been painted on the city’s walls in she shape spined serpents that coiled around a star. They bulled through a ramshackle collection of makeshift shelters left behind by the drudges and menials that had toiled in the trenches before they’d risen up against their Imperial masters in the name of the Hallowed Starborn.

“Doesn’t seem anyone’s home. All right, professor, which way?”

Naemi unbuckled herself and poked her head up between Caissy and Alcoin. “There. The entrance to the serviceways are beyond that grate.”

The Taurox slowed, coming to a stop in front of a massive steel grate that barred the way to a dark service tunnel that ran into the bedrock. Huge braces made of scrap metal had been set against the gate by retreating Starborn cultists, barring their way. They’d been dug into the rockcrete of the tunnel and welded in place.

“Somone don’t want us to get in,” said Alcoin.

Lufleur began undoing the clasps on a weapons locker in the floor. She fished out one of the melta bombs she’d brought with her. “Want me to knock, sir?”

“Would you kindly?”

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 2

The two wended their way out of the sprawling command bunker and into the grimy rain of Rescalia. Each drop prickled at her skin and she pulled her coat’s hood up over her head to protect herself from the astringent drops. Sorn seemed unfazed by the weather and continued his sauntering pace down the main thoroughfare of the camp.

The Imperial staging camp was an enormous clearing that sat atop what had once been a mountain, long since mined flat and outside the range of Scarist Hive’s main defensive guns. Armor, aircraft, and troops all bustled about, preparing for the first assault.

“This your first time in the field?” asked Sorn.

“My first time off Terra,” said Naemi, stepping carefully over ruts left in the mud by a heavy Leman Russ battle tank.

“I’d reckon an adepta of the Collegia Afrikasa would be more politic.” He drew out each syllable of ‘politic’ in his slow accent. “Never try to convince an Inquisitor to do somethin’ they don’t want to.”

Naemi found herself frowning at Sorn, who didn’t break stride.

“You read my file, so I read yours.” Sorn raised his left arm, displaying the gauntlet he wore. Inlaid into the armor, a dataslate glowed with her picture and her entire dossier. Sorn scrolled through it with one finger. “Naemi Vandenbergh, daughter of menials who earned her place in the Collegia on Afrik before being scooped up by the Logos Historica Verita in the first induction by the Lord Regent himself. Truly a story to inspire the masses.”

Naemi narrowed her eyes as they walked, wary of the seemingly lackadaisical military man. He gave her a sidelong look, his hands in his pockets. “You’re trying to impress me.”

“How am I doing so far?”

“Not nearly as well as you think.”

Sorn stopped in front of a long barracks that had been constructed from pre-fab panels and ferrocrete. The number nine was stenciled onto the corrugated roller door set into the side.

“Look, Miss Vandenbergh. How often is history made by askin’ permission?”

Naemi gave the colonel an appraising look, considering. One hand idly touched the Logos icon she wore around her neck. Maybe he was right. She knew she could commandeer almost any military asset in the execution of her warrant, within reason. And the Tempestor Prime of the 9th Higaran Hellbats had taken an interest in her case. She shuddered at the thought of Drant’s fury if he were to find out, but the thought of an iterator’s first-hand account of the Great Crusade being lost forever steeled her against fear.

She nodded firmly. “All right. I’ll concede that you may have a point. What I don’t see is what your Hellbats get out of it.”

“I told you, professor. We can help each other. We get you into the Scarist Archives and you’ll help us by using that,” he pointed to the Logos icon she wore, “to open up the data-crypts.”

The icon, in addition to being a symbol of her station, was the vessel for a complex machine spirit that could grant her access to records and reports that were locked behind even the most complex cipher-wards.

“What’s so important in the data-crypts?”

Sorn smirked and shook his head. “Sorry, that ain’t part of the deal.”

“I’m not sure I like going in without all the facts.”

“Well, there’s only three Scions regiments on-planet. Ground pounders won’t get you into the city in one piece and if you think any of the other by-the-books types are willing to take you, then you’re welcome to try. Drant’s got ‘em all whipped into line.”

She raised one eyebrow skeptically. “But not you.”

“We’re a fan of longshots here in the Ninth,” said Sorn with a grin, “You want to get into the Archives and we can get you there.”

Naemi was silent for a time, analyzing her options. “Fine. I’ll get you into the crypts.”

“Excellent!” Sorn smiled and pressed an intervox call button set into the wall of the bunker. A buzzer sounded briefly and the roller door began to crawl upwards. “Welcome to the Hellbats, professor.”

Inside, lumen-globes lit a garage of midnight-blue assault vehicles, cogitator banks, and weapon racks. Soldiers in every state of uniform milled around cleaning weapons, servicing engines, or dozing anywhere their bodies could fit. Overall, Naemi counted at least thirty men and women.

“Look alive, boys and girls. We got ourselves a dance and the music’s startin’.”

The Scions of the Hellbats piled in around their commander, who was shucking off his dress coat. Naemi felt herself taking a step back before mentally chastised herself. It wouldn’t do to show the intimidation she was feeling. Field work meant dealing with rough characters and, by the Throne, did these Hellbats look rough. An older man with a white scar running down his face and neck stepped forward first. He spoke with the same slow drawl that Sorn did.

“She’ll do it, sir?”

“Yes she will, Cal. That means you’ll be leading the Ninth in the main theater itself. I’ll be taking the professor in as planned. Round up your bats and uplink with the belfry, you’ll receive formal orders as soon as.”

The man called Cal gave Sorn a stern look before nodding with a “Yessir” followed by a bellow, “All right, Nines! Fall out and put on your dancin’ shoes. I want to see everyone in full battle rattle by the time the CAG has his birds all gassed up!”

“First squad, on me,” said Sorn.

The majority of the Hellbats broke away at a quick jog, back to their barracks, to find their shoes, Naemi guessed. A few stayed back, looking at their commander expectantly.

“First squad, this is Naemi Vandenbergh, historitor extraordinaire and the whole reason we’re goin’ on this picnic in the first place. Professor, these are the people who will be gettin’ us in and out of Scarist Hive in one piece.”

Sorn went around the small circle of Scions, making the team’s introductions.

Sergeant Alcoin was a man with a dour face and sallow eyes. The strange humor that seemed to infect Sorn was absent in him. Troopers Aime, Leger, and Monpremier nodded and smiled a warm welcome to her before being sent off haul in a small holotank from an outer room.

“The Mercier boys, Abel and Reddy,” motioning towards two young, gawking soldiers with ruddy skin and fair hair. They were the spitting image of each other and, to Naemi’s eyes, very young to be soldiers.

“Best sharpshooter in the Ninth, ma’am,” said one, “my brother’s a close second.”

The other looked indignant, “Not a chance, ma’am. It’s the other way ‘round!”

Sorn raised one hand and continued down the line. A man with sharp features, dark skin, and a mat of scar tissue on the side of his shaved head was introduced as Corporal Caissy.

“Best driver in the Hellbats,” said Sorn proudly, “We ready for action?”

“As ready it’ll ever be, sir. The red priests tried their best with the grav chutes, but they just weren’t meant to hold something this big. There’s a chance they’ll short out if we push ‘em, they says.”

“Then we’ll just have to get in real close, won’t we?”

A woman practically the size of an ogryn with a square face and short-cropped hair touched one finger to her eyebrow as she was introduced. She had an air of jovial aggression about her that shone through her eyes as she gave Naemi an up-and-down look.

“Finally, Syvette Lufleur, our weapons specialist. Think you can kit the professor out?”

“I might have somethin’ that will fit her.”

Sorn clapped his hands together with a light in his eyes. “All right then! Leger, bring up the map on that thing and let’s figure out where we’re goin’ to drop.”

“Map might be a problem, sir,” said Leger, “the belfry says no one’s mapped Scarist Hive in the last two hundred years. S’why Drant is having such a bad go of gettin’ inside the city.”

“Bring up the orbitals, then. We’ll play it by ear.”

Naemi did not like the sound of that. Whatever ‘it’ was, she wasn’t going to leave something as important as this to people who didn’t even know the full layout of Scarist, no matter how skilled of soldiers they were.

“I thought you already had a plan,” said Naemi Her fingers clenched hard around the Logos amulet she wore.

“I do,” said Sorn, crossing his arms and frowned down into the holotank, “but there’s always an element of improvisation to war. That’s a lesson you learn on Higara.”

“Oh no,” Naemi sighed. “I know the city, colonel. Tell me how we want to approach this thing and I can get you a route.”

“Ain’t you from Terra, ma’am?” asked one of the Mercier brothers, punching buttons on the holotank as Leger tried to bring up orbital scans.

“Yes, but the Logos has access to practically every screed, tome, and datasheet in the Imperium. I studied everything I could about this benighted place on my transit from the throneworld. I saw the original foundation documents for Scarist. Every drainage ditch, sewer system, and maintenance tunnel. It’s all up here.” Naemi tapped her temple.

“You’re sure, professor?”

Naemi pulled back her long hair, revealing a cranial sheath that ran up her neck and into her head. “Eidetic memory, colonel. I don’t forget anything.”

Lufleur clapped Naemi on the shoulder and laughed. “See, Abel? That’s what you get with a real education!”

She swallowed hard, but felt a smile creeping onto her face. Things were moving so fast. She’d barely been planetside for three hours and now she was about to be in the midst of the largest Imperial assault in the subsector’s history. She’d checked the numbers. As she was lead away to the armory for her own ‘dancing shoes,' she wondered again if field work really was her calling after all.

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 7

Naemi screamed into her vox link, “Dustman! Troublemaker ten! We need evacuation right now!”

They roared down the rockcrete culvert, Starborn hot on their heels. The city’s river basin was completely artificial, consisting of a series of interconnected, sloping drainage channels big enough for a company of Leman Russ tanks to ride abreast. Having been cut off from fresh water for months, Scarist’s channels were dry, giving her and the Hellbats a route to escape. If they didn’t get run off the ‘road’ first, that is.

Word had apparently spread through the Starborn that a force of Imperials had infiltrated the city in advance of even the main scouting force of the invasion. The fastest of the cult had taken to their own vehicles and given chase. Only three of whom were able to keep up with Caissy’s driving and Naemi’s memorized mental image of the Scarist’s roads and now-dry waterways.

Two groundcar limos teeming with screaming cultists vied for the lead, trying to catch up to them before the other. Weaving recklessly across the culvert, their chromed exhaust pipes spat flame as they gunned their engines. They sprayed autogun fire, more as a way of urging their crude machines on than for effect. Slugs chattered off the pavement around them and bounced off their limo’s armored skin with metallic tings. The third vehicle in pursuit was an hulking Goliath Rockgrinder groundtruck. It lumbered after the Imperials like a bull, bashing its way through obstacles with the power of its massive drilldozer ram. Sorn had taken up Caissy’s hot-shot rifle and had joined Reddy and Abel in firing out of their back window. The red beams seared the air, filling the limo’s cabin with the stink of ozone.

The clarion vox set buzzed with static, but Dustman’s voice crackled through. “Read you, Troublemaker! What’s your status?”

“Right here, take that passage!” said Naemi, pointing to a fast-approaching tributary that branched off of their drain channel. Caissy spun the wheel hard, sending the big groundcar into a slide, drifting into their new heading. “We being chased by Starborn and need help!”

“Air support!” corrected Sorn, not taking his eyes off vehicles following them.

“Air support, we need air support! We’re heading westward through the city’s river culverts followed by three hostile vehicles!”

“Troublemaker, Dustman. Be advised: air support 10 klicks out.”

“How’s it coming on that miner?” asked Sorn. He took aim and fired another red lance of light that burned a hole into the chest of one of their pursuers’ outriders. The body fell off the side of the groundcar and was crunched under the Rockgrinder’s wheels.

“We’re there, chief!” shouted Lufleur wildly.

She and Sergeant Alcoin had been jury-rigging her hellgun’s power pack into the energy leads of the mining laser. He pressed the button to retract the limo’s skyroof and Lufluer hauled the big weapon up, bracing it against the lip of the roof. The telltale whine of capacitors charging preceded an intense yellow light as the powerful laser was unleashed.

The lead cultist groundcar erupted into a ball of flame as it punched through the engine block and slagged the entire front end. It spun into the side of the Goliath, but its drilldozer shoved the wreck aside with a spray of sparks and a wash of flame.

The woman let out an exultant cry and shouted, “Again, Sergeant!”

Capacitors charged again and she fired, but the second car had more time to react. It swerved and the beam went wide, digging a molten furrow into the rockcrete. Not to let that deter her, she took aim as the weapon charged. Autoguns returned fire from the remaining limo, causing her to duck into the cabin for cover.

Naemi was clutching the Rise of Empire to her chest and trying not to look back. She concentrated on the drainage culvert ahead and did her best to navigate. She led them through half-flooded tunnels and sloping channels. They pulled out onto a straightaway and she dared a look behind. The cult limo was almost caught up with them, the Rockgrinder not far behind. They couldn’t lose them.

Ahead, a bridge spanned over the drainage channel, with tunnels going underneath. She pointed to one and chimed through the vox, “Through that one! Lufleur, hit the roof!”

“What?”

“The tunnel! Hit the roof!”

They roared into the tube of the tunnel, the noise of their engine rebounding with a snarling echo. Ahead, she could see daylight at the other side, but Naemi knew to wait. Wait until their pursuers had no choice but to follow.

She saw the lights of their enemy’s groundcar flare to life in the tunnel’s darkness and she yelled, “Now!”

They were passing right under one of the bridge’s most vulnerable sections when the searing yellow beam of Lufleur’s mining laser lashed out, cutting through the cement and steel of the bridge’s structure. A low rumble started to follow them as the beam bit deep, cutting support struts and slagging rockcrete. Chunks began to fall, clattering off the roof of their groundcar and growing into an avalanche as the weight of the tunnel collapsed in on itself.

The amber ray flickered and cut out, the hellgun power pack they’d jury-rigged to the mining laser completely spent. Sorn and the Mercier boys had stopped firing through the rear window and simply watched the cascade of rebar and broken stone. The two young sharpshooters were whooping as they saw the pursuing cultists crushed by broken blocks of rockcrete. They erupted into the bright light of the open air just as a great cloud of dust and debris billowed from the ruined tunnel.

They slowed, watching their handiwork.

“Nice one, professor,” grinned Lufleur.

Naemi stared back at the ruined tunnel, which was burning itself into her memory. “Thanks…”

“Corporal, what say we get the hell out of here,” said Sorn, “before more of ‘em show up.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Caissy.

“We may not have to wait that long,” said Naemi, pointing.

The wreckage pile had begun to smoke and shudder. A keening hiss echoed down the culvert followed by the grinding of metal on stone. A red-hot glow began to shine from the heart of the collapsed tunnel as molten rock and metal seeped from the spaces in between the twisted rebar and broken rockcrete.

“Time to go!”

Tires squealed as the Hellbats peeled away, engine roaring. Behind them, the huge Goliath Rockgrinder burst through fallen tunnel exit, its drilldozer blades eating through reinforced rockcrete and the mounted incinerator turning anything that was left into molten slag. As soon as it was clear, cheering cultists appeared out of hatches and began to fire their autoguns at the retreating Hellbats. Slugs caromed off the pavement and off the sides of their groundcar, buzzing like insects as they flew past.

Their limo lurched as one of the tires blew, pierced by a lucky slug from the zealots. Their rear end started to slide out of control, fishtailing out dangerously. Caissy worked frantically to keep the car under control. Lufleur and Alcoin, having not been strapped in, tumbled around the cabin as they swerved. Naemi screamed and clutched at the handrail protruding from the passenger’s dash. They careened through the drainage channel, sparks flying out behind from the bare rim. With a savage jerk of the wheel, they were back in control. Barely.

They’d lost speed, letting the Goliath with its gibbering crew close in on them. Their shots grew wilder and one enthusiastic cultist had taken to unleashing great gouts of flame into the air from the roof-mounted incinerator.

“Boys! Put that flamer down for me, would you?”

“Yes sir!” piped the Mercier brothers.

The smell of ozone filled the cabin once more as the two sharpshooters battled with the bounce and drift of their limo’s back end, sending red lances of laser light through the broken rear windshield. Hellgun capacitors whined and the snap-crack of their firing added to the din of the chase. Sorn keyed his vox, moving forward in the limo to let the two brothers do their work.

“Dustman, Troublemaker one! Evac is going to be hot!”

“Read, Troublemaker one. Command advises rendezvous along the Cisternway.”

“Cisternway, copy.” Bullets chattered off the side windows, sending cracks through the clear armaplas and Sorn turned to Naemi, asking, “Can we make it?”

“We might. But the Cistern’s a dead end. If they’re not there when we are, there will be nowhere to go.”

“Well, let’s just hope they’re on time.”

A Goliath was not a fast vehicle, but it was implacable. And with one of their wheels limping on a rapidly deforming rim, it was able to gain on the Hellbats’ limo, even despite Caissy’s driving. It was close enough now that everyone in the groundcar could hear the screaming of the Starborn cultists even over the thundering of both vehicles’ engines. They were close enough to use the incinerator, but the Hellbat snipers put any who manned the weapon down with searing holes in their chests.

They raced down the huge culverts, neck and neck. Naemi knew the city cistern wasn’t far, but the huge Goliath Rockgrinder was coming up on them fast. It bristled with mutated, purple-skinned metamorphs that snarled down, screaming in an alien tongue. The let out a ululating cry as they finally caught up with the wounded limo and the blades of the drilldozer spun up with a deadly whir.

“They’re comin’ in!” shouted Alcoin, unloading his hellgun at full auto, laser blasts splashing off the Goliath’s armored hide.

“Brace!” shouted Sorn.

The Hellbats scrambled to one side of the groundcar, as the cultist pilot veered hard, driving its drilldozer into the side of the limo. Screeching metal and shearing blades filled Naemi’s vision. They screamed and Caissy pulled away, but the dozer had bitten deep into the frame of the car and rent a huge hole into the side and roof. Metal tore and the majority of the armored side paneling came away, leaving them open to the air.

Without a roof and sides, the once gleaming limo swerved violently away, riding up onto the sloping sides of the drain culvert. With superhuman strength, the metamorphs that rode on the exterior of the Goliath began to jump, aiming for the half-destroyed limo. However, with most of the cabin torn away, every Hellbat had a clear shot at the boarders. The scions unleashed their hot-shot rifles in controlled bursts, filling the air with spears of red light. They shot the xenos out of the air, their bodies hitting the ground and smearing the pavement with blood.

“We’re almost there!” shouted Naemi as the limo crashed back down onto the level surface of the culvert’s bottom.

“Dustman, Dustman!” voxed Sorn. He pulled free his power sword and snapped it on, the blade shining bright blue as the energy field came to life, “Heading south on the Cisternway! Any assistance would be much obliged!”

They were driving hard towards the city cistern, an enormous man-made lake that provided water for the lower quarters of Scarist Hive. It was fed by a network of aqueducts that ran from the outlying lands and dumped into the huge rockcrete pit that served as the basis for the lake. It was down one of these that the Hellbats were driving hell-for-leather.

Xenos landed hard on the back of the limo, despite the concentrated efforts of the Hellbats’ rifles, their claws digging deep into the metal and hanging on. One pulled itself up into the cabin only to be met with Lufleur’s gauntleted fist, smashing it in the face and sending it sprawling away onto the speeding rockcrete. Sorn sheared the hand off another and booted it savagely in the stomach, sending it to the same fate. The Merciers were up against the driver’s cabin, firing non-stop. Grim-faced, Naemi held the Rise of Empire under one arm and brought up her pistol in the other. There wasn’t much navigating left to do. They’d either make it to the Cistern in time for air support to find them or they’d be eaten alive by these slavering alien metamorphs. And, by the Throne, she wasn’t going to go quietly.

Her gun whined and kicked again and again. She wasn’t even sure she was hitting anything, but they had contained the boarders towards the back of the limo. Sorn and Lufleur had taken it on themselves to keep them at bay. Sorn swung his sword in controlled arcs, cleaving the corralled cult acolytes with his crackling blade. Lufleur fought with a barely-contained savagery. The big woman landed vicious blows with her fist or the long battleknife she wielded, smiling all the while. But they could only repel so many.

The Goliath was coming back in for another swipe at them. It drew closer and Naemi could see that the giant incinerator had been swiveled towards them now that the Merciers were no longer keeping the crew of the huge truck honest. If that thing unleashed its flame on the uncovered limo, they’d all be fried.

A prayer touched her lips as she raised her hand, both eyes open and aiming down the barrel of her pistol, the frenzied cultists on the incinerator clear in her sights. For once in her life, she didn’t remember what she’d said.

Her finger squeezed and her gun kicked and bright red light filled her vision. The beam seared out of her gun and...missed. She’d missed. It had gone  wide. Dread dropped into the pit of her stomach. Until she saw a small flame sprouting along the prometheum hose along the barrel of the incinerator. The cultist fired, a manic grin on his face. The weapon was flooded with the flammable liquid, hit the rupture Naemi had caused, and exploded in a brilliant gout of flame. The Goliath shuddered and swerved, but the big truck was made to withstand rockslides and cave-ins. The top hatch slammed shut and it veered towards them again, drilldozer blades spinning.

“It’s going to ram us again!” shouted Naemi.

The vox blared and Caissy grunted, “Hellbats hold on!”

As fast as he could, Caissy threw the wheel over and slammed on the brake, sending the limo into a mad drift. Caught unawares, the Goliath kept its speed and juked to the side, trying to hit them, but they weren’t there. Tires screeching, bare rim throwing a shower of sparks, the Hellbats hung on for dear life. The xenos metamorphs who hadn’t been prepared flew off and were sent skidding across the ground. The corporal stomped the accelerator savagely and the engine sang, the whine of superchargers adding their high notes to the basso growl. They surged ahead of the Goliath, its roof still ablaze with lethal prometheum. But not for long.

“That won’t work twice!” called out Caissy.

“Maybe it doesn’t need to.” said Colonel Sorn, shielding his eyes and looking skyward.

Over the chaos, there came the unmistakable sound that lifts the hearts of Guardsmen across the galaxy: plasmajet engines of allied air support.

Two Imperial flyers tore through the air, close to the ground along the Cisternway. One the bulky shape of Dustman’s transport, the other the sleek form of an Imperial Navy Avenger Strike Fighter. The huge underslung bolt cannon opened fire with a murderous sound. Explosions tore up the pavement behind the limo as the bolt shells came onto their target. The large bore, armor-piercing rounds tore through the heavy armor of the Goliath and exploded inside, tearing gaping holes in the groundtruck. The shockwave of the enemy’s demise sent them skidding to a halt under the jetwash of Dustman’s lifter. The Avenger screamed away, its mission complete, to find more targets within the theater of the Imperial invasion.

“Troublemaker, Dustman. I hope you don’t mind, sir, but I brought a friend.”

[scoundrelstars]

The Price of Ink, Part 1

Well, it’s official. Got the rejection letter from Black Library this afternoon, so I can post this story. Disappointing, but not unexpected. Still stings, though. Anyway, this was written before I’d locked in the backstory for Col. Sorn, so he’s got a drawl.

If there was a downside to having a pict-perfect memory, it had to be that Naemi would never forget such a miserable world as Rescalia. She’d arrived on a Munitorum supply ship over the murky ball of a planet and suffered through a jolting descent through acidic rain clouds that streaked her lander’s windows with grime. Despite the sprawling cities that covered much of the hive world’s surface, she’d set down on the flattened top of a mountain that had been strip-mined away, well outside the largest hive on the planet, Scarist. It was from here that the Imperium was going to retake the city.

It was also where she first started to doubt she was cut out for field work. The Master of the Logos himself had asked her personally to make the journey and she’d been so eager to say yes, she hadn’t stopped to think of the enormous headache the whole thing would be. Or the danger she’d be in. She’d jumped at the chance to finally take the step up from scribe to field agent for the Logos Historica Verita and now she was having second thoughts.

Or at least attempting to. It was hard to form a fully coherent train of thought in the face of the collected military might of the subsector. She stood illuminated by the grand holotank at the center of the amphitheater at the heart of the Imperial command bunker. The assembled lords, officers, and warriors of the Imperial forces that were to take back the planet were arrayed around her. She could feel their eyes burning into the back of her head. But it wasn’t the regimental commanders of the Imperial Guard or the stern Sororitas canoness that transfixed her, it was the intense gaze of the Inquisitor that stared down from the command pulpit. He was flanked on either side Astartes warriors clad in black, save for the silver armor of their left arms. The Deathwatch.

“—and it is by holy order of the Lord Regent that I must discharge my duties, my lord. Even now, in this time of war,” Naemi finished, her voice shakier than she had hoped.

Silence reigned in the amphitheater, with only the strange, soft chanting of the Mechanicus priests to fill it. Kaldier Drant, Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos was a spare man in hooded armor. The baleful red glint of his augmetic eye looked down at her from within its shadow.

“I am fighting a war,” his voice was nasal, but filled with the surety of complete authority, “A war against a foe so insidious, so utterly inhuman, as to go beyond your reckoning. And you want me to spare the weapons I must wield to fight this enemy? For what? The words of some bygone philosopher?”

“My lord, Iterator Soldatta is more than just a philosopher! He was a master rhetorician, chronicler, and thinker. It’s the only known copy in the galaxy of his magnum opus Rise of Empire. If the Logos could obtain his work, it would be an invaluable look into the intent of the great men and women during the times right after the Great Here—”

Drant cut Naemi off with a chop of his hand. “Spare me the history lesson, historitor. While you may have the warrant of the Lord Regent, I am charged with the will of the Emperor Himself and the prosecution of his holy war against the alien. Your petition for a contingent of forces for the Logos Historica Verita is denied. Once this war is won and the enemy’s works put to the torch, then you may follow and retrieve any artifacts still intact.”

“My lord, please. If the shelling goes ahead as you’ve laid out, the city’s Archives are sure to be—"

“Enough. I’m ordering the attack to go forward as planned. We will crush these Hallowed Starborn with full might of the Emperor’s wrath. This war council is dismissed.”

The amphitheater was filled with sudden conversation as the gathered military men and women broke up. Drant retreated beyond a pair of blast doors along with his Astartes guard. Naemi stood before the holotank, feeling her neck and cheeks burn. The leather of her dataslate’s cover creaked as she gripped it, white-knuckled. She thought she’d feel tears, but her eyes were dry, replaced with an anger at being dismissed so easily. She grit her teeth and turned, hoping to catch General Laursen of the Imperial Guard before the command staff left. However, she was brought up short by a man that put himself in her path, a crooked smile on his face. He was tall and drawn, like a whippetreed, with dark features that spoke of years under alien suns. He wore a uniform of midnight blue chased with red and brass, plus a crusher cap that he touched the brim of with one finger in the approximation of a salute.

“Historitor?” he spoke in a languid drawl that flowed like sapsyrup. He held out one hand, “Javier Sorn.”

“It’s a pleasure, um...”

He motioned towards the brass eagle embroidered onto his epaulets. “Colonel. Higaran Ninth, ma’am.”

“The Hellbats,” she murmured.

Naemi’s memory flashed back to the pages and pages of force organization she had taken in on her Warp journey. The Higaran Ninth Chiropterans, known as the ‘Hellbats’ in their dossier, were Tempestus Scions of dubious reputation. What reports she’d managed to read had been heavily redacted. Others had been put under seal that she couldn’t break. What she had noticed, however, was a pattern of disciplinary charges attached to their file. An expression flashed across the colonel’s face like heat lightning. She couldn’t tell if it was a grin or a grimace. His blue eyes didn’t give anything away.

“Take a walk with me, professor.”

“I’m not a professor. Well, not anymore. I’m a historitor.”

“I’m aware. I just don’t like bein’ so formal,” he said in that strange unhurried accent. He turned and motioned for her to follow. “I think we might be able to help each other out.”