|
Da Portal of Darkness Chapta 1 | |
|
Da Portal Of Darkness Chapta 1 |
The door slid open automatically when Jarr approached it. This made him suspicious for a moment, it was rare for inquisitors to allow anyone access to their chambers without assessing them carefully first. Then it occurred to him that Inquisitor Darien Rell had already assessed him, in fact he had probably monitored his movements since he stepped onto the space station eighteen minutes earlier. Not waiting for any further invitation from the man who had requested his presence here, Jarr stepped through the open doorway and the door slid shut behind him. As usual, Jarr quickly took in his surroundings, assessing what weapons were present and determining the locations of all of the ways in and out. At first glance the room appeared to be full of mirrors of various shapes and sizes, but then Jarr observed that all of the reflective surfaces were mounted flat against the walls of the room. They weren’t mirrors at all Jarr concluded, they were stasis fields. Within each of the time nullifying energy fields would be an artefact of alien origin, preserved perfectly against the rigors of time until Inquisitor Rell had use of it. “Do take a seat,” Inquisitor Rell said, standing up ass Jarr walked towards him. A second man sat by the inquisitor’s desk, in addition to the pair of half human, half machine servitors that stood behind the inquisitor himself. From the looks of him the man was a savant, a human databank who would keep track of all the information that Rell needed to carry out his duties. While no where near as heavily modified as the servitors, the savant’s body, and especially his brain, was still enhanced by the meshing of arcane technologies with his flesh. Jarr noticed the small shaped charge embedded at the base of the man’s skull, with a single command, whether spoken, electronic or psychic, the savant brain could be destroyed immediately to prevent the knowledge held within it from falling into the wrong hands. Instinctively, Jarr eyed up the available chairs as he approached them, looking for any signs of a trap. Detecting none, he sat in the nearest seat. “So,” Jarr began, “who I am to kill?” “Straight to the pint, good,” Inquisitor Rell replied as he sat down again and took a sip from the glass in front of him. “I was not raised for small talk Inquisitor. Other temples train disciples in interpersonal skills, mine saw no need.” “Indeed. I have recently commissioned several readings of the Emperor’s Tarot, and the results have been consistent with one another. Their predictions relate to the world of Crasus Minor at the edge of this sector. Are you familiar with it?” “I am not.” “Well the world of Crasus Minor was part of our glorious Imperium up until about thirty years ago when it was taken by a force of orks as part of the migration of the creatures that cost us so dearly. Because of our losses elsewhere that were caused by the migration, in addition to pressure from the Tau and Tyrannids we have never been able to muster enough strength to take it back, but the Tarot suggests that a change may come soon,” at this point the Inquisitor handed Jarr a file. Opening it, Jarr saw that it contained a single sheet of paper on which an image was printed. It looked like the photograph had been taken casually; showing a group of figures clustered together informally, many of who had the look of a rogue trader’s entourage. The face of one of the figures had been ringed, and a portion of the paper was dedicated to an enhanced view of this face. “Providing that this individual is eliminated, yes?” “Quite correct. He has a small following on Crasus Minor, but the tarot suggests that his power is about to grow significantly, and unless he can be taken out of the picture then the world may be lost to us forever.” “If you want the planet back I would have expected you to be asking me to target the orks chieftain and get the greenskins to fight amongst themselves.” “That option has been considered, the Tarot suggests that such a course of action would ultimately benefit the tau. This individual is the one you must kill if we are to ever recover the world.” “And how am I to locate the target inquisitor? A planet is a large place for one individual to hide, and this file tells me nothing regarding that.” “Yes of course,” the inquisitor said, “I will allow my associate Cubrim to enlighten you in that matter.” “Thank you my lord,” the savant said softly, bowing his head before he stood up and crossed the room to a holo viewer that, with a wireless transmission from one of his many augmentations, he activated. “Eldar technology?” Jarr asked when he saw the image that appeared floating in the centre of the room. “Indeed,” Cubrim said, “several items of xenotech were catalogued during the time that Crasus Minor was under our control, and it has always been the belief of this Ordos that a webway portal was present on the planet, though its location was never discovered.” “Obviously,” Jarr interrupted, “if it had been found it would have been destroyed to stop the eldar using it to launch an invasion via their network of passageways through the warp.” “Indeed,” Cubrim said once more, “Our readings of the Imperial tarot have frequently produces results that suggest the influence of both the eldar and the warp, suggesting to us that the target may be located near to the webway gate. It also points us towards a location somewhere between an abandoned metropolis and a thriving city. We believe that this tells us that the webway gate is located between the abandoned city that served as the planetary capital under Imperial rule, and the city to the south of it which intelligence suggests is being used as the centre of power for the local ork warlord. You will be inserted in this area and will be required to locate the webway gate.” “How?” Jarr asked, “If no-one found the gate while we held the world, what hope do I have of finding it by myself?” “Cubrim, give it to him,” inquisitor Rell ordered. Cubrim bowed to his master again and shut off the holo viewer. At the same time inquisitor Rell picked up a hand held logic engine from his desk and depressed several keys in rapid succession. One of the ‘mirrors’ suddenly vanished to reveal, as Jar had deduced upon entering the room, that there was a small alcove behind it. Cubrim approached the alcove and took a small device from it, and then he walked towards Jarr with the device held out in front of him. Jarr set the file down on a golden plate on the desk in front of him, and with a sudden flash it was incinerated, then reached out to take the device that Cubrim was offering him. “Eldar technology again?” he asked rhetorically. The device in his hand had the look of a talisman that had been carved from bone and was beset with crystals. Of course he knew that the device had not been carved at all, it had been grown. A length of something that was not quite chain suggested that he was supposed to wear this talisman around his neck. “One of several that my Ordos has come into possession of,” inquisitor Rell told him, “and since we actually obtained this one openly rather than as a prize of war the eldar were good enough to configure this one for general human use. It will alert you to the presence of a webway.” “How?” “We don’t know,” inquisitor Rell admitted, ”it has never been tried, but the eldar merchant still deals with us, so any failure will be dealt with suitable.” Jarr didn’t like the sound of this, entrusting a covert mission to an untried piece of alien technology, but an assignment was an assignment. He rarely got to choose whom he killed. “I take it that transport has already been arranged?” Jarr said as he stood up to leave. “It has.” “Good, then I can leave immediately.” “One more thing assassin,” the Inquisitor spoke as Jarr got up to leave, and the assassin stopped, “I am not the only one to have taken readings on this matter, and it may be that some of my… colleagues…” the Inquisitor paused as he said the word ‘colleagues’ as if to suggest that he did not trust his fellow members of the Imperium’s shadowy secret police force, “may have also despatched personnel to Crasus Minor. Be aware that you may have to del with them also.” “As allies?” “Perhaps, or possibly targets.” Hazug Throatslitter of the Blood Axe clan awoke to the sound of battle. He actually found this comforting, and for a moment he just lay still, listening as the fighting went on. Then he rolled over, broke wind, wafted his sheet to allow the smell to escape and closed his eyes again. The noise of combat continued and Hazug decided that he wasn’t going to be able to sleep in after all. He reached over the side of the bed to where he kept a selection of weapons to hand. He felt the grip of his pistol, but kept his hand moving. Next his hand passed over a large knife, followed by the shaft of a stick grenade. Then he found what he was looking for. Suitably armed, Hazug got out of bed and, barefooted, he walked slowly downstairs, following the sound. Gripping the knob of the kitchen door in his free hand, Hazug through open the door and burst into the kitchen. Sophie, Hazug’s young human assistant lay face down on the floor, screaming, while the dirt encrusted form of his gretchin, Ratish Brownskin sat on top of her, in each hand he held some of her long hair which he was pulling as hard as he could. But Ratish was also screaming in pain as Rhia, another young human woman who had come into Hazug’s service recently was positioned behind him pulling his ears in a similar fashion to the way in which he was pulling Sophie’s hair. All three faced away from Hazug and appeared unaware of his entrance. “Let go!” Sophie yelled as Ratish twisted the hair he gripped in his hands. “’Er first!” Ratish replied. “No chance!” Rhia shouted, and she tugged on his ears, as if trying to pull them apart. Hazug couldn’t wait any longer. “Be quiet da lot of ya!” he yelled and he used he weapon. All three of his servants turned around, Ratish and Rhia both relaxing their grips at the same time just as the water Hazug kept by his bedside just in case he woke up thirsty left the jug and flew through the air towards them. All three now screamed as the cold water landed on them. There were more screams as the now thoroughly soaked trio all collapsed in a heap in front of Hazug. “Wot da bleedin’ ‘ell is ya playin’ at?” he shouted, “Ya woke me up with all da racket!” “I was making you some breakfast,” Sophie said as she wiped her hand across her face, “but he tried to steal it,” and she pointed at Ratish who was staring at the gaps in the layer of dirt that covered his skin where the thrown water had washed some of it away. “That’s right,” Rhia added as she pulled her matted hair out of her face. “Was not stealin’!” Ratish suddenly protested, “Ya said it was master’s breakfast, so Ratish was goin’ to take it to master cos Ratish is master’s best servant.” “You are not!” Sophie replied and she reached out and slapped Ratish. “Ow!” Master, da git just ‘it Ratish,” the gretchin protested as he rubbed his head where Sophie had jut struck him. Then he stopped when he realised that he was wiping away more of his precious layer of dirt. “Yeah, she did,” said Hazug, uncaring. However, there had been mention of a meal prepared for him, and he looked around for it. “So where’s da grub den?” he asked when there was no sign of it. “You’re standing in it,” Rhia answered, pointing at the mashed up fungus that was on the floor beneath Hazug’s feet. Hazug bent down and used his finger to pick up a blob of it before putting it into his mouth. “Not bad,” he said, nodding, “Now get us some more while Ratish cleans up dis mess.” Hazug sat down at the table and waited for his breakfast while Rhia and Sophie rushed to prepare it and Ratish crouched down where Hazug had been stood and began to scoop up the remains of his original meal in his hands. The gretchin looked around for something into which he could deposit the picked up food, but finding nothing instead opted to stuff it into his mouth and eat it himself. Normally for a gretchin to eat before his ork master would result in the gretchin himself becoming the ork’s meal, but since Hazug had instructed Ratish to pick up the spilled food he let it pass. Besides, he thought to himself, he had gotten used to having a gretchin servant and it saved him the trouble of having to find another. There was a clump as Sophie put a plate of food on the table in front of Hazug, followed by another as Rhia set down a jug of water to go with it. Almost simultaneously there was a belching sound from Ratish and he called out. “Ratish is finished master.” Hazug didn’t reply, instead he just picked up and handful of food and went to put it in his mouth. The explosion made him stop and turn towards the window. Drazzok Headbanger of the Snake Bite clan was woken up when he fell out of bed. For a moment he just lay still before sitting up to stretch and yawn. It was then that he noticed something odd. His bed was directly above him, and the various charms and pendants he wore were all dangling towards it. There was no doubt about it, he had fallen upwards and was sat upside down on the ceiling. Most orks would consider this strange, however as a weirdboy, one of the psychic shamans of the ork species, Drazzok had to accept a certain degree of random telekinetic activity as a fact of life. Fortunately his home was mounted atop a tall copper pole that helped to dissipate the energy that flowed through him. Getting onto his hands and knees, Drazzok crawled across the ceiling towards the centre of his hut where the pole ran from floor to the ceiling. As he reached out for the pole, intending to discharge the psychic energy he had obviously built up while asleep, his brain suddenly began to recall a word he rarely used. The word was one that he had normally only heard mekboys, the engineering caste of the orks, use. It was something they considered important when dealing with flying machines and the custom-built energy weapons designed to lift enemy vehicles of the ground and hurl them across the battlefield. It would be much easier to remember the word if Drazzok actually ever paid any attention to mekboys, but as a Snake Bite he had a dislike for technology. Then, right as his outstretched finger was about to make contact with the pole he remembered the word. Gravity. Before Drazzok could pull back his finger there was a sudden ‘crack’ as the energy within him leapt towards the copper pole. Gravity now regained its hold over Drazzok and he plummeted to the floor of his hut. “Soddit!” Drazzok yelled as he fell and landed in a heap where the copper pole came through his floor. The weirdboy picked himself up, steadying himself on the pole. And then he stopped to consider what had just happened to him. Random telekinetic bursts were commonplace when weirdboys slept, their beds were rarely properly earthed, and they would be separated from the copper staffs they used to dissipate the orkish psychic field before too much energy could build up within them as had just happened. However, these bursts were normally limited to small objects suddenly hurtling across the room rather than the weirdboy himself suddenly crashing into the ceiling overhead. Such a powerful incidence of telekinesis could only take place if there was a large number of other greenskins nearby, and they would have to be orks too, the gretchin who brought food to the weirdboys couldn’t generate enough power for this. Sane orks typically avoided the weirdhuts for just that reason; of course, insane orks had no such survival instinct. Drazzok took two steps towards where his staff leant by his bed before he again began to feel himself getting lighter, and he grasped the pole behind him before he could take off again. He looked down at the floor, where he saw that the layer of dirt that coated it was thick enough to obscure the mesh built into it that would carry his power into the central pole he now hung onto. Drazzok took a few deep breaths and then leapt towards his staff. The brief separation from the copper pole was enough to lift him off the floor once more, and he slammed into the ceiling. “Dammit!” he cried out as his head hit the ceiling first. This time Drazzok stood up and walked across the ceiling, rather than crawling, and he moved towards his staff until he could reach out and grab it. Then he pushed the tip of the staff down against the floor, where it pierced the layer of dirt and made contact with the conducting mesh beneath it. Then he remembered about gravity again. “Soddit!” Drazzok used his staff to steady himself as he got up again, pressing down with it to make sure that he didn’t take off again, he was about to go outside and didn’t like the idea of just floating up into the sky until he was out of range of whatever was causing this trouble for him. Stepping out of his hut, Drazzok leant over the edge of his balcony and looked down to the ground below. There, staring back up at him was a group of orks. The group was large, and even though he wore nothing on his feet, Drazzok would have had trouble in counting them all even though they were all stood still. The most striking thing about the orks below was that the clothing they wore was a variety of different colours. Typically orks marked their clothing with a colour that reflected their clan, and they typically lived and fought in groups from the same clan, therefore it was normal for them all to wear clothing of similar colours. Below him, Drazzok could clearly see the colours of several different clans mixed together. It was just as Drazzok had suspected; these were madboys. To many species, it appeared that all orks were insane, but in truth orks saw their actions as perfectly reasonable and rational, and believed their actions to be a natural part of the universe around them. Madboys however, either through accident of birth or injury no longer had the link that ‘normal’ orks felt to that universe, and were completely unpredictable. One common side effect of their madness was that they were more sensitive to the gestalt psychic field generated by their species, and they were drawn towards the weirdboys who focused this power. Of all of the orks below him, one in particular stood out to Drazzok. Larger than any of the others, he was clearly a nob, one of the leaders of the ork species. Like many nobs, he showed the scars of a life of battle; most significantly a black patch covered one of his eyes. Over his shoulder a large, expensive looking weapon was slung. Madnobs were unusual, orks became nobs when they had taken part in enough combat for them to build up significant additional muscle mass, and since madboys were quite likely to go wandering up to an enemy heavy weapons position and ask them to keep the noise down while they had a quick nap, most of them died long before they were able to achieve this growth. The continued presence of any large group of orks could cause problems for a weirdboy, mainly that the increased strength of the psychic field could overwhelm him and cause his head to explode. Therefore, Drazzok was not keen for the madboys to stay near him. His first thought was to resort to violence, it was a tried and tested traditional method and Snake Bites were sticklers for tradition. But just as he was about to go and fetch his bucket from inside his hut he suddenly remembered the random telekinetic bursts that the madboys were causing him, and pondered on what may happen if the contents of the bucket came flying back up at him rather than covering the madboys below in a rather unpleasant foul smelling mess. Then another idea hit him; he would use diplomacy instead. It was a radical idea granted, but it might just work. It often seemed to for Hazug, who had worked with so often recently, even though he was a git loving Blood Axe. “Sod off!” Drazzok bellowed at the crowd beneath him, “Go bother one of da others!” and he waved his arm at the other weirdhuts mounted on their own energy dissipating copper poles. “Dey sent us ‘ere,” the nob shouted back, “Dey said dat Drazzok was da best weirdboy dare was and dat dey didn’t deserve us ‘angin’ about ‘em.” Drazzok frowned, clearly the other weirdboys had decided that having a crowd of unstable orks around him would make his head far more likely to explode than theirs, and that would then mean that his hut would become vacant. As the largest of the weird huts, any of the other weird boys happily kill him for it, even f it did still have a large dent in its supporting copper pole from where a buggy had crashed into it. Still frowning, Drazzok looked towards the nearest of the other weird huts. “Oi Luggnort!” he bellowed, “Wot is ya playin’ at sendin’ dese nutters over ‘ere? Does ya reckon dat ya is goin’ to get me ‘ut dat easy?” A grinning weirdboy appeared at the window of the hut Drazzok faced. “I don’t know wots ya is talkin’ about,” Luggnort shouted back, “Dey just wanted to know who da best of us weirdboys is, and ya is always sayin’ dat its you, so I sent ‘em to ya.” Drazzok considered actually trying to turn Luggnort’s plan against him by firing a nice big blast of psychic energy at him right now, but he quickly realised that it would be pointless, both his own and Luggnort’s huts would drain away the power of the bolt before it could harm Luggnort. Of course, he could always have the madboys build a nice big fire at the base of Luggnort’s pole and burn him alive, but before he could think about this further there was the sound of an explosion from Git Town. |
|
Copyright Notice The Warhammer 40,000 universe is the intellectual property of Games Workshop Ltd. The fiction presented here is a derived work. It is completely unofficial and Games Workshop Ltd has not endorsed any of it. |
Background image miniature design copyright Games Workshop Ltd
This Web Page Created with PageBreeze Free HTML Editor