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Da Portal of Darkness Chapta 10 | |
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Da Portal Of Darkness Chapta 10 |
From his concealed position Jarr watched the entrance to the eldar webway, the ancient network of stabilised pathways through warpspace that connected may planets as well as the massive eldar spacecraft known as craftworlds. He lay still, with his rifle lined up on the structure of the gateway itself. He had been in this position throughout the night and, with the assistance of the feeding and waste management systems of his suit he could hold it for several days yet. All he needed was for his target to make its presence known to him. Then he spotted a disturbance in the reline near to the excavation in which the portal sat and he adjusted his mask so that its optics focused on the motion in the undergrowth there. Yes, there it was, something moving out of the trees. Jarr was astonished when he saw the figure that came out of the forest. It was not his target; it was a space marine. Jarr had encountered members of the Adeptus Astartes on several occasions, and though he could recognise the livery of many different chapters of the genetically altered super soldiers, he could make out no markings to identify this one. Inquisitor Rell had told him there could be other Imperial forces at work here, could another inquisitor have requested the deployment of marines? Jarr lined his rifle up on the marine as he watched it move closer to the webway gate, using the superior magnification of his scope to attempt to gain more information. The marine wore an older pattern of armour; mark five perhaps from the somewhat ad hoc appearance of it, as if it had been put together out of spares. This meant that pieces of the armour were likely to be more than ten thousand years old. The Emperor himself still walked amongst men when that suit had first been built. So either he was from a chapter that had suffered enough loses that they had not yet fully re-equipped with later marks, or possibly he had earned the honour of wearing armour that had been owned by a great hero of his chapter. The colour of the armour did not help, many chapters painted their armour red, some times simply to dare an opponent to strike at them as they refused to conceal themselves, but without a visible badge he could not narrow it down. For some reason the marine wore neither his helmet nor the backpack that contained the primary power source for is armour. Jarr had often seen marines remove their helmets outside of battle, and they were also known to remove the backpack and rely on their own great strength to lift the weight of the armour, but this seemed like an odd place to do either. Did he not realise that this was hostile territory? There was a ‘snap’ from behind Jarr as someone stood on a twig and it broke, and Jarr realised his error. By focusing on the mysterious figure ahead of him he had completely ignored his surroundings, and now someone was approaching form behind him. Swiftly, he rolled over onto his back and pointed his rifle back into the woods. There, directly ahead of him now he saw another space marine. Unlike the one he had been watching this one wore an entire suit of powered armour, and from the menacing grill of the horned helmet and the ornate arms of the backpack that led to two of its cooling vents he knew that this was no Imperial warrior. If it had ever served the God-Emperor then he had betrayed his oath ten thousand years ago when fully half of the Space Marine legions turned their backs on mankind and instead followed the renegade warmaster Horus in the service of the dark powers of the warp. Without thinking about it, Jarr fired from the hip. The armour piercing round of his weapon struck the traitor marine in the chest and tore through his armour as if it were no tougher than the flesh beneath it. An amplified scream came from the grill on the front of the traitor’s helmet as he lost a heart and a lung, his superhuman healing abilities sealing the wound behind the bullet. The delay this caused him was all that Jarr needed to get to his feet and begin to run. From the noise behind him, Jarr guessed that he was being followed by at least three traitor marines, possibly including the one that he had injured. Ahead of him he saw a gully that he had crossed on his way to the webway the previous night, and he knew that there was a river at the bottom of it. There was a thunderclap as one of Jarr’s pursuers fired his bolter, and the miniature rocket propelled projectile exploded when it struck a tree inches from his head. Jarr didn’t dare try turning around to return fire. Though he was confident that any shot he would fire would reduce the effectiveness of his pursuers, the actual act of turning around would make him an easy target for the well-trained traitor marines. He had to reach the gully. Another clap of thunder told Jarr that he had been right not to stop as the ground immediately behind him exploded and he felt the impact of flying debris on the backs of his legs. Then he saw the gully he was heading for in front of him, and Jarr leapt through the air toward it. As he did so, there was the roar of a bolter firing a four shot burst, and Jarr felt the searing pain as one of the rounds detonated next to him and tore open his suit and his flesh beneath it. Rather than give into the pain, Jarr waited until he had landed in the gully and triggered his suit’s medical systems to inject him with an agent to prevent infection and another drug to speed up the clotting process. He refrained from using a painkiller just yet; it would slow down his reactions. Lying on the sloping gully wall, with the river behind him, Jarr brought his rifle back to his shoulder and took aim. Through his scope he saw the traitor marine he had already shot, and with a quickly fired second shot he took out the traitor’s other heart. Knowing that he was dead, Jarr didn’t watch the man fall, instead he lined his rifle up on the next traitor marine and fired again. This time there was not the sound of his shot striking metal as the bullet instead passed through one of the lenses of the traitor’s helmet and ripped through his brain. The remaining traitors went to ground, firing bursts of bolter rounds from cover. Something small flew through the air from the traitors’ position and landed between them and Jarr, and there was a fizzing sound as the air filled with smoke. Jarr allowed himself a smile. Though they thought that they were preventing him from making use of his rifle’s advanced targeting system, the traitors were instead allowing him to escape. Jar slid back down the sloping gully wall and into the river, switching on his mask’s oxygen supply. Then he proceeded to swim away unnoticed by his enemies. “He is gone sergeant,” the call came through Idrim’s micro vox headset while he stood beside the webway gate, “there is a blood trail leading to the river, but no sign of a body.” “Continue your search,” Idrim answered, “we must confirm the agent’s death,” and he broke the link. Idrim then lifted his hand and waved towards the forest that he had emerged from. There was more movement in the undergrowth and Chaplain Krixus now also appeared. “The assassin has been driven of my lord,” Idrim said as the chaplain approached him, “we are no longer being observed.” “Is he dead?” Krixus asked. “Unknown, my men are searching the area now.” “Order them to stop, we will not be here much longer,” and Krixus withdrew a device that looked to be a bled of flesh and metal from a belt pouch and pressed it against the webway gate. “The message is sent,” he said, returning the device to his belt and the two traitor marines stepped away from the immediate vicinity of the webway gate. They did not have to wait long before a brilliant globe of light appeared beneath the arc of the webway gate. The globe expanded, and changed from a single white light to a myriad of tiny lights of differing colours. From within this mass of lights, a figure stepped. Like those who had signalled him here, this was another traitor marine, but unlike them his armour was a rich blue instead of crimson and he wore a white robe over it. His helmet lacked horns, and instead was fitted with a tall flat crest. “Nillotep of the Thousand Suns,” the newcomer spoke, looking towards the two traitor marines who stood nearby. “Chaplain Krixus of he Word Bearers,” Krixus responded, “and this is my sergeant, Idrim. Welcome to Crasus Minor.” “I accept your welcome Word Bearer,” Nillotep said, and the pair reached out and grasped one another’s hands in comradeship, “together we will change the face of this world.” Warboss Kazkal Kromag sat up straight in his throne, looking down at the four figures standing before him. Of the four only the largest, the Blood Axe Hazug Throatslitter did not appear at all concerned. His gretchin servant was, quite naturally, cowering behind his master, while the pair of humans could not keep still, instead they continuously fidgeted like orks impatient for battle and glanced repeatedly at the other assembled greenskins. This actually impressed Kazkal, it meant that the humans knew that they were in the presence of their betters, and they knew their place. Many of the orks in the room were also looking at the humans in an unusual way. Hazug had simply turned up at the palace with them as well as one of Kazkal’s servants and said that they had come here to see the warboss himself. It was not the first time that Hazug had brought humans to the palace; he had occasionally brought his own servants with him, though there was talk that he no longer had either of them. “So wot do dese gits do den Hazug?” he said, looking at the Blood Axe nob. “Da bigger one is da boss of dare fightin’ lads.” “Da con, cons,” Kazkal said as he tried to pronounce the human word. “Constabulary boss,” Hazug corrected him. “I knows dat.” “Yeah, well dis one is da boss of it.” “Right, and wot about da other one?” “’E’s got somethin’ to do with da human merchants boss, and ‘is lot pays for da other one and ‘is lads to keep da peace.” “Right, and why is dey ‘ere exactly?” Hazug leant over to the two humans and spoke to them in Gothic. “’E wants to know wot ya wants from ‘im,” he said. “Guns,” said Thayne, “and transport would be useful too.” “Dey lost most of dare shootas and all dare buggies when da bomb went off boss,” Hazug told Kazkal, switching back to orkish so that the warboss would understand him, “dey wants new ones.” There was laughter from some of the orks, the idea of providing weapons and vehicles to humans went against most greenskin tradition, except for Blood Axes of course, but the other clans never really trusted them either. Hazug watched his back here. “So wot does I get in return for shootas and buggies den?” Kazkal asked. “Dey’ll pay ya boss, just like da farmers pays da tradin’ convoys for protectin’ ‘em from wildboys, only dey’ll do da protectin’ all by demselves.” Once again, Hazug had struck a chord with the Bad Moon warboss. As wealthy as he was, he could not pass up the opportunity to make himself richer. “Ow much is we talkin’ about ‘ere?” Hazug leant towards the humans again. “’E wants to know ‘ow much ya’ll pay ‘im,” he translated, “’E’s expectin’ a regular payment.” Thayne and Atellus looked at each other. “Well like I said we don’t get a great deal of ork currency,” Atellus said. “’Ow much?” “Maybe four or five teeth per day.” Hazug knew that this would not be enough to convince warboss Kromag to arm the constabulary, so something other than cash would have to be used. But what would Kazkal take? Then Hazug remembered that the constabulary had until now used projectile weapons to arm its men. “Where did ya get da ammo for ya shootas before?” he asked the two men. “We have several gunsmiths,” Atellus answered, “they can manufacture a few weapons and a some ammunition whenever we can get the materials. But we just don’t have the resources to rearm the constabulary any time soon.” “So ya just need enough parts and den ya can make all da shootas and ammo ya wants?” “Small arms yes,” Thayne replied, ”but nothing especially powerful, our people don’t have the skills or equipment for military grade work.” “Dat’ll do I ‘ope,” Hazug said and then he turned back to face warboss Kromag, “’Ow’s about ammo boss?” he said. “Ammo?” Kazkal repeated, “Wot d’ya mean ammo?” “Da humans can make bullets for ya,” Hazug explained, “dey ‘as been doin’ it for dare own shootas, and if ya gives ‘em da bits den dey can make it for ya lads instead. “Hmmm,” Kazkal said, rubbing his chin as he considered the offer. Ork mekboys could produce excellent ammunition, custom designed to meet the exact needs of their customers. But their time was valuable, and as such mekboy made ammunition was expensive. Therefore, gretchin were entrusted to manufacture most of the ammunition used by orks, and the orks’ smaller cousin species could churn out vast quantities of simple solid rounds every day. The streets of the city swarmed with gretchin selling bullets they had made to earn a few teeth. The drawback was that what the gretchin offered in quantity was often lost in quality, and the cunning creatures would cut corners wherever they could resulting in ammunition that did not perform as well as the orks would have liked. The orks did not hold this against the gretchin; after all they were too small to be taken seriously. It was also common for orks armies to enslave humans for war production during an invasion, but such production crews had less regard for the quality of their produce than gretchin had. But this offer from the humans was something different altogether; it was more like the deals that some ork warlords made with outlying colonies to not attack in exchange for weaponry. As such there was plenty of precedent in ork society that would allow Kazkal Kromag to make a deal without appearing to be as bad as a git loving Blood Axe like Hazug. The warboss realised that he was being offered a steady supply of high quality ammunition. Not as good as a mekboy’s custom job perhaps, but better than gretchin made rounds. “Right den,” Kazkal said, “I’ll take five ‘undred bullets per day. In return I’ll lend da gits twenty of dem zappas wot ya brought me, but I aint got any git buggies so dey’ll ‘ave to find some by demselves. Goddit?” “Goddit boss,” Hazug replied, and then he leant over to tell the humans what they had just got themselves into. Jarr dragged himself from the river and tore his mask from his face, breathing in great gulps of fresh air. He put a hand to the wound on his side and when he pulled it away he saw that it was covered in his blood, the medication that he had used to assist clotting clearly had failed to do its job properly, so he administered a second dose and, now that he was out of combat, he also allowed himself the luxury of a painkiller. But he knew that these were just temporary measures and so, picking up his rifle from where it lay beside him, he got to his feet and began to make his way back to the farm where he had made camp and he could find the bulk of his medical supplies. |
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