|
BROTHERS AT ARMS "Okay, Lucy," Ray muttered to himself. "Up and at 'em." Techmarine Raymond Vaque allowed himself a tight smile of satisfaction, as his ministrations were gradually rewarded by the myriad small humming, clicking, thunking sounds of a dreadnought powering up from standby. "Vlllllllllt hnn grhgghhh--" "Hey!" the techmarine shouted, rapping a force spanner against the cyborg's hull. "Calibrate the voice processors, you daft old clunker. How many times have I--" BLAAAAAT!! Ray jumped as Lucien sounded the gleaming air horns that had been a gift from the men of 2nd Company, a few birthdays past. Within the steel and concrete confines of the Dread Shed (as 2nd Company's dreadnought barn was affectionately known), the din was deafening. "Mind the finish... Orwell," Lucien warned, his momentary vocal glitch resolved. The synthesised voice sounded, at once, coldly metallic and amused. "Yeahyeah," Ray growled, "good morning to you, too. Look, we finished repacking your knee joints, yesterday. I need you to move around on them a bit so I can make sure they're right. Okay?" Several long moments passed as the dreadnought seemed to consider the request. Then, he slowly raised one foot off the concrete floor and stood balanced on the other, like one of those trained circus elephants he'd once seen in an old holovid. This would get Brother Ray's hearts pounding. The techmarine rolled his eyes and grimaced. "If you fall and break a leg..." "...don't come running to me," the dreadnought finished. "A joke. Not bad, but don't let the Inquisition catch you unclenching like that." "Do you mind? Can't we just get on with it?" Lucien lowered his foot and took a few tentative steps. Satisfied, he strode a short distance and back, the thud of his footfalls echoing slightly in the cavernous barn. Despite his immense bulk, the dreadnought moved with a deceptive grace which was belied only by transmission of the impacts through the floor. He backed into his docking bay and stood flexing his refurbished knee joints in a calesthenic parody of knee bends. "Thanks, Doc. That's much better." "I should think so. You must have got a couple kilos of that black Elyrian sand in the joints. Bloody things were ground down to .936 of proper spec." "What can I say?" Lucien said, waving his power fist in an instinctive gesture that had survived his several centuries as a dreadnought and the numerous protests of his brother marines. "Sand and sun. I needed to work on my tan." Waiting for a response from Brother Ray, but receiving none, Lucien explained, "It's a joke. Needed to work on my tan... get it?" Brother Ray crossed his arms and just stared at his recalcitrant charge. Lucien was something of an oddity among dreadnoughts, in that he had retained much of his personality and mental vigor, long past the point at which most began to lose interest in the world around them. Within the dreadnought sarcophagus was encased the broken, withered husk of a seven hundred and something year old space marine, and within that husk thrived most of the best parts of Brother Robert Hoskins. Ray tried not to think about it too much, because he just couldn't reconcile the atrocious puns and lewd limericks with the ruined body that lay within. To the confoundment of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Lucien clung tenaciously to his relationships with his brother marines--more than a few of whom secretly feared him. His concern over the state of his consciousness was fanatic, prompting him to frequently ask, "How do I seem today?" In truth, Ray rather enjoyed the notoriety of his assignment to this roguish cyborg, but there were times when his unusual exuberance got in the way. Sobered by the techmarine's mood, Lucien switched gears. "How long has it been, this time?" Ray tapped a few keys on his pad, consulting the maintenance records. "Almost a year." "Something's bothering you. You didn't bring me up just so I could stretch my legs, did you?" "No." Against all logic, it was Hoskins' eyes Ray felt burning into him from behind the dreadnought's visual sensors. "We've received orders. We're to ship out, ASAP, to Corelli VI. It's Dark Eldar, this time. You're going." Lucien inclined his upper torso slightly, which Ray knew to be a nod. "Well then, best get me strapped and packed," came Lucien's reply. "It's not like I've anything better to do." Giving the sarcophagus an affectionate rap, Ray nodded and began his checkout. "So... this Blood Claw walks into a pub with a sheep under one arm, and a--stop me if you've heard this one..." Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease, Lucien thought as he scanned for lifesigns. Choked with piles of shattered masonry, the dark alley bore testament to heavy fighting that had torn through this sector and moved on. Scattered contents from the buildings on either side smouldered feebly in the incessant drizzle. No sign of life, alien or otherwise. He backed out of the alley and turned to survey his surroundings. Primitive structures, most showing some signs of damage, lined both sides of a narrow, cobblestone street. Here and there sprawled the gutted remains of a domestic vehicle, but few bodies. This area of the town was mostly made up of commercial buildings, but even so, the few casualties in evidence were Dark Eldar and marines slain in 2nd Company's initial push. Menchhoffen, until recently a thriving settlement on the peaceful agricultural world of Corelli VI, could not have been less prepared for the attack, and the small number of human casualties suggested the raiders had been taking prisoners. Better that they had died than fallen into the hands of Dark Eldar. Lucien's commlink popped twice (something which had long puzzled him, since the commlink was patched directly into his I/O ports and made no sound) and then came the voice of Sgt. Culebra: +Dreadnought Four... what is your status?+ Culebra's 2nd Terminators--the so-called "Misfits"--were securing a nearby sector. Along with Lucien and several squads of scouts, the Misfits had been ordered to secure the town and hold it in case the raiders should attempt to use it as fallback position from the 2nd Company tactical and assault units who were at this very moment attempting to outflank them. If they managed to escape into the rugged hills to the northeast of Menchhoffen, there would be no finding the devils. He opened an output port to his commlink and activated his transmitter. +No sign of hostiles here, Sergeant. Sector Kilo-16 is clear.+ +Acknowledged. Proceed to Kilo-15.+ Lucien froze in his tracks and upped the gain of his auditory sensors. Nothing... then, as he was about to move on, there it was again: a faint cry, coming from the building across the street. He moved cautiously in the direction of the structure's shattered front wall, and through it made out what appeared to be some sort of large, wheeled agricultural implement. 
Stepping over a pile of rubble onto the packed clay floor of the building, Lucien again stopped to listen. The sounds were definitely louder here and coming from somewhere deeper within. Light entered through dusty windows set high in the walls, but much of the interior was hidden in deep shadow. Despite the gloom, Lucien was able to make out an assortment of machinery in various stages of disassembly, steel shipping modules, and debris from collapsed portions of the walls and ceiling, and he moved slowly to avoid these obstacles. Somewhere in the darkness, an air compressor chattered noisily to itself. As he approached the left rear corner of the building, Lucien heard voices coming from behind what appeared to be a some sort of large harvesting machine. Male voices, speaking in the lilting, exotic tongue of the Dark Eldar. +Dreadnought Four here,+ Lucien transmitted on the commlink. A momentary pause, and then Sgt. Culebra's voice. +What have you got, Four?+ +I mark hostiles in Sector Kilo-15. Some kind of repair facility. Three, maybe more. It sounds like they have one of the locals. I'm checking it out.+ +Acknowledged, Four. Smiley, take Dupuis and back him up.+ +Suh.+ came Smiley's reply. Smiley, mused Lucien. Now there's irony. Jack Smiley was possibly the most ruthless psychopath he'd known in all his centuries. The veteran trooper wouldn't waste time joining Lucien if there was a chance for a fight, but the raiders' captive might not have even that much time to spare. Checking that his weapon interlocks were disengaged, Lucien stepped around the combine and activated his shoulder-mounted searchlight. The warrior on lookout had not been wearing a helmet and stood blinded as Lucien stepped forward and caught hold of him, the stubby fingers of the dreadnought's power fist locking around the base of his spine with a satisfying crunch. Crouched over something in the corner was a hideously deformed haemonculus. Three more warriors who had been standing with their backs to the lookout now fled the glare, making their escape along the wall to Lucien's right. The Eldar were quick, but the ancient space marine had anticipated their reaction and had already begun pivoting in that direction. The aliens, stumbling over machine parts scattered along the wall, were slowed just enough for Lucien to track with his heavy flamer. The paralysed warrior dangling from Lucien's power fist felt no pain as his legs were incinerated by the flamer's jet, but his brother warriors spoke for him, screaming as the sticky fuel coated and hungrily devoured them. Lucien faced forward again to find the haemonculus grinning at him. "Back away, machine," she hissed, gesturing with the barbed hook she held in one hand, "or I shall kill the human." A young woman lay slumped against the wall in a large, dark puddle, wearing on her face a rictus of pain and fear, but little else. Flaps of shredded skin hung where they had been flayed from her chest and arms. She stared wide-eyed into the glare of the searchlight, and Lucien realised that she had no eyelids. "No," Lucien rumbled, "you shall not." Servos whining, he brought his multi-melta to bear. Realisation dawned and the haemonculus' grin faded. A momentary hiss, followed by the crackling whoosh! of the young woman's nearly-instantaneous vaporisation, and then Lucien turned his attention to her tormenter. He raised his power fist, still clutching the gurgling warrior, and almost felt a chill as the twisted alien's grin returned and broadened in anticipation. "Yessss--" Bolter fire chugged from behind Lucien, and a pink mist bloomed in the searchlight's beam where the creature's head had been. Pumping gouts of ichor from its neck, the body took a faltering step forward, gesturing absently with the hooked instrument before stumbling to its knees and slumping, lifeless, to the floor. "Plannin' on makin' a day of it, was you?" Smiley. Lucien turned and faced his brother marine. Dupuis was standing behind the other terminator, shifting uncomfortably. "You're an animal, you know that? You enjoy... this... just a bit too much. Brother." Smiley brushed the indictment from the air with a casual gesture of his storm bolter. "Long as it's inna service of da Imperium I'm sanc-ti-fied... 'Old One'. 'Oly as da Emperor's birfday, I am." Time hung for an uncomfortable moment between the trooper and the ancient Ancestor. "C'mon Boo-Boo. We've work ta do." He turned and strode past Brother Dupuis, who seemed to have something to say but only followed. Flames, starving for fuel but not finding any within their reach, flickered and died. The air compressor continued its chatter. Lucien let the Dark Eldar warrior drop, twitching, from his grasp and made his way outside to the street. He activated the commlink. +Sector Kilo-15 is... clear.+ |
