WARP JUMP
Its cold in deep space.
Cold enough to crack plates of steel like ice to a boots heel.
Cold enough even to tear ships into shards at the merest touch if without power or heat or life.
Cold enough to drain a mortal's soul at the merest thought of drifting into its dark embrace.
Deep space stretches seemingly endlessly like an endless nightmare of black.
Its so vast generations would have to live and die to even progress the tiniest of percentage to any destination. Light and heat the very essence of life, is all but a half forgotten memory to any brave ship to enter its crypt like embrace. Hopes and dreams fade in time, as does any thought of navigation as the dark stretches into oblivion.
A man might go mad in the dark, and the cold.
Nothing to sustain him, nothing to remind him of home and those he once loved.
No solace can be found in a ships crew, not his bunkmates, not his weapons that defeated dozens of foe…only a whisper in his mind repeated over and over. A whisper that chills the bravest of the brave to the core.
Insignificance.
For all his might of arms, his intellect, his wit with poetry or art, man is but a spec of dust upon the wind of ages compared to the blacks crushing embrace.
It's for a reason races rely upon jumps into subspace, hazardous thou it might be. Demons, plains of blood, the sounds of a thousand voices screaming in twisited choir to a long forgotten god, are the substance of a view into the warp. It is said that if one was to look into the true substance of the warp, something smiles and licks its teeth. It is here that madness lurks, preying on the weak, the ones lacking in faith to the divine, the ones unhinged, and those whom harbour the smallest touch of evil.
A fools gamble some whisper to even attempt such travel.
But in deep space, darkness looks into your soul...
Far below the hum and endless lights of the bridge, Rudd sat hunched in a corner far into the recesses of the cavernous hold of the capital ship Retribution. Shunned by many of his comrades, he sat quietly humming to himself playing with his infamous combat knife still slick with blood from a few hours previous. A smile played on his face as he twirled and turned the knife lightly in his palm, watching the red human blood mingle with the crusted green blood of alien long ago. He looked inhuman, with his gore drenched uniform of the 17th Lothars the otherwise famous 'pillars of strength' after the famous defence of the Nicad space platform from the scourge of the Tyranids eons before. Same old
Rudd didn't care about his uniform soaked in blood, nor his liberated hell gun, propped against his leg, that dripped in gore. Surprisingly no one shouted to correct this attitude but the sergeants had long ago given up trying to tame those wild eyes of Rudd. He's name was spoken in hushed whispers, throughout the hold, as stories and rumours flew about, the legend of Rudd Chital ever growing. He held the breach at Tortareen against an Ork raid, bathed in blood in the trenches of Cadia during the black crusade; the list went on and on.
Once he had been a simple grunt, little respected, and nameless in the tide of humanity that was the Imperial guard, yet in the space of a single day he had gone from unknown to legend. He had been the only survivor of the raid on to a black fortress found drifting in the gothic sector, but guardsmen spoke of the screams that echoed from it when they docked, a desperate cry to come to the aid of the boarding party. All they found was Rudd, eyes ablaze with fire, holding a knife sheathed in blood, whilst a spawn of Chaos lay at his feet. Ever since he had been shunned as he spoke nothing of what had happened, just the glow of his eyes telling a chilling story.
With every breath that whispered his name, came the unsaid word of Berserker.
All was lost on Rudd who sat like a small child idling twirling his captured combat knife into his hand. The chilling smile not leaving his face even whilst the knife tip dug deeper into his hand blood soaking his already stained fore arms…
Commissar Skult stared down into the darkened corner from his position high up on a gantry. Pausing for a minute to gather his thoughts he, sighed and then turned to the tight-faced lieutenant next to him.
'You really fear the worst?'
The lieutenant merely nodded
'Well it is difficult to say with a man of his arghhh reputation, not to mention his achievements'
Far below a pair of fire filled eyes starred up into the gloom, the knife spinning faster and faster. The sound of metal on bone echoed around the subdued area of the hull, before being lost in the noise of a card game further down.
'Commissar I fear the worst some of the acts he is committing are bordering on heresy! Look at the most recent incident, he butchered a whole acolyte training centre, in order to seek out just one cultist!'
'Obviously a devout man lieutenant Samson, a man who would most useful to the inquisitions mind set no doubt' smiled Skult.
'Well could you have him transferred commissar? He is I fear a liability, and many of his acts are committed with out authority, for I can never find him.'
'Fear not, I will watch him, but I think you are just being a paranoid, perhaps you are suffering symptoms of warp paranoia?'
The lieutenant looked startled at this suggestion, but the meaning was clear. Commissars in there black imperial great coats, where meant to look imposing, and Skult clearly looked threatening in his tone and size.
'Thank you for your time commissar'.
'Emperor guide you Samson, and don't look to hard for heretics in the emperors heroes'
With that Skult walked away down the gantry to Gun deck B, leaving a forlorn Samson standing in the dark, before he set off for the engine room.
Down below Rudd's Hell gun tracked the lieutenant until he vanished into the gathering gloom, before it rapidly dropped into Rudd's lap.
Humming a tune it was disassembled in seconds, and Rudd started to clean it, the humming turning into a chirpy whistling. Whilst next to Rudd his combat knife glowed briefly as blood flowed down its edge, and pooled at its hilt…
The Emperors Retribution, a Mars class cruiser was inbound for the recent surge in the fighting in the Armageddon sector, her firepower requested to help stem a rising number of Orks. Down below in the cavernous hold, the rumble of engines could be felt echoing and straining to push the mighty vessel through the warp. The Gellar field could be heard groaning and straining to contain the massive warp energy, causing many of the commissars to be on alert close to paranoia in there search for those unable to resist the powers of chaos.
In the dark corner that Rudd had made home for the duration of the long voyage, the silence and stillness that had once reigned supreme was now shattered by the clang of steel, and the rapid movement of bodies. Commissar Skult watched from his customary gantry, as the whirl of fluid motion rippled below. Rudd stood, bare chested, glistening in sweat, holding his blade in one hand, a smaller bayonet in the other.
Slowly motion-by-motion he ran through his drills, blocking, and parrying, twirling and moving, in an endless pattern of dance. They where mesmerising, like an ever changing mosaic Skult had once seen on Terra. Like lightening a blow would come forward, before being withdrawn into the constant dance of the blades.
Men sat around the figure who danced of death in a large semi circle, in awe of this lord of the blades, but mesmerised, none daring to come more than 200 yards from them in fear.
His eyes glowed, with the motions of death watching the faces of the men who sat in awe.
Silently and slowly the motions ceased, the famous blade coming to rest, pointed at a guardsman seated in a small group. Backed against a bulkhead his face was all but invisible, lost in the gloom, but he could see the blade pointed straight at his face, the challenge undeniable.
The guardsman, was to all eyes present was huge, a mountain of muscle, who dwarfed the men on either side. His name was Gerad, and he was renowned in 17th Lothars, for his ability to carry a missile launcher with ease, and had on several occasions fired a mortar from the hip. Once a pit fighter in the infamous hive of Necromunda, he was a gentle giant in the Lothars regiment, unless provoked, vowing to never fight unless he had no other choice, yet to all the agasped guardsman, he had accepted the challenge, and rose to meet it.
With barely a nod to his fellows, he drew his own bayonet, and stripped off his regulation shirt, exposing his mountains of muscles. With a slight smile he walked into the circle, and turned to face Rudd who was deep in meditation. Cross-legged on the floor with his eyes closed; Rudd was lost, deep in thought.
With a snarl he leapt up, his blades, held ready and began to circle his prey.
Fast as quicksilver the blades clashed. A maelstrom of blinding steel that clanged then grated like the gnashing of monsters teeth.
A heartbeat of stillness as the blades locked.
A twitch of muscles and the razor sharp dance continued. Thrust, parry, slice, riposte, each move a testimony to superb reflexes and years of harsh existence in the service of the God Emperor. Much of the speed and dexterity was lost on the watching men, to all but the most experienced. Each move a perfect blow, and yet each mirrored an attack or defence mere moments before.
Yet for all the beauty and power of the flashing blades even the most dim witted of men knew it would mean death to feel even the slightest kiss of steel.
One thrust of Gerad's bunched muscles would carve the spinal column of a man into splinters. A slice of Rudd's bayonet and a man would be disembowelled before his brain had even registered pain.
Sweat ran its course like glistening rivers across Gerad's back and Rudd's breath came in mighty gasps.
The fight moved like a caged spirit pushing one then the other of the battling giants forwards and back across the deck.
Mere practice…..
A dazzle of steel and Rudd smashed the hilt of his famous blade into Gerads face. The big man grunted surprised at the sudden speed and aggression of what had moments before been honourable. Rudd pressed in close driving his blades hard towards exposed flesh to which Gerad hastily parried with his one blade.
In his haste to parry Gerad smashed his lone blade hard against Rudd's cross hilt tearing the silver blade from sweaty palm. A chink in the armour of the cold killer Gerad drove his elbow hard into Rudds stomach causing a whoosh of air. No sound passed Rudds lips as Gerad then hammered his fist into the winded mans face.
And then within a heartbeat it was done.
A slight smile and sudden explosion of energy was all Gerad saw. His elbow shattered into fragments as Rudd stepped into the giants attack and spun the descending arm. A flicker of inhuman speed and Gerads feet left the deck and sweaty muscles hit the cold hard deck.
By the time Gerad had even realised what was happening he lay flat on his back his arm a bloody ruin. Fighting agonising pain he bunched his muscles and spun. Speed was of the essence to avoid the inevitable downward plunge of steel.
No man had ever said they had fought Rudd. But then no man who had fought Rudd had lived….
The last man who had boasted of such an act went missing. It had taken three days to hook his dissected corpse down from the shell gantry, his right thumb embedded into his ruined eye.
Slow , like diving into molten tar Gerad knew he was dead. A flick of fire and the scythe would descend throwing him into the quiet stillness. Trickling blood ran into his eyes. A voice in his mind screamed to get up. Blink, his eyes couldn't open.
One
Two
Each beat of his heart a lie as Gerad knew he already lay dying.
Three
Four
A hushed whisper of breath.
Five
Six
Surely he was dead already?
Seven
The image of a fly caught in a spiders web.
Eight
Nothing, no pain no light.
Nine
Gerad's eyes flickered …