Something I thought about while bored in class and wrote in the computer lab afterwards. This short story was inspired by Matt Baker's "I, Servitor" that can be seen at the Black Library forums. His is an excellent piece, and the type of piece that brings with it a lot of insight.
I own nothing. This is Games Workshop's intellectual property. I don't own the character or the location (if you can figure out the location, tell me, I myself don't know). So GW don't sue me and I'll keep buying your books. Deal?
I'm mainly looking for concrit, and ways to improve. Fire up those flamers, servants of the Emperor!
Rating: T for simulated/imaginary violence.
---Second Nature---
You know what to do.
The voice jerks me out of my reverie. It is not mine, yet it echoes through my head. I know these surroundings.
Hive city. Ecclesiarchy palace. These are landmarks of any hive-world.
I am standing in the middle of the street.
A long-las shot scorches the air inches from my head. The wake of superheated air would be untraceable to the naked eye. I triangulate the sniper's position without turning. I can take him with the pistol, but the distance allows any reasonably-trained man to dodge.
-+Seek and destroy.+-
The scene is chaos. Civilians are running and screaming, the Ecclesiarch's motorcade halted in its tracks, half its number reduced to smoldering rubble. A dozen Arbites are strewn about, toxin-coated needles protruding from the gaps in their carapace armor.
Is this the work of my hand?
One in particular holds interest. Still breathing, its torso nearly severed by a trio of perfectly aimed bolt rounds, its face matches a pict projected into my mind.
I am leaning towards the figure, gripping it by the throat. "Xenophile," I hear a voice hiss. No one else is around. The voice must be mine. "For consorting with the alien, you are sentenced to death."
The traitor to humanity gives a weak gasp and expires.
Well done.
A hulking silhouette appears unbidden in my mind. Those words must not be my own.
The suit warns me of unnatural heat. I realize I am standing next to a spectacularly burning wreck. The heat is comforting, somehow.
I hear myself laughing. The few armed law-enforcers that remain shudder.
Strange. I never was much for laughter.
I catch my reflection in the visor of an Arbite slumped against a wall. My face is a skull – or perhaps my face is masked in a skull. I am not sure which.
Does it matter?
It does not matter. Another las-blast. I dodge without thinking.
The sniper's hand is shaking. I haven't looked, haven't turned to face his perch twenty meters away, but I know. Click. A new clip.
What is my purpose here?
-+Destroy the objectives.+-
The faces flash through my mind again. I identify one, commandeering a civilian skimmer vehicle in vain hopes of escape. It rises three meters into the air and explodes spectacularly. A wave of heat washes over me.
I like the heat.
My meltabomb bandolier is unusually light.
-+Destroy the objectives.+-
One face remains.
The order hammers through my head, and the half-dozen guards hovering just out of shotgun range flinch as I crouch. The sniper fires, once, twice, thrice. All miss. I have not moved my feet. Supercooled air blows in from the vents above, causing the flames to flicker madly. The chill makes me angry, blood pounding against my temple.
Why do I hate the cold?
A muffled curse. The sniper's nerve is failing him. My feet are pounding against the floor, but the clumsy guards defending the intersection are not growing larger. The Executioner pistol has vanished, replaced by a humming vibroblade.
I always was quite the knife-fighter.
The sharpshooter is dead now, a bloody smear in the pavement ten meters below me. I realize I am standing at his perch, his long-las broken at my feet.
How did I get here? Did I climb this wall?
I suppose I have. It makes sense – I have always preferred a personal touch. The pounding in my skull comes back.
-+Target identified. Positive match confirmed.+-
Red robes of the Ecclesiarchy. Bodyguard of Arbites. There is no doubt. A small gauge readout on my gauntlet drops ever so slightly, and I rage as cold invades my extremities.
My body is moving without my orders again. Rooftops flash by.
-+Override: Threat Priority Alpha+-
A sudden, instinctual evade sees a solid round clip the antenna off my sensor array. The target is no longer my focus. An autocannon emplacement atop a Salamander thuds incessantly. It is expendable, and easily dealt with, but it cuts off my best route to the primary objective.
They are all expendable.
The silhouette has color now. Shining silver trim on powered armor. A glowing powersword illuminates the cabin of a dropship. I snap back into the present.
Somewhere within the past few seconds I have leapt back to street level. The autocannon still blares. I stop on a whim, watching the gunner track ahead of me and knock chunks of concrete from the hab-buildings before me. The meltabomb bandolier has one bomb remaining. I had started with eight.
The Salamander, like every other hostile vehicle encountered thus far, has replaced itself with a smoking metal carcass.
Heat.
The objective turns a corner, and a gaudy Rhino roars into place, blocking my view. Seven figures pile out.
These are the devout followers of the Ecclesiarchy.
White, red, and gold power armor. Godwyn-Deaz Bolters. Sororitas. They are loyal to his Holiness, but more importantly, they are in my way.
I can ignore them and pursue the target, but doing so is risking my chances of success.
-+Odds of successfully completing target without elimination of immediate threats: 2,457.1 to 1+-
Unacceptable. This obstacle must be eliminated, and quickly.
The Sister Superior levels her power sword at me, and in that millisecond, my synapse mine bounces into her path. No one has time to dodge.
My senses slow. Theirs slow more. The vibroblade is airborne, burying itself in the vulnerable neck seal of a Battle Sister. I see it punch out the other side. The Executioner pistol is in my left hand, the spikes on my neuro-gauntlet glow. The gauge drains to empty.
I am cold. And angry. Very angry.
Everything is a blur.
Is it over?
One glance confirms my suspicions. The fight has taken literally seconds.
The Executioner pistol is emptied of both bolt and needle. The neuro-gauntlet is slick with blood.
Their power armor has failed to do its job. Power armor doesn't protect against fast-acting poisoned needles stabbed in its joints.
One Sister still survives. Careless.
You must help the servants of the Emperor as you would a brother.
Bolter out of reach, she uses her good arm to snap off the stylized Fleur-de-lis from her breastplate. Its razor edge glistens hungrily.
I reach forward to dislocate her arm.
There is no need to kill.
I look down at the broken neck. I expect to feel guilt, but there is none.
In its place, there is a rumbling of contentment.
Acceptable collateral damage.
Is it? I see my face reflected in the fallen Sister Superior's armor. It has changed. The skull is speckled with red now.
-+Target reacquired.+-
I look up. Feet fly again. The objective ducks into a building as its remaining Arbite bodyguards turn and fan out to defend the lone entrance. They dissolve, along with the front façade of the building as my final melta charge detonates.
More blurs. The red-robed tyrant is before me now. The pistol is reloaded, the gauntlet humming.
Some things are best done by hand, assassin.
Not my voice. For a fleeting moment I can attach a face to it – a stubbled, dark-skinned face in massive, unwieldy power armor. The stylized 'I'. Silver and black highlights everywhere.
Are these thoughts my own?
No matter. His face is turning blue. My empty bandolier is wrapped around his neck.
"In the name of His Holy Inquisition, I declare thee Hereticus." The voice belongs to me, but the words do not. "He who allows the alien to live, shares its crime of existence."
What has happened?
There is shattered glass by my feet. I glance outside the window. A body hangs from a lamp-light protruding from the hab. Red robes. Ecclesiarchal insignia. My bandolier is serving as a makeshift noose.
There are screams.
-+Mission Accomplished+-
What are my orders?
-+Eliminate all witnesses and return to the staging area.+-
I find myself at the spaceport. I vaguely remember cries of pain, and pleas for mercy. I do remember the biting numb. My fists clench involuntarily.
"Kalhren-Larkonia." It is the voice I hear in my head sometimes, the one that is not mine. My body relaxes. I cannot move. A safe-word, the type used to prevent the Imperium's most dangerous agents from spiraling out of control.
Who are you? What have you done to me? "Excellent job, assassin."
Ordos Xenos Inquisitor Tanthiar appears. Stubbled chin. Silver and black power armor. Dark skin. Glowing power sword.
The voice in my head has a name.
The sensation of time fades. I am back in space. The Officio Assassinorum ship looms threateningly in the void.
Sometime between my last thought and now, I have landed the shuttle and returned to the vaults of the cruiser.
"Return to cryo-stasis, Assassin."
The voice is neither mine nor Tanthius'. It is cold, unfeeling. A machine voice. It is not so different from mine.
I step into the glass-enclosed chamber. The door seals behind me.
This feels wrong.
Gas jets hiss. Liquid oxygen is incoming.
No, no… stop this, I don't like it. Let me out- My body tenses as I prepare to smash my way out. I remember why I hate the cold, and the world fades to nothing.
-fin