Author's Note: This is my first fic. Please consider typos wrong grammar etc. because English is not my national language. The mercenaries are not, however official cannon, they are my own invention (though you may note the Inquisition uses bounty hunters and such from time to time).
It was early in the afternoon at White Square in the rebel backwater planet of Krud II, in the northern edge of Ultima Segmentum.
Mercenary Corporal 1st Class Michael Istevus sat crouched 2 blocks away inside a dim room on 6th floor of a condemned hab building. He was slumped against a cracked rockcrete wall; his head of dry, messy hair exposed as he gazed into the magnoculars with his purple eyes. He adjusted the strap on his loose Carapace armor and turned the wheel in the middle of the magnoculars to adjust their clarity. He could see that the local government had set up a stage for an address to be given by their heretic leader.
Their mission was simple, delicately planned and quite short: Assassinate the planet's leader and escape before authorities realized that they've been caught with their pants down and their shit hanging out.
Even so, Mike couldn't shake the feeling of unease gripping his bowels.
Beside him his close friend and squad mate Joe, was crouched, with Long-las cradled in his arms and clad in the same black Carapace armor and urban camo fatigues. The Blond headed sniper grunted as he checked the sniper rifle's power cell.
Mike squirmed in his dull Carapace armor and donned his helmet as he pressed the magnoculars to his face for the umpteenth time and sighed. The Emperor damned, heretic "president" (or so the locals called their Governor) hadn't arrived yet after their two hours of waiting inside this humid death trap.
The masses started... well, massing in wait for their leader's glorious, But-I-Don't-Want-To-Be-Part-Of-The-Imperium speech.
Mike touched the scythe on wings emblem on the center torso of his armor. It had been almost thirteen years since he joined the Mercs at the tender age of seven. With them, he had trained endlessly until he was ready to for his first mission, he had been 16 then, fresh from training and wet behind the ears but, as Mike was proud to say, the youngest Merc in their company.
He and his company had been called to action here by the Administratum with the sweet promise of a million thrones to get the job done.
Now, in case you're wondering why they bothered hiring and paying Mercenaries instead of getting the Officio Assasinorum to do the job for free is because:
1) this was a small time tyrant, not Abaddon the Despoiler
2) In a backwater like this, who had time to requisition a Temple Assassin?
3) Assassins are creepy
"Any visual on the target?" queried a brown haired Tychus, the veteran leader of their little hit squad.
"Negative Ty" Mike reported back.
Tychus cussed as he heard his reply. Tychus and another 2 other members, Gray & Shiny were waiting in a plain white van idling in a convenient back alley at the rear of the building.
"Vox check" interrupted a familiar static ridden voice.
"For the last Warp damned time, the vox is fine Dave!" replied Tychus.
Dave was the Mercenaries Comms Operator. While Mike & his squad worked their asses of planet side, the skinny redhead sat comfortably in their Lunar class Cruiser: Shit Happens in orbit .
The Cruiser was cleverly disguised and was docked incognito as an Innocent Rouge Trader vessel.
"Aren't we supposed to be worried?" Mike butted in.
"About what? Oh, them monitoring the vox? Its fine, the channel is quite secure and these sloppy bastards can't tap our frequency" drawled the Comms Operator.
"TARGET ENTERING THE AREA!" Mike nearly shouted.
Joe immediately sighted through the window, Tychus and Dave shut up and Mike rammed the magnoculars to his face, leaving rings around his eyes.
True enough, a long motorcade with a black limo in the center, made its way towards the square. Military personnel armed with Lasguns and wearing Flak Armor parted the crowd of adoring supporters for the limo to pass.
Moments later, when the limo reached the stage set up in the middle of the square, the passenger doors opened and 2 men in black suites stepped out. Both had sun glasses and combeads in one of their ears.
One of them reached inside the limo and helped a middle-aged man out. The man was also wearing a black suite, but with no glasses. He had graying hair and, as Mike noticed, a killer smile.
Joseph Lern aimed down the Long-las' telescopic sight. He trained them on the smiling president and tracked him with his rifle's crosshairs.
The man made his way on stage, flanked by his two burly bodyguards. He reached the podium and waved his bodyguards of, bad idea. Joe was holding his breath for the shot when-
"Joe!" Mike hissed at the sniper.
"What?" Joe hissed back irritably.
"You're scopes' creating glare! We'll be noticed!' Mike said.
True enough, Joe's scope was indeed reflecting the 2 o'clock sun.
"I have him where I want him, we can't switch position now, I'll lose the shot!" he whined.
"And we might lose our lives!" Mike retorted.
"Well, we might lose the mission!" Joe countered.
Mike understood. He knew to fail was to disappoint the one who took him in...
Too late... noticing the glare, one of the body guards heads snapped up at their direction.
Joe fired.
President Nickson walked up on stage, not knowing that, in a few moments his brain & vital fluids were about to be scattered all over the stage.
The population thought he was tired of the Emperor's rule and he knew the citizens were as well. They had faced heavy taxing from the Administratum in recent years had starved the people and turned them bitter towards the Imperium.
Only half of what they were sending to the Imperium actually got through. Human pirates and aliens pillaged their convoys on a regular basis.
Nickson claimed that all he wanted was the welfare of the population. But what Nickson really wanted was power, power and riches.
Thunderous applause greeted his way to the podium; he smiled that killer smile & waved at the cheering throng of people. Unbeknownst to the population, he had plans; quite ambitious plans in fact, plans that would see the Imperium under a new rule, his rule.
He was already on the podium, when he noticed something odd; something annoyingly bright was nagging the corner of his left eye. He decided to risk a quick glance... at his doom; a high-powered shot of pure energy speared his head.
The people nearest him were showered with cranial fluid.
The square erupted into a scene of panic.
Mike peered mouth agape at the panic before him, he had watched the president's head decorate the stage before discipline reasserted itself. He shoved the magnoculars back into their casing and drew his twin bolt pistols.
Joe shouldered his las and they bolted out of the room and down the old cracking rockcrete stairs. Even here, the sound of the screaming, panicking crowd could be heard.
Mike and Joe dashed down the stairs with trained efficiency. They burst out of the main door, literally ripping the poor slab of wood of its rusted hinges. They took a sharp turn into the alley to their left and burst into the rear double doors of the waiting van.
"What took you so long? I thought I trained you better." Tychus chuckled.
"Fuckup and drive, we've been compromised!" Mike yelled
Chuckling, Tychus slammed his foot down on the pedal.
Darian Heston was running, he heard the shouting and screaming and he knew what it meant, he was young, lean, dark-haired corporate employee on his regular lunch break, headed to a nice cozy burger place only a couple blocks away when the screaming started. Still clad in suit and tie he didn't know what was happening but he had only one thought in his head at the moment: run the fuck away.
He heard the screaming of engines behind him and hazarded a once over. What he saw only made him run faster. There was a plain white van behind him full of armed men; he saw the silhouette of a Lasgun in one of their arms, Terrorists!
He pumped his legs faster. The van was on his tail now
In a last ditch effort that surely would have failed if the van was aiming to run him over, he jumped into a heap of garbage on the left side of the road.
The van sped by, leaving an astonished trash-covered Darian staring mouth agape, at its rapidly speeding rear where it read: How's my driving?
The back of the van was dim, cramped and stuffy to add insult to injury Tychus' driving was making it a less than luxurious ride.
That as when he heard it, the law enforcement sirens.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack! A rain of badly aimed laspistol fire strafed by them.
Shiny the heavy weapons man smiled. His black hair shaved into a crew cut. He moved towards the window in one of the rear doors and smashed it with the stock of his bulky, drum fed custom stubber. He sighted for but a moment and fired.
"!" The roar of Shiny's weapon was deafening inside such a confined place.
Instantly one of the local squad cars was shredded by .50 Caliber Incendiary slugs, its hull a shorn metallic wreck, resembling the ancient, Terran "Swiss Cheese".
Mike's vox suddenly crackled to life.
"Mike?" intruded Dave's Voice.
"Yeah?" responded Mike.
"Yeah, uh, we got a problem." said the Comms Operator.
"Exactly how big is this problem?" Mike was getting that sinking feeling.
"Very big." Dave responded.
So what do you think? Win, Fail or Epic Fail? Chapter 2 will be posted soon if most reviews are favorable. Thanks For Reading.
