"I still miss Ketz... Hell I miss everyone that didn't make it."
"Things might turn sour though, more cultists keep popping up."
"Well fak," Newton adjusted the sling of the heavy flamer across his chest, "I ain't seen any yet. Need a light?"
Priest had just put a deathstick between his lips and leaned over. Newton turned on the pilot light of his heavy flamer and Priest lit the deathstick off the intense blue flame. "Cheers feller."
Out in front of them was nearly endless fields of snow, leading up to a mountain range lit by the rising sun behind them. It would have been nice if it wasn't minus twenty-five degrees.
"Think Marshall's gonna be much longer?" Priest asked, taking a long drag off the deathstick and holding it for a moment before exhaling the dark, almost toxic fumes.
Almost on cue their microbeads chirped and Marshall's voice entered their left ears, "took a bit of wrangling but it finally outputted the data, and we might be back in time for lunch eh?"
Newton and Priest both reached up for the left side of their helmets at the same time, but it was Newton that pressed the transmit button first, "a'ight we're coming back." They turned towards the sun, shielding their eyes from it's brilliant glare and trudged back towards their ride.
Marshall had locked the monitoring station's control panel cover back in place and the Valkyrie gunship that had brought them out to this middle of nowhere had it's engines idling, sounding almost like it was growling with the teeth painted on the side of the nose. Only the pilot was in the cockpit, the gunner not being needed on such a boring and always uneventful sortie.
Marshall was inside the hold, putting the data storage device into the locker at the foot of the bulkhead for safe transit back. The side doors were closed so Newton and Priest climbed in through the rear hatch and grabbed onto handhelds in the ceiling. It wasn't so much that the three of them and the pilot had all drawn short straws, more that it was just their turn.
Marshall grabbed a handheld as well and keyed his microbead, "we're all in Sunny, let's head home, and I'll give you anything you like if we make it inside of three hours."
"I'm not promising anything," the pilot replied and they lifted off from the ground, holding at 100m altitude and speeding across endless kilometres of snow plains. After about an hour the pilot announced that they were passing over a less-used route between two towns that he didn't recall the exact names of. "I think I see a couple vehicles in the distance, you want to say hi?"
"May as well," replied Marshall, "fly us over'em, then dip the wings, give'em a show." The pilot acknowledged and banked left, then they flew level for a while, just the red-lit cargo hold and the droning of the gunship's engines filling the silence.
"Get on the door guns," the pilot said.
"Why? We don't want to scare them eh," Priest replied.
"Get on the fakking door guns right now, we've got a situation," the pilot said and something pinged off of the hull. Newton and Marshall hauled open the side doors and moved the heavy bolters into position. Priest moved from door to door trying to see the vehicles ahead of them.
The Valkyrie dipped lower to the ground and the vehicles came into view on the starboard side, one of them was a white Tunk-G cargo truck and the other was an open topped vehicle known as a 'snow-rat' with several armed men dressed in red firing out at the truck.
"Fak!" Marshall said and cocked the heavy bolter, taking aim but them aiming it away again, "I can't shoot from this angle, I'd take out half that truck!" One of the gunmen fired again at the gunship with what looked like an autopistol but the rest seemed to be focusing on the truck, shooting at the cab, where the driver was keeping as low as he could while still watching the road.
"I've got an idea, Sunny get us in front of them, line us up with the snow-rat. Newton, get over here and get your flamer ready," Priest said and led Newton to the rear hatch.
"I hope you know what you're doing," the pilot said and they accellerated ahead of the speeding vehicles.
"I want you to try to aim so you catch the rat at least a bit without hitting the truck ok?" Priest said and Newton nodded, igniting the pilot light on his heavy flamer. Marshall came over as well and he and Priest both cocked their standard-issue lasguns.
The snow-rat and then the truck came into view, the tail boom was projecting out level with, and above, the truck cab where the driver was locked in a look of surprise, not knowing if they were friend or foe.
"Now! Kill'em!" Priest shouted and Newton fired his flamer, too-far to the side at first then he gradually brought it closer until the flames engulfed most of the occupents of the snow-rat. Marshall and Priest opened up with their lasguns, Priest trying to hit the driver with aimed shots while Marshall sprayed the whole vehicle on fully automatic.
The driver was hit in the head, not by Priest's accurate shots but by Marshall's spraying of lasbolts and the vehicle swerved to the side, smashing into the truck before spinning out. Astoundingly one of the occupents jumped at the last moment and grabbed hold of the ladder on the back hatch of the truck, his trousers ablaze.
"Get us above the truck, quick!" Priest shouted into his microbead and the Valkyrie gained a few metres of altitude, slowing down slightly, gradually moving over the top of the truck. Priest and Marshall both trained their lasgun sights on the edge of the rear of the truck's cargo area expecting the assailant to appear over the top but he didn't show.
"Ah, fak this," Priest said and jumped out the back hatch of the Valkyrie, landing perfectly on the top of the truck then getting pushed over by the wind shear. The truck was starting to slow down, perhaps thinking the danger was over. Priest crawled along to the end of the truck and pounced forward, aiming his rifle down the ladder, right into the face of the gunman.
One shot, two, three, four, five, Priest kept firing at the figure until it finally let go and tumbled into the snowy track. The truck eventually stopped and Priest climbed down. Sunny brought the Valkyrie down next to it and Marshall and Newton disembarked.
The driver climbed down from the cab, he was quite overweight and dressed in padded blue overalls. He beamed broadly at them and hurried over, "you fellers are Guard, ain't'cha? Ha ha! Boy am I glad to see you!"
They all shook his hand and the pilot waved from the cockpit of the Valkyrie, "do you know who those guys were?" Newton asked the driver.
"Throne if I know, but they were probably after my cargo. It's fruit from the jungle belt, they'd make a small fortune with all this! Oh, that reminds me," he hurried back to the cab of the truck and returned with three karnips. A very sweet and juicy fruit often eaten at special occasions, "they gave me a few for meself, best share them with you heroes of the Imperium!"
The troopers accepted the fruit with thanks and each took a bite, closing their eyes and enjoying the rich flavour. "You boys earned it! I gotta get back on the road though, gotta keep the schedule through hell and high water!" The driver said and climbed back into the cab of the truck, smiling and waving from the window as he drove off.
The troopers climbed back into the Valkyrie and Sunny's voice came over their microbeads, "what you got there fellers?" They all stopped mid-chew and looked down at their half-eaten fruit. The driver had forgotten to give them one for the pilot.
"We'll all give you some of ours," Priest said and took out his bayonet to cut out a segment. The others did the same. Heroes of the Imperium, that's what the driver had called them, all three troopers felt lucky that it was their turn to do the data run this time.