Title: Angelus Erroneous

Author: Spike

Chapter: Six

Interestingly enough, what woke me the next morning wasn't a number of Orks barging in to disturb my sleep, nor was it the sound of some kind of firearm being fired or some explosion.

It was an unusual silence.

I blinked my eyes open, the rare luxury of sleep drifting away for at least another eighteen or so hours.

I groaned, as battle hardened joints began moving from several hours of sleep and into action.

I've never been a morning person

But, years of training within the Imperial Guard, along with an undeterminable amount of time spent on this miserable rock had put such an attitude to rest.

Considering I am now no longer a Guardsman, you'd think I'll allow myself the privilege of sleeping in. After all, it's not like spending a day on this miserable rock was a decent motivation to wake up.

But survival was.

Not that I had much left to live for anyway.

I sat up upon the borough I had made as my bed. I pushed aside some of the leaves of the tree, to the sight of the morning sky.

Already streaks of yellow began forming in front of me, thus pushing the darkened areas of sky away for the next twelve hours in a seemingly never-ending cycle.

It was dawn.

I paused, soaking in the warmth of the sun: Well, here we go again, another day of running, hiding and slaughtering. And all in the name of survival.

Just simply wonderful.

Makes me wonder if it will ever end…..

But then again, at least there's something for me here. Here, I can delay my death instead of retuning to the Imperium and a swift route to my demise.

Oh well…

But I don't have much time to ponder about my pitiful life at the moment. Dawn was the time to get moving. In order to avoid the nasty, and ever-present, prospect of being discovered by our consistent enemy, it was imperative that we didn't stay in the one place for too long.

And considering that the Orks are a warlike race, it was extremely doubtful that they were the type that would spend mornings sleeping in.

Well I wouldn't know but I wasn't really game enough to go to the effort of finding out.

I reached underneath my head for my coat and my twin pistols. I quickly slung my coat around my shoulders before picking my ever present bolt-pistols in each hand.

I then turned my head towards the general direction of Xerxes.

I knew how to find him and his sleeping location: he was must likely resting in the place where all that inane mumbling was coming from.

Yes, Xerxes was the type that mumbled in his sleep. Most likely it was from any dreams of grandeur he might be having (no doubt involving him being the richest, most powerful man in the galaxy or some nonsense).

Considering how much he mumbled I'm surprised that the Orks hadn't found him and killed him in his sleep

Wish they did though.

It would certainly take a weight off my mind.

Still, regardless of what contempt I had for the imbecile, I still couldn't leave him there. I had to get him up and moving.

And this presented me with the perfect opportunity to have some fun….

I carefully made my way through the branches of the tree, being careful not to make any noise that would disturb Xerxes or attract the unwanted attention of any Orks.

I knew he was resting within a tree though identifying the direction from where his mumbling was coming from.

That and he would have to be completely stupid to rest on the ground rather than the safety of a tree branch.

Hey, he was an idiot but he wasn't that much of an idiot.

In that sense, I had no trouble finding him: He was resting on a thick borough, his head leaning up against the thick tree trunk and his lasgun gripped firmly in his hands.

He was still asleep, completely unaware of my sudden presence.

Just perfect.

With a shout of "Wakey wakey!", I immediately brought my boot down right into his body. The boot, which boasted a nasty set of steel caps, rammed its way into the flesh and promptly set the Rogue Trader's eyes fluttering open.

I chuckled myself. It felt good to do that.

The fact that it got him awake was an added bonus.

Not that I was planning it would but still.….

With a loud cry of alarm, Xerxes' head shot up from against the tree trunk.

Immediately, words began tumbling out of his mouth.

"What's going?! Orks?! Where?! I'll kill them all! Dark Eldar? I'll take them all on! Where's my ship? Where's my crew?! I must protect my cargo at any cost or else my employer will have my head!"

And on he went. He rambled on, shouting the most random of phrases whilst not showing any indication of being aware of my presence.

Strangely enough this was normal: He carried on like this on some mornings. I had no idea what inspired it – I've asked him about it on several occasions but, over the rest of the day, he wouldn't seem to have any recollection of acting like in this manner.

I had my own theories for this: most likely it was the best indication he had troubled dreams. Equally plausible was that he had a sense of paranoia that he kept concealed.

But either way, I can't allow him to carry on like this: He won't be able to move around with or do anything, whilst rattling on like this. Worse still, he would bring a whole horde of Orks down upon us.

Of course, I could leave him like this and let the Orks do away with him. Such an idea sounded tempting…

But in the end, he was a human. And no matter how detestable he is, he is, as always, the best chance of company I'm ever going to receive.

So, in order to shut him up, I gave him a fist to the face,

Something I have used in the past to shut people up and which has never let me down.

And this time was no exception.

Indeed, such was the force of the blow that the hapless Rogue Trader fell out of the tree and plummeted to the jungle floor.

He hit the ground with a tremendous thud.

And then, there was silence.

I grinned. Hey it worked - he shut up.

Then I heard something

"Oh, good morning to you Narc"

I paused. Sure it was Xerxes' voice but its speech had a sense of cohesion to it.

He was awake.

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