Killers for Hire:

The Tale of Laurs the Mercenary

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The Black Crusades: Chapter One

Laurs kept his plasma pistols aimed down the desolate corridors of the abandoned Imperial outpost. Gol raced past him, Bolter raised and ready to fire. Laurs starred at Gol's weapon as the heavily built man clunked down the wide passageway to the lift at the end, and for the millionth time wondered where the hell Gol got an authentic Space Marine pattern Bolter from. He couldn't have bought it, no trader in any system, Alpha or Delta, would even consider selling a Marine bolter, for fear of the Inquisition. Gol certainly didn't scavenge it or even kill a Space Marine for it, even though his large figure and subtle strength suggested otherwise. Even the legendary Gol couldn't take on one of the Emperor's Finest, despite his bragging about taking on a whole fully armed Imperial Guard company by himself with nothing but his fists. All the other Mercenaries under Laurs' command had a wager on where Gol's revered weapon came from, bidding as high as betting their own weapons. A Mercs weapon was a sacred artefact, the most important object in their lives, so using it as currency in gambling was almost unheard of when Laurs started out in the trade. But his newly acquired crew seemed a little green anyway, and too cocky for their own good. Laurs knew he should have asked for more hazard pay before accepting this contract, seeing as though his new unskilled muscle would probably get him killed, or even worse, try and kill him and collect his pay in his place. Laurs had 'had to deal' with that certain annoying habit of Mercs a fair few times in the past. Gol motioned with his hand for Laurs and the rest of the Mercenary team to follow him as he scanned to empty lift shaft. Gol was Laurs' second in command, and the closest thing he had to a friend. Laurs approached the lift shaft cautiously. He'd been doing everything cautiously since he got here. His short stint in the Imperial Guard had told him that abandoned outposts were always a bad thing, no exception. The shaft was empty. His dark eyes darted back and forth between the lift shaft and the wide corridor scattered with his few dozen or so crewmen. They looked back at him, some a little nervously, some a little more questioningly.

"Get the scaling guns…" Laurs whispered. A couple of the men at the back abruptly un-hitched a few odd looking guns from their backpacks and passed them to the front. Laurs looked at Gol and said "You first mate, take Haler and Roubes with you. I'll come up next with Kilk and Finnly. The rest of the team can stay down here and protect our escape." Gol nodded, holstering the scaling gun to his shoulder, aiming up the lift shaft. Haler and Roubes did the same with the other scaling guns, and all fired upwards simultaneously, the tentative titanium hooks plummeting up the lift shaft, slowing towards the top, and gently hitching onto the top floor. Looking down the shaft, there was a small drop, and the lift suspended near the bottom, most of the cables still attached, but some had broken and snapped. These were super alloy cables; nothing short of a direct hit from a tank shell could snap these. This lift was obviously broken for a reason. Laurs was really starting to not like the look of this. Silently, Gol and his team and switched the retracting mechanism on the guns on, and were now rocketing upwards to the control post on the top floor. Meanwhile, the rest of Laurs crew who were staying behind had put up small temporary blockades on the corridor with uprooted metal flooring and large, loose control panel coverings on the wall, and were now covering the length of the corridor they had just traversed down. Laurs turned around back to the shaft just in time to catch the scaling gun that was thrown down to him by Gol, who was now kneeling at the top of the shaft with a grin on his face…

"Enjoy the ride, Laurs!" Gol could be very sadistic sometimes; he knew Laurs didn't have a head for heights, even though he was a starship Captain. It wasn't so much the height that bothered him; it was the change in air pressure and the sudden dizziness of vertical movement. Laurs stocked and fired the scaling weapon back up the shaft, his two man team following shortly after him. He was suddenly jerked skywards as he pressed the retracting button, being steadily pulled towards Gol's eager open hand. Reaching the top, Laurs took Gol's hand and the massive ox pulled him into the charred and shattered remains of the control post for the outpost, the shock and bullet proof windows completely disintegrated, all the control panels and auspex equipment broken beyond repair or completely vaporised. Laurs stood in awe as Gol gave him the guided tour.

"Over here should be the auspex reader for the whole northern side of the planet, but look, its not here, destroyed by whatever god-forsaken ordinance hit this post! And over here is even more interesting, because the computer reading EMP bounce off starships in this sector around the planet is completely gone, but not by the explosion, it's been physically removed… look, you can still see some loose wires and the a greasy outline on the floor where it used to be…" Gol was right; this terminal had been physically removed by someone, but why? The outpost crew would have been killed by whatever hit this station, so who would take the computer that should have warned the outpost that danger was coming in the first place? Everything was starting to get far too out of place for Laurs.

"Oh," Gol added "here's the history log that our employers wanted…" Gol handed Laurs a small blue data slab.

"That's it, I've seen enough. We know what's happened here, let's get back to the ship and get our…" trailing off suddenly, Laurs was left staring at the high pitched whiny aircraft that had cut his orders short. The cockpit was sun-tinted, and the two giant thrusters at its side illuminating the room brighter than the fading sunset. Its guns were aimed at Laurs' torso, emphasised by the targeting laser visible in the dust cloud that the craft had kicked up. She bore the eight pointed star.

"Damn it, down the shaft, now!" Screamed Laurs. Everyone except Haler and Gol had grabbed the scaling guns, and attached the hooks to the control post lift entrance, preparing to scale down the lift shaft. Suddenly, the whiny aircraft's guns were now becoming even higher pitched than the aircrafts engines, glowing blue streaks pulsating up and down the tubes of the gun barrels. Gol and Haler were edging back to the lift shaft, their almost pathetic small weapons aimed nervously at the hovering demon. The rest of the team were just about to launch themselves back down the shaft, then Laurs ordered:

"Wait up, we gotta hang onto you!" Kilk, Finnly and Roubes just acted like they hadn't heard him, and jumped into the dark chasm, leaving Gol, Haler and Laurs to face the aircraft with embarrassed uneasy smiles on their faces. The guns opened up, screaming at them to die, blue bolts piercing the evening air and shattering the lazy dust swirls in the control room. Laurs dived behind an overturned console, while Gol, ever the proud maniac, fired back with his bolter in short bursts. Haler was caught in the aircraft's initial firing, and was turned into a soft slushy paste in mere seconds. Gol looked over at Haler's remains while still firing at the aircraft, looking terrified and irritated at the same time. He quickly moved over to a small corridor leading to an open balcony outside, still firing. The aircraft's guns attempted to lead him, but instead whistled harmlessly behind him, failing to get a hit. They splashed over a working display screen, and it exploded into a million slithers of liquefied glass, which managed to slightly melt the wall behind it. Laurs quickly leapt up from his cover and fired both his plasma pistols back at the craft, hitting the side of the cockpit. The craft spun towards him and opened up again, with renewed fury, and started to chip away at his cover and making the air around him stink of o-zone and melted metal. Laurs shot Gol a brief urgent look, and nodded towards the aircraft, but Gol was already gone, sprinting towards it firing from the hip. Tracer rounds were hitting the cockpit's dome in pinpoint triple burst hits, causing slight cracks on the dome. The aircraft tried to swing around and aim at Gol, but he leapt out from the broken control room and over the small distance towards the aircrafts glass compartment. Landing on his feet, still firing, his sheer weight managed to tilt the aircraft slightly, and combined with the armour-piercing rounds of his bolter, cracked the cockpit dome enough for the bullets to actually enter. Gol crouched down and squeezed a few bursts into the cockpit, then threw himself backwards onto the control room, covered in blood that had squirted out from the hole. The jet started to sway left and right, until finally, it spun right round and plummeted down out of sight of Laurs. The evening became suddenly very quiet, broken only by a bass-heavy crunch coming from outside a few seconds later. Laurs stood up from his cover, and looked at Gol, his brown fatigues and sagging black carapace armour splattered in red. They both moved towards the shaft, glancing back outside a few times to make sure the aircraft wasn't there any more. Laurs, then Gol, jumped into the lift shaft, grabbing the lone elevator cable still intact, and slid down, their black chelon-leather gloves allowing them to grip hard and slow their decent. Finally, Laurs launched himself away from the cable, and landed in the corridor with the rest of his team, staring at him like they saw a ghost. Laurs took a few steps forward, and Gol landed behind him. Kilk, Finnly and Roubes we in a circle with some of the others, obviously like they were discussing what to do now. Laurs drew one of his plasma pistol, and shot Kilk and Roubes straight in the face. Finnly fumbled about trying to level his las-rifle variant, with laser sight and auto-targeter, but Laurs just blasted him too. The three corpses lay in a pile in the corridor, strewn on top of each other.

"The same will happen to anyone else who disobeys a direct order." Laurs announced at his now uneasy platoon. They shuffled a bit, and gave out faint 'Sir, yes, sir'. Looking back at Gol's face, now in blank grimace, Laurs marched slowly past his men, and motioned them to follow.

"We got what we needed, let's get back to ship and leave this rock in our afterburners. We've already had a brief 'encounter' with an unknown hostile, possibly the Great Enemy, and that certainly wasn't in the mission summary! Let's go before we get forced to deal with more of them for no extra pay…" Gol lead the rest of the men behind Laurs down the corridor, and they all turned right at a crossroads a few dozen metres from the lift shaft. Laurs punched the control panel, and the main entrance doors squeaked open. He stepped outside, with his team following him, looking nervously at the crashed Chaos aircraft in the courtyard to their right. Laurs was looking around the deserted courtyard inside a 20 metre high wall, which used to be a group of four landing pads in a box formation, but a series of large craters and pockmarked debris rendered it out of action. Laurs had his surface shuttle parked somewhere just outside the wall on the desert-like planet surface, near the main gates to the outpost. Starting to cross the courtyard, the team moved quickly, with nobody noticing the eerie silence except Laurs, who continued to scan the craters and chunks of debris. He narrowed his eyes, squinting at a small black & grey object appearing out of a particularly deep crater slightly to the left of the main gates. It stayed there for a second, the bobbed down out of sight.

"Men, take cover now! Grenade launchers on the crater near the gates! Fire at will!" In response to his orders, fifty or so Chaos warriors appeared from various crates and pieces of cover throughout the courtyard, charging at Laurs and his team, firing from the hip and screaming blasphemous oaths for their dark masters. The mercenary grenadiers knelt down and aimed above the gates, firing in a steady rhythm. The grenades arced, explosions racked the gates and the craters and debris in front of them, bringing forth howls of pain, chunks of flesh and metal, and Chaos cultists on fire. A single Chaos Marine sergeant appeared from the crater, and growled so loud that blood came out of his raw throat. Laurs took a krak grenade from his pouch, and simultaneously fired a steady accurate stream from his plasma pistol, blasting a charred hole in the Marines armour. Lobbing it as hard as he could, Laurs's krak grenade whistled through the battle zone, landing neatly into the exposed Marines open belly. The explosion was a blur of black and red erupting from the Chaos leader. His armour toppled backwards, empty now except for smears of gore and black singes. The remaining worshipers continued to charge Laurs and his team, whilst the mercenaries took cover, went prone, or got ripped into steaming corpses by the extreme crossfire. The two sides continued to exchange firepower, with the cultists falling into attack and retreat pattern, and the mercenaries making strategic use of frag grenades and overlapping fields of fire to envelop the enemy, not allowing them to flank or advance too far. Unfortunately, Laurs team weren't adept at conserving ammo, and soon the fire eased off, resulting in the cultists making one final frenzied assault on the mercenary's position. A spread out hand-to-hand confrontation developed, and with both sides being unskilled in this particular method of combat, it turned into a mixture of fist fighting and clubbing the fallen with rifle butts. Whilst putting down the last of the cultists with what little plasma pistol ammo he had left, Laurs eyed a huge spider-like figure appearing from the partially disintegrated gates. A single large cannon loomed from its mouth, and it had several arms with various barrel weapons crudely wielded on its fists. It looked to Laurs like some sort of modified dreadnought, with various disgusting symbols and imagery painted onto its hull. Its inhuman whine attracted everyone's attention, and they all froze in fear as the machine staggered into the courtyard. Its array of hardware let loose a violent barrage of shells onto the mercenary force, vaporising whole bodies and turning equipment into splashes of molten metal. Everyone either dived for cover or hastily retreated to the relative safety of the outpost. Laurs and Gol threw themselves behind the same piece of upturned concrete, trying desperately to keep all their limbs out of the behemoths' view.

"Where's Hannel with the rocket tube?" Laurs shouted above the din.

"Not a fething clue, I think his launcher is lying next to that dead cultist over there!" Gol pointed out a completely empty section of the courtyard, with no cover for about ten metres in all directions, where a Chaos warrior had fallen, apparently trying to snatch the rocket launcher.

"Ideas?" Laurs asked.

"Frag grenades at his legs for a distraction, should provide you with a smoke shield to get to the rocket tube…" Gol suggested. Laurs winked an affirmative.

"Give me all the cover fire you can get!" He threw his remaining grenades over the tip of their cover, which Gol copied. Thuds racked the ground, and falling debris pattered the two men. Laurs charged before the rain of dust finished falling, sprinting for the launcher with every ounce of strength left in him. Gol raised his bolter over the lip of cover and sprayed wildly into the grey fog, and was answered by a salvo of explosive return fire. Laurs picked up the pace, every movement playing merry hell on his weary legs, tired pain coinciding with the feeling of moving through treacle. Why was it taking him so long to reach the rocket tube? Finally, he leapt forward, seized the launcher, loaded a rocket from the ammo pouch lying nearby, and levelled the tube on his bloodied shoulder. A bullet had caused a gaping wound there, which he hadn't noticed in the heat of battle. It silently yelled at him to stop, only to compete with all the other messages of soreness and exhaustion coming from his body. He waited for a clearer shot at the contraption. Out of the mist, like a dark predatory insect, the dark machine stepped out with malevolent inhumanity. Its torso turning to fire at some retreating mercenaries, knocking off some lose pieces of debris off its hull. The stark contrast of grey and black painted a perfect target. Laurs clenched his teeth, opened his mouth, braced to fire, kept his aim, and squeezed the trigger. The blast knocked him back to the floor, temporarily deafening him. He lifted his head, and watched in eerie silence as the missile eagerly screeched towards the foul Chaos monstrosity. It showered the war machine in a blossom of fire, which ravaged the inner workings, and ripped two unclean holes in its Emperor-defying shell. The secondary explosions of its munitions ripped it apart in a glorious orgy of destruction, which encouraged the whooping and cheering of the remaining Mercs as they clambered out from their hiding places. Laurs's hearing was coming back to him. Gol knelt next to him, looking at the annihilated wreckage, then turned his head down to look at Laurs and jabbed his finger at the rear of the rocket launcher. Just before he passed out, Laurs heard, in a muffled yell:

"It usually helps to open the tube's exhaust hatch!"