Chapter 11(orphan)

Franklin was in a drugged state of sedation, barely aware of anything. His head swam and he could hear voices talking, talking to each other, all confused in his mind.

He was so tired and confused, and just listened to the voices, unable to do much else.

"Shit the little psycho cut my legs off! I STILL can't fucking believe it!"

"Yes, and unprovoked too, even YOU are not a big enough psycho to do something like that!"

"Oh yes he is, what about that time he put my Dad in a coma for 6 months with a fucking AUTOCANNON!"

"That's different, that was provoked! We were already brawling over that stuff with Mum and I just ended up with that thing in my hands and used it without thinking. It was in the heat of the moment, not cold blooded psycho like Franklin."

"What about the time you shot your sister?"

"Again, that was provoked! She was mutilating my wife to the bone!"

"Your crazy Slaaneshi cultist of a wife liked it! It was a bit of consensual fun worshipping Slaanesh!"

"I didn't KNOW that at the time! Her rib cage was exposed to the air, there was blood EVERYWHERE! I honestly thought she was being murdered! What would YOU do if you come home to see your wife looking like she's being murdered?! Of COURSE I was going to shoot in that situation!"

"I guess you're right. Your mother wasn't happy about it though."

"Yeah, she was right pissed to have her daughter in intensive care for all those weeks."

"Weeks? Try MONTHS, what were you thinking using a bolter, she was lucky to be alive!"

"Yeah I know, but come on that was years ago, ancient history. Mended things since then."

"Yeah I guess so, all in the past now"

"Careful! You bumped my stump on a tree!"

"Don't be such a baby",

"I'm allowed to be sullen when someone cuts my fucking LEGS off!"

"Come off it, your wife bites your manhood off EVERY WEEK! You are not about to tell me you can't take pain."

"I WISH it was every week! Not been the same since the kids were born, I'm lucky if she bites it off once a month!"

"You are a fucking freak, how do you even have a manhood left!?"

"She's a surgeon remember, she reattaches it right away after, you have to do it the right way if you want it to reattach properly, it is an art form."

"Fucking freaks, how can you possibly be into that?!"

"We don't ONLY do that, MOSTLY we just do the less extreme tortures, the biting off thing is just a very occasional thing we do."

"I think that I will just stick to traditional tortures, that shit is too extreme for me."

"Yeah, me too, that shit is crazy."

"Shut up, each to our own. It's just our thing, stop judging."

"Well my point is, why you whining about your stump hitting a tree?, you are really heavy, you should be grateful we are carrying you at all!"

"I just don't want it hitting stuff like that, you are getting tree dirt on it."

"Tree dirt?"

"Like all this crumbly bark and mildew and stuff, I don't want that stuff on my stumps."

"You are SUCH a baby, Augusta."

"I still can't believe he cut them off!"

"Yeah. You think your wife can reattach your legs?"

"What? By the time we slog it for days back to the shuttle? No chance. They will be rotten by then. Probably gonna need bionics, damn shame."

"Bionics aren't that bad, I've had this bionic arm since you were still in diapers, works perfectly fine."

"But how does it affect your torture life? Can it feel pain like a real arm?"

"Not so much, it doesn't have much pain reception. But at least it works in battle."

"Looks like your wife won't be able to torture your feet anymore."

"Damn it! This is gonna seriously limit my torture life!"

Franklin's confused mind was puzzled by this bizarre exchange, what by the Golden Throne were these voices talking about?

"Any news on the vox about Violet? Is she still freaked out?"

"Honestly I don't know if they will EVER coax her out of the bathroom, she's apparently locked herself inside and just been sobbing shit about the false emperor ever since. Maybe she finally suffered a warp mishap and just flipped out?"

"Shit, I hope she'll be ok. Had a torture date planned with her as soon as we get back!"

"What you dating my sister now!"

"What if I am? I don't need your permission."

"You KNOW that her kids will hate you don't you?"

"Yeah, her son's not best pleased but so what, I'm dating her not him."

"She's a wild one in a torture date with those psychic powers! By the gods her powers can stimulate so much pain right in your brain!"

"What? You dated her too?"

"She's a grown woman who gives great torture, half the war band has dated her!"

"I don't need to hear this shit about my sister!"

"Well anyway, hope she's ok."

"Yeah, what even happened to her?"

"Not sure, Hyacinth read her mind but is getting all weird about repeating what she saw. I don't know, maybe it's a girl thing?"

"Maybe, just hope she's fine for our date."

"Still my sister"

"Step sister technically"

"I don't give a shit, grown up in the same household since we were like two. She's my sister!"

"You mean to say that you never?..."

"NO! By the gods NO! She's my SISTER!"

"But what about that thing with Mandy?"

"Oh shit I KNEW you were going to bring that up! Just because I been with SOME of my sisters doesn't mean I did it with ALL of them!"

"You are SUCH a hypocrite, Violet is like the funnest sister you have! Don't know what you're missing."

"Might I remind you that I'm married?"

"So what, bring her too"

"I am not having this conversation."

Franklin was so confused, what were these people talking about?

Franklin was vaguely aware of his own body motion, he was being carried, his arms and legs firmly bound with ropes. He could hear the slight sounds of soft wet leaf litter compressing under the huge weight of stealthy footprints.

He heard a sudden burst of gunfire and loud mooing sound, followed by the noises of something absolutely huge crashing away through dense leaf litter.

"Damn sarjops! That's like the 30th one today!"

"It's actually the 28th, learn to count,"

"Whatever smart arse, want me to drop your legless butt and make you crawl?"

"Har har,"

"Why are their so fucking many of these critters though?"

"They are not all THAT numerous compared to the fucking TENS OF THOUSANDS of hajsnips we have seen in this forest."

"Well anyway, there's your answer. A lot of herbivores supports a lot of carnivores. Basic biology."

"But I have seen hajsnips on other planets, Agri Worlds farm these things by the millions, they milk them in dairies all over the Segmentum Pacificus."

"We are IN the Segmentum Pacificus genius."

"I KNOW that."

"Just because they have been domesticated doesn't mean they aren't native to SOMEWHERE. I think this is where hajsnips come from?"

"For real?"

"Well the strategic reports didn't mention the biological history of hajsnips..."

"Alright smart arse, we can look it up when we get home."

"Why wait, I'm voxing the girls right now to ask them to look it up"

"Hey Mistress... yes I know I've been a naughty boy... yes I look forward to that, please listen Mistress... can you please look up where hajsnips come from?... Well I know it's a random request, but we suspect this might be their home planet, Mistress... Yes Mistress take your time..."

"Anything?"

"Can't you wait a moment? She's checking it out."

For a while there was just the sounds of the forest.

"Yes Mistress?... Oh they DO come from here! I KNEW it!... Yes Mistress... I love you too Mistress... ok bye bye..."

"Told you!"

"Fair enough, when you're right you're right."

Franklin blinked slightly, his senses gradually returning.

"Looks like the little psycho's starting to wake up."

"Lets have a look."

Franklin felt his head being lifted and an eyelid being held open. He could see only a hazy grey blur of light.

"He's still off with the sprites, lights are on but no ones home. Takes a while for those grenades to wear off on normal humans."

"Yeah he looks pretty out of it. Franklin? Can you hear me?... Nah, not quite there yet, close but not yet lucid."

"I'm kinda glad, that little psycho gave me the creeps. Just set my hair on end."

"Yeah, those nuns really fucked him up, turned him into one of their kind, just creepy."

"We will get him free of that brainwashing soon enough, poor kid just doesn't know any better."

"I hope so, I don't relish the thought of a gene seed in him if he's gonna try to kill us all the time."

"Yeah, and we can't wait much longer to get him implanted. His balls have already dropped, we have almost missed his implantation window."

"You're not wrong, we got him only just in time, cutting it way too close!"

"Look, the moment we get him up to the ship and have the big welcome, we get him on the operating table and get him implanted. We can undo all the stuff in his head later."

"Is that safe though? What if he grows as big as Augusta?"

"Shit, yeah that would be bad, but what can we do?, kid HAS to be implanted right away or he won't grow properly."

"Yeah. After all the lives we lost on this mission, we NEED him just to offset some of the losses. Be a while before my sons are old enough."

"Hopefully the girls can do something with his mind, I don't want him going psycho like that again."

"Yeah, hopefully they can help him, poor kid's really fucked up."

Franklin wrinkled his face, his delirious mind swimming through the drugged fog, trying to make sense of what was going on.

He remembered... what could he remember?

Where was he?

Franklin blinked again, and the haze cleared very slightly. He felt deeply confused about where he was or what was going on.

He heard the distant roaring of an aircraft overhead...

"Shit, another squadron of lightning fighters. Looks like the entire fucking Order is after us now."

"Yeah, the game is up, the girls in orbit are hacking their vox encryption to follow their chatter, they have found all the slaughtered checkpoints and garrisons."

"Shit, been so busy listening to your grox shit that I haven't checked the tactical updates in my eyepiece... SHIT! Two fucking THOUSAND of the Bolter Bitches are hunting us?!"

"Yeah so what?"

"We number less than 300..."

"So what? We can take Bolter Bitches any day."

"You have no fucking legs! You couldn't even take your wife in a pillow fight right now!"

"That's a slight exaggeration, even legless my pillow fighting is beyond compare."

"Alright smart arse, we can leave you behind with a pillow to take all the Sisters of Battle yourself."

"Stop bickering both of you. We just need to evade them in the forest. With all the carcasses we left, every predator in half the forest will be scavenging behind us, give the Sisters a really nasty surprise if they try to follow our trail."

"Yeah, not to mention with all the vox jammers the raptors randomly dropped all over the forest, the bitches will waste time attacking the jammers."

"You all DID remember to turn off your own jammers in your helmets, right?"

"You think anyone in our war band is THAT stupid?"

"Yeah actually, it wouldn't surprise me."

"Just checked, we're all clean, all our personal jammers are off, bitches can't track us that way."

"Just as well"

"WAIT! What about the Bolter Bitch we captured, what is HER power armour set to?!"

"FUCK! YOU IDIOTS! SMASH HER VOX QUICK!"

Franklin heard the sounds of frantic running followed by machinery being smashed apart. This was so surreal.

"Shit, I think we got it just in time, those decoy jamming signals are getting pretty weak at this range!"

"We had better pick up the pace, just in case they detected something. This shit is WHY we have all those classes on communications stealth!"

Franklin blinked again, his head steadily clearing but his memory still hazy. This was a truly bizarre dialogue so far, who were these strange people?

Franklin felt his bound body being carried with double speed, as though his bearer was sprinting now, and Franklin saw the trunks of huge trees zipping past him.

He looked around.

He was being cradled gently in the arms of what looked like a space marine in dark blue armour. The space marine was sprinting with all his might through a dim cold wet forest.

In front of him were two more running space marines, carrying a small log between them with a 3rd space marine sitting on it, with his arms around their shoulders for balance.

Franklin was puzzled by this and looked around further. He saw what looked like hundreds of other space marines sprinting through the forest. Some of them carried bound people, many carried supplies and wounded space marines, and the rest carried weapons in their hands.

Franklin had never seen anyone run so fast, especially when carrying such burdens, it was very impressive.

Franklin started to regain his senses and mind, and memories started to return to him, vague at first but steadily becoming clearer. He knew who he was, he knew where he was, he knew what had happened and why he was here!

Franklin burned with holy rage like before, and started roaring with fury and struggling hard in his bonds.

"HERETICS!" Franklin shouted.

"Looks like the little psycho is awake."

"The Emperor will smite you, TRAITORS!" Franklin roared at the Night Lords.

"Shit Franklin, you are creeping me out with that psycho babble, stop it"

"You will face judgement! The Emperor will hunt you to hell itself!" Franklin proclaimed.

The Night Lords all visibly shuddered at these words, it seemed that they actually were afraid of something after all.

"The Emperor will not be denied of his prize, he will have his VENGEANCE! The Emperor's Inquisition will find you, no matter WHERE you hide, he will..."

"Franklin shut the fuck up!"

"You shall not escape the Emperor's judgement!"

"Someone fucking gag him, I'm not listening to that shit all day!"

Franklin ranted righteous condemnation until a gag was forced into his mouth, and went on screaming proclamations into the gag for a while before he decided to conserve his strength.

The Night Lords were all visibly unnerved, afraid even. They had stopped talking banter about their bizarre lives in peacetime, stopped their conversation entirely in fact. They were clearly too unnerved to speak, and just held their troubled silence as they ran through the forest.

Franklin smiled into his gag. That's right heretics, be afraid, for a judgment is coming on you all!

***...

The Night Lords just kept running, without sleep, without rest, without pause.

They ran as though the very judgement of the Emperor was on their tails, in grim fearful silence.

The Night Lords were afraid, deeply afraid. They had all sensed the power of the Emperor in Franklin's terrible words, all sensed the Emperor himself, LOOKING at them in terrible judgment.

They wanted to flee away back into the dark, back to their women with whips, back into the chaos hells, as far away from the Emperor's terrible light as possible... BUT THEY NOW TOOK THAT LIGHT WITH THEM!

The Night Lords were in a terrible dilemma, they wanted their prized lost child, but they feared the terrible light he carried.

In the past it had been Franklin who had been afraid, but something terrible had changed, and now it was THEY who felt a growing fear.

They dare not leave Franklin behind, but they trembled every step they carried him.

For once, the lords of terror felt fear themselves, fear of the light illuminating their darkness, laying them bare for judgement to find them, no where to hide!

The Night Lords feared, and fled towards the dark.

***...

Sister Mary sobbed as she sat bound on the grass of a clearing at the very edge of the forest, in front of the thing that would seal her doom.

When she had first seen it she had seen only a colossal green bush, impenetrably thick, thick green vegetation that no one would give a second glance.

But it was no bush.

The Night Lords had immediately approached it and started pulling away the vegetation, revealing something big and metal hidden underneath...

It was a space craft of some kind, a SHUTTLE!

She was doomed, so terribly doomed! The moment she was carried onboard it was all over! Either it would carry her to hell or it would be shot down by the Lightning fighters, either way she was gone!

Sister Mary prayed desperately to the Emperor for salvation, she NEEDED him right now! PLEASE! SEND THE SISTERS OF BATTLE! SEND RESCUE!

This was her only chance, after this it was death or worse! She needed help NOW!

Please dear Emperor! Mercy! PLEASE HAVE MERCY!

PLEASE!

The Night Lords just kept stripping away the foliage from the terrible shuttle, revealing a brutish and baroque thing, covered all over in snarling demonic faces carved into the metal, and bedecked in blasphemous symbols of the dark gods!

PLEASE EMPEROR! PLEASE DON'T LET THEM DO THIS! PLEASE!

The shuttle front was bare now, revealing a colossal entrance hatch, carved into the visage of a massive demonic maw! Please not that!

Sister Mary sobbed and looked pleadingly to the sky, hoping to see Lightning fighters tearing through the air to blow the shuttle up.

Instead it started to storm, and dropped rain on her head...

"AH, THUNDER! The chaos gods are with us this day! This will obscure our electrical signals, we will be halfway to orbit before they detect us! AHAHAHAHAHA! We're home free boys!" a Night Lord announced triumphantly.

The other Night Lords all cheered and redoubled their efforts to clear the shuttle for take off.

Oh no, we are doomed...

"Not doomed my faithful servant, never doomed. Even in the darkest hell, my light shines strong for the faithful. Do not be afraid, just have faith." a reassuring holy voice spoke in her thoughts!

Emperor? Sister Mary thought in wonder.

"Just have faith in me, no matter how dark it seems, just have faith."

Sister Mary wept with emotion at these wonderful beautiful words, and grovelled on the grassy ground in worship.

"Have faith," the Emperor said to her, as a Night Lord carried her into the darkness of the shuttle, "just have faith".

"Yes Lord," Mary thought back, "your will be done, I trust you."

She had a huge smile on her face as she was carried into the utter darkness of the shuttle. No matter how great the darkness, the smallest light of the Emperor will shine through it, all she needed was faith.

***...

Franklin prayed faithfully as he sat in the total darkness of the heretic space ship, his heart blazing with inner light. He felt at peace, secure in his adamantium faith that the Emperor was with him every step of the way.

The fear for his nuns had not left him, for the danger was still great, but his faith let him carry this fear, not weighed down to paralysis by it.

This was the will of the Emperor that Franklin be here, for he would fight them in their very homes! Let them make him a Night Lord, he would use that strength to hang them all to death by their own guts! He didn't need to become an Inquisitor to hunt them down, they were taking him right to them, and giving him the means to strike them down!

Franklin prayed a muffled prayer into his gag, praying into the darkness. It was the prayer from before on the bus, the prayer that promised that no darkness in the universe could not be lit up by the pyres of burning heretics.

As he prayed his muffled prayer, other voices joined him, adding muffled voices of their own to this well known prayer. Everyone from the bus was with him it seemed, all around him in the complete darkness, and all prayed together as one, defying the dark, rebuking the darkness.

The dark space ship hummed in preflight warmup sequence, and still they prayed. Life support systems hissed out processed air, and still they prayed.

Imminent takeoff alert sirens screamed, but still they prayed in defiance, their faith would not be shaken.

The sudden booming ROAR of engines filled the dark air with terrible noise, drowning out the sounds of their prayers. The G forces of terrible acceleration pressed Franklin hard into the floor, knocking the wind out of his drowned out prayers.

The dark place shook with terrible turbulent quaking, shaking him terribly where he lay pinned down by acceleration to the floor. The engines were loud beyond belief as the space craft presumably tore skywards.

For a long time the forces and shaking and roaring continued, drowning out everything, shaking everything. Noise and fury and power beyond belief, ripping him ever closer to the sky.

For a long time it quaked and roared, but only for a time, and then the shaking subsided and acceleration forces ceased, followed by a suddenly deafening silence.

This silence was then filled once more with defiant prayer, continuing where it left off, defying the dark, defying the evil, defying chaos. No darkness in the universe could extinguish the light of their faith, they would trust the Emperor to the very depths of hell itself.

***...

Franklin stood defiantly in the darkness, unmoved by the lack of light.

The Night Lords had come to him in the dark of the space shuttle, and untied his ropes and taken him away. He couldn't see them in the darkness, but he seemed to have one on each side, occasionally directing him with small touches to his back and shoulders.

They just had him standing somewhere, not walking or doing anything. They seemed to be waiting for something.

There was a metallic clunk a few minutes later, followed by other clunks, and then a loud roaring hiss of air.

The wall in front of Franklin, he assumed it was a wall, it made a noise of sliding metal and machinery. The thinnest crack of dim light appeared on the top wall as a horizontal line, and then got steadily wider as the wall slid down. The wall was a door, and that door was opening.

Franklin watched the gap in the door grow, providing the first light he had seen, bracing himself for the horrors that lay beyond. He was almost disappointed to see only an airlock chamber, lit by status lights on an instrument panel.

The Night Lords led him through this airlock chamber, into utter darkness beyond, and the terrible smell of rotting dead bodies suddenly filled his nose! It smelled like there were bodies EVERYWHERE!

Franklin tensed at this appalling smell and stepped cautiously forward into the darkness with his bare feet. Small wiggling things squelched under his bare feet...

MAGGOTS! The floor was covered with a CARPET of crawling maggots!

Franklin's life of discipline really paid off as he forced himself to take another step onto the wiggling maggots. He walked without faltering, trained by his wonderful nuns to unflinchingly complete any task no matter how unpleasant.

He ignored the fat maggots crawling all over his bare feet and up into his pants, ignored what felt like huge hairy flies crushing under foot in the darkness, ignored the charnel stench of what must be thousands of bodies all around him.

For an unknown time he squelched through the dark, directed by the Night Lords in the total blackness. It was horrifying to think what would happen if the Night Lords suddenly abandoned him in this maggoty blackness! He would never find his way in this nightmare place!

"We call it the Nightmare Asylum, this ship of ours. Fitting don't you think?, sometimes we just take captives right into the middle and leave them suddenly alone. We then watch them slowly go mad in the dark. Place bets on how long it takes them to crack." one of the Night Lords said with a chuckle.

Franklin didn't dignify this psychopathic admission with a response.

"Nothing huh?, Not even a peep?, You are just lucky that the girls are waiting to greet you, otherwise I would leave you here till you get an attitude adjustment!" The Night Lord said grumpily.

Franklin ignored the thrill of fear this threat caused and just kept walking.

"If you pull any of the psycho shit again, one of your nuns will be dropped in the darkness of the Nightmare Asylum. This ship is absolutely huge, well over 200 floors of deck to get lost in, the walls swallow up sound. We drop a nun in here and you will never find her before she goes mad, got it?" The Night Lord threatened with absolute certainty.

Franklin felt so horrified by this mental image that even his faith fired heart quailed with dread, that was absolutely horrific!

Franklin gave a little nod to show that he understood, lest a Night Lord do this to one of the nuns out of spite.

"That's better. Do right by us and you'll be ok, this is your home and we are your family. We will take care of you, and fix whatever's wrong with your brain." The Night Lord said placated.

"Come, not much further and we can leave this maggoty maze. The dark maze is vast, but it's not the only part of the ship, we don't keep our women and kids in this sort of filth. The living quarters are really nice actually, the girls keep our homes nice for us," the Night Lord said in a friendlier tone.

Franklin squelched on into the darkness, there was nothing else he could do but walk as directed, he just wanted to see light once more, even just an instrument panel!

Franklin felt the floor under his feet change, changing from smooth flat metal to some sort of metal grating or mesh. The maggots apparently could not get very far on this surface before presumably falling down through it, and the new floor became free of maggots very quickly.

The metal mesh floor soon gave way to smooth flat metal again, this time completely clean and free of maggots, and the air started to smell less foul.

He was turned around corners as the air became completely odourless, and then he saw light up ahead, dim but unmistakably LIGHT!

Franklin almost wanted to weep with relief after that hideous darkness, light had never looked so beautiful!

They moved towards the growing light, and Franklin became aware of far more than just two Night Lords walking with him. Over 50 of them had been apparently walking with him in the dark, it was terrifying how silently they had been moving!

The light seemed to be coming from a doorway up ahead, and he was led towards it. He was led inside.

"WELCOME HOME FRANKLIN!" an ecstatic chorus of female voices cheered.

Franklin blinked in confusion as novelty party horns blew and female voices cheered, struggling to take in his surroundings.

He was in a colossal room filled with hundreds of scantily black leather clad women, holding cardboard banners of welcome! Massive banners and bunting hung off every wall, all proclaiming "WELCOME HOME FRANKLIN" in giant letters! Tables all around the room held what looked like celebratory cakes and other foods!

He had barely taken this all in when the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life hurled her scantily clad body at him! She wrapped her arms around him frantically, tears in her eyes, weeping "MY BABY, MY BABY BOY!"

Franklin found his face pressed hard against open cleavage as the woman cried hysterically with joy, covering his head with frantic kisses!

"MY SON! MY PRECIOUS SON!" The woman sobbed with joy.

Franklin felt his heart breaking into a million pieces.

This was his mother...

***...