So I meant to have this out one week ago, but the holidays are busy time for all.
But, anyway I hope you all enjoy my first update of 2022, short as it is.
If he had to describe the new post in a single word it would be bleak. The skies, when he could see them where they were, were choked with smog, the streets, or what passed for them, were crowded with the desperate and downtrodden, he always felt that the walls were steadily closing in on him, and all this hit him within half a second of landing, within a full minute he had his gas mask on to help filter out some of the smog, otherwise he probably would have been bent over gasping for air the whole time, and within an hour they had their assignment. They would be part of a detachment designated to provide security to something called the Underhive, whatever that was didn't sound pleasant. For now they were being shown to their barracks, which was probably going to be the most normal part of this assignment.
'Well,' he thought to himself, as he stowed his gear in a footlocker,'only thing left to do is to tough it out.'
A planetary month before…
If any place could be considered safe for her, it was here in the depths of the Underhive. She had to stowaway onboard a ship, hiding in its bowels and subsisting on whatever food and water she could find. After the ship had landed, she had waited till long after the sound of thudding feet and the whine of machinery had quieted to exit. She had then stolen some clothes and disposed the body suit that had served her well through out most of her life and all but two of her knives, one a straight bladed dagger and the other had been the one had drawn the blood of the target that caused her shame, it was a short, curved, and wicked looking thing, into a pit of rather caustic looking liquid. Looking at herself in a pool of rust colored liquid, before cutting the stitches from her mouth as best she could, with as little screaming as possible once the stitches were cut away. Panting from the pain, she began the hunt for anything that could be considered food and any place that could pass for shelter. Shelter ended up being a bit of a problem, most of the residences this far down were packed with the hungry and the desperate.
After about another week of hunting, she had found meager scraps of food at best. When her trained ears honed in on a noise.
"What have we here boys," a rough masculine voice asked, "a pretty little lamb gone astray?"
"Wandered right into the wolves den they did," replied a slimy voice, the intent making itself known. She steadily made her way over to the voices, following the increasingly graphic comments and the whimpers of fear. Upon finding the source of the voices she saw two men surrounding a quivering form. Stealthily making her over, she saw that it was a young girl trembling in fear and doing her best to make herself look small. Upon getting close enough she drew her straight dagger and plunged it into the back of the neck of the bigger of the two, judging from the wheeze of pain as he died the big, burly man had been the one with the deep voice. Turning in shock, the rat looking man, who had been the one with slimy voice, had only the image of a knife being plunged in his throat, before he was sent to the God-Emperor to be judged.
Turning to look at the girl, she saw that she was painfully thin, her brown hair was cut so short that it barely reached her ear lobes, and her brown eyes stared at her in fear. She made a motion for the girl to leave, which the girl did all too willingly, before she began rifling through the recently deceased's pockets. After going through their pockets she found a few bits of coin and a sheet of paper with some markings on it that she couldn't make out. Shaking, her head she pocketed the coin and threw the piece of paper into another pile of trash.
'This shall be my purpose,' she decided, 'culling the unclean from His Holiness's flock.'
She then pulled out the curved knife and looked at it morosely for a second, before amending her thoughts to include getting revenge on the one who had caused her this shame.
Three Planetary Months after Deployment…
Things had not been getting any easier for the Three-oh-eighth since they had landed on the planet. At first they thought that their job of enforcing order in the Underhive would be easier due to the recent string of unexplained killings, all the targets were murdered with well placed stab wounds, but of course the life of a Guardsmen is never that simple. With the uptick in killings, and no one taking credit for them, the various gangs of the Underhive began accusing each other, which almost always ended up in bloodshed between the various groups. To make matters even more infuriating, some of the nobility on the planet had been pressuring them to solve these murders, which given the hostility from the gangs would prove difficult in normal circumstances.
"Found another one," announced Sasha announced, nudging a corpse with her foot.
"Las-gun, bludgeoned, or throat slit," Sergeant Muldoon asked gruffly, standing by another two corpses, one with it's throat cut and the other looking like it had been stabbed.
"Stabbed," she announced, "repeatedly in the chest."
"That makes about what," Michael asked, sighing through his mask which he would need to talk to the Quartermaster about giving him new filters for, "thirty on this level alone?"
"And no one has taken credit for it," Huskar sighed, his shoulders slumping in resignation.
"What's got me puzzled is why the nobility wants this wrapped up so fast," Michael stated, something not quite sitting right with him, "why would they give a shit what happens in this dump?"
"It's not your place to question your betters," Logren stated sternly, glaring at Michael with barely suppressed fury. Before anything more could be said on the subject, he stomped off to go keep an eye on the perimeter, which had the other members of their squad stationed.
'It would be so easy,' Michael thought bitterly to himself, 'just get a quick bead on him, pull the trigger, and call it a misfire.'
Elsewhere on the Planet…
It had been a fruitful few months for her, she had successfully culled many of the unclean from His Holiness's flock. Each of them had been taken out quickly, quietly, and without mercy. However, her work was tiring and never seemed to be done. For it appeared that for every cancerous individual she cut from the flock, three more were ready to take their place. This was compounded by the fact that she had recently taken on an apprentice, a young teenager girl she had taken in. Although it would be far more accurate to say that the young one had found her hideout. However, the young one had proven to be most useful in the fact that she could understand the papers that had what the girl called writing on them.
"Hello big sis," the young one greeted, she had introduced herself as Shiara, "how'd the hunt go?"
She nodded to Shiara, before adding four more scratches to the wall, and throwing down thirteen coins she pilfered from the dead's pockets.
"Their getting lighter on coin," Shiara stated, sighing to herself and adding it to the small pile of fifteen other coins. Walking over to where her apprentice was, she tapped the paper laying on the table.
"Oh that," Shiara said sullenly, "it's the location of a drug manufacturer three levels down. So at least we have our next target."
She pointed a crudely made training dummy and fixed Shiara with a glare. Grumbling to herself, Shiara picked up a practice knife and got back to practicing the strikes that she had been shown. Nodding to herself, she sat down and began thinking of what supplies they would need to survive out the week, after all even decent food and water was difficult to come by here in the Underhive.
Down on the bottom layer…
It was hungry, ravenous, and in pain, it's world was the unending hunger and the burning of the fluids around it. Suddenly it heard something new, not the sizzling of its skin as the fluids ate at it, but a coldness as it's fluid covered skin finally burst through the surface. What was this place, some part of its brain wondered as it began taste its new surroundings. It tasted odd to it's senses, a faint metallic tang lapped at its tongue as it began to explore it's new surroundings. Before it bumped into something that impeded its way, causing it to swim away in panic, only to realize the thing was not chasing it. Swimming back, it once again bumped into the thing and swam away, only for the thing to once again to not chase it. Flicking it's tongue out it tasted the thing, and found it tasted odd, like something it shouldn't consume.
Jumping on top of it, it felt a tremble from the strange thing as it felt it's body collide with it. It tried to move on the strange thing like it did in the fluids, only to barely move anywhere. Growling in it's throat it tried harder, beating it's fins against the thing, achieving slightly more favorable results. It then felt another tremble from the thing and felt itself let out a piercing sound from it's maw. After nothing happened, it beat its fins in the direction it had felt the trembling come from and flicked its tongue, tasting something warm and metallic. Flicking it's tongue again, whatever it was tasted good and took sated it's hunger if only for a bit. Then it grabbed onto something yielded to it's and chewed, with more of the delicious warmth bursting from the yielding thing. Then it's pain grew as its fin began to stretch and change.
Elsewhere in the Galaxy…
Malek Zeragos was infuriated at his rather unfortunate turn of bad luck, it had all happened when that Throne forsaken assassin had botched one simple job, to kill the occupant of the Black Cell. Now he was stationed on some Emperor blighted backwater. He knew Zephyrus Drakon had a hand in it, the egotistical Throne forsaken blight upon the God-Emperor's most holy Inquisition. It didn't matter right now, he would do all he could right now, bide his time, and watch for one key moment of weakness. Knowing Inquisitor Drakon's incessant need to fan his own ego, it wouldn't be too long. But at present he was doing his best to root out heretics or any xenos influence.
Which was what had him here now, using his inquisition authority to gain access to the Administratum archives, recently a few bloody corpses of the God-Emperor's flock had turned up, each of them with the markings of ritual sacrifice covering their bodies. First he would do the boring part of his job, going through records to determine if there was any connection between the victims. Then, if the God-Emperor favored him, he would see to the extermination of the culprits and once again bring the Holy Light of the Emperor to these peasants. Then, if all worked into his favor, he would garner some good will with other Inquisition agents, after all he would need allies for when the moment to strike against his former mentor came.
So I decided to take this time to introduce a couple of elements of that will affect the story.
Also, I figured it would be a half decent time to start exploring the consequences Michael's presence is having on the galaxy.
Don't worry though dear readers, the action will start to pick up either next chapter or the one after.
Anyways, Happy New Year and Ave Imperator.
