Long Haul Truckin

by Rattraveller

When you say Necromunda people think of the Hive but Necromunda is the planet and it has many Hive Cities on it. These Hive Cities trade with each by good old trucks. Of course being Necromunda these are ship sized trucks armed to the teeth.

Long Haul Truckin

3/5/2020

For more than a Hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. His is the Master of Mankind by the Will of the Gods and Master of a Million Worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is the rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium, for whom a thousand souls die every day, for whom blood is drunk and flesh is eaten.

Human blood and Human flesh-The stuff of which the Imperium is made.

To be alive in such times is to be one amongst untold trillions and trillions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable; this is a tale of those times.

Dafydd Harri opened fire with his dual mounted heavy bolters at the Feral Orks. As blood, legs, arms and some other unidentified body parts started flying through the air he knew he had scored at least two kills.

His assistant gunner Dylan said, "Hey you know the Captain doesn't like us to waste ammo if they aren't a threat."

Dafydd continued to look down the sights to see if there were any more Feral Orks on the ridgeline scouting out their landship as he said, "Didn't you hear? We are free fire this trip since we are doing it solo. Besides you know we get a bonus for each Feral Orks our gun pict shows killed."

Dylan said, "Well then how many credits did you add to our paycheck just now and are there anymore we can get?"

He said, "Looks like two so ten credits," Dafydd didn't see any more Feral Orks which meant no more bonus credits for now. Dafydd had hoped for some more. Being a gunner on one of the kilometer long landships that travelled between the Hive Cities of Necromunda was a dream job for most people. He ate regularly and got paid pretty good but with a wife and six kids he needed every credit he could get.

Dylan broke into his thoughts as he said, "Hey, I missed the part of the briefing about why we aren't in a convoy, could you remind me?"

Dafydd said, "You mean you were to hung over from your trip to the brothels that you slept through it again."

Dylan just smiled and said, "Well one of us need to spread the credits around instead of hording them. You know keeping economy growing and all that."

Dafydd rolled his eyes at his friend's supposed knowledge of economics. He was just young and wanted to have a good time while he could. He didn't blame him, life on Necormunda was too short for most people to live any other way.

He said, "We are on a special run for one of the noble houses. The whole cargo hold is filled up with something that could not wait for the usual run and before you ask, we are getting double pay for this trip."

That got Dylan's attention. He said, "Wow how did I miss that part. Plus, free fire bonus at the Feral Orks and muties, guess we should arrange for extra shifts up here so I can finally get the tangerine special at Lusty Lou's."

Dafydd agreed with him on the extra shifts but didn't have much hope of getting them. Everyone would want the chance for extra credits. Still the double bonus would allow him pay off the recruitment fee for his eldest son, Arnall, so that he won't be drafted into the Planetary Defense Force or worse the Imperial Guard. All they had to do was make it to through this trip in one piece. Should not be a problem.

Kaln looked at the transport's passive radar system to see they were less than ten kilometers from the Landship 13087. Although he could plainly see the dust cloud it kicked up as it moved through the Ash Wastes even from this distance. Looking at his wrist chrono he saw they were right on schedule for the mission.

He said to the pilot, "Alright continue at deck level flight for two hours and then enter the dust wake. The shift change for the rear crew section is in five minutes and then the maintenance shift after that they go into sleep period for half the crew. That's when you will drop us on the landship."

The pilot let out a grunt as a response. They had all been through this in briefings and rehearsals and Kaln knew everyone on his team knew exactly what to do but he thought it never hurt to go over things one more time so there was absolutely no room for confusion. After all, if this mission was successful than he would be able to live in luxury for the rest of his life. If it failed, then even if he and his team managed to get out alive the noble house who was footing the bill would make sure none of them lived long enough to even report the failure.

He suspected a couple of his team were reporting to other noble houses what was happening here. He was also sure that one member of his team had been paid to make sure none of them survived once the mission had meet successful parameters. He was ready to deal with all of that. One did not survive as a mercenary on Necromunda for long without looking at a mission from all angles and taking all precautions. It was just accepted that those who could afford his services could also afford to cover their tracks and make sure nothing came back on them. Still you assessed the risks and took the job offered. Either way this was going to be his last mission, that was the only sure thing.

The gong sounded for shift change but since the Beta crew had been there ten minutes earlier than usual the changeover had not taken long. The two of them moved down to get a better place in the chow line. They still had three hours of maintenance work to log before they could get some rest, luckily, they were only on checking the ammunition stores this shift so they should be able to finish without too much work.

Grabbing their bowls of stew and mugs of recaf, they found the bread rolls were only day old and not moldy at all. They took seats next to the gun crew of one of the Demolisher guns. The crew leader said, "Heard you two bagged a couple of Orks, good work."

One of the crew members said, "You little gunners are lucky you get to shoot. We never see a target big enough to get clearance to fire."

Dylan said, "Thanks but you get the bonus every trip. When are one of you gonna move on and let others get that big bonus?"

Everyone gave a laugh at this. The Demolisher gun was the top position among the many gun crews that protected the landship. Everyone started as one of the anti-personnel gunners and worked their way up to the artillery pieces. Of course just working your way up to any gunner position could take years and hard work in the menial positions waiting for a position to open unless you knew someone who could vouch for you. The reasoning was simple, you had to be smart and trusted enough to handle the weaponry before the let you near it. More than one landship had been lost to an inexperienced weapon crew making mistakes.

There were other perks besides, better quarters, a personal storage cabinet, showers once a week and being allowed to carry laspistols as sidearms. Of course there were downsides too. The weapons crews also backed up the ship's troops in case of mutiny by the dregs and also pulled guard duty on the high value cargoes to stop pilfering. Dafydd and Dylan once had to shot a half dozen members of the crew when they were still a week out and the food rations had been cut by three quarters.

The Demolisher crew leader stood up and said, "Not anytime soon. I have gambling debts to payoff. Now the rest of you shove it down your throats we have the entire 32 hallway to swap and polish before we can hit the sheets."

The table cleared out as the Demolisher crew left. Dafydd and Dylan sat and ate quickly so they could get to their job. Dafydd thought things were looking pretty good and by the Emperor's guiding light they might just finish this run without any glitches in the machine.

Kaln and his team made the transfer to the rear of the landship with no problem. The inside man they had looked to have done his job and given them the blackout window they had needed. Now they just needed to get inside. Kaln knelt by the maintenance hatch with his needle pistol aimed at the opening. All ten of his team were armed with the silent weapon since this a stealth mission to destroy the cargo by planting charges on it and then getting out before they went off.

A grinding noise alerted him the hatch was about to be opened. Tensing for a moment he felt better when he saw no light coming from the opening. Their inside man at least got that part right. Trusting someone who had taken a bribe to do a job could not always be trusted to get everything right.

A voice said, "I'm just checking the pict feed outside, it could just be clogged."

Kaln did some quick hand signals. The inside man had just given the code for their being one other person inside. Two of his team moved into new positions. As soon as the inside man came half way out of the hatch, they pulled him all the way up. Kaln then jumped in and located the target. As soon as he landed, he fired straight into the face of a man in brown coveralls. The toxins in the needles killed the man before he could even register he had been hit.

Moving quickly he grabbed the body and then lifted it up and passed it to his team waiting for it outside. They had already moved the inside man outside and were holding him back. As they had rehearsed it everything went well and in less than two minutes his entire team was inside the small maintenance room with the inside man.

Kaln looked the inside man over, he was an older man with wrinkles and solid grey hair. His brown coveralls were much mended and sagged as if they had once been worn by a much more muscled man. Kaln knew they had bought this man's loyalty with the promise of a huge payment and to move him off world. He had insisted that half the payment be made upfront so he probably knew he was going to die soon but the half payment would see his loved ones through.

Kaln said, "Is our path clear to the cargo hold?"

The Inside man said, "The route we were going to use has a cleaning crew working late." Upon seeing the look Kaln gave him, he quickly added, "Don't worry there is another way down which won't take much longer, it still fits in mission plan you gave me."

Kaln nodded and said, "Okay, you take the lead and show us the new path. Everyone remember we are supposed to be deck hands going to do some drudge work. Keep your weapons hidden and eyes cast down. We want to get there and back without a fight. Liu and Winters stay here and watch out exit and be ready to back us up if there is a problem."

As his team got into line, Kaln exchanged a look with Liu who winked back. No one else caught it and if they did they would think it was Liu teasing Kaln again. The two of them kept up an animosity in public so no one realized how close they were. Liu was the only person he trusted completely on the team. This had proven very good since Liu and Winters had been offered a bonus to make sure the rest of the team didn't make it off the landship. Kaln and Liu had come up with an alternate to that so they both would get off along with most of the others who stayed loyal.

Dafydd and Dylan were just finishing up their ammunition inventory and heading back to their bunks. Dylan said, "I am sure it was Hamilton. You know he has that superstition about using the bottom half of an ammo can. Thinks they are squashed and won't fire right."

Dafydd said, "Yeah but what can we do about it? Unless you watch him constantly he is just going to sneak in a take the top half of the ammo up to his position. He truly is paranoid about it."

Dafydd remembered it had been a huge problem when heavy bolter crews would find only half full ammunition cans when they went to fire. No one had been blamed but the Captain had come down hard and ordered them all to lose a tenth pay for that trip. Now it looked like someone, probably Hamilton, was opening up the ammunition cans and swapping rounds around. Only problem was if the seals were broken on an ammunition can then all the rounds had to be counted and it resealed. That had taken them much longer than it should have to do the ammunition count.

Dylan let out a small laugh and said, "Yeah he mutters prayers to the Emperor in his sleep trying to keep the demons away."

Dafydd said, "You could do some more asking the Emperor for guidance. Then we might get some more Feral Orks or muties to shoot."

Dylan was about to respond when both of them saw Cooper heading toward them at the head of line of deck hands. Cooper looked to be his usual self with his usual dour look. The deck hands walked with their heads down and each was carrying a heavy satchel. Still there was something different about them. He just couldn't put his finger on it.

Dylan as usual changed gears fast and said, "Hey Cooper where are you going with all those guys? Something big about to happen?"

Cooper gave them a sad look and said, "That hydraulic lift in the cargo hold failed again. Huge mess on the floor and I am on maintenance watch this shift. I need alot of muscle to get it back up again. You two wouldn't be interested in helping an old buddy out would you?"

Dafydd answered before Dylan could just to cut his friend off from saying something smart, he said, "Sorry for the bad luck but we have had a long shift and have another one next shift. We will make sure they save you some of that fake bacon at breakfast."

Cooper smiled at that and said, "Thanks and I hope we have this done by breakfast."

Dylan said, "Yay should be a piece of cake, see you at breakfast."

Dylan and Dafydd pressed themselves against the corridor wall and let Cooper and his crew pass by. Dafydd looked over the deck hands but did not recognize any of them. He had to admit Cooper did find the most muscular deck hands he had ever seen for this job. Probably all new crew who didn't know how to avoid being put on an unscheduled maintenance job yet. He was just looking forward to getting some sleep.

Once they had passed the two crew members, Kaln went up and whispered into Cooper's ear and said, "What do you mean inviting those two along? Are you trying to blow this mission?"

Cooper shook Kaln off his shoulder and said, "That was a normal conversation and if you want to get this mission done, stay back and let me do what you are paying me to do."

Kaln did get back into line and was satisfied with Cooper's answer. He had to go up and say something or his team would have said or done something. He just loved the little things he had to do to stay in command and stay alive.

The rest of the trip down to the cargo hold went without incident or another encounter with any other crew. Once there Kaln saw they had entered in the middle of the cargo bay which went off for three hundred meters in each direction. It was mostly empty except for twenty crates each about ten meters long by three meters wide and three meters high. All of them were made of the usual metal used on Necromunda and had nothing special about them at all.

To Copper he said, "Are you sure this is what we are after?"

Copper let out a laugh and said, "Mr. Mercenary those are the only cargo containers we have aboard, so if that isn't what you are after you are on the wrong landship."

Kaln accepted this and then to his crew said, "Team one take up security positions. Team two put two charges on each crate with timers set to go off in one hour. Let's get this done and get out of here."

Turning to Cooper he said, "Go stand back and be ready to lead us out of here when we get finished."

Dafydd had just settled down in his bunk and closed his eyes when Dylan started to nudge him. Rolling his eyes behind his eyelids he knew he didn't want to know whatever it was Dylan wanted to tell him. When they had gotten back to the bunk room they had found the entire Demolisher gun crew just getting back. Turns out the Second Mate had shown up and had some high standards for the hallway they were cleaning. Everyone else was already in their bunks and you never did anything to wake up a sleeping crew mate unless there was an emergency. Now he was just trying to get his little bit of sleep and Dylan had something going on.

Dylan shook him some more and than said, "Dafydd, I know you're awake. Get up we need to get this done and I mean now."

Not opening his eyes, Dafydd said, "What could possibly by more important than sleep right now?"

Dylan at least stopped shaking him and said, "I just checked, Hamilton isn't in his bunk. You know he is up there screwing with the ammunition cans again. We need to catch him in the act and report him."

Dafydd wasn't one to go around reporting other crew members unless they did something really stupid and he did not see any reason to report Hamilton and his superstition. He said, "If he wants to rearrange all the ammunition cans then let him. It doesn't make a difference."

Dylan shook him again and said, "You heard the other crew. The Second is on a tear since this is a fast trip with almost no cargo. He is looking to instill some discipline in us. You can bet he is going to check our inventory in the next shift and if Hamilton opens up the boxes and breaking the seals then we are going to get our pay docked and put on half rations for the rest of the trip."

At that Dafydd shot straight up and almost hit his head. For once Dylan made sense and for the right reasons. The last thing either of them needed was their pay docked, especially on a bonus trip like this one. The Second was probably on orders from the Captain to make the officer's cut bigger this trip by getting it from the crew's shares.

Getting out of bed and putting his boots back on in a well practiced motion, he said, "Alright lets go. We just stop him and bring him back here. We don't need to get anyone else involved." As he headed to the door one thought ran through his head, "I really need some rest."

Kaln looked over the final explosive device and approved. No one had come down and found them working and they should be able to get out without any problem. Of course that was the problem since now the double crossing would begin. He lamented that most of his missions didn't end that way. Then again this mission had too high a pay off and too many others would be tempted to get a bigger cut. He had originally proposed doing it with just himself and Liu but the backers wanted a large team in case they were found out and had to kill off the crew to stop the cargo being delivered. He didn't like it but he would deal with it.

Signalling the rest of his team to rally at the entrance, he moved over to the entrance they had come in at. It did not take long to see someone was missing and that someone was Cooper. There were only two answers to what had happened to him and neither were good.

Kaln kept any emotion out of his voice and said, "What happened to the Inside man? One of men Kaln had not worked with before stepped forward and said, "When you called the rally I took care of him and hid the body. One less thing to worry about."

Kaln now let anger slip into his voice and said, "Well then you can lead us back up to the exit port since you took out the only one who had the route down pat."

The killer did not look too upset by this and headed to the front of the line. Kaln knew the way back himself. You did not last long in this business without an excellent sense of direction. He just didn't want that guy or anyone else on the team behind him at the moment and this guy had given him a good excuse to stay behind. He could draw his weapon fast but if things escalated than every second would count so when the others had past him he unholstered his needle gun and held it ready.

Dafydd and Dylan had found Hamilton exactly where they thought he would be and doing exactly what they had feared he would be doing. Luckily for the pair, when they found him, he had not yet opened any of the ammunition cans and was on his knees giving praise to the Emperor.

Dylan was about to bonk Hamilton on the head when Dafydd stopped him. He then went down on his knees next to Hamilton and joined him in his prayer. When they had finished praying, Hamilton looked at him with some suspicion.

Dafydd said, "Do you believe in your prayers and the power of the Emperor?"

Hamilton looked shocked at this and said, "How can anyone not have faith in the Emperor of Mankind?"

Dafydd said, "Then have faith that the Emperor protects every single round of ammunition and all will fire and find the target he had set for them."

Hamilton looked confused for a moment and then said, "I have faith in all the Emperor does."

Dafydd was secretly relieved and said, "Good now let's head back before someone sees us and reports us to the Second Mate or the Captain."

Dafydd helped Hamilton get up and then the three of them headed back to the bunk room. Now all they had to do was get back and not be seen by anyone. That hope was cut down within ten steps of leaving the ammunition storage room.

Down the hallway he could see eight men in deck hand uniforms heading toward them. It took Dafydd a moment to realize that it was the crew they had seen Cooper leading down to repair the lift. But he did not see Cooper anywhere among them.

Dylan lifted his hand and said, "Don't worry, I got this." With that he hurried forward and started to say, "Hey guys how did the work go..."

As Dylan spoke several things coalesced in Dafydd's mind at the same time and he realized what was wrong with his initial suspicion of the deck hands. Starting with Cooper being missing and then his not recognizing any of them. Now he added in the deck hands being up here when their bunk room was in a different part of the landship. Finally he remembered they had left in a rush and in what secrecy they could. They had not gone through either of the usual new hire processes of advertising for new crew or dragging drunks out of bars to do the drudge work. All this came together in less than a second for him to come to the conclusion that these guys weren't crew members and if they weren't crew members then he and his mates were in big big trouble.

Dafydd opened his mouth to say something but stopped when he saw the lead member of the fake deck hand raise a strange pistol. There was no sound or recoil but Dylan stopped in his tracks and and collapsed where he had been walking. Dafydd drew his laspistol and was about to fire when the lead fake deck hand fell over and he could see he was dead. Now all of the fake deck hands either had the strange pistols in their hands or were using martial arts moves Dafydd had only ever seen in pict shows the Captain let them watch as a reward.

Next to him, Hamilton started firing his laspistol into the melee while yelling at the top of his lungs, "Die foul interlopers you will not defile the Emperor's Holy Landship with your presence." He got off three shots and killed one of the fake deck hands before another raised their strange pistol and pointed it at him and then Hamilton fell silent and collapsed.

Dafydd got down and using the bodies of his two crew mates for cover aimed his laspistol at the fake deck hands. Only it looked like they had all managed to kill each other. Raising his head slightly he caught movement at the very back of the pile of dead bodies. One of the fake deck hands was still alive and hiding behind his fallen comrades like he was. Ducking back down, Dafydd's mind raced through a plan, any plan. Then the lights came on.

Kaln took a quick inventory of his situation. He had known the others would turn but he had not known it would be in the middle of the landship. One of the others had shot their trigger happy team member to stop him from completely blowing their cover and then everyone else had taken sides and now he was in a standoff with one of the surviving crew and the timers were ticking on the explosives. He couldn't risk moving and giving the other guy a shot and he could stay here since either more crew would show up or the bombs would go off.

A klaxon went off and the hallway was suddenly bathed in red light. Kaln knew that was an alert and his situation just got worse. A voice called to him from down the hallway and said, "That's the battle stations alarm. We are probably being attacked by Feral Orks, they were scouting us earlier. I need to get to my heavy bolter so you can either kill me or you can help us get out of this situation."

Kaln thought he could do both but decided enough Humans had died in this hallway already. Plus he may need the ammunition later.

He said, "Alright I am getting up and won't shot."

Kaln did not holster his needle pistol but did move it to his side as he slowly got up. He could see the crew member was also standing up and had already turned his back to him and starting to run off toward wherever he needed to go. Since that was the direction he needed to go also, Kaln picked his way through the bodies and moved to catch up.

Trying to look at the bright side, an Ork attack would give him good cover to get off the landship. He just needed to get back to Liu and the two of them were clear. That's when the shooting started ahead of him. Before he could realize it the crew member from the hallway slammed into him hard enough to knock both of them back down on the floor again.

Scrambling up he made it to his knees when three things became apparent to him. One was that he had lost his needle pistol and two was the end of the hallway was filled with an Ork holding a big choppa and wearing spiky metal armor. Three was that Liu's head was on one of the spikes.

The Ork let out a bellow and charged toward the two Humans. Dafydd started to crab walk away from the Ork. Kaln stayed where he was until the Ork got in range. Has the Ork raised his choppa to strike, Kaln struck out with his leg and hit the Ork in the knee. Normally an Ork would barely feel a hit like that but thanks to years of training and experience, Kaln's blow hit just right to take the Ork's leg out from under him and sent him flying. Kaln rolled to the side but did not have much room in the hallway. The Ork didn't land on top of him but did land next to him. He desperately tried to get up when he felt the heat of las fire way to close for comfort.

Suddenly everything was quiet. Looking up Kaln saw the crew member holding his laspistol in one hand and reaching out with his other. He took it and got to his feet. He said, "Thanks for the save but I think we need to get out of here now."

The crew member said, "My name's Dafydd and we have one priority right now. We need to find and seal whatever hole the Ork came in through or a lot of my friends are going to die."

Kaln had spent his life having to make snap decisions where the price was his life. He had a very good idea where the Ork had come in at and it was his best chance of getting off this landship if he had someone with him. He said, "Call me Kaln. The Ork was wearing the head of the man I left guarding my way out. I'll show you where it is and you let me leave. Deal?"

Dafydd looked at the intruder on his ship and thought he did not have much choice and said, "Fine then you will probably need this."

He reached behind his back and pulled out a laspistol he had taken from Dylan's body and then handed it over to Kaln. He took the weapon, and checked it over and saw it had a full charge. Taking the lead, Kaln moved off at a trot and hoped they did not run into anyone Human or Ork before they got to the exit.

The pair moved through the hallway toward the exit as fast and quietly as they could. Kaln had to admit Dafydd handled himself well but he knew crews of landships drilled repeatedly in anti-boarding operations. Still once they got to the exit he could kill him easily and make his escape. Of course there were most likely hundreds of Orks outside the landship but one problem at a time.

Dafydd followed the intruder called Kaln, if that really was his name to where he hoped was not an ambush. Right now he needed him to seal the breach. Once they had done that he should probably kill him. It didn't bother him too much. He killed things every trip and this man was not only responsible for Dyaln and Hamiltons' deaths but he had invaded his landship. Thinking for the first time, why did this guy and his crew invade the landship? He should probably find out before he killed him. Then again his type usually didn't talk without a great deal of torture or at least that was what the pict shows said.

They made good time and soon came to the door that lead to the maintenance room with the hatch. Both of them were surprised to find it was closed. Kaln looked over at Dafydd and said, "We go in?"

Dafydd did not look at him and said, "Alright I will go high and you go low."

Kaln nodded agreement and moved into position. Dafydd got set and used his fingers for a three count. Unfortunately at two an Orc opened the door from the other side. There was a second of surprise and then all three of them started firing. Kaln got the first hits in but they did not slow the Ork down at all. Dafydd put two more shots into the Ork which only succeeded in getting it to stop firing wildly and turn toward him.

The Ork let out a roar and then slapped Dafydd up the side of his head, knocking him back against the wall and forcing all the air out of his lungs. Kaln took the opening the slap gave him and stuck his laspistol in the Ork's ear and pulled the trigger. He must have hit something vital as the Ork dropped faster than Dafydd had.

Another roar turned Kaln and and dazed Dafydd to look into the maintenance room and see three more hulking Orks who barely fit inside where Kaln's whole team had been. Luckily none of them had a shooting weapon since those were rare among Feral Orks. Kaln dove down and grabbed up the shoota the Ork he had killed had. Giving it a once over, he found he could not figure out how to fire it. There was nothing that looked like a trigger. Glancing up, he saw one of the Orks standing above him with its choppa raised. Kaln rolled on his back and brought the Ork shoota up to use as a shield and hoped it would work.

Dafydd recovered enough to see that Kaln was in big trouble. Reacting rather than thinking he raised his laspistol and fired into the maintenance room while taking a page from Hamilton and muttering a prayer to the Emperor. He was shocked as his prayer was answered and his shots hit one of the canisters stored in the maintenance room. There was a series of small explosions and a great deal of flame and then the horrible smell of burnt Ork filling the hallway. Looking over himself and Kaln they had not taken much damage from the blast since they were both on the ground. Dafydd finished his prayer to the Emperor.

Kaln started coughing from the acrid smoke and fumes. Staying low he could see the fire was burning in the maintenance room, thankfully most of the smoke was going out of the open maintenance hatch. The fire was quickly dying down so they should be able to exit the landship soon. Now would be the time to deal with his temporary partner.

He tossed away the shoota and drew his knife while looking around for his laspistol. He spotted it still stuck in the Ork's head when the new alarm started going off louder and brighter than the last one. Scrambling to his feet, Kaln stood up just has Dafydd got to his feet. Looking at each other, it was Dafydd who said, "That's the abandon landship alarm. There should be some survival kits that didn't get burned too badly in there and then we can leave through the hatch. Hopefully we can find some other survivors and then..."

Kaln listened to Dafydd trail off and came to another decision. This landship was going down and then blowing up stranding them in the Ash Wastes. Given how many of his team had tried double and triple betrayals then the pickup and his privately arranged pick up were not going to be out there for him either. Keeping Dafydd alive a little longer would not hurt this situation any more than it already was screwed up.

The two of them were able to assemble four survival kits out of the remains of the ones in the maintenance room. Getting down from the top of the landship hand been the easiest part so far. Jumping to the ground had been even easier since by then the landship had ground to a halt. Moving through the knee deep ash while wearing respirators they managed to get about half a kilometer away before the landship blew up.

The blast knocked them down and they stayed down while debris landed all around them. Once they thought it was safe they both stood up. Kaln did not dwell on the negative and started to think of what his options were now. There were not many of them. It was then that he noticed a small dust trail making its way to them.

Dafydd looked at him and said, "I activated the emergency beacon when we left the landship. Unless the Orks have some vehicles that should be one of the escape vehicles."

Kaln didn't say anything but did take out his laspistol and got ready in case, like everything else today, it was the worse of the two options. After a few minutes of nervous waiting a vehicle very much like an Imperial Chimera pulled up close to them. The rear hatch opened and two men armed with lasguns came out. When they saw Dafydd and Kaln they waved them on board.

Once the two were in the Chimera much to Kaln's regret they handed over the survival kits. The back of the vehicle was crowded with about five more people than was comfortable. Dafydd handed Kaln a vox cable and showed him where to plug it into the respirator.

Once that was done a voice came into head and said, "This is Captain Hoover, that was the last of the emergency beacons and since this area is still hot with Feral Orks we are heading to rendezvous with the other three escape vehicles. Then with no problems we should make Hive Prime in two days. Keep your respirators handy on so we don't overload the vehicle's air system."

Kaln thought that was a good idea since no one would be able to tell he wasn't part of the crew. He could get away after a couple of uncomfortable days in cramped conditions and bad food.

The Captain continued and said, "This trip went badly but there is good news. The cargo we were carrying was fake. The real cargo is aboard a well guarded large convoy and will get to Hive Prime about the same time we do. Since we lost the landship we will all get triple bonuses and choice assignments in the rest of the fleet. That was guaranteed in the contract filed with the Guild. So sit back and think of what you are going to do with all that money."

Kaln could hear the whoops of happiness from the surviving crew and thought he would spend the trip trying to figure out a new line of work.