"Come on dimwits, let's do this!" The voice is distant, like underwater. Who's screaming? "Get the frak up you lazy bum, come on!" Is it talking to me? What's that accent supposed to be? Cadian?
Am I down? Where… Train… Yeah, the bomb. Who's talking though? Doesn't sound like some new meat nor anyone I know. "You want to see tomorrow, you muppet? Then move!"
I'm moving. Wood and scrap metal fall to either side and are sucked out as I rise. The wagon was cut in half. I'm not even sure it's the same one I was in earlier…
Everyone is gone, but I don't have time to waste with that.
Wind is rushing around me, pushing me back to the gap, and I lean forward some more. It gets stronger by the second and soon all that keeps me in place are my metal fingers, locked around a handle on the floor. Maybe the makers expected somebody would need to hold on to it one day, or it was just made to secure cargo, Imperial thinking doesn't always make sense.
The next handle is two meters further, a meter-long strap already fastened to it. I make the jump, barely, and wrap the strap around my organic wrist.
Four meters to the hatch and the next wagon. Why is it so windy?
The sky is bright orange and my mind takes a second to register; sandstorm. Great.
The prosthesis' fingers dig in the steel floor with relative ease and the pistons drag me forward to a small ridge in the floor, some drainage thing, in case liquids leak, I guess.
The bones and flesh of my fingers groan as hard as I do and let go just as the steel fingers dig in the floor again. This time, the arm gives me all its got and I fly through the hatch like an artillery shell.
The space between wagons is just what you'd expect; railings, stairs to the right and a gap in the middle to let the crew step across the gap or access the locking mechanism that keeps the train together.
I fall in that gap and land straight on the lock, precariously balanced over the speeding desert. There is no wind here, wagon must cut it, but there's a lot of tiny rocks kicked up by the storm and they're mauling my face. Like I said, my balance is precarious, if I shift too much weight forward, I'll ruin it and end up sitting on the rails. Not a good thing when there's still the husk of a cart behind you.
My metal arm clamps around the base of the left railing and drags me back to safety.
Next wagon is pitch black, the windows painted black and the ceiling neon removed, but there's enough light to catch glimpses of cells or cages. No clue what's inside. There's a flashlight on my lasgun, but I lost the thing, so I advance slowly, quietly and carefully, arms held out ahead.
Cold steel meets my organic fingers, smooth and unyielding. My prosthetic arm also rubs against something and, judging from the sound, there are two cages a meter apart.
Hope whatever's in them can't reach out, because that's a mighty small gap to squeeze into.
There's a bottle on the floor. I don't see it, but the sound it makes rolling away leaves no doubt.
The things in the cages stir, sniffing around, growling.
Anyone who tells you they feel no fear is either a moron or a liar. I'm neither. I'm piss scared; cold sweat, shakes, short breath. It overwhelms me, screaming at me to run out of here, to move faster, to do something.
I let all my muscles relax and keep on all of them, I don't want to soild my pants either. Same bottle betrays me two meters further and the things in the cage begin roaring and trashing about, shaking the whole wagon.
What really gets me going is the sound of ripping steel and the wet substance that splashes the back of my pants.
The bulkhead opens, blinding me in orange light, but I don't look back, I jump, slam into the other bulkhead and get in. I'm still doped up on adrenaline, so the surprised cultist that shoves his gun in my face never loses the surprise when I squeeze his arm under mine, break it, snatch the weapon from the floor and fill everyone in the room with lead.
Something rams into the bulkhead at my back, denting it inward, but when I look, all I see is a black shape and talons ripping their way up in the steel.
It's on the roof.
Nothing should be able to hold on in that storm, but who am I kidding, we all know it's right there, and all I have is a skakky stub gun.
Once I'm out of here, I'm buying the biggest, meanest weapon I can find, prosthetic be damned.
The claw marks on the wall indicate there's only one on top of the cart, but there were two cages, so I suppose I'm not going back in the dark wagon… And I can't move forward either, not with that thing waiting for me out there. I can hear it crawling around over my head, waiting. It ripped the cage open like it was made of glass, it can get in here any time it wants, it's just toying with me.
So… That's what being stuck feels like? Can't go back, can't go forward, can't hide, can't fight. I've seen hundreds of rookies with that glassy look in their faces, one I always mistook for their brain shutting off reality a second before the killing blow. Now I know, it's acceptance, peace. I'm going to die. No matter what I do, claws will rip my skin open any second now. It's… Liberating, oddly enough, like the weight of my survival was just lifted off my shoulders. No need to come up with something clever to get out of here, no need to fight anymore. It's all over.
Some part of me wants to curl in a ball out the corner and sleep, wait for it to happen, just let it end. I want it to end. Not my life, I still want to live, but I'm tired of fear, tired of always fighting, every minute of every day, and the fact is, it's all I'm ever going to do, even if I make it out alive.
What's the point? Why should I go through the pain and effort of thinking a way out if it's all going to repeat itself tomorrow?
Because I have nothing better to do.
Just a whisper in the back of my brain, it feels warm. Nothing better to do? It makes some sort of sense, I suppose; Is oblivion better that pain? If there is nothing in my life worth living for, then there's nothing worth dying for.
That makes as little sense to me as it does to you, but, somehow, these thoughts feel right, strong. I've got nothing to lose, my end will be gruesome, that is a given, but I can still decide if it will be worth anything, and while I still draw breath, there is still hope I can end the pain, find something that makes me want to keep on living.
I'm alive, I can be whoever I choose to be. The Penal Legion holds my body captive, but that's just a concept, words, there are no chains, no walls, just paperwork. I can turn this around. No one leaves the Legion unless it's in a body bag, but I will, because I'm alive and I will not give up.
It burns, I always associated this warm feeling to the Emperor's presence, when I prayed to Him or killed His enemies, but it's not, it never was, it's me, all me, the Emperor never gave me strength, I gave it to myself. There's a saying in the Legion, 'Faith can get a warrior through the fiercest battle.' It's wrong, Determination can get you through anything, Faith is just the motivator, determination on command, and it's nothing compared to what I'm feeling now.
It's all good and nice that I got my nerves back, but what now? That thing is still going to chop off my head at the first chance I give it.
The bodies littering this wagon carry no real weapon, but one has a magnesium flash bomb and another some mining demo charge, same type they used to blow up the other wagon. What should I do with these? Not enough firepower to blast this whole cart, but probably enough to split it from the train itself.
But my job is to secure this train, if I break away, well, the train leaves and I stay behind. Surely the boys left on the trucks will be coming in soon, I just need to break the inertia and get moving again before I'm flanked.
Maybe I can trap the thing, set the charge and wait until it moves in for the kill… No, it could break in from anywhere.
Place the charge on the roof and blast it off? With me in the same room? I could survive, but I doubt I'd keep all my parts.
Then I leave the room. There are large sliding doors on either sides of the car, I can get out through these… And get blown off by the wind? Even if I found a good grip, used my prosthetic arm and kept very close to the wagon, the wind must be strong enough now to rip the thing off my shoulder.
Maybe I can slow the train down a bit… I think every car has its own brake system and if you activate some emergency thing, you can cause all of them to switch on.
A quick look around kills that plan. Come on! I don't have all day! I need something now, there's two of them and I know the position of only one, the other could be sneaking up on me at this very moment…
Of course it is. No way it just waited in its cage for me to backtrack! I ran away, it is a predator, preys don't go back where they know a predator lurks… I almost didn't.
I need light. I have light! If I dismantle the flash charge and keep only the magnesium, it should provide a minute of light, maybe more, I'm not sure how quickly it burns on this planet…
Then, there's one last hick to my plan; the mining charge is slaved to a detonator that now lies shattered in the pockets of a bullet riddled corpse. My bad. The five second fuse that used to be rigged with the flash bomb could do, but seeing as five seconds fuse last only three seconds… Well, I'll just have to move quickly.
There's barely any crates in here, but I stack enough to reach the ceiling with relative comfort. The creature walking around the roof is digging its claws in, just like it did with the wall, but the roof is too thick for them to go through. I still feel the tremors just over my fingers, though, and that feels quite wrong to me.
Charge set. Get clear.
Before entering the dark wagon, I take a second to shatter the window and peek in the poorly lit interior. Four cages, not two, all ripped open. A single beer bottle sits on the dirty floor, discarded and lonely.
That insignificant thing is the cause of my current problems. Funny, isn't it?
Inside the wagon, I find a cattle prod jacked to a high-grade power pack. This thing can kill an Ogryn if you insist long enough.
I'm not fighting Ogryns, but these things ripped right through a Special Warfare Guard platoon, so I'll take whatever I can get. The five seconds fuse goes off at four, though it felt like a full minute, and I come out ready to kill, trembling like a leaf.
I always get the shakes before a good fight, though I won't find one in this smoking shell of a train wagon, the docs said it wasn't fear, that my body showed no sign of anxiety. I never said it was fear, a horse that gets agitated before a race isn't scared, he's not even anxious, he's just ready to do what he's made to do.
Something jumps off the overhead car and lands right behind me, but I whack it across the head with the prod and sprint across to the next bulkhead. What? You expect me to take on something that can wipe out a whole platoon? Frak it, I'm just going to reach the locomotive, stop this thing and smoke signal the Legion. Our trucks can't be far off and I doubt they'd just abandon their mission like that.
The crates and barrels fly by for at least eight cars without a hitch outside the occasional guard and mutant I need to whack. Why they all just stand at their posts mindlessly and never call for reinforcement, that's a mystery I'd love to see solved, but something tells me all the answers are in the head car. If not, then whoever's hacking my Vox will be, and he better have answers for me.
My arsenal remains as skakky no matter how much I loot from corpses, but I still acquire a healthy supply of grenades, dynamite and cocktails. The ones that set people on fire… Then again, I've seen quite a few people get drunk and pass out in camp fires, not to mention the questionable local brothels, which makes tender bits feel like they're on fire…
I usually stay clear of places like that, too many bad memories from my days in the gang come up when I'm around these, I prefer a good bar and beer goggles, so long as I leave before the effect wears off, everyone's happy.
Finally, about two wagons before the end, I come across an actual fighting force, but shock denies me the element of surprise. Those things look half way between normal humans and the mutants chasing me. Some have two arms, a few have three, all of them are hunched and snarling, razor-sharp fangs and sickly yellow eyes… Their eyes… It feels like all the malice, all the evil in the universe is focused in them.
"Move!" The voice yells in my ears, "Show me how you dance, meatsack!"
The stub gun is useless against the flak armors on these things, so I club one across the face with it, toss the weapon at another and draw my knife, holding the cattle prod in the off hand.
The mutant holding my weapon dies before the flash, but he's the only one, the real killing begins only after the magnesium charge on my chest goes off. I had to prod myself to set it off, but it was just a gentle touch…
Still, when sound and images return, I'm slouched on my right knee with smoke rising from the flak armor's plates.
Around me, the mutants are roaring and clutching their heads in pain. Good guess on my part; nocturnal, very vulnerable to bright lights. There's four of them left. I club the closest with the prod, crush his knee cap on my way across, stab another in the throat and use it as a meat shield against the barrage of autogun fire from the remaining hostiles.
Bullets that go through his armor are too damaged and slow to go through mine, but the others don't know that and as soon as the shooting stops, I let the sack of ground meat in my arms slouch to the ground.
I have his autopistol now, holding it in my steel hand and using the flesh one as support, knife still held in its fingers. I find that I miss my real arm, the nerves, the balance and the dexterity. The steel one is strong, but it's attached to my body, which isn't as strong, meaning I'd need to augment my whole bone structure to use the mechanical limb to its full potential.
Like those cog-head freaks.
There are crates in here too, plenty of space to hide, which is precisely what I do, though not from sight, creature like these can probably track by smell alone. No, I'm hiding from the shrapnel of my frags.
Body parts, blood and pieces of armor fly all over the room. Flak armor is meant to protect from flying debris like this, but in such close quarters, and not from four hand grenades going off at once.
Killiane won't like it, I damaged a lot of crates, but then again, when is Kill ever happy about anything?
Something wraps around my ankle, just like I'd feared in the wagon with the cages, but now it's different, I killed five of these things and they killed zero of me, odds are in my favour.
The first stomp breaks the mutant's wrist, the second crushes its rib cage and the third breaks its spine. The dozen that follows is just meant to stop the corpse's twitching.
Next wagon, I frag first and enter second, with similar results and minimum fuss.
"Ah, Theseus!" the voice speaks in a sophisticated tone, before reverting to the old drill-instructor routine, "Took you long enough! Now get in here and kill that moron before he calls hell down on this skakhole."
That moron greets me with electric arcs lashing from his fingers and ramming my chest like a direct hit from a gakking grenade launcher. I reply with a burst of autopistol fire that rattles his chest and perforates the delicate purple robes he wears. He looks human, but his eyes… Skak, they're not human. Just looking at them makes me feel weak, it makes me want to put the gun on my temple and squezze the trigger. I put the gun against the side of my skull, but flip the safety on as well, earning only two dry clicks. My knife was not meant for throwing and only the handle hits the sorcerer, but it's bulls eye on his forehead.
His eyes flare just a second and the safety comes off, followed by a single shot that splatters brain matter on the floor.
Interesting fact; I lost my helmet somewhere along the ride, can't remember when, why can I still hear that voice?
"Because you're mad... Seriously, you have a chip in your brain… Ex-slave, am I right? I'm interfacing with it."
I think a sentence and wait for an answer. A whole minute passes that way before I hear the voice again.
"Are you constipated or something? What is that face?" This time, it fills the room, not my skull, and I pinpoint its source to a skull with a metal rod stabbed in it.
Talking, telepathic skull?
Chaos! Throne of terra, I walked right into a Chaos altar!
The gun in my hand finds its way to my chin almost on its own and I'm tightening the finger around the trigger, coming to term with the end of my life, when the human skull jumps off the… What's that? A cogitator? Why was it jacked into the train's cogitator? More importantly, why is there fire coming out of its neck? Servo-Skull… An odd, ebony-black model, but bearing the sign of the inquisition…
"What do you think you're doing?" It sounds distressed, but the mocking undertone remains. It really doesn't care if I live or die.
"You're in my head, you manipulate my thoughts, I won't let you!" The words come out on their own. I really ought to squeeze that trigger before it sways me, but as I keep saying; I love the current shape of my skull and would much prefer it remains airtight…
"You stupid peasant, I am an advanced piece of machinery, not some chaos spawn, and I have a task for you, straight down from the inquisition."
And I'm Leman Russ. "The inquisition wouldn't need a legionnaire; they would never even acknowledge my existence!"
"Except you got the men they sent in killed the other night, remember? That leaves you and the cultists." The voice is mechanical, genderless, not evil in itself and that gives me pause. Surely the archenemy would sound malevolent in some way… Right?
"Okay, what do you want?" I tuck the gun in my belt and look the mechanical skull in its gleaming red eyes.
"I will spare you the details, just do what I say when I say it and everything will be fine. Stop the train."
I shoot the console, but that doesn't work. Pulling the big red lever next to the driver's seat does, however, as evidenced by the dashboard rushing up to meet my face.
Of all the last thoughts a man who's seen what I've seen could have, "Woops." Is the one I pick. Go figure.