Kerlic Lemmermann woke with a start, confused and groggy at the interruption of his four-hour sleep schedule by the blaring klaxons, the young rating was slow to come to his senses. His quarters, as much as anyplace could belong to any one individual when dozens and hundreds shared that space, seemed odd and unfamiliar. It was true that everything was in its proper place. The rows upon rows of bunks lined the cavernous hall of the crew quarters of the ship he served on, the venerable Suneater, stood as they had for millennia. The devotional chapel that dominated the back of the room was still intact, the crude bronze effigy of the Emperor-as-Voidfairer still stood resplendent in his beaten metal armor, devotional candles burning low around the effigy. Even the servo-skulls which habitually wandered into the crew compartments floated lazily, held aloft by some arcane means incomprehensible to the simple rating.
Despite all this, the vast cavern of a room, dimly lit at the best of times, still seemed grimly foreboding. It was only when Kerlic managed to spit the taste of purple out of his mouth that he understood what was happening. Bolting upright with alarm and smashing his head against the bunk that rested over him, Kerlic shot up out of his sleep, hollering with all the wind his 27-year-old lungs could muster.
'Warp Gale!' Kerlic bellowed, repeating the cry again and again as his similarly groggy fellows came to wakefulness.
'Warp Gale!' he screamed again. At this shout the remainder of his work shift, all came up from their beds as fast as they were able, clawing on the bare essentials of clothing as they rushed to readiness. All present knew what a Warp Gale meant and knew that if they wanted to survive and save their immortal souls, they would have to work harder than ever in their miserable lives.
'Up you lazy Grox-Shits!' came the bellow of an officer, 'Up if you want to live!' he cried again. Kerlic didn't recognize the voice of the officer, but he knew a good order when he heard one. Charging to the door, he rushed to the assembly area, quickly forming up his work crew to await their assignment. An officer, one of the bridge crew judging by the clean cut of his blue navy overcoat soon came up to Kerlic and judging him to be the one in charge, faced him whilst giving his work detail their orders.
'Alright you lazy scruggs, the tech adepts will require support, manual jobs mostly, Emperor forbid that any of you Grox fondlers should ever touch a gellerfield generator,' the officer stated, the latter part of his sentence being more mumbled than shouted to himself.
'Move at all speed towards the Tertiary loading bay, there you will find engineseer Xyvith Quoth, do whatever he instructs, The Emperor Protects!'
'The Emperor Protects!' came the automatic response from Kerlic and the rest of his work crew, already rushing past the officer to reach the belly way tramline that would take them to the Tertiary loading bay, and the enigmatic techpriest they were supposed to be supporting. Running at full tilt and roundly cursing the Navigator, shipmaster, and any other poor bastard that they perceived to be responsible for their current predicament, Kerlic and his crew half sprinted half stumbled their way to the tram.
Catching their breath as they boarded the car, Kerlic's work detail, decked out in their sleeping clothes rather than their usual heavily padded ratings uniforms shivered on the cold metal of the tram car, cramming in any drinks or food that they'd managed to grab on the way out of their sleeping quarters, wolfing down stale Emperor's Mercy bars and quaffing tepid water or cold ships tea. The minutes passed quickly, and the car soon reached its destination, and the race began anew.
Once again charging out the opened doors, Kerlic's work detail, and half a dozen others besides his charged out into the cavernous vault of the tertiary loading bay, the vast doors that opened into the void mercifully closed tight, towering above the men like indifferent effigies of some loathsome heathen religion.
Kerlic swept his gaze around the loading bay, eyes straining to see the techpriest, unsure of how he would spot him amongst the vast milling crowd of ratings and galley slaves, whose status aboard the ship fell even lower than that of Kerlic himself. Grabbing the nearest galley slave by the scruff of his filth encrusted rags, Kerlic angrily demanded the directions to the Techpriest, knowing that a moments delay would cost his at the very least a cut to his already meagre pay and at worst his very immortal soul.
Shaking with stress and fear the man, who Kerlic now divined was actually a woman under all the filth pointed a quivering finger at the red-robbed individual standing atop a pulpit, mechadendrites flailing as he issued commands.
Feeling slightly foolish, Kerlic thanked the girl and went about directing his work detail towards the red robbed figure. Approaching the podium at a run, Kerlic snapped off what he hoped was a crisp salute as he sidled up to the techpriest and requested instruction.
Turning to Kerlic and his crew, the techpriest, a horrible amalgam of steel and flesh gazed down at Kerlic the strange clicking metal mandibles that he had in place of jaws struggling to chew out the rough words of Low Gothic.
'Power converters,' the priest clicked out in a horribly insectile sounding voice. 'I require the power converters located on subdeck Q-3t7,' the priest squeeled in his horrible voice. 'You will find them stored in red crates, marked with the sign of a white skull, do you understand your instructions fleshling?' The priest asked.
Assuring the monster that he did Kerlic charged ahead with his crew, setting off on his third run this wake-cycle.
All Slug could hear was the screeching. It had gone on and on inside his head for what felt like hours now. A wailing, klaxon beating a steady tattoo on the inside of his skull. It sounded like rage, and change, and desire, and fear all rolled up into one package, beating over and over at the doors of his mind, just like how the armsmen beat down his body with clubs whenever they found him. Putting his head down to his third hand, embedded into his chest, Slug knew that he would die here. Medicae refused to treat mutants like him even during the best of times, and Slug could judge from all the running navy men that this wasn't one of those. Searching around for any form of relief, Slug spied a rusted shiv, probably dropped into this forgotten chamber by one of the navy scum or some of the passengers the ship had taken aboard during their last port stop.
Disregarding the provenance of the crude knife, he reached out to grasp it, thinking that this might be the solution he was praying for. At least this way, his death would be quick and the pounding in his head would stop. Picking up the shiv by the blunt end he prepared to slide it over his throat to end the pain, but hesitated. It wasn't a desire to live that stayed his hand, as living for him was no better than suffering.
No, it wasn't fear that stayed his hand but a voice, the voice. It sounded like the one in his head, pounding his skull into a mush. Similar, but so very different all at the same time. When it spoke, it did not bring with it withering nausea and head-splitting migraines, but instead brought on another flood of emotions. Where was once rage was now justice, where was once change was now hope, where once was desire was now love, and where once was fear was now relief.
'Yes', hissed a new voice in Slug's ear, sounding both comforting and serpentine all at once. 'This could all be for you, my darling Slug, if you but reach out and take it.'
Jumping to his malformed feat he screamed out to the voice 'What must I do!' Slug stood there, his plea echoing around the small chamber like the clarion call of a cathedral bell. 'What must I do!' Slug called out again, desperate for an answer.
'But one simple thing for me my darling Slug,' came the voices reply its words winding their way through Slug's brain like the sweetest of syrups.
'Kill those servants of the False Emperor on this ship Slug, kill them in the name of The Four and all this and more shall be yours,' the voice cooed enticingly.
'Yes!' Slug's cry rang out, 'In the name of The Four,' and all around him all his brothers and sisters in deformity echoed his cry, his fervor reflected in their slanting and mishappen eyes. 'In the name of The Four!' And behind the veil that separates realities, a formless entity teetered.
'Yes', the thing though 'for the Four, but mostly for Me.'
Breathing hard, Kerlic and his crew kept on running, the crew, divided into teams of two, were each holding one of the crates between them, charging down the hall back to Tertiary loading bay.
'How much feking further do we have to run?' shouted Caljik, having to gasp to get the words out. Caljik a short one eyed rating had been Kerlic's friend since his childhood and was always a petulant complainer. 'Just to the next junction,' Kerlic responded, 'We can have a five minute rest stop before we carry on, just a little further down that way,' Kerlic gasped out between strained pants. 'Fine' Caljik gasped, 'but if I die of a heart attack, I'm hauntin' you for the rest of your days!' Caljik strained, anything more that he might say cut off by his wheezing breath.
Finally, after another minute or so of running Kerlic and his crew arrived at the junction and all but collapsed, Kerlic falling to his rump whilst trying to catch his breath.
'Here Skipper, take this' said Marica as she tossed him an old water bottle. A short woman of stocky build who used to work in the enginerium her short height and brawny arms useful for clearing out mechanical blockages. Short haired, so as to not get her hair stuck in the grinding machines, she had explained to Kerlic once, she had quickly proved herself a valuable asset to Kerlic's crew.
'Thanks' Kerlic replied, greedily sucking down some of the liquid, before tossing it to another of his crew, an Ex-stowaway from the upper decks named Bilger.
Bilger never got to drink.
A shrieking form, almost in the shape of a man careened into the slight Ex-stowaway, lifting a rusted shiv in his left hand and repeatedly driving it down into Bilger's neck, coating the surprised ratings in an arterial spray. Blinking the blood out of his eyes, Kerlic saw to more of his crew go down, one, Flix he thought, had his head caved in with a pipe-club, whilst Merin, the youngest of his crew lay on the floor, his neck bent at an unnatural angle.
Still reeling from the attack, Kerlic tried to rise, but was pushed down by another of the attackers, and it was only then that the rating got a clear view at what was killing his crew. It had perhaps been a man once, it was bipedal like him, and his flesh bore the extensive tattoos common to all those in the navy life. That was where the humanity of the thing ended however. It's face was a mess, filled with jutting teeth and festooned with too many eyes, which constantly wept a vile smelling junk. The things arms to were changed, massively swollen with an unnatural bulk. The thing, a mutant Kerlic realized belatedly, held no weapons, but it didn't need them. Lifting up its massive, swollen fist, the creature motioned as if it would pound Kerlic's head flat.
Squeezing his eyes together and issuing a prayer to the Emperor, Kerlic prepared to meet the blow when it came, praying it would be quick. There was a flash of heat and light that shone even behind his eyelids and yet after opening his eyelids, Kerlic was amazed to see that everything was the same. He still stood or lay more accurately at the dingy junction where his crew was ambushed. He still saw the corpses of Bilger and Flix and Merin and yet more besides. The only difference was the corpse that now lay on top of him, his hideous visage of a face blown clean off, leaving nothing left there but a stump. Certainly, an improvement on his looks Kerlic conceded.
Twisting around to try and divine the source of his salvation, Kerlic saw what had saved him and froze. There were five men that he could see, advancing abreast down the hallway thought swaddled in their dark grey greatcoats as they were, it was hard to pick out individual features in the hazy half-light of the hallway. They held lasguns of a bulky design, far heavier than the carbines that he had seen Naval security use, and on the ends of their rifles were attacked long and wickedly sharp knives, bayonets, if Kerlic could recall the right term. They advanced at a measured pace perfectly in sync with one another, firing cold, dispassionate volleys into the hoard of mutants that had overrun Kerlic and his crew. Even as he watched they loosed another volley of coruscating light down the hall, which had now become a killing ground, felling three more of the mutants. Two of them went down screaming, whole limbs having been blown off by the deadly prongs of light whilst another was hit right in the chest, blowing a hole so wide that Kerlic was confident his whole arm could fit through. Kerlic just managed to squeeze out from under the corpse of the big mutant that pinned him, and threw himself at the nearest wall, praying that his mysterious strangers wouldn't trample him during their charge. And charge was the operative word, the pace of the mysterious men, guardsmen Kerlic realized, increased to a run, their brutal looking bayonets leading the way. The mutants, already reeling from the volleys of lasgun fire, broke at the prospect of the bayonets. One, however, stood his ground, the disgusting creature having a hand half protruding from his chest. Waving a rusted knife above his head as if it were a standard, he tried to rally his disgusting kin.
'To me!' the disgusting thing howled in a gargled voice 'Stand with me, for the Four!' it cried. Its blasphemy was soon silenced, however, by what Kerlic took to be an equivalent to an officer to these strange men, judging from the howling chain-sword he held. That sword was soon put to good use as, in a single swipe the blaspheming creature's head was taken off at the neck, flying a ways before hitting the wall with a disgusting squelch. Shaken badly, Kerlic tried to stand, but was ruthlessly thrown back to the ground by the officer he had spotted. It was only now that Kerlic got a close look at one of these men and was startled by what he saw. Asides from the great coat the man before him also sported a thick looking helmet, whilst sturdy shoulder pads offered similar protection to each of his arms, but the most extreme shock came from the man's face, or rather the lack of one. In the place of a human visage, the man wore some kind of mask, made of some form of sturdy leather or plastek, the dark brown of the mask, which narrowed where the mouth should be to connect to a breathing tube of some sort. In place of eyes the figure had two darkened glass lenses, which starred down at Kerlic as if it were the judgment of the Emperor himself.
The figure, whose grip on his shoulder still haden't slackened asked him a single question in a harshly accented yet strangely young sounding voice. 'Are you pure?,' the masked figure had asked. 'What' Kerlic replied in incomprehension, still mildly stunned from the trauma of the now failed ambush.
'Are you a pure human, or mutant scum like these' the masked stranger gestured around with his chainsword at the last word of his sentence.
'I'm pure, I'm a human like you!' Kerlic all but howled, terrified at what this masked guardsman might do to him should he disobey. 'Good' was the only reply he got as he was dropped down onto the deck.
Gesturing to his men, the guardsman, more a monster than the mutants in Kerlic's eyes, stocked off down the corridor, leaving Kerlic alone amongst the carnage of what once had been his life.
Hey everybody, I dont know if anyone's gonna read this but if you do, feel free to criticse, give me both barrels! As I'm sure you can tell this is my first dip into publishing any fanfaiction and I just hope y'all enjoy it!