Warhammer: After 18 years, finally an end

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Kylaer: Aug 4, 2007; I'm SURE walking around in a respirator at all times in an (even more) OPEN BIDENing society is definitely not a recipe for disaster and anyone that's not cool with getting harassed by CHUDs are cave dwellers. I've got good brain!

jadebullet posted:

I wouldn't mind reading them.

Alright, here's the first one.

quote:

Let me tell you a little story about the most terrifying boss I've ever had. No, I don't mean the Monsignor Jeremias, not directly; he deserved every bit of the madman's reputation he earned, sure, but he never scared me on a personal level. I never even met him, not face-to-face, just saw him at times when he delivered his addresses, and he, no doubt, had not the slightest idea that I even existed.

I can blame the Monsignor for everything I went through, though. He'd held the Warrant for several years, at the time this all started, and everyone on the ship with an open ear knew he was addled. If his madness hadn't consistently led to successful ventures, he would have had real trouble on his hands, but since he kept the profits rolling in, everyone with any say in the matter was willing to let him keep going. And it was on one of those oh-so-profitable runs out into the barely charted regions at the edge of the Astronomican's light that he ran into my new boss.

In those days, I was the chief orderly for Doctor Bisko, the head of the ship's medicae service, supervising the servitor assistants and helping him whenever he needed another set of hands. Bisko was good at what he did, but he'd been shipboard for a long time, and had finally grown tired of it. When we made our final port of call before the outward run, at Telentus Prime, he resigned his post and took a shuttle planetside. He was off to enjoy his retirement, and Monsignor Jeremias didn't seem especially concerned; rather than putting out a call for a replacement, he took the ship out into the dark. I wasn't happy, but no-one asked my opinion.

With Bisko gone, I didn't have much work to do. The ship's other doctors had their own work suites, their own assistants, so I served as little more than a housekeeper for the four-month first leg of the run; if there had been an emergency, the suite might have been needed, so I kept it ready, day after day. I'm not sure where we ended up; some dead-end feral planet where the Monsignor managed to acquire an improbable volume of precious metals and gemstones, but that was always his way. And it was on the day we left orbit for the next part of the voyage that I met my new boss. It wasn't just wealth that Jeremias had picked up planetside, apparently.

When I came into the surgical suite a half-hour before the first-shift bell, he was already there. That was the first surprise - there'd been no-one inside the suite except myself, every single day of the voyage. The servitors had been put in hibernation, a tech-adept had eased the diagnostic auspex into its own slumber, and I'd grown used to being alone. To see someone else standing there, peering at a rack of surgical equipment under a sterile film, caught me off-guard.

The surprises that followed made the first one seem insignificant.

I thought at first that the stranger was augmented; he was tall, maybe a shade under two meters, but unnaturally thin. Tech-adepts get that look sometimes, when they've replaced enough of themselves with metal. He was wearing a long robe, cut approximately like the physician's coat that Doctor Bisko used to wear, and at first glance I thought it was pure white, as Bisko's coat had been. Later, I noticed that it was shot through with silver threads, which formed symbols I didn't recognize, but in that first meeting, once I saw his face I stopped paying attention to his coat. It wasn't a human face. I've seen my share of faces before that have been ruined beyond recognition, by mechanical accidents or violent intent, and none of them were as terrible to look upon as his. It was close enough to human that all the differences just stood out more - two eyes, but eyes that were too large, too bright as they flickered across the scene in front of him. Ears that slanted up to peaks, sharp as a hound's. A mouth too thin, lips almost indistinguishable from the surrounding skin. And the teeth behind those lips, predatory, a mouth full of needles and razors. I saw those teeth when he first spoke, and the image has not left my mind.

"Be welcome. Your shipmaster needed a new chief physician. I was available."

That Jeremias had had dealings with xeno-kind was an open secret among the ship's crew. He'd made barely-veiled references to it in the past, and why not? It was within the mandate of his Warrant, and the profits to be gained from such an otherwise inaccessible market were vast. But it was one thing to know in an abstract sense, and another to come face-to-face with a breathing example. My instinctive fear of the alien himself was joined, a heartbeat later, by the fear that I would be tainted by association - unlike the shipmaster, I had no Warrant legitimizing my contact with a non-human.

The alien had paused after his first utterance. His speech was clear, with only a trace of an accent, and his voice was clipped and precise. He waited, motionless, watching me come to terms with his existence. "I have taken an inventory of your equipment here," he continued after a moment, "and it is adequate, although I will be making some changes. Shipmaster Jeremias has, as part of my contract, designated this facility as the principal location for treatment of traumatic injuries among crewmembers, and I received an alert just before your arrival that one is on the way. Minor injury, a laceration from a snapped cable." I nodded, not ready to attempt speech just yet. "You will assist me, as you did with my predecessor. I dislike your kind's servitors, so do not activate them. We will work hands-on." There was the barest tinge of anticipation as he said those last words - the first emotional inflection I'd heard in his otherwise dry tone.

I worked my tongue around inside my mouth and finally managed to speak. "What should I call you, sir?"

"My name is -" followed by a string of syllables - I counted nine but I know there were more that I missed.

Sparing me from the need to try to imitate him, the atrium door slid open, admitting a servitor pushing a gurney, on which a young man was clutching a bloodstained cloth around his left forearm. A medicae corpsman paced beside the gurney, and began calling out her report as soon as the door opened. "Twenty-year-old male, no prior history, was working on a hoist when a tension line snapped - left forearm laceration, anterior compartment, into the muscle but no arterial damage, bleeding is controlled."

The alien moved, so quickly that he was a blur, but when he came to a halt beside the gurney he once again stood as poised as a statue. He locked his eyes on me. "Throw me equipment as I designate. And I do mean throw." He glanced down at the patient. "I will fix your injury. Hold still. Bi-hook retractor and a vessel blotter."

His hands moved faster than I could follow. He had the injured man's arm unwrapped and strapped down across a work-tray before I could pull his requested tools off the rack. I threw him the retractor, then the blotter, and he caught both with bare flickers of his hand, seeming to not even look towards me. The tools descended on the patient's arm before he could begin to scream - but scream he did, as the alien picked through the mess that the snapped line had made of his forearm. The small oozing vessels he clotted off with the blotter, and in under a minute he had exposed the wound like an anatomical model. Dr. Bisko was a fine surgeon, but I'd never seen him do anything so thoroughly, nor work with even a quarter of the speed.

Our patient wasn't in a position to appreciate the alien's technical skills; with no anesthetic, it was all he could do to suck air through his clenched teeth. "Hold on just a moment, sir, and I'll give him a shot of heptacaine."

"Do not," the alien replied, throwing me a glance that stopped me from making an argument of it. "I dislike anesthetics. You will administer no such drugs under any circumstance, unless I give an explicit instruction."

"Collagen-bonder, then?" I offered, seeing that he'd finished the wound exploration and should be ready to close.

"Bonding agents interfere with the optimal healing process; they are used because they are easy, not effective. I take more pride in my work than that. I will need two meters of number-three dissolvable microsuture."

Number-three microsuture is only two steps above the smallest we've got; it's normally used for repairing blood vessels, not skin. The unfortunate crewman made a horrible ongoing groan as the alien set to work, fingers moving with insectile speed. With growing rows of perfect stitches, the man's arm resumed its proper shape. After mere minutes, the alien twitched a final knot into place and stepped back, leaving his patient to sob in relief.

"That will heal beautifully," he said. And I could see that he was right - the suture lines were as clean and well-sealed as any I'd ever seen. Although the shape of the closed wound...it was odd, seemingly more complicated than it should need to be, with some of the rows of suture being short and staccato, others long and looping back against themselves. It went against the image of perfect efficiency that I was gathering from the alien.

He must have seen the confusion on my face. "You examine the scar-lines?" I nodded. "I could have saved seventy, perhaps seventy-five seconds had I done something more simple," he commented, as the servitor began to wheel the stretcher away in response to a flick of his fingers, "but it was my first case in my new role on this ship. I wanted it to be special." He beckoned me closer, lowering his voice. I didn't especially want to get close to him, but I did, fearful of what offense he might take if I refused.

"I closed the wound to form the symbols of my written name," he whispered, and the edge of his lipless mouth twitched in what might have been a smile.

I never did figure out how to pronounce said name. I ended up calling him Doc Eldar.

# ? Nov 9, 2014 03:01

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# ? May 23, 2024 23:26

FrantzX: Jan 28, 2007

A Dark Elder slumming on a Rogue Trader ship as a doctor, just for the novelty of it?

# ? Nov 9, 2014 03:32

jadebullet: Mar 25, 2011; MY LIFE FOR YOU!

I like it. I didn't really get as much of a Dark Eldar vibe from it, as much as I did an Eldar Corsair feel. He seems more arrogant than sadistic. Plus, I doubt that a Dark Eldar could sustain themselves on that little pain.

# ? Nov 9, 2014 03:46

Waroduce: Aug 5, 2008

I didnt like the eldar waifu or the wolf, it seemed like dumb anime poo poo amd I thought it detracted from the quality of the book. Didnt like that in my spacemans novel

:goonsay:

# ? Nov 9, 2014 03:55

Kylaer: Aug 4, 2007; I'm SURE walking around in a respirator at all times in an (even more) OPEN BIDENing society is definitely not a recipe for disaster and anyone that's not cool with getting harassed by CHUDs are cave dwellers. I've got good brain!

FrantzX posted:

A Dark Elder slumming on a Rogue Trader ship as a doctor, just for the novelty of it?

Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind. Not the most groundbreaking concept, but I took it and ran with it.

jadebullet posted:

I like it. I didn't really get as much of a Dark Eldar vibe from it, as much as I did an Eldar Corsair feel. He seems more arrogant than sadistic. Plus, I doubt that a Dark Eldar could sustain themselves on that little pain.

He's a Dark Eldar, I just have no desire to write any truly sadistic stuff. He is meant to be a paragon of arrogance, though, and I do appreciate the feedback!

Here's another one:

quote:

Let me tell you a little story about the most terrifying boss I've ever had. On one of the Monsignor Jeremias' voyages into uncharted space, he'd set aside even more of his sanity than was usual for him, and hired an alien to replace the recently retired chief physician of the ship, Doctor Bisko. I don't know how he'd come into contact with the alien, nor what he'd promised him as payment, but it was enough to make the creature take the bargain. I had been Bisko's assistant, and so the alien inherited me, along with a fully equipped medicae suite and the role of chief trauma surgeon. I can't tell you his name, and I do mean can't, not won't - I was never able to pronounce those vile xeno syllables. For lack of a better name, I called him Doc Eldar.

The doctor was standing - he always stood, unless he was kneeling or crouching - at the suite's equipment bench, preparing one of his trauma rolls. I was at the far end of the bench, a pile of medical supplies in front of me, trying to figure out how to best fit them into the emergency scene box so that I would be able to retrieve them with an adequate measure of speed. For the xeno, "adequate speed" meant a couple of seconds, ideally less.

There were a lot of things that needed to go into the scene box. Doc Eldar traveled light, with a couple of trauma rolls tucked inside his robe, but an emergency situation occurring outside of our medical suite would likely demand a lot more than that. The scene box was meant to carry fluids and blood-replacements, airway tools, ventilation devices, wound dressings, and a variety of pharmacologicals, drugs that could set a heart into a racing frenzy or slow it to a crawl, drugs of all varieties...except analgesics. Doc Eldar had a loathing for painkillers, and refused to allow any to be administered to his patients.

"You should sling the box beneath your left arm," the xeno said in his dry, clipped voice. "A proper harness will let you use both hands." He spun his completed trauma roll into a tight cylinder and it vanished, presumably into one of his sleeves. Then he turned to the rack of bandages and began pulling out lengths of the heaviest material we stocked, the kind meant for wrapping over a cast.

The scene box was coming together. Synth-blood in the deepest compartment, since it was generally the last thing to be needed. Plain fluids above that, alongside the heavier wound dressings. Light dressings and airway gear above, and drugs right on top, with a single small bag of fluid as a carrier. I didn't have to worry about vascular access needles - Doc Eldar carried those in his trauma rolls, and could have two in a patient in as many heartbeats, if not faster.

"A reasonable arrangement." The alien was standing at my elbow, too close for comfort. Of course, being on the same ship was too close for comfort. "Raise your arms, so I can measure you for this harness."

The times when Doc Eldar laid hands on someone without causing pain were few and far between. But he merely ran his fingertips around my shoulders, barely perceptible. "You have a great fear of me," he commented.

"Yes, sir." How else are you supposed to respond to a statement like that?

"I mean no harm to you, nor any of your shipmates," he said, stepping back and turning to the pile of bandage material. His knife appeared in his hand, and he began slicing the bandages into precise strips.

Doc Eldar used only one cutting implement. He had removed the trays of scalpels from the surgical suite, and did everything with his knife. The blade was about as long as his hand, slightly curved, single-edged and with a tip like a needle. No matter what the situation, if cutting was called for, that knife would be in his hand. In moments, he had shaped the bandages, and the knife vanished once more.

"I have done some reading on your human philosophy of medicine," he continued. "It is strange. The base principle is 'First, do no harm.'"

"That makes perfect sense," I said, as the alien began stitching the harness together, using a heavy suture that I had never seen him use on a patient. "Above all, you should avoid making the problem worse."

"But why would doing harm even be mentioned? I would never do harm if my intent was to perform medical treatment."

"You don't use anesthetic." Even as I was saying the words, I realized that they might be a terrible mistake, but the alien took them in stride.

"That is not harm. No-one ever dies from pain, take it from someone who knows. People have died from anesthetics - they suppress the natural responses of the body, responses intended to keep the body alive through times of greatest stress. Here, put this on." He handed me the completed harness. The stitching could have been servitor-wrought, such was its precision.

"Anesthetics are part of the standard of care accepted by every other physician on this ship." If the xeno would tolerate my disagreement, as he seemed willing to, then I would speak my mind.

"And all of them have seen patients suffer poor outcomes. Many have had patients die under their care. I receive a copy of every medical report written on this ship, I know the statistics. And my statistics are perfect."

The new harness held the scene box at the ideal position, and at the same time distributed the weight more comfortably than I would have thought possible. And the alien was right - it was impossible to argue with his results. I was trying to think of an argument in favor of anesthetic that he might accept, but our time of discussion was interrupted.

"I hear weapons fire," the alien said, cocking his head slightly.

"What?" I had flinched at the news. "Out in the halls?" Perhaps some faction among the crew had decided to end the xeno's presence shipboard.

"No. Ship's guns. Sporadic fire...and now a broadside."

I felt the broadside myself, not as a sound but as shudder through the deckplates.

"It could be an attempt at piracy," I said. We were out in wild space, coasting through an uninhabited star system that boasted an asteroid belt rich in valuable metals. Monsignor Jeremias had been picking at the densest concentrations for several weeks now, and any forge world would pay a tasty price for the ore that was filling the hold. These were conditions that could inspire a shipmaster to consider piracy if another ship was spotted.

The xeno nodded. "I see. Then I suspect we shall be needed soon."

Soon was a relative word. The volleys continued for the better part of an hour, before the klaxon sounded to alert that a boarding action was in progress. We had moved to a staging point with a collection of other medical personnel and some of the reserves of the ship's fighting complement; they all made a determined effort to stay as far from Doc Eldar as possible. After perhaps another five minutes, a gendarme officer gestured to us, while pointedly keeping his eyes fixed elsewhere.

"You're up!" he called. "Reports are coming back, we've got some wounded but the scene is secure enough. One is bad off, needs immediate treatment. Follow him!" he pointed at another gendarme, who immediately took off at the double.

Doc Eldar matched the soldier's speed effortlessly. With the weight of the scene box, it wasn't so effortless for me, but thanks to the new harness it was more manageable than it had been on previous responses. We made our way out to the skin of the ship, to the open mouth of a boarding tube.

The alien glanced at me. "This ship initiated the boarding."

I shrugged. "A successful attempt at piracy." It was always an option, depending on the Monsignor's mood.

The doctor said no more, but I thought I caught an approving look on his face before he flung himself down the boarding tube. I bounced off the walls a few times during the null-grav transit, as any human does; the xeno, to my lack of surprise, floated cleanly down the center of the tube, making a perfect touchdown at the transition back to gravity.

The other ship had clearly not been a match for ours; down several hallways I saw sealed blast doors, with the red telltales warning of hard vacuum on the far side. Its security complement had likewise been overwhelmed by our troops, and we passed several corpses on the deck, none in the livery of the Monsignor.

We reached the scene where the gendarmes had taken losses - the defenders had erected a barricade at an intersection, defending it with las weapons and flechette guns, based on the marks I saw on the armor of the fallen. They'd killed three and injured two more, but they'd been overrun nevertheless; I saw stains on the walls and ceiling from incendiary grenades. I didn't look over the remains of the barricade to see what the grenades had left of the defenders.

Doc Eldar appraised the situation in an instant. "Priority one," he said, flicking a finger at a gendarme who had taken flechette hits to both legs, "and two," to the other, who had been hit in the belly with a las shot. He dropped to his knees, trauma roll unfurling across the deck. "Hold still. You are safe now," he said. It was perhaps the least reassuring such statement I had ever heard, and even as he spoke, he had unfastened the armor from the man's right arm. Hands flicking between his trauma roll and the patient's arm, he started a pair of large-bore intravenous lines. "Fluid and synth, he has arterial bleeding from his left femoral." I'd had time to open the scene box, but only barely.

The gendarme who'd led us in was backing away, looking queasy. "This...this area's secure. I'm going to join up with the front team."

Doc Eldar paid him no attention. Nor did I, as I obeyed the doctor and got the lines connected. He had stripped the armor off the soldier's thigh and was probing into the wound with a pair of slender forceps; it said a lot about how much blood the man had already lost that he was barely able to struggle as the alien did this.

"There." He locked the forceps on something deep within the wound - he couldn't have seen into the narrow channel, must have done it entirely by feel. "Artery clamped. Final repair can wait, he is now priority two." He turned his attention to the other gendarme, who was faintly moaning as he clutched his belly wound.

I heard a clatter of boots approaching from a side hallway. More gendarmes, I thought, as I inflated a pressure infuser around the bag of synth-blood.

Doc Eldar had moved. One moment he was kneeling, cutting through the flank webbing that held his patient's torso armor together, and the next he was gone. I looked up. The sound I'd heard hadn't been gendarmes. It was a pair of men in the half-armor that the victim ship's complement wore. Both carried flechette guns.

The alien stood in front of them, hands open and empty. "We are non-combatants," he said.

"So were we," one of the men growled. My adrenaline was soaring - fixated on the flechette gun in his hand, I could see every detail. I saw his finger convulse against the trigger.

Doc Eldar became a blur. Even in my adrenaline surge I couldn't fully track him. He lunged, seizing the barrel of the flechette gun and wrenching it upwards, its spray of darts pinging harmlessly off the ceiling. Then he shoved the armsman, sending the man staggering away, now without his gun. The alien dropped the weapon to the deck and was perfectly still, waiting.

The armsmen exchanged glances. The one who still had his gun looked scared, but the other just looked furious. He drew a long combat knife with a spiked knuckle-guard from a sheath at the small of his back and hunched into a guard posture. The second armsman sighted carefully with his gun.

This time, the xeno didn't wait. He dropped into a crouch - the armsman fired his flechettes too late, the burst passing over the doctor's head - then sprang. He seemed to flow in beside the knife-man, brushing aside a wild stab, and there was a horrible cracking sound. Doc Eldar moved on, twisting the gun out of the other man's hand, this time accompanied by a staccato popping.

Both men fell to their knees, screaming. The first man's elbow was bent the wrong way; the other seemed to have had all the fingers of his gun-hand dislocated.

"There," the alien said. "That was in keeping with your human philosophy. I did them no harm. At first."

I'm posting these in the order they were written, but the writing was fairly spaced out, I didn't knock these out one after another.

# ? Nov 9, 2014 04:02

Sandweed: Sep 7, 2006; All your friends are me.

Human nobodys observing the movers and shakers in 40K fiction is my favorite thing. Your stories are great.

It's why all the Kharn stories are so funny.

# ? Nov 9, 2014 11:53

boneration: Jan 9, 2005; now that's performance

THe wacky hijinx of Doc Eldar and his unfortunate human sidekick is better than 90% of the poo poo I've read from Black Library so please do keep posting.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 03:08

VanSandman: Feb 16, 2011; SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER

boneration posted:

THe wacky hijinx of Doc Eldar and his unfortunate human sidekick is better than 90% of the poo poo I've read from Black Library so please do keep posting.

This is sad but true. Part of the problem is that Black Library authors, by and large, take the nonsensical setting seriously. For goodness sakes one of the early warning signs in Gods of Mars was that the big bad didn't have enough skulls on the walls, for crying out loud! How is that not fun?

# ? Nov 10, 2014 03:11

Kylaer: Aug 4, 2007; I'm SURE walking around in a respirator at all times in an (even more) OPEN BIDENing society is definitely not a recipe for disaster and anyone that's not cool with getting harassed by CHUDs are cave dwellers. I've got good brain!

Thank you all, glad you're enjoying. If you have any specific commentary on the stories, my writing, or how to improve it, I'd be glad to hear it. Here's another one:

quote:

Let me tell you a little story about the most terrifying boss I've ever had. This was during the time I served on the ship of the Monsignor Jeremias, but I'm not referring to the Monsignor himself; he was just as mad as you've heard, I can guarantee that, but it was one of his...employees, I suppose is accurate...that was the source of my fear. After the retirement of Doctor Bisko, the Monsignor needed a trauma surgeon. What he got was an alien. A humanoid alien who was without question the most effective physician I've ever seen - and the last one I'd want working on me, in all but the most dire of situations. Being unable to pronounce the syllables of his xeno name, I called him Doc Eldar.

To the surgical suite where we spent most of our duty hours, a package had been delivered. It was a large polymer box, stamped with the emblem of the ship's Mechanicus enclave, and a servitor left it wordlessly at the main door. I hadn't been expecting it, but clearly the alien had; he lifted it onto one of the equipment benches and flicked open the catches holding on the lid.

I looked inside, and saw rows of gleaming steel needles, sheathed in transparent polymer tubes. They were intravenous lines, built like the ones we already had in plenty, except -

"Those are huge," I said.

The largest gauge of IV needle we had was perhaps the size of the core of a graphite stylus. The standard lines - standard prior to Doc Eldar's arrival, at least - were considerably smaller. Some of these needles were almost the size of a whole stylus.

"Fluid resuscitation saves lives," the xeno replied. "If you double the size of a tube, you can increase the flow through that tube by a factor of sixteen." By this point, I'd given up trying to identify the ghost of an accent that touched his speech; I'd hoped to figure out where he'd learned Gothic, but it'd probably been the same place he'd learned human anatomy and physiology. And given how he manipulated those, I'd rather not think much more on the subject.

Doctor Bisko might have put a line that size into someone's jugular - with sedative, and a bio-auspex to guide him to his target. I knew the xeno would never deign to use an auspex, much less sedative, but I thought at least having these available might stop him from inserting two or three of our current large-bore lines, if one of these would handle a greater infusion rate.

More the fool I was. The first patient I saw him use them on got one in each arm, with yelps of pain as they went in. I will say, they were amazing when someone needed blood replacement, whether natural or synth.

"Integrate an assortment of these into the scene box," he ordered. He snatched a half-dozen for himself, which would go into his trauma rolls. Those strips of cloth held needles, forceps, vessel clips, and the scant few other items that Doc Eldar considered essential. The scene box, which it was my job to carry, held a much wider variety of equipment.

Other than the two of us, the surgical suite was empty. There had been one patient brought in a little over an hour ago, a man who'd had a finger amputated in a mechanical accident. The finger had been retrieved and was largely intact, so the alien's response was entirely predictable: he strapped the man's arm to a work table and reattached the finger, using bone-spikes and suture so thin it was barely visible to the naked eye. Anesthetic played no role in the surgery; Doc Eldar claimed he didn't want anything to interfere with testing the finger's touch sense, to verify proper nerve reattachment. The patient didn't scream much, other than when the spikes went in. The xeno finished a surgery that would have taken Doctor Bisko two or three hours in eighteen minutes, and I cleaned the surgical table, ready for the next case.

The next case, as it turned out, never made it to the table.

The emergency chime went off, followed by a buzzing voice on the overhead vox: "Surgical team to delivery room 3, stat." Doc Eldar was out the door by the third word, and I slung the scene box over my shoulder and followed as quickly as I could.

Our surgical suite was part of a larger medicae complex, sectioned off by bulkheads from the rest of the ship. It was the primary hospital site on the ship, buried in the hull beneath the bridge tower, and contained multiple suites for emergency and routine surgeries, several intensive-care units, and an obstetric ward, where many of the ship's void-born were delivered. On a vessel the size of the Monsignor's trading ship, there were a fair many of these, and the obstetrics department had its own set of surgical rooms. Emergencies during the delivery process were rare, thankfully, but when they occurred, they threw everyone into a frenzy of action.

I was breathing hard when I caught up to the xeno. He'd run into the patient and her team in the hallway, just outside the surgical delivery room, and brought them to a halt with an upraised hand. "Status," he said. The woman on the gurney appeared to be in her thirties or so, hugely pregnant, face tight and nervous but looking stable, not in acute danger.

"Healthy, term pregnancy, laboring well and then the cord prolapsed," the senior nurse replied.

Cord prolapse would shut off blood flow to the infant. The mother might be fine, but the child would die if not sectioned immediately. Doc Eldar's eyes were locked on the patient's distended abdomen, his head swiveling minutely side to side.

"We need to get in the -" the nurse began.

"No time. Fetal heart rate below sixty." He flicked his eyes to meet mine long enough to say one word. "Ventilate."

I reached for the latch on the scene box. Doc Eldar moved.

He crossed the distance to the side of the gurney in a lunge, trauma roll unfurling in one hand, the other twitching a syringe free of its loop in the cloth. The alien carried only the barest variety of drugs, and I knew which one he'd drawn: the fastest-acting paralytic we had available. He jabbed the syringe into the side of the patient's neck and slammed in the drug, and I knew he'd undoubtedly gone straight into the carotid artery. Right to the brain, near-immediate onset of paralysis.

I'd barely had time to open the box's lid. I was reaching for the ventilator mask - the paralytic would render the patient unable to breathe in moments. The alien twitched aside the patient's gown, and his knife appeared in his hand. The nurses, momentarily stunned by his flurry of movement, were just now starting to clear the space around the gurney.

The fastest human surgeon I'd ever seen was an obstetrician, Doctor Hudessa, an older woman who'd been delivering babies by every possible method for decades and picked up a few beneficial augmentations along the way. A woman seven or eight months pregnant had been badly burned in a shuttle-fuel incident, and Doctor Bisko had been present to manage those injuries. Doctor Hudessa made the call that the baby had to come out first, based on the mother's unstable condition, and she had successfully extracted the child in just over two minutes from the time scalpel touched skin. At the time, I was stunned at how fast she'd been.

Doc Eldar made one slice. One slice that went through skin, abdominal muscle, and uterine wall. Blood and amniotic fluid gushed, and the only reason the patient wasn't screaming in agony was that the paralytic had made it impossible for her to do so. The xeno reached into the wound he'd made and seized the child, hauling it free by its neck and shoulders. By this time I'd reached the head of the gurney and pressed the ventilator mask over the patient's face, squeezing the oxygen bladder to deliver it into her lungs.

The infant in Doc Eldar's hands � a boy, I noticed � was a dusky blue, and his limbs hung horribly limp. The xeno twitched the umbilical cord around itself into a knot, single-handed, then brought the newborn up to his face. His near-lipless mouth locked over the infant's nose and mouth, and he sucked in, then spat aside the fluid and mucus that had filled the infant's airway. One thumb locked in place over the middle of the infant's chest and began pumping up and down with mechanical precision, and the xeno gave a breath that expanded the child's lungs. A second breath followed, a third, a fourth - and the infant answered with a cry. A weak cry, but it meant everything.

By this time, a nurse was approaching, holding a syringe that doubtlessly contained some kind of anesthetic agent. The paralytic had stopped muscle movement, but did nothing to affect consciousness. Our patient � our adult patient, that is � had experienced everything that had just been done.

"Do not," the xeno ordered. The child in his hands was shading from blue to pink, and beginning to wriggle his limbs. The nurse met his gaze, and backed away.

Doc Eldar slid over to stand beside the head of the bed. Blood was still flowing steadily from the wound that he'd left, but it had only been a matter of fifteen or twenty seconds since he�d made the slice; the overall blood loss was certainly no worse than any typical cesarean. He brushed my breathing mask away from the woman's face, and tilted her head so that she could see the infant he carried in his other hand, long fingers twined around its shoulders and the nape of its neck. "Congratulations," he said, voice devoid of emotion. "You have a son." He placed the infant, who was now squalling healthily, on his mother's chest and stooped, snatching several lengths of suture from the scene box at my feet. Returning to his work, he began repairing the wound, needle flashing lightning-quick.

One of the nurses bundled the child into a warming blanket and started performing their standard assessment. None of the blood smeared on his skin was his own; the xeno�s knife hadn't touched him. The senior nurse finally found her voice. "She was awake for that. What were you thinking?"

"I understand that humans find the birth process to be an important time of bonding between mother and child," he replied, finishing his suture line on the uterus and expertly maneuvering the organ into its proper place to begin closing the abdominal wall. "You would have preferred that I denied her this precious moment?"

Before I post any more I'll need to do some writing. I've got two more of these stories written, but both need a little touching up, and I think I want to write something totally fresh before going back and redoing them.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 03:33

Remora: Aug 15, 2010

Phrases like "forest for the trees" come to mind very easily reading about Doc Eldar.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 04:03

VanSandman: Feb 16, 2011; SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER

I'm having a good time reading these. You've clearly cleaned these up, too - no typos so far, which makes them just lovely to read.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 04:34

A 50S RAYGUN: Aug 22, 2011

i just imagine our narrator is from spaceboston-9 and he's saying 'dark eldar'

jokes aside these are really good and i'm enjoying them.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 04:42

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Kylaer posted:

Alright, here's the first one.

Please post more, and consider contacting GW with samples of your work.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 04:43

Hot Dog Day #82: Jul 5, 2003; Soiled Meat

Yeah, I have to admit, when you started posting these I rolled my eyes and skipped the goon fan fiction and went about my day. However, I gave your last story the benefit of the doubt and it was just great - so I went back and read over the other two, and they were fine too! So an apology is in order and my hat is off to you, gentle goon!

# ? Nov 10, 2014 04:49

Azran: Sep 3, 2012; And what should one do to be remembered?

Halfway through Helsreach and it is pretty fun. Andrej actually made me laugh. I have seen some parts that seemed to be inconsistent with what was described earlier but all of it minor.

In unrelated news I am still looking around for that review I read once where a 50 something guy got gifted Straight Silver (or maybe it was Guns. The one on the WW1 world) and he had never ever read 40k before so he kept bitching about how Abnett was being inconsistent with regards to the setting's technology level and it was clearly the sign of a sloppy writer.
When a reader commented on this by saying it was part of a bigger universe and series he said it was then an RPG book without rules so it was even worse. Every time the commenter (and it went on for like twenty comments back and forth) said wargame, the reviewer would display his grog credit by saying wargames are just simplified rpgs ergo the book was awful. It was beautiful.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 11:59

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

To be fair, he's not wrong. Rogue Trader was a very different beast to current 40k. The stat line used to have another half-dozen or so entries, including poo poo that was basically Charisma + some diplomacy skill mixed together.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 12:10

Improbable Lobster: Jan 6, 2012; "From each according to his ability" said Ares. It sounded like a quotation.; Buglord

Arquinsiel posted:

To be fair, he's not wrong. Rogue Trader was a very different beast to current 40k. The stat line used to have another half-dozen or so entries, including poo poo that was basically Charisma + some diplomacy skill mixed together.

It was also meant to be played with a referee/GM IIRC

# ? Nov 10, 2014 12:21

The Rat: Aug 29, 2004; You will find no one to help you here. Beth DuClare has been dissected and placed in cryonic storage.

Azran posted:

Halfway through Helsreach and it is pretty fun. Andrej actually made me laugh. I have seen some parts that seemed to be inconsistent with what was described earlier but all of it minor.

I'm re-reading Helsreach for the third or fourth time and all the :black101:

poo poo that Grimaldus says never gets old.

quote:

Commissar Falkov�s dark stormcoat swished as he reached for his sidearm. He never got the chance to execute the lieutenant for cowardice. A snarling, immense blur of blackness sliced across the room. With a crash, the lieutenant was slammed back against the wall, held a metre off the ground, short legs kicking, as the Reclusiarch gripped his throat in one hand.

�Thirty-six days, you wretched worm. Thirty-six days of defiance, and thousands upon thousands of heroes lie dead. You dare speak of retreat when the day finally comes for you to spill the enemy�s blood?�

The lieutenant gagged as he was strangled. Colonel Sarren, Cyria Tyro and the other officers watched in silence. No one turned away.
�Hnk. Agh. Ss.� He fought for breath that wouldn�t come as he stared into the silver replica of the God-Emperor�s death mask. Grimaldus leaned closer, his skulled face leering, blocking out all other sight.

�Where would you run, coward? Where would you hide that the Emperor would not see your shame and spit on your soul when your worthless life is finally at an end?�

�Pl� Please.�

�Do not shame yourself further by begging for a life you do not deserve.�

Grimaldus tensed his hand, his fingers snapping closed with wet snaps. In his grip, the lieutenant went into spasms, then thumped to the floor as the knight released his grip. The Reclusiarch strode back to the table, ignoring the fallen body.

It took several seconds for conversation to resume. When it did, Falkov saluted the Reclusiarch. Grimaldus ignored it.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 14:57

MrNemo: Aug 26, 2010; "I just love beeting off"

Just chiming in to say keep going with the Doc Eldar stories if you've got more. Slice of life type stories are some of the most shorts in the 40K universe. You're making me wish I had the talent and patience to actually try writing some Alterna-K stories with a happy Imperium.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 15:29

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

maev posted:

Its the worst character and has the potential to make future books unacceptable if ADB keeps having his anime girlfriend angel gently caress up everyone in sight.

not-Horus destroys her in the book, so I don't see how she will be bakc

# ? Nov 10, 2014 16:34

The Rat: Aug 29, 2004; You will find no one to help you here. Beth DuClare has been dissected and placed in cryonic storage.

Fried Chicken posted:

not-Horus destroys her in the book, so I don't see how she will be bakc

Well I guess Khayon could bring her back. Again.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 18:31

berzerkmonkey: Jul 23, 2003

I started reading The Return of Nagash by Chris Wraight. According to the Kindle, I'm about 15% of the way through the book, but I have to say it's very well written and worth your time if you're interested in WH Fantasy or the End Times. Obviously, I can't give a comprehensive review yet, but the style is very smooth. If it continues like this for the entire book, I'll have no problem putting Wraight in the same class as ADB or Abnett (at least as a fantasy writer, since I don't recall reading any of his 40K stuff.)

The best line so far is where Mannfred Von Carstein is lamenting about how freely his predecessors gifted vampirism to everyone including "dockside doxies, common mercenaries and, in one unfortunate incident that was best forgotten, a resident of the Moot."

Vampire halfling. I need to read that story. Now.

# ? Nov 10, 2014 19:09

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

berzerkmonkey posted:

I started reading The Return of Nagash by Chris Wraight. According to the Kindle, I'm about 15% of the way through the book, but I have to say it's very well written and worth your time if you're interested in WH Fantasy or the End Times. Obviously, I can't give a comprehensive review yet, but the style is very smooth. If it continues like this for the entire book, I'll have no problem putting Wraight in the same class as ADB or Abnett (at least as a fantasy writer, since I don't recall reading any of his 40K stuff.)

The best line so far is where Mannfred Von Carstein is lamenting about how freely his predecessors gifted vampirism to everyone including "dockside doxies, common mercenaries and, in one unfortunate incident that was best forgotten, a resident of the Moot."

Vampire halfling. I need to read that story. Now.

It may refer to Lumpin Croop after an old WD battle report in which the guy using him managed to tie Manfred up in close combat for basically the entire game and even wound him once before dying.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 00:57

Kylaer: Aug 4, 2007; I'm SURE walking around in a respirator at all times in an (even more) OPEN BIDENing society is definitely not a recipe for disaster and anyone that's not cool with getting harassed by CHUDs are cave dwellers. I've got good brain!

Again, thank you all for your feedback. I'm getting started on another little story right now, I may not finish it tonight but I'll at least knock out a chunk of it.

MrNemo posted:

Just chiming in to say keep going with the Doc Eldar stories if you've got more. Slice of life type stories are some of the most shorts in the 40K universe. You're making me wish I had the talent and patience to actually try writing some Alterna-K stories with a happy Imperium.

One of the stories I've written (and won't post just yet because I need to redo it a bit) is very slice-of-life and does some exploring into the kind of cultural practices that might develop among the Adeptus Mechanicus. Using Doc Eldar and his assistant as a window onto such things is very much part of my aim.

Arquinsiel posted:

Please post more, and consider contacting GW with samples of your work.

Is this possible? I thought GW was a really insular company and didn't take submissions. If it is, I totally will try, it'd be hilarious if I got published. I wouldn't even care if they paid, just having my name on something published would be awesome.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 01:36

Snollygoster: Dec 17, 2002; what a scoop

With regard to the Dark Eldar in "Talon of Horus":

Realtalk, what other role can a woman actually have in a 40k story other than "supporting cast"? The most important characters in the setting are/can only be guys thanks to how Astartes induction works.

Like, Lotara the ship commander in "Betrayer" is really interesting. But I promise you there's never gonna be a miniature of Lotara, only the screaming meatmen who populate the rest of the cast. Nefertari is about as much as a woman is going to be able to accomplish in a book about Chaos Space Marines.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 01:49

A 50S RAYGUN: Aug 22, 2011

Uh females can occupy positions of power in every other major faction in warhammer 40k.

That doesn't mean that writers do, but it's certainly not because of the setting.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 01:52

amuayse: Jul 20, 2013; by exmarx

berzerkmonkey posted:

I started reading The Return of Nagash by Chris Wraight.

I can't believe I was actually rooting for the undead hordes for once.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 01:58

A 50S RAYGUN: Aug 22, 2011

I don't know which undead hordes you were rooting for but Nagash's is objectively the worst.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 02:00

Remora: Aug 15, 2010

Snollygoster posted:

The most important characters in the setting are/can only be guys thanks to how Astartes induction works.

How on earth are the Space Marines the most important characters in 40k? Most hyped, sure, but most important?

# ? Nov 11, 2014 02:06

bunnyofdoom: Mar 29, 2008; I've been here the whole time, and you're not my real Dad!

So, when's the next Gaunt book out?

# ? Nov 11, 2014 02:16

Snollygoster: Dec 17, 2002; what a scoop

Remora posted:

How on earth are the Space Marines the most important characters in 40k? Most hyped, sure, but most important?

The entire setting is the story of a crumbling interstellar empire the Space Marines conquered in the Great Crusade. Uniformly male Space Marines, derived from uniformly male Primarchs, sired by the Emperor without a mother. I don't really think right now the setting has room for a woman character as important or as powerful as a Primarch. Women can't even be Space Marines, the elite-of-the-elite movers and shakers in the Imperium. Maybe they can be ball-busting Inquisitors or medics in Dan Abnett stories, or sly foils for Ciaphas Cain to park his dick in.

The Black Library authors are trying to be more inclusive. Compare anything Abnett or ADB has written with the first Space Wolves book, where there's like one woman who exists to tell Ragnar how manly he is, and then reappears as a sexy temptress in a vision because who even knows. 40k authors have come a good way since then, but there's a glass ceiling in the setting as long as the most prominent elements are bald, screaming white guys jumping out of churches to hit each other with chainsaws.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 02:31

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Sisters of Battle are functionally Space Marines. Especially when you get to things like Saint Celestine and Saint Sabbat etc being similarly immortal and Primarchey.

Kylaer posted:

Is this possible? I thought GW was a really insular company and didn't take submissions. If it is, I totally will try, it'd be hilarious if I got published. I wouldn't even care if they paid, just having my name on something published would be awesome.

Keep an eye out for their occasional requests for submissions, competitions and the like. They do very rarely solicit outside authors.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 02:40

MrNemo: Aug 26, 2010; "I just love beeting off"

As they said though, most hyped not most important. You make a good point with the Emperor and Primarchs all being male (even if Malcador makes a few jokes regarding that) but the Crusade was accomplished with such speed because of the Legions, they weren't the reason it was accomplished at all. Without the Legions the Emperor would have had a long and slow grind across the Universe with Titan Legions, the Knightly Orders and millions upon millions of Guardsmen, Skitarii, etc. There is space for women to be awesomesauce in any of these groups. Weirdly the Navy seems to be the only service we really see high ranking and important female figures in (in 30K at least) but I think that's partly because it's really the only service that's shown as important in 30K apart from the Legions (Occasional Titans aside). 40K with the Inquisition, increasing power of the Administratum and the Adeptas Sororitas has way more avenues for showing powerful women.

Of course as you said they often don't (although they've gotten a lot better) but that's a failing of the writers, not an inherent failure of the universe even if the culture that's grown up around it isn't one that encourages better written female characters. Hell why not have a novel focusing on a Sister of Battle Canoness as something more than just a paint pot for some Grey Knights?

# ? Nov 11, 2014 02:45

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Or do a book series focusing on one of the all-female Imperial Guard regiments, or the Sisters of Silence, or a woman commissar, princeps, Imperial Navy officer, tech-priestess (Know No Fear had a good one), or the like. There's lots of opportunities for powerful female characters in 40k, but the setting and those who write for it can be embarrassingly juvenile at times.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 02:57

Remora: Aug 15, 2010

I agree fully with the bits about bald screaming white guys with chainsaws, and agree that Black Library needs better female characters. I'm DEFINITELY going to argue against this:

Snollygoster posted:

Space Marines, the elite-of-the-elite movers and shakers in the Imperium

There are only around a million Space Marines in the entire galaxy, and the overwhelming majority of their time is spent on one of the following activities: killing, training to kill better, or stuck on a ship going to kill things. Chapters like the White Consuls and the Ultramarines (which is to say, Chapters integrated into the greater defense structure of the Imperium on a day-to-day level) are the minority exception, not the norm. The actual work of maintaining the Imperium (and as MrNemo so rightly noted, conquering it in the first place) is overwhelmingly shouldered by the Guard and the Navy, with help from the Inquisition - all mixed-gender institutions. You are completely correct in that the writers of the setting need to push that harder. I haven't read enough 30K to really have an opinion on that part of the setting, so I defer to others there.

Basically what I'm saying is that the Astartes are just the sexy firemen on the Imperial fundraising calendar (unauthorized distribution is heretical by order of Inquisitor Chippendale, In Nomine Imperator).

# ? Nov 11, 2014 03:10

Waroduce: Aug 5, 2008

I too have strong feelings about the women of the 40k universe where the emperor sits immortal upon his golden throne

Who will speak for their equality in this universe of aliens and daemons if we do not?

Waroduce fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Nov 11, 2014

# ? Nov 11, 2014 05:16

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Waroduce posted:

I too have strong feelings about the women of the 40k universe where the emperor sits immortal upon his golden throne

Who will speak for their equality in this universe of aliens and daemons if we do not?

Are you really that obtuse, or did you just feel the need to drag in a straw man to beat up?

# ? Nov 11, 2014 05:35

OXBALLS DOT COM: Sep 11, 2005; by FactsAreUseless; Young Orc

Snollygoster posted:

The entire setting is the story of a crumbling interstellar empire the Space Marines conquered in the Great Crusade. Uniformly male Space Marines, derived from uniformly male Primarchs, sired by the Emperor without a mother. I don't really think right now the setting has room for a woman character as important or as powerful as a Primarch. Women can't even be Space Marines, the elite-of-the-elite movers and shakers in the Imperium. Maybe they can be ball-busting Inquisitors or medics in Dan Abnett stories, or sly foils for Ciaphas Cain to park his dick in.

The Black Library authors are trying to be more inclusive. Compare anything Abnett or ADB has written with the first Space Wolves book, where there's like one woman who exists to tell Ragnar how manly he is, and then reappears as a sexy temptress in a vision because who even knows. 40k authors have come a good way since then, but there's a glass ceiling in the setting as long as the most prominent elements are bald, screaming white guys jumping out of churches to hit each other with chainsaws.

The Primarchs are supposed to be long-gone demigods from a distant time of legend, though. They're supposed to be set dressing, not actual characters (which is why I don't like the 30k concept that much).

Also Space Marines aren't actually movers and shakers, for the most part they do what they're told and follow fairly predictable patterns set by tradition. They're brainwashed warrior fanatics so there's a pretty limited range of expression there. It's just that most 40k books aren't exactly character-driven literature so the intentionally simple world of Space Marines which is all about fighting, fighting more/harder/angrier, and then being bros or occasionally making a choice is all that's required for a 12-16 year old audience, while older fans often do want more but that's why having a media property with that sort of crossover audience is difficult.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 05:42

Immanentized: Mar 17, 2009

bunnyofdoom posted:

So, when's the next Gaunt book out?

Was originally November 18th but now Amazon has it for June 25, 2015.

This is like the 3rd pushback, anyone know what's up?

# ? Nov 11, 2014 06:43

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# ? May 23, 2024 23:26

wiegieman: Apr 22, 2010; Royalty is a continuous cutting motion

Abnett keeps getting paid more to write other stuff, mostly HH, maybe Penitent.

# ? Nov 11, 2014 07:17

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Warhammer: After 18 years, finally an end

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