- Kylaer
- Aug 4, 2007
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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!
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For those who are interested, here is another Doc Eldar piece. It's a direct sequel to the previous one which was posted here (more than three months ago, I need to pick up my pace of writing...).
quote:
Let me tell you a little story about the most terrifying boss I've ever had. Everybody answers to someone; my boss answered to the Monsignor Jeremias, a rogue trader possessing both supreme confidence that everything would go his way, and a history showing that he was almost always right in that belief. And I answered to the Monsignor's chief medical officer, who'd been acquired under circumstances unknown to me, from an uncharted world; he was an alien, close to human in appearance, but very far away in patterns of thought. Often, those patterns of thought resulted in actions I could only call horrific. I was an unable to pronounce his name as understand his view of the world. I called him Doc Eldar.
This is a story that picks up where my previous one left off. Most of these little tales I share stand alone, but this one came about as a direct consequence of my shore leave on Rihak. Once I'd been returned to the ship, thanks to the intervention of the xeno, I'd hoped that the incident would be over, and everything could be safely forgotten. That hope was in vain. The ship was due to spend another nine days at anchorage, transferring cargo to and from the planet and other ships in orbit. There was not a chance that the Monsignor would break from his schedule, and I doubt he was even aware of the events that had gone on planetside. That gave plenty of time for the consequences to reach us shipboard.
The xeno was picking through the mess that had been a cargo handler's left hand, prior to an accident while shifting a stack of containers. An easy solution would have been to cut it off and graft an augmetic, but Doc Eldar thought it could be salvaged, and so he worked, fixing fractured bones with needle-thin pins, and reconnecting nerves, tendons, and blood vessels with suture that was almost invisible to the naked eye. There were no other injured patients waiting, so he was in no rush, and a full twelve minutes into the surgery the hand was still splayed open. That was when the vid screen on the wall of the trauma suite lit up, and a series of chimes warned of an incoming transmission. The chimes were a variation of those that heralded a public address message from the Monsignor himself, and when Jeremias appeared on the screen, I presumed that the difference meant "personal communication."
"Good day, monsignor," the xeno said, inclining his head towards the screen although not pausing in his work.
The Monsignor - and I'm not sure why this surprised me, it seems totally in line the rest of his actions - responded with what had to be the xeno's name, or at least so close an approximation that my ears couldn't tell the difference. "Always busy, aren't you?" he said, a greeting rather than a real question.
"I enjoy being busy. My work here is satisfying." The xeno's words were punctuated by a groan from the man lying on the table.
"Well, finish that, then get ready to take a little break. I'll need you to stay out of sight for a time. Don't leave the ship, but make yourself scarce."
"Trouble?" The xeno had no change in voice or expression, whereas Jeremias looked increasingly aggravated.
"There's an arrogant pup of an inquisitor coming aboard. He's heard rumors that I, apparently, have dealings with aliens. I pointed out that my warrant of trade permits exactly that, but he claims that it's only valid outside the bounds of the Imperium. Considering where we are, I can't deny him from boarding." He paused for a moment. "Can't make him vanish, either."
To hear someone openly name the Inquisition sent a chill through me. And to hear someone - even Jeremias - casually mention killing one of its members, that made me want to crawl into a dark corner and stay there until the stars all burned out. I expect it was similar for you, growing up, that of all the entities and groups in existence, the one which held the highest degree of fear and awe was the Inquisition. More than law enforcement, more than any branch of the Imperium's military, more than any bureau of the Administratum, more than the Ecclesiarchy - the Inquisition was at the very peak of the "Do not cross" pile. I had heard tales - perhaps false, perhaps not - of people killing themselves just from hearing rumors that the Inquisition was harboring suspicions about them.
Doc Eldar, as expected, made no overt reaction. "What do you propose? To wait until he grows tired of hunting me?"
Jeremias frowned. "That would keep us here past our departure date. No, waiting indefinitely is not my plan. I have acquaintances who can make this fool listen. But they won't arrive immediately, whereas his shuttle is on approach as I speak. Make yourself scarce." The screen flickered and went dark.
The xeno had started closing our patient's hand as soon as the Monsignor had mentioned the need to leave, and I supplied him with fresh lengths of suture as his incision lines closed. "This is imperfect," he said, clearly disappointed. "He will have scarring. He may experience a loss of range of motion up to eight percent in certain joints."
"Just get it done!" the man yelped. "I heard what the monsignor said, too! If you're running, so am I!"
I suppose that answered the question of whether someone could be more afraid of something than they were of Doc Eldar.
"Should we take anything with us?" I asked, glancing over at the scene box and other emergency-response items on their racks.
"No. We must travel light. Start thinking about where we can go."
That was a tough question. It was hard for me to focus on the problem, with the Inquisition on their way and potentially arriving any minute, but even without that extra weight on my mind, finding a place shipboard that wouldn't be busy while at anchor was a challenge. The vast cargo decks, which could be near-silent in the depths of transit between stars, would be teeming with activity as goods were unshipped and others brought in to replace them. The docking bays, both those on the ship's ventral surface that were meant for bulk cargo, and the smaller sets on its flanks that handled passengers and valuable goods, would be even busier. The passenger concourses would be crowded as people came aboard and got acclimated to the surroundings that would be theirs for weeks, or potentially months depending on their destination - not to mention meeting their new neighbors. The observation blisters that sprouted from the hull would have no shortage of occupants either, mostly long-haul passengers eager for a glimpse of a planet - any planet, even one not their destination. None of the ship's normally quiet areas would be that way right now, and the xeno's presence would draw enough reaction to lead our pursuers right to us.
As Doc Eldar stitched the last of the incision lines closed, I left the bedside and stepped to the pharmaceutical dispenser. One of the medicines available - one of the few that the xeno actually had occasion to use - was meant to slow the heart and reduce blood pressure. I drew out ten of the tiny vials, snapped the lids, and transferred all of the medicine into a single syringe. A tenfold dose, I was confident, would be enough to put someone into cardiac arrest...me, if our attempt at evasion failed.
The xeno unstrapped the patient's arm from his work table and the man climbed to his feet and ran, not saying a word. Doc Eldar looked at me, eyes flicking to the plunger of the syringe tucked into my shirt pocket. "Feeling a lack of confidence?" he asked.
"I don't want to die, but I don't see any way out. There won't be any quiet zones where we can hide ourselves, not at anchor like this."
"None? You know the routines of this ship better than I. What of the enginarium and the warp drives?"
"They'll be doing maintenance, the work they can't do with the drives running, so it'll be hectic through that whole compartment." But we had to go somewhere, if we didn't want to be standing here when the Inquisition came through the door with guns drawn. Guns...
"The weapons batteries," I said. "We're in orbit over a developed world, the gun decks will be powered down in accordance with the law. The macro-cannons are retracted, the lances are cold - other than some point-defense guns to guard against orbital debris, everything should be shut down, and I'll bet a big portion of the gunnery crews are planetside on leave."
"That seems suitable," the xeno replied, as he turned for the door.
Since it had been several minutes from the time we received the Monsignor's warning to our departure from the trauma suite, I was afraid we were already too late, that we'd be caught in the concourse right outside. But we made it across that, to a side corridor, with no cry of alarm. The xeno stopped beside a maintenance hatch and tapped the locking plate with a little cogwheel device - it must have been a transponder key, as the lock clicked and he was able to push the hatch open.
"You have a Mechanicus access key?"
"The ship's enclave provided it to me in case of an emergency occurring in the interstitium. My own key will surely be tracked, or disabled outright, but this one may go unnoticed."
I had never been within the ship's interstitium. It was the three-dimensional maze of spaces - sandwiched between bulkheads, layered between primary decks - that contained the ship's air ducts, power lines, data cables, water and sewage pipes, everything necessary to keep the ship functional. Wherever you were in the ship, you were never far from the interstitium. On some ships, more cheaply constructed, there was no interstitium, and the ducts and pipes simply lined the walls and crowded overhead against the ceiling, but the Monsignor's vessel was state of the art, and even the interstitial space was well designed, with enough room to move without crouching, and easy access to everything that would need to be inspected and, at times, repaired. I wondered how often Mechanicus adepts walked this way - most importantly, I wondered if there would be any between us and our destination.
"Where do we go from here?" There were no helpful signs pointing us in a particular direction. The only markings I saw were grids of dots and dashes, on each pipe and duct, which no doubt held meaning to members of the ship's tech enclave, but were useless to me.
"Our most direct access from this point is to...the midship portside macro-cannon battery." Doc Eldar's eyes were unfocused, as even his intellect apparently found the task of navigating this maze a challenge. "Aft portside battery is slightly closer, but requires more vertical movement to get around the docking wing." He started moving at a brisk walk, and I followed.
"We could just stay in the interstitium," I offered.
"No. The inquisitor is surely no fool, and these passages will not escape notice. The interstitium is designed for ease of inspection, so a flight of servo-skulls would not take long to locate us. The battery will provide us with a variety of options for concealment."
A chime sounded from inside the xeno's sleeve, and my stomach dropped. "You're carrying a vox link? They'll track us!"
"This one is set to receive-only, it cannot transmit. The Monsignor will need a way to tell us when the situation has resolved."
"All passengers and crew of the Ebenezer Majd, attend this message," came the voice from the xeno's sleeve. It was a voice that possessed supreme confidence, the surety that its words carried the weight of law - or more. "I am Silus Hirkan, of the Inquisition. I am here to investigate reports of alien activity on this ship - reports that Jeremias Majd has kept an alien in his employ for quite some time. The alien's usual location has been searched and has been found empty. Anyone with knowledge of the alien's whereabouts, or the location of any members of the crew known to have associated with the alien, is instructed to come forward and provide this information to me. All ship security officers have been provided with means to contact me directly. Do not hesitate."
As if I needed further reinforcement of just how serious our situation was.
We didn't run. We walked fast, but when I asked if we should be moving faster, the xeno told me I might need to save myself for a real sprint if one became necessary. There was no question that he could have outdistanced me without even trying, but I wasn't much surprised that he didn't - he'd gone down to Rihak's surface to retrieve me, so clearly leaving me to die wasn't in his plans. I didn't know why he would care about me, and in other circumstances that itself would have worried me, but for now I had more pressing issues on my mind.
Twenty minutes or so into our escape, the xeno gestured for me to halt.
"There is someone ahead," he murmured. "Mechanicus."
"Can we go around them?"
"We would need to backtrack...considerably."
"Out into the open, then?" There were hatches leading out into the public spaces of the ship at frequent intervals, we'd passed one barely a minute ago.
"The odds of being spotted are high. We would have to pass two major thoroughfares."
So we couldn't go back, we couldn't go around, and we couldn't go through...unless we were incredibly fortunate, and the adept ahead of us hadn't received the transmission. I thought the odds of that were microscopic. But what other chance did we have? Doc Eldar could probably have knocked the adept unconscious in some way, but he was bound by his oath...I felt a chill sweep through me. I wasn't bound by an oath, and I had the syringe in my pocket.
I looked Doc Eldar in the eye. "What would this do to a tech-priest?" I asked, tapping the syringe. "I don't want to cause permanent harm."
The xeno's mouth gave a minute twitch. "Shutting down their organic circulation would force them into a hibernation state. At that dose, it should last between six and eight minutes depending on their volume of organic tissue. Without permanent harm."
"Can you do it, then?"
"No. Irrespective of long-term effect, it would be an act of aggression. But you are free to make your own decisions."
My hands were shaking as I palmed the syringe. I took several deep breaths, but it didn't help, and so I continued down the passage with my thumbs tucked into the pockets of my pants in an attempt to hide the trembling.
The Mechanicus adept was further ahead than I had figured - the xeno's ears had picked up the cues better than a hundred meters away, through several turns and up and down two sets of short ladders. But as I moved onward, I began to hear the whoosh of air moving under pressure, and below it the chanting of a Mechanicus priest at work. Around yet another corner I came into view of the adept, standing in the passage with a pinpoint fusion torch in one hand, and a roll of sheet metal held by the other and a helpful mechadendrite. She had excised part of an air duct - the hood of her robe was being blown out behind her by the rush of escaping air - and was now grafting fresh metal to replace the old. But even with her attention on her work, I did not get much closer without being noticed.
I was perhaps six or seven meters away when she looked straight at me, mismatched augmetic eyes clicking to focus. Too far to make a lunge with the syringe, especially since I wasn't even sure what parts of her were flesh under that robe. "I recognize you," she said, without preamble.
My hope fled. But...there was something familiar about the adept. Those eyes, one's socket of chromed steel, the other made of shining brass. I'd seen those eyes before. Seen them on an adept sprawled on the floor, in hibernation, at the scene of a machinery explosion in one of the ship's many tech-shrines.
"You are the xeno's orderly." I nodded. "The xeno is with you, or not far away." I nodded again. "You both seek refuge from those in pursuit of you." Yet another nod. "The enclave owes him a debt, and you as well. I will not hinder you. I did not see you pass this way." She turned deliberately back to her work, torch hissing against the metal.
Doc Eldar appeared at my shoulder, quiet as a ghost. The adept studiously paid him no attention, and so we hurried past, the syringe returning safely to my pocket.
Not much further along, we passed through an extra-thick reinforced bulkhead, and I guessed we were within the outer layer of the ship, probably running adjacent to the gun battery. At the next access hatch we reached, the xeno motioned for a halt. "Our destination."
I had been inside one of the cannon batteries only once before, responding with the xeno to an emergency scene, when one of the shell cradles had tipped during a loading drill and the errant projectile had injured four crew - one fatally, dead before our arrival from a crushed ribcage. That time, the enormous room had been full of frantic activity - the drill had not halted, of course, since under real combat circumstances, the gun crews would have to carry on despite casualties. I was too focused on assisting Doc Eldar to really take in our surroundings, although the memory of the wayward cannon shell being hoisted in a net of chains and swung directly over our heads as it was reclaimed stands out. That, and the noise - hissing pneumatics and grinding engines, officers shouting through vox amplifiers and teams of crew bellowing cadences as they worked. I was so grateful they weren't actually firing the guns that day. You know how you recognize gunnery crew? They have hearing augmetics, every single one. At least, on the Ebenezer Majd they did, I suppose on some ships they might just be deaf.
Now, the room was silent. The chains hung motionless, the shell cradles lay retracted to the floor, and the breeches of the cannons yawned, open and empty. There were four of them, and I could have walked inside one of the barrels with only a slight crouch. There seemed to be no-one present in the room save us, not even a servitor cleaning the floor. I dared to hope that maybe, just maybe, we'd be safe until the Monsignor's "acquaintances" arrived, although who would have the authority to countermand an inquisitor left me drawing a blank.
"Where to?" I asked. With the guns on standby and all the munitions returned to their magazines, the chamber was less crowded than I'd expected, but there was still plenty of cover. The guns were fully retracted, and each lay canted, breech near the floor, muzzle close to touching the ceiling. The machinery to extend and aim each cannon was as massive as the weapon itself, and I thought that within those tangles of girders and pistons we might find a hiding place. But the xeno gestured towards the breech of the nearest cannon.
"Inside. The barrel will block thermal bloom, and that is what a cursory inspection will likely be using. If they perform a detailed search, I will hear them before they are close."
The cannon breech was barely a meter above the deck, and the barrel slanted upwards to reach what must have been fifteen meters, only a few meters below the ceiling. The weapon was so long that despite the eventual height, the slope was fairly shallow. The barrel's interior was polished smooth, but my shoes had enough grip that I didn't slide as I scrambled inside, following Doc Eldar. We went in twenty meters or so, until we were in full darkness, before the xeno halted.
"So we just wait here until the Monsignor gives you the all-clear?" I asked as I settled myself into a crouch; the barrel wasn't the most comfortable hiding place, but it could have been worse.
"Or until we are discovered." How reassuring.
Time crawled by, and I wondered whether we would end up waiting minutes, hours, or...if it proved to be days, we would need a better solution that the barrel of a cannon, if for no other reason than that eventually I'd fall asleep and go sliding down and out of the breech. I strained my ears for the sound of any movement out in the room, but all I could hear was my own breathing. The xeno's breathing was silent; he did breathe, I was sure of that, but never audibly.
I think, in the end, it turned out to be a matter of hours. Maybe two, maybe three, I didn't have a chrono on me. Long enough that my joints were protesting the prolonged awkward position I had forced upon them, but not long enough for me to get hungry. My cue that something had occurred was that Doc Eldar's head began moving, changing his silhouette against circle of light at the cannon's muzzle far away. Listening to something other than silence.
"Servo-skull," he said quietly, after several moments had passed. "Moving slowly. If it is equipped with a chemical sniffer, we are likely to be detected."
"And then what? We run again?"
"If we appear to have a chance of outrunning them, yes. Otherwise, I will stall them for as much time as I can." His head twitched again. "The skull has halted. And now it retreats at speed. It found us. Subtle programming, trying to keep us from knowing we have been detected. We must go."
I didn't need further prompting. I pointed my feet towards the breech and let myself slide, like a small child - but no child's heart ever beat as hard while at play as mine did now. The xeno followed me in a crouching run, and we headed immediately back towards the interstitium's access hatch. So far, no sign of pursuit.
The hatch refused to open when prompted. Neither the Mechanicus key nor Doc Eldar's own override key had any effect.
"Our hunters are not fools," the xeno said, far more calm than I was. "If these are sealed, the primary doors will be as well."
"The shell elevators," I said, my frantic mind leaping to the possibility. "We might make it to the magazine, and they may not have thought to seal that."
We were not quite to the nearest elevator when one of the main doors began to grind open. The xeno halted in front of me and I nearly ran into him. "You will not be able to evade them," he said. "And they will kill you if you try. This is for your own good." He reached, lightning-quick, snatched the syringe from my pocket, and jabbed it into the base of my neck. Jugular vein, right to the heart. As he drew his hand back, I saw the syringe had lost perhaps a third of its volume.
"You-" I began.
"Will buy time," he finished. As he spoke, the drug's effect hit. You know the feeling when you stand up too quickly, you get lightheaded, your vision blurs, sometimes you lose your balance? Not fun, but it's over in a couple seconds. Orthostatic hypotension, it's called. This was similar, except it didn't go away. The drug dropped my blood pressure to the floor, metaphorically, and I followed, in the literal sense.
Some brief moments later, I heard boots on the deck plates, headed towards me. Four - five - six sets of feet, all wearing combat boots, save the last, which were bare except for augmetic reinforcements.
"Get up, traitor," one of the figures ordered.
"Drugged," I slurred, slapping my fingers against my neck. They came away with a streak of blood on them, and maybe that convinced them I wasn't shamming.
The man who had spoken was wearing mottled grey body armor without insignia. "The alien left you as a distraction, eh? Shall I?" The second question was not directed at me, but at another of the group. What was directed at me was the muzzle of the rifle the man carried.
"No," said the other man. That voice, I recognized. It belonged to the inquisitor, Silus Hirkan. I focused on him - fairly young, average build, dressed in the same nondescript body armor as the others. He did have insignia, though: the stylized I of the inquisition, a medallion wrought from steel which hung against his chest. "I want the Monsignor, and for that I'll need testimony on his crimes. The alien, alive, would be ideal...but that may not be possible. Anchor and move on."
The soldier slung his rifle and knelt, pulling a device off his belt. One end was a shackle, the other a short cylinder, connected by a cable a meter or so in length. He fastened the shackle around my left wrist and pressed the cylinder against the deck, where it made a brief hissing noise. He kicked it a couple of times after returning to his feet, and it didn't budge. "Done."
I wouldn't have gone anywhere even without the restraint. Flat on my back, I didn't feel like I was about to pass out, but any attempt to rise made blacking out a real possibility. Running was out of the question, even if there had been somewhere to run to.
"Do we pursue the target?" another voice asked.
"No. The room is sealed, it can't escape," Hirkan replied. "Skulls are sweeping, and Opal will flush it out, take it alive if possible. We will provide supporting fire if necessary."
A form shambled over to stand next to the inquisitor. This was who the pair of bare feet had belonged to. Some kind of combat servitor, I thought, a man's body encrusted with augmetics. Both arms ended just below the elbow, and from each stump dangled a pair of sinuous cables. His head and face were completely obscured beneath an enameled red-and-gold helmet, studded with multiple visual sensors, none exactly where you would expect an eye to be located.
The remaining four of the retinue took up guard positions as Hirkan murmured something to the servitor - a lengthy phrase, sounding like a prayer, but apparently instructions. When the inquisitor snapped his fingers at the conclusion of the recital, the servitor's posture changed, arms spreading, head jutting forward, knees bent in readiness. It began to stalk away, moving faster as went, the cables hanging from its arms rattling with each step.
It vanished around the edge of the mountain of support girders that held up the second cannon, nearly running by now. Hirkan and his guards were professional, never ceasing to scan all around them, even though the servitor seemed to have an idea of where their target was. None of them paid me any mind at that point.
From the far side of the cannon arose a howl, a terrifying hate-filled noise. From the grins that started to spread on the soldiers' faces, I knew it had to be the servitor - or was it really a servitor, to make a noise like that? It didn't sound like something a lobotomized person could make. There was emotion in that howl, not like the sterile blare of a cargo servitor's hazard klaxon.
A moment later, I saw Doc Eldar. He came scrambling up the cannon's support apparatus from the far side, jumping over onto the barrel, apparently before seeing the five rifles pointed in his direction. He halted, but the servitor was right behind him, so he turned again, running up the barrel towards the muzzle. He seemed...slow. He was as fast as a human might be, but no faster, nor were his movements as certain as I had come to expect. He seemed in danger of falling off the barrel, especially as the height above the floor increased. The servitor chased him, only a few steps behind, cables lashing back and forth, bright electric sparks snapping between them.
"Looks like you won't be taking it alive. Tally one for Opal," one of the soldiers commented.
The xeno was only seconds from the end of the cannon when his gait changed. Without losing speed, he turned, now running backwards, and flashed all his teeth down at the inquisitor. One foot landed on the muzzle rim and he kicked off, launching himself like a circus performer, body parallel to the deck, arm extending - fingers closing around the chain of one of the many hoists mounted on ceiling tracks.
The servitor could not stop itself in time, and certainly couldn't imitate Doc Eldar's acrobatics. It charged off the end of the barrel, cables lashing impotently, and plummeted towards the floor.
"Shoot it!" Hirkan barked.
Every light in the chamber went dark.
The crash of the servitor hitting the floor was almost inaudible under the cacophony of weapons fire as Hirkan and his troops opened up. Las weapons strobed, beams hanging in the dark for an instant like threads of light connecting muzzle to target, while the muzzle flashes of projectile firearms threw ragged shadows around their wielders.
"CEASE!" the inquisitor shouted. He and his team were professionals, they made that clear in the next few seconds. Weapon-mounted luminators clicked on, casting cones of light, and they drew together, back to back, scanning all about them as they moved, slowly but deliberately, towards the main door.
"Nothing on thermal," a woman's voice reported. "No blood trail. We missed."
"We will restore the lights," Hirkan stated, "obtain reinforcements, and then take down the alien."
The drug I'd been given was starting to wear off a little, or maybe adrenaline was providing a counterweight. I still couldn't stand, or even sit, but I could prop myself up on my elbow and look around, a considerably better vantage point than being completely flat.
"Movement," called the man who'd offered to shoot me, training his light back towards the cannon. "Something behind the girders."
"I don't see it," another man said, adding his light to the first's.
"No, he's right," the woman interjected. "Heat signature on my scope, mostly obscured. Doesn't look human, though."
And when Hirkan turned to confirm their assessment, that left four sets of eyes focused on one small part of their perimeter, and only one set to cover the rest, and that last set of eyes was focused upwards, perhaps assuming that the xeno would have stayed near the ceiling.
Doc Eldar came out of the darkness from the opposite direction, running on his hands and feet like some kind of lizard, no higher than anyone's knee. The inquisitor's team missed him entirely until he popped to his feet in their midst. Gunfire erupted again, all five going fully automatic against an adversary who danced within touching distance...although I don't think he touched any of them. A man screamed and fell, and then weapons were running dry, stemming the fire. The xeno was gone again as the five - now four - hastily reloaded.
"Throne forgive, I shot Trasc," one of the men said, dropping to his knees beside the downed man. "The alien, it was right there, and then it...wasn't..." He was pulling a spray-bandage canister from his belt. The man who'd been shot was making little gasps of pain.
"It's toying with us," Hirkan growled. "It could have killed us all and chose not to. It's more dangerous than I expected. Nobody else is hurt, we'll evac Trasc and come back with more firepower."
"You're hit, inquisitor," the woman soldier pointed out. She was right; Hirkan had a burn mark across the armor on his chest and left shoulder, with spots of blood oozing through. He didn't seem to notice, and kept scanning the darkness with his rifle.
"A graze. Yours, I think. Not significant. You two, drag Trasc -"
And that was when Opal started howling again. The servitor, when lit by the glares of the rifle luminators, had suffered much from its fall. Its left arm was messily broken, despite the augmetics reinforcing it, and that set of cables hung slack and dead at its side. Its chest heaved and it clearly had multiple broken ribs, and its helmet was dented, several of the optic modules cracked beyond repair. Something inside it must have broken, too, since it no longer seemed to recognize friend from foe. Despite the damage, it still managed a turn of speed as it charged at the inquisitor's band, ignoring Hirkan's bellowed command to halt...and seeming to equally ignore the las bolt that the woman put through its chest. The cables on its right arm flared with sparks, and two of the soldiers were still fumbling to aim the rifles they'd slung to help their comrade.
Hirkan met its charge; arrogant and overconfident he may have been, particularly in dealing with Doc Eldar, but his bravery was not up for question. His rifle roared, another full-auto salvo, and his aim was true. The servitor stumbled face-first and skidded several meters before coming to a stop, twitching, blood flowing from more than a dozen wounds. The inquisitor fired another pair of deliberate shots through its helmet and it finally went still.
He was breathing heavily as he exchanged his rifle's magazine again. "Alright. Get Trasc - where's Trasc?"
The downed man had vanished, in the few seconds when everyone's attention had been on the berserk servitor. There was only a bloodstain on the deck plates. His exact location may not have been known, but the circumstances he was in became clear only moments later, when he began screaming again, somewhere out in the darkness.
"Emperor have mercy, I have to go after him, it's my fault," exclaimed the man who'd shot Trasc.
"No futile heroics! It's a trap, you cannot save him. We're getting out of here, now. And Mizza! Let go of that!" Hirkan directed this last remark at the woman, who had a grenade on her harness and was holding a cord between her teeth which was tied to the pin.
"No," she said, not unclenching her teeth. "Never get taken alive. Not by them."
The reduced band was moving again, and I wondered if they would swing to the side to retrieve me, but apparently I was low on their priority list. Looking back, I'm actually very lucky they didn't shoot me, but I suppose none of them were even thinking of me, off by myself in the dark, just watching the goings-on.
Something clattered on the deck in front of the inquisitor. I couldn't see it at my distance, but it sounded metallic. Trasc's screams had lessened.
"I have stabilized your follower," Doc Eldar's voice echoed from the darkness. "He has significant trauma to the right lung and chest wall. Definitive repair will require more equipment than I am carrying."
Hirkan replied with something profane. He and his team were almost to the door, and it was opening in front of them.
There were people standing on the far side, silhouetted by the lights.
"Silus," a woman's voice called. She didn't sound young, and her tone carried even more authority than Hirkan's did. "I asked you not to pursue this course of action."
"Jeremias Majd is a criminal of the highest order. He brings aliens within humanity's domain," Hirkan spat. "One stands within this very chamber, with the blood of one of my own men on his hands!"
"All surgeons get blood on their hands," the xeno countered from the dark. "I treated his injuries, I did not cause them. The bullet that did is right there on the deck for all to see."
Hirkan took a deep breath, the motion visible even from where I lay. "We differ on many things," he addressed the newcomer, taking a different tack. "But our mandate to defend humanity is the same. Will you assist me in my task today?"
"The Monsignor Jeremias has proven himself a useful asset on multiple occasions," she said. "I am willing to allow him a generous interpretation of his warrant of trade given his history. Step down from this investigation, Silus. Let me handle it."
"You'll let him go without even a censure, much less what he deserves."
Her voice picked up a razor edge. "If you doubt the validity of my judgment, Inquisitor Hirkan, then let us stand before the conclave and put to the test whose voice carries greater weight."
"I...no. I will not challenge you." Hirkan's shoulders bowed just a bit. "But I demand the return of Trasc before I relinquish this investigation to you."
"Trasc needs further medical attention," the xeno said. "But he is stable for transport." I heard a faint squeaking, and the low wheeled-box shape of a powder dolly came sliding into the pool of light shed by the open doors. Trasc lay on it, the armor peeled away from the right side of his torso, and had a neat incision between the ribs with the handles of several vessel clamps protruding from it. He was only groaning now; no more screams. The xeno must have pushed the dolly in their direction and fled, for he was not to be seen. Hirkan and one of his soldiers took it by its handles and guided it out of the door, the other two of his team following.
And that left us with only the newcomers. "Alright, show yourself," the woman commanded.
Doc Eldar materialized out of the gloom. "Greetings, inquisitor."
She stared at him for a few moments. "Exactly as described - and ynneas, not craftworld. Silus' reaction is not wrong. Jeremias and I have exchanged favors over the years, alien; do not give me cause to regret this one."
The xeno spread his hands wide. "I have kept the terms of the contract I signed. Kept them to the letter."
"Letter and not spirit, I am certain. Well, this is one favor that the Monsignor agreed to repay before it was even performed. Your contract states that he can temporarily cede you to the authority of another in his place. Effective immediately, I am that authority."
"The Inquisition needs my skill set?" It would have been very easy to make those words sound mocking, but he did not.
"I have an investigation ongoing, planetside. Based on what we have learned so far, your perspective may be valuable in bringing it to a conclusion. I will describe the details in the shuttle. Do you need anything before we depart?"
"My orderly," he said, glancing through the dark towards where I lay. "And a new trauma roll."
The xeno stood by as one of the inquisitor's retinue freed me from the shackle. Standing was difficult, but on the second attempt I managed, still uncomfortably lightheaded. "How did you cut the lights?" I asked, as the soldier hurried away from the xeno's presence.
"That was the Monsignor's doing. Jeremias has both a desire to see Inquisitor Hirkan humiliated, and a keen sense of drama."
I held on to a hoist chain for support as another wave of dizziness hit. I was feeling better, but I certainly wasn't feeling good.
"Most crew bring back souvenirs from shore leave," Doc Eldar commented. "Some bring scars. You brought the Inquisition. This has been interesting, and promises to be moreso. You may need to go on shore leave more often."
Because I'm a horrible person, I think I'm going to mash together some of my other writing into the next piece. Also, I'd like to include a few minor characters as members of the retinue in the next piece, and I'd like to take audience requests for those, so if you have an idea for a character, give me a brief description and I'll work it in 
Kylaer fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Jan 4, 2016
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Dec 27, 2015 19:04
