[Necromunda 10] - Lasgun Wedding

by Will McDermott - (ebook by Undead)

  “We need that package, Hermod,” he said, looking back up and staring at the house spy. “The survival of House Helmawr depends upon it. There is precious little time. The Kal Jerico gambit will only buy us so much.”

  CHAPTER TWO:

  BODY COUNT

  Captain Katerin strode down the aisle of his transport. He was a huge tank of a man, with a wide, almost plump head sitting on a squat neck, and a barrel chest with a bit of a spread beneath from too many years behind a desk. Many would say he was nearly as wide as he was tall, but not to his face, of course. That would be suicidal.

  Even with the air blowers on full, sweat beaded up on Katerin’s round, bald head and dripped down into the dense tangles of his beard, making it glisten in the muted lights in the transport. The sweat somehow also found its way past his wild, scraggly eyebrows and into his eyes. But Katerin didn’t let it bother him — not today.

  It wasn’t just the importance of the mission, though. It was the thrill of impending battle, the adrenaline rush he always felt at the beginning of a hunt. Katerin was in his element, and as far as he was concerned, a little sweat just came with the territory.

  Although born of noble blood, Aldous Katerin had always gravitated more to battle than courtly intrigue. It was an ironic twist of fate that his prowess in battle had led to his appointment as Captain of the Royal Guard and a position in the inner circle of House Helmawr. But Katerin never forgot where he’d come from and what was truly important — battle in the name of nobility.

  “Aye, there we were, up to our necks in mud and blood and bullets,” screamed Katerin over the roar of the engines as he continued to regale his men with a war story. “Then all hell broke loose…”

  “Excuse me, sir,” said a guard sitting to his right. Katerin thought his name was Dwibbs or Debbs or something like that. The young guard’s eyes were bright and attentive, a distinct difference from the rest of the troops, most of whom had heard this particular story a few times before.

  “Yes, Dwebbs,” said Katerin, smiling at the newest guard.

  “Dobbs, sir.”

  Katerin lost his smile and glared. He pulled a kerchief from inside his shirt and dabbed at the sweat on his forehead before replying. “Yes, Dobbs. What is it?”

  “Sorry, sir,” he said. “Your story is riveting, but what exactly does it have to do with our mission?”

  Katerin sputtered for a moment as the impudence of this green guard sent his blood pressure soaring, but two chortles from behind him turned his ire away from Dobbs.

  He spun to see Mageson and Stein, the only other two nobles on the transport, leaning against a set of huge crates at the back of the transport. Try as they might, they couldn’t contain their laughter. After a moment, Mageson, a little wisp of a girl with long, curly hair and bright, green eyes, regained her composure and said, “Really, captain, give them the speech already. We have to suit up.”

  As if to punctuate Mageson’s remarks, Stein, a powerfully built, but smallish noble with jet-black hair and a stem, lined face, pounded his fist on top of the crate next to him. “We don’t have much time,” he said. “These rigs are a pain to get into.”

  Katerin dabbed at the sweat on his forehead as he pushed his anger back down. “Fine,” he said. “The mission.” He turned and looked at the double row of guards.

  Grim faces stared back beneath gleaming helmets. They looked like a set of stone statues with square faces and hard jaws. Their large chests and wide shoulders, accentuated by their armour, looked nearly identical all the way down the row. Fine specimens, thought Katerin. Now to scare the hell out of them.

  “Okay, you maggots,” he growled. “Today we embark on the most important mission of our lives.” He marched down the aisle, the guns at his hips slapping into the knees of the men on either side.

  “Some of you will die,” he continued. “In fact, many of you may not make it back to the Spire whole. But that’s not important.” He stopped and stared at them, the silence almost deafening despite the constant roar of the engines. “We are all in the service of House Helmawr. Our lives mean nothing compared to the safety and welfare of the House.”

  Katerin marched back up the aisle, staring hard at each stoic face in turn. “What we do today we do to ensure the very existence of the House. Those who survive will be heroes. The names of those who die will be remembered for generations.”

  He stopped at the end, just in front of Stein and Mageson. He now had the rapt attention of the entire squad. “But we do not fight for glory,” he said, his tone softening a little. “We fight for the lives of every member of the House. We fight so they may live. For if we fail today, gentlemen, the House will fall. And then none of us, not you nor any of your loved ones in the Spire, will be safe. So fight for them. That is what is expected of you.”

  He could see Dobbs’ hand inching up a little at a time. The wrinkles around the boy’s eyes showed a mixture of apprehension and confusion as if he wanted to ask a question, but wasn’t sure he’d survive the asking.

  Katerin remembered Dobbs’ previous question about the meaning of the war story. “To answer your question, Dibble,” he said. “We are going into the fight of our lives. There will be confusion. There will be chaos. There will be death. But keep your heads and keep your eyes on the prize. We cannot let that package fall into enemy hands. If it does, we fail. We all fail.”

  The hooded man tossed aside the limp body of the last royal officer. It flew through the air like a soiled rag, slapping into the scraped and blackened side of the transport before dropping to the ground.

  “He was most helpful,” said the man. “Almost a pity I can’t afford any witnesses. Almost.”

  He turned to the scummer leader. “Come with me,” he commanded. “I have a package to retrieve.”

  With that, he strode around the downed transport and pulled himself up and into the open hatch. His clawed, metal hand glinted in the muted light filtering through the toxic haze as he extended his arm out from beneath the folds of the cloak.

  Inside, the ship was littered with bodies. The royals who had died during the earlier firefights were laid out neatly in rows to one side. A few mutant bodies lay where they had fallen. It looked like some of the savage beasts that roamed the wastes had rushed inside against the hail of weapons fire or perhaps dropped in from above the hatch. None of them had survived.

  The cloaked figure walked through the cabin, ignoring the dead. The wastes would reclaim their bodies soon enough. What he searched for would be found at the far end, near the hatch to the cockpit.

  Movement to the side flickered in his peripheral vision. He snapped his head around to see a wounded soldier, twitching but unconscious. A quick shot to the head left a small hole in the soldier’s temple and the twitching stopped. He decided to check the rest of the bodies for any signs of life. After a half dozen las blasts, he was certain there were no survivors.

  A few moments later, he stood near the bulkhead at the front of the passenger cabin. The wall seemed solid enough. Rows of rivets held sections of the plasteel plating together. He counted five down and four over from the upper left corner of the wall, and placed his hand on the panel. It seemed no different from any of the others. He knocked on it a few times. There was a slight echo to the reverberation, perhaps from a hollow space behind the panel. He banged the panels around it and then the designated panel again. Yes. The vibrations were somewhat different.

  “Now which rivet did that officer say to turn?” he mumbled. “Ah yes.” His metal claws snuck out from the robes and reached towards the lower left corner of the panel. “Three up from the corner,” he said, counting them with a single claw. “Twist twice to the right, once to the left and three times to the right.”

  He tried to grasp the rivet and turn it, but found it didn’t move. He tried the rivet three up from the other corner to no avail. “Damn,” he cried. “That scavving officer lied. No wonder he was so helpful. I killed him too fast.”

 
; Frantically, he tried all the other rivets. None of them moved an inch, not even when he applied all the strength his enhanced arm could muster. They were just too small to grab. He pulled out his laspistol and fired several times at the panel to no avail. One shot strayed and left a small hole in the next panel, but there was not a mark on the one that hid his prize.

  The scummer leader appeared at his side. “Problems?” he asked.

  “Scawing panel is indestructible,” he replied. He continued to stare at the panel, straining his brain to figure out another way through. “Do we have any melta bombs left?” he asked.

  “Sorry, no,” said the leader. “We used them all breaching the hull. We do still have the rocket launcher.”

  The man shook his head. “We can’t afford the chance. The safe behind this panel holds a treasure worth a hive’s ransom.”

  The two men stared at the unblemished panel a little longer. “You could just burn it out and take the whole thing back to the hive.”

  The man shook his head again. “With this much plating on the cover, the safe must weigh a ton or more.” But then he got an idea. His normal hand shot out from beneath the robes and clapped the leader on the shoulder.

  “We don’t need to burn out the whole safe,” he said, the excitement of an impending bounty putting a bit of a lilt to his voice. “I just need to get more room for leverage.”

  He snapped his laspistol out of its holster again and began firing at the edge of the panel. Soon, the hole he’d inadvertently put in the panel to the side turned into a gaping wound in the wall. Bits of molten plasteel dripped along the ragged edge.

  The robed man didn’t even bother waiting for the metal to cool. He threw back the sleeve of his cloak to keep it from catching fire on the red-hot steel, revealing not an arm but an arsenal. His entire right arm had been replaced by a metallic contraption with a set of ten-centimetre steel claws attached at the end to use as a hand. Gears and pistons flexed the elbow with a small grating sound and the hiss of releasing air. The forearm section of the casing was enormous, easily larger around than the man’s massive thighs. Barrels of varying sizes and lengths poked out from the casing just past his wrist, and panels all along his forearm hid weaponry away for easy deployment.

  It wasn’t the armoury he needed from his mechanical arm today. He needed its strength. The robed man grasped the edge of the pristine panel with his claws and pulled. At first, nothing happened. The gears whirred and clicked and the piston released a massive hiss of air, but the panel didn’t budge. He practically pulled his head into the wall with the effort. Repositioning, he slapped a boot up against the wall and then made a few adjustments to the hydraulics on the arm.

  He yanked back again. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead beneath the cowl and ran down his cheeks onto the respirator, but he could feel the panel begin to move. With a mighty yank, he ripped it from the wall, flinging it over his head as he fell backwards onto the metal grating.

  The scummer leader, who was entirely too smart for his own good, did not offer to help the man to his feet. He simply smiled and said, “Well done. An excellent plan.”

  The robed man harrumphed at the scummer as he pushed himself off the floor and back to his feet. He looked back at the panel, which had crashed halfway through the deck grate. It was nearly thirty centimetres thick, tapering in from the exterior panel section to the inner, dark-grey edge.

  He turned back towards the remaining panels to see a square box set in the wall. The box was the same dark-grey colour as the back of the panel. Reaching in, the robed man finally felt his prize in his gloved hand. He pulled it out and heard the leader’s gasp. This was not an exclamation of amazement so much as one of disappointment.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, looking at the dull brown, leather satchel in his hand, “What’s inside this little package will pay for our entire excursion and have enough left over to make you and I very rich men.”

  He tucked the satchel under his mechanical arm beneath the folds of his robes and turned to leave. As they walked towards the rear of the transport, one of the scummers, the one who had led the breach team, appeared at the hatch.

  “Muties,” he reported.

  “How many?” barked Kyrian.

  “From the looks of it,” said the scummer, “I’d say all of them.”

  The robed man ran to the hatch and looked out. A massive cloud of dust spanned the horizon. Just in front of that cloud he could see dark forms moving. Even though they were still quite a way off, he could tell they were muties and not more royals. There was no structure to their formation. It was more of a mass of bodies. They weren’t so much marching as shambling forward.

  “They’re muties, alright,” said the scummer leader. “What are your orders, Mr. Feg?”

  Vandal Feg tossed back his hood revealing a scarred, pug-like face and muscle-bound neck. Hoses connected to his mechanical arm ran up over his head and down into his bulging neck and back. He focused the lens that had replaced his left eye on the mutant horde descending on their position and then flipped a switch at his wrist. A chainsword extended out from the casing and unfolded to an impressive length before whining to life.

  “Kill them all,” said Vandal Feg. “Kill them all.”

  Somehow in the last hour, Kal had managed to lose his trousers again. He wasn’t too worried about them at the moment. He had been too busy comforting the girls during their time of grief. On the upside, the girls had stopped crying over the death of Lord Helmawr; although Kal was certain he had heard a few whimpers in the last few moments. Of course, those could have been moans.

  Candi and Brandi had fallen asleep after the last comforting session, but Sandi lay next to Kal, one arm draped over his chest, her head nestled atop his shoulder. Thick, red hair tickled at his nose while her long, delicate fingers traced intricate patterns up and down Kal’s arm and across his bare chest.

  While Kal could have stayed right where he was for another hour, enjoying Sandi’s idle attention and the feel of her body cuddled up against his own, another thought popped into his mind, making him smile at the memory.

  “Sandi,” he said.

  “Hmmm?”

  “The last time we were here together,” continued Kal, “you told me about something special you do with grapes. Do you remember that?”

  “My grape routine?” she said. For a moment, her caressing halted, making Kal almost sorry he had spoken at all. “Normally that costs extra. But you’re a special client, Kal.”

  Kal beamed his trademark smile, even though Sandi wasn’t even looking at his face. “Cause I’m Kal Jerico? Underhive bounty hunter?” he asked.

  Sandi shook her head, making her hair flit around Kal’s face and nose. “No,” she said. “You’re all expenses paid, just like last time.”

  Kal tried not to let his ego deflate too much. “Oh,” he said.

  “Not that we don’t enjoy your company,” said Sandi quickly. “All three of us volunteered as soon as the contract came in.”

  “Well that’s something, anyway,” said Kal. His heart just wasn’t into comforting anymore, though. It’s not that he hadn’t paid for comfort in the past. It was just that he hadn’t paid for it this time and that had made the experience feel different up until now. But business was business, and if he was all expenses paid, he might as well enjoy all the extras.

  “Why don’t you go get the grapes from that bowl,” he said after a moment. “As I remember, last time we were rudely interrupted before you could show me that grape trick.”

  Sandi crawled over Kal to get out of the bed and he marvelled again at just how soft and clean her skin was and how wonderful she smelled as she brushed past him. The barmaids and other women of comfort down in the Underhive felt, and smelled, like some nasty reptile from beneath Dust Falls in comparison.

  Sandi tiptoed across the carpeted floor, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet as she moved, which made the rest of her body shake and jiggle in the most tanta
lizing ways. She grabbed the bowl of fruit and tiptoed back again. Kal, so intent on Sandi’s wriggling body, was startled by the voice that broke into the pre-routine show.

  “That will be all, Sandi,” said the voice.

  Sandi looked over towards the previously locked front door, bowed ever so slightly and retreated into the bathroom, still carrying the bowl of fruit.

  “Damn!” said Kal as he watched her lithe form disappear into the next room. “Next time we start with the grapes.”

  Kal turned over to face the intruder, not even bothering to cover up his body. “You know, nephew,” he said looking up at Valtin Schemko, “The last man who interrupted Sandi and me turned out to be a traitor to the House of Helmawr. Barging in here, uninvited, may not be the best way to win my trust.”

  Valtin stooped over, picked up Kal’s trousers, and tossed them towards the bed. “You are the one who was invited, uncle,” said Valtin. “I sent the invitation myself.”

  Kal grabbed the trousers out of the air and decided to slip them on. He suddenly felt a little too vulnerable. His nephew, who had seemed somewhat inept during their last adventure together, had obviously taken quite well to the political life of the Spire. He was calm, sure of himself and in control.

  “I wondered if you were behind that little prank,” said Kal. He stood and buttoned himself up before continuing. “And while I can appreciate a good joke now and then, and I certainly enjoyed my time here with the girls, either tell me why I’m really here or send me on my way down-hive.”

  Valtin strolled over to the couch beneath the bank of windows and sat down before he spoke. It was an obvious ploy meant to infuriate Kal, and it was working. “All in good time,” said Valtin, finally. “But first I have some bad news for you.”

  Kal tired of his nephew’s little stalling games. He stormed over to the couch and stared down at Valtin, hoping to tower over him and put him off his game. It didn’t seem to work and just made Kal stare into the rising sun as it peeked over the noxious cloud layer below. Kal averted his eyes as little balls of light danced in his vision.