On the Roster - Chapter 6

“You’re late,” the man said as Festerwel, Marrick, Tallow and Kiri approached. He wore dark grey trousers. Crisp leather boots, and a fine wool overcoat — a cut far too fine for this district, even under the moonless sky.

Festerwel drew up five paces away. Kiri and the rest of the entourage stopped behind him. “The Emperor lights the void,” Festerwel said.

The man looked at Festerwel inscrutably. “And His light pierces all shadows.”

“We walk by His flame alone.”

The man smiled. “And in His name, we endure.”

“Well met Agent N-437,” Festerwel said. “I’m Ensign Festerwel of the Diamond of the Imperium.”

“And I am Marcius Solvine.”

Festerwel nodded his head and gestured to the lander behind them. “We’re here to get you out of here. Is there anything else you need?”

“I thought there would be more of you. I have information of the utmost importance.”

More of ‘you’? Kryta thought. Not ‘us’? She looked over her shoulder and reached up to scratch the hand holding the barrel of her lasgun. She subtly twisted her signet ring. Better to have the field on and not need it than the opposite.

She thought she saw a shadow move behind the Voidstalker, but when she looked again it was gone.

Festerwel insisted, the smile gone. “Do you have the information on you? We’re here to take you home.”

The man smiled faintly, his eyes unreadable. “We are all home in the bosom of the emperor.”

“Sir, it’s time for us to go now,” Marrick said.

“There is no information for me to bring,” agent Marcius said. “It was to be given to you. That’s why I needed you to come here, so that you could see for yourself.”

Kiri took another look around them. She didn’t see any movement, but the shadows looked different than before. This was not just a trap, it was a trap that was about to be sprung.

Marcius broke out into a broad smile now. All trace of beguilement gone. “So that you could see the glory of the Star children, and how they do the Emperor’s work!”

Dravik, the grizzled vet of the squad, the one who’d been travelling the void and battling the foes of the Imperium since before Kiri was born, had been listening over the vox. He voxed them now. “Star children? We have to get out of here now.”

Marrick raised his lasgun. Kiri and Tallow followed suit. Even Festerwel started to look spooked. He drew his chainsword and his laspistol, though he kept them pointed down.

“We are leaving,” Festerwel said. “Agent N-437, are you coming?”

“You see,” Marcius cried, raising his hands to the air, “I have been shown the emperor’s true form. Behold!” He clicked something in his hands and lights flooded at the back of the courtyard, illuminating a statue of a man with short cropped hair, a noble countenance, a crisp uniform, and four arms.

Atop the statue crouched something sinuous with a bulbous head, chitin, and four arms. Its tongue snaked between razor sharp teeth, two of its arms ended in claws as long as Kiri’s forearm, and it exuded a sense of wrongness, even from this distance.

“Stealer!” Tallow yelled.

Marrick’s lasgun cracked and a smoking hole appeared in the middle of Marcius’s forehead. The body crumpled.

Pandemonium broke out.

Men and women emerged from the shadows around them. The bang of solid shot and the crack of laser weapons rang out.

Kiri saw a cultist pull a pin from a grenade and lean back to throw it. She sighted and quickly pulled her trigger, punching a hole in the cultist’s throat. The grenade fell at his feet and detonated, the explosion engulfing two nearby cultists.

Another cultist sprint towards them across the courtyard. A quick shot took the cultist in the leg, causing her to stumble. A second shot took her clean through the head.

“Fall back to the lander!” Marrick yelled.

Tallow grunted and nearly fell as he was hit in the leg. Lips curled back in a wordless shout, he emptied the rest of his clip into the cultists shooting at him. The cultists were poorly trained, but what they lacked in aim they were making up in sheer volume of shots.

Suddenly the boom of the lander’s stormbolter rang out across the courtyard. It tore across the line of cultists, leaving devastation in its wake.

“Time to go!” Kiri yelled at Tallow. He turned and started limping towards the lander. She slammed a new clip into her gun and followed slowly, shooting any target that the stormbolter missed.

Festerwel took off after Tallow. “Get ready Varro! We’re coming in!” he voxed.

“Confirmed,” Varro voxed back.

Kiri and Marrick brought up the rear.

It was only then that Kiri noticed that the four-armed statue was now empty. “Where is that genestealer??” Kiri yelled to Marrick.

Suddenly the stormbolter's roar cut off mid-burst.