On the Roster - Chapter 8

The stealer’s clawed hand plunged towards her, daggers heading straight to her hard.

CLAP

A blinding flash tore through the night and the stealer staggered backwards. Kiri’s ring felt warm on her finger. The conversion field in her family’s signet ring had saved her life.

The genestealer, clearly disoriented, staggered and nearly fell, but stood there sagging.

Kiri raised her lasgun and at point blank range, sighted down the barrel towards the creature’s head.

She pulled the trigger.

And nothing happened.

Empty!

“Throne’s balls!” she yelled.

Hassan, her old tutor, would be turning in his grave right now. He’d always been pedantic about counting shots. She hadn’t and now it had cost her.

Luckily, she wasn’t out of options yet.

Kiri reached into her waistband under her uniform jacket and grabbed her family’s most prized possession - Dawnfire. The plasma pistol was the finest pistol that money could not buy, crafting by master tech adepts that had learned their craft on Mars itself. She pulled out the heirloom, ancient scrollwork catching in the dim light, and aimed it at the xenos.

The genestealer had all but recovered. It stared at her with malign awareness, its alien constitution allowing it to shake off the disorienting effects of the conversion field feedback faster than she would have thought possible.

It bunched its legs, favouring its good leg, and then leapt towards her.

At the same time that she pulled the trigger.

A stream of compressed plasma tore through the stealer, halting its momentum instantly and leaving a ragged burn hole through the head, down the spine, and out the creature’s hindquarters. There was no blood - the wound had been cauterized instantly by the extreme heat of the plasma.

The stealer’s body dropped.

Cultists started wailing. Some fell on the ground crying. Others stood up and rushed Kiri, their guns held like clubs in their hands.

“Drack it,” she muttered and she took off sprinting towards the lander.

As she ran, a cultist on the far side of the courtyard shouldered a missile launcher. None of her crew seemed to be tracking him. He was intent on the lander - if he pulled the trigger … they were all done for - either killed in the blast or left stranded with no way to escape.

She skidded to a halt. The cultist’s companion loaded a missile into the launcher. Kiri aimed Dawnfire with both hands, and fired. The arc of plasma tore through the cultist’s head and the launcher, detonating the missile in the chamber. The loader was torn to shreds.

Kiri again launched herself forward at a dead sprint, her pistol in one hand and her lasgun flinging wildly around her on its strap. She looked at the cultists streaming towards her.

The stop had cost her — she wasn’t going to make it to the lander before they made it to her.

Suddenly, Corwin was on the lander’s ramp. Firing from the hip on full auto. He mowed through three of the cultists in the blink of an eye, but the hail of last fire must have penetrated whatever haze the others were in and activated whatever was left of their self preservation instinct.

She flew through the air, up the ramp and into the lander. Festerwel activated the door mechanism and the lander’s ramp pulled up as Corwin emptied the rest of his clip into the horde. Dravik lay on the ground moaning and clutching his shoulder while Tallow sat in the copilot’s chair.

Marrick was trying to power up the aircraft with one hand as his other arm hung limply at his side.

“Up Marrick,” Kiri said as she gasped for air.

He continued working the controls.

“Get up Marrick.” She was started to get her breath back again.

“We need to get out of here,” he said. “And Varro’s dead. I’m the only other one who can fly the Voidstalker.”

“I can fly it.”

He stopped and looked up at her then. Really looked at her.

Kiri tucked the pistol back into her waistband (she was going to need to get a proper holster) and walked up to the pilot’s seat. “Get up Marrick.”

This time, he did.

She slid into the seat, placed her hands on the controls, and felt like she was coming home.

Her peace was shattered by an insistent beep beep beep. Marrick, who had moved to stand behind Tallow, looked at the control. “Target lock!” he yelled.

“What?” Tallow looked through the viewport. “What’s got us locked?”

“I don’t know, maybe a rocket sentry!” Marrick was still yelling. “Throne take us. Get us out of here Kiri. NOW!”

Kiri hit the accelerator.

Nothing happened.