Horizon's Edge Captain's Log 2
Main Page
Captain's Log - 520.819.M41
Designation: Personal
Security Level: Locked
"You'd best desist, Adele. If you persist in this folly I'm quite sure your 'aunt' Zhaleel is going to be quite put-out with you!" I ducked beneath a pair of scything claws that scored the bulkhead inches deep above my head.
"Oh, I should have listened to the Genetor-Magos when she warned me about women," I lamented, sliding my rear foot back half an inch and straightening to my full height, extending my arm in a neat stop-hit: the abomination's wild grab terminates in a howl and a spray of ichor as the tip of my blade punches in and out of its hide. "She mentioned the monthly madness, but really, Adele, this is quite excessive!"
Heedless to my ruminations, of course, the thing that had once been my putative cousin gave a snorting grunt that was half-cackle, half-sigh; a truly monstrous extrusion from such delicate nostrils. It pirouetted on claw-tipped toes, bending its lithe purple form to rake at me again. I felt a brief sense of phlegmatic gratitude that whatever else 'Aunt' Zhaleel might have incorporated in Adele's wayward education, a firm grounding in hand-to-hand combat hadn't featured among them: what edge the Warp-twisted creature had in speed, strength, and unnatural armament, it definitely lacked in any sense of tempo or distance. It tottered and lurched on those preposterous claws like a drunkard -- odd, in that I'd never seen the usually-prim Adele imbibe any alcohol -- and slashed and grabbed seemingly at random. It bled from a score of wounds, while I nursed a torn waistcoat.
"Embrace the pleasures of Slaanesh!" it howled, or something to that effect, the effect of its otherwise chilling pronouncement somewhat muffled by the rush of slaver that moistened its jaws as it prepared for another mad rush.
I sighed, ruefully regarding the remnants of the ill-omened purple gown I had allowed Adele to take as spoils from that last hulk we raided, a sad taffeta paean to purity that now decorated the Warp-creature she had turned into in strips and tatters. It staggered forward, arms spread wide as if to enfold me in that baleful embrace; with regret -- for I feel Adele and I had been approaching a very proper understanding -- I triggered my sword's power field with my thumb, and with a sloppy forehand stroke lopped off both its twitching appendages. As the daemon recoiled, I lunged, leading a true line with the curved point of my blade angled slightly upwards, slipping under the ribcage and with a steely slither turning upwards to pierce its wicked heart.
"Lord-Captain! You must disembark! The cultists are attempting to flee in the lander!"
"I'm quite aware of that, thank you." The tremble of the bulkhead beneath my feet had long given away that particular plan; I pushed the wreckage of Adele's former earthly repository off my blade with somewhat more care than I would otherwise have done, and gently laid her down, pillowing her miraculously-unchanged head, with its porcelain features and flowing locks, on the severed arms, as much to still their mad twitching as out of respect for the dead. "Kindly give Commander Luitpold my compliments and instruct him to open the bay doors, please."
"The bay doo-- My lord! That's a death-sentence!"
Kryellos, I must remind you, dear reader, is a darling girl and also an impressive mistress-at-arms, but none too keen on following orders.
"I must beg your pardon, Arch-militant: I thought I was the only one on board this vessel with the authority to pronounce that capital sentence." I made my way to the engine compartment of the lander. The spacious hold, meant for transporting fighting men and matériel, or cargo, was full of struggling bodies, as the armsmen who had so helpfully stormed the ill-fated lander with me fought hand-to-hand with the suborned crewmen who now inhabited it. Everything related to the landing on that space hulk had been Warp-tainted, it seemed, even the lander: for suspicious weeks now it had been 'inoperable' and 'due for repairs', but its designated repairmen seemed loath to allow anyone, even survey or supply crews, near the little spacecraft, and rumours had gone out of clandestine meetings held beneath the shadow of its wings. When the blasphemous graffiti started appearing, it had taken little investigative work to identify the derelict lander as the headquarters of our burgeoning Chaos cult. More than fifty crewmen had fallen to the blandishments of Chaos, and with cold detachment I swept their heads from their shoulders as I passed. The armsmen whose foes I vanquished fall in behind me, gladly exchanging grunting bayonet work for the thunderous songs of their combat shotguns. With a wince at the thought of my finances suffering, I deposited my package and direct the armsmen to clear us a path back out of the lander, only to realise to my annoyance that our foes had no intention of letting us off easily.
From a distance I heard Kryellos' bolt pistols fire, an unmistakably deep thump-thump-thump compared to the higher snap-cracks of las-bolts, but it seemed like an ocean of humanity kept me from the promised safety of the exit ramp. I ordered the men to tighten up and don their void-masks, and to their credit it took only two or three seconds of absolute silence as they pondered the incongruity of that order before they complied. Nodding approvingly, I cracked open a smoke grenade and waded into the press. Those cultists who moved to stand in my way got a faceful of smoke and then, when they staggered back choking and reeling, a complimentary length of mono-edged steel through their guts.
The last of the armsmen struggled clear of the press, and I turned to join them when I felt an unsportsmanlike yank on my left leg that sent me sprawling to the deck, mere feet from safety as the cargo doors of the lander began to close, shutting me in with the rest of those degenerates. My sword skittered from my grasp.
My captor gurgled in mirth as I pulled my last grenade free of its sling. In the short moments since my previous deployment of a smoke grenade, the cultists had already begun mutating to compensate, growing rubbery probosces that plunged into the exposed, flabbly flesh of their bellies, that now bulged with a noxious cocktail of gases that allowed them to presumably circumvent their need for breathing. The tentacled oaf who had downed me raised its appendages in triumph.
"Smoking is highly-overrated as a cause of death, my lord," he taunted.
"Oh? Is that so? In that case, I presume you would like a light." The grenade flowered into a brllliant splash of flaming promethium mere centimetres from his face, and the horde of screaming, flailing, burning cultists did little to stop me from worming my way to the vanishing gap in the cargo hold doors and rolling to freedom.
"You can disengage the doors now, Luitpold," I ordered, dusting myself down.
To his credit, at least he didn't argue.
"Aye aye, captain," he said, sounding quite melodramatic over the voxcaster, as the airlock cycled open and the lander, its pilot no doubt plagued by screams and burning and the stench of smoke, gunned the engine, sending the lander zipping out into the blankness of the void. It made it about two miles from the ship before it exploded in a flash all the more beautiful for having been soundless. Curious, I counted under my breath as the wave-front approached, but Luitpold the old killjoy deprived me of the sight of the incipient impact by closing the doors again.
With some irritation, I unhooked myself from the safety harness that had prevented me from being sucked out into the vacuum. Kryellos Hardfist jogged up, clearly agitated at my perceived recklessness at allowing the ship to escape, only to have mined its engine compartment in secret with no regard for the danger posed to our own vessel for its proximal detonation, but for the moment, nothing could have spoiled my mood. Her words washed over me without effect as I contentedly began packing my pipe.
