StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Just something new I'm trying. Dunno what gave me the idea.



Chapter 1: Mur'Phys law

*Imperial space, near the eastern fringe*

"The Tau have a great destiny, to rule in the name of the greater good."

The large spaceship floated in space, the front area carried several weapons, its broadside had a few banks of guns with unusually big barrels that just radiated lethality, but overall it seemed under armed for its size. Most of its impressive tonnage was apparently used for something else.

"That is what they teach us in training atleast. That we're supposedly the greatest thing the galaxy has seen since the big bang. I never was that interested in that, I was there to fire the gun"

The ship was not alone. The other vessel was smaller, but still big, while the other ship carried enough guns that it might be a warship, this ship clearly wasn't. It was a freighter, currently docked to the Tau Merchant vessel.

"I'm a soldier, I was born to be it, and I consider myself fairly good at it, when it comes to the idea that we're the greatest species in the galaxy..."

The Ceramic armour was big, making the supermen wearing it seem even more imposing than they already were as they advanced towards the chokepoint held by the poor firewarriors. Their bolters held at ready

"... Is just so much bullshit to use the Gue'La expression."

"For the emperor!!!" The space marine yelled as they charged. The Tau rifles were immensely powerful, but against the power armour they were faced it they might as well have been using spitballs.

The Tau never quite had enough firewarriors on board to match a ship of similar size in a boarding action, but against marines even ten times as many firewarriors would have been futile.

By the greater good, we are all going to die. Passed through the head of the young Shas'La directly behind the impromptu barrier as yet another bolter shell blew through the barrier next to him. There were three Tau left, there had been ten when the marines advance began less than thirty seconds before.

One of them got up enough to fire a few shots and pump out a grenade from his carabine before a shell blew his head apart and covered his two remaining fellows with more of the purple blood and offal.

The assignment should have been easy. Just go in, make some trading with a few locals who either were sympathisers or were greedy enough not to care that it was Xenos they were dealing with. Unfortunatly somehow a marine chapter with a fondness for sneaky tricks had caught on to their pattern and 'convinced' a local in system freighter to act as bait.

The two Tau remaining behind the barrier both had their stories. The left one was Gir'ar a Firewarrior who was unusually talented and brave, he was a true believer in the greater good and had a charisma that few Tau could match. It was practically a given that he'd make Shas'Ui during the next trial of fire and likely head straight up to Shas'O at full throttle. That had been assuming he would survive this of course.

The other was Mur'Phon. He was from the same class. He had never liked Gir'ar. Okay he had utterly loathed Gir'ar. He was the kind who'd just like to find some obscure posting and stay there for the rest of his life in perfect safety. He also had a reputation for causing accidents. In the end he tended to get blamed for every odd thing that happened. Somehow war-game were he participated on either side never quite went the way they should.

Last war-game had been a total disaster when the Gun drones on both sides had somehow decided to declare independence and ganged up on the Tau doing the fighting, thankfully their weapons had been replaced with stunners instead of their standard carabines, but even so it had been nasty as the training dome weather system had also malfunctioned completely independently so thoroughly that there had been full storm. The participants literally hadn't been able to find the exit due to the storm. The Earth Caste technicians had come to the conclusion that it was just random bits of codes floating around that had coincidentally gone wrong exactly then simultaneously. Secretly every firewarrior that had participated blamed Mur'Phons presence despite him suffering as much as the rest.

Now Gir'ar even if he'd never have time to say it out loud blamed Mur'Phon for the Space Marines being exactly on the ship that their ship was trading with. Mur'Phon on his side knew this and would have replied that he had no more bad luck than anyone, and even if he did cause bad luck it went for all sides and hence would have hit the marines too if it existed as he tossed the grenade over the barrier.

The point he raised in the argument that didn't happen would then be torpedoed by what happened next.

As a finely tuned as a group of elite superhuman killing machines could be the plasma gunner went forward to take out the pesky little barrier with one blast from his heavy weapon. The grenade that sailed in was rightfully deemed to end up too far from them to be a bother without a word exchanged. The gravity plating in this particular area had taken a pounding from the firefight hence it wasn't entirely reliable, both firewarrior suits and Power Armor included aids that made their acting up neglible which was why even the superhumanly intelligent marines had missed it. The small surge dragged the grenade the last few meters straight at the marines in an instant. Straight at the plasma equipped marine. Then it went off.

The grenade wasn't powerful enough to actually harm the marine through his power armor. The plasma gun was another matter. The gun detonated. The emergency heat vent system could have saved him had he not pulled the trigger that very instant, it didn't give it time to try as the entire charge was detonated in the weapon. Frying him instantly and expanding a ball of plasma that covered the corridor from wall to wall. The blast wasn't that intense and excepting the marine on ground zero it was just a minor annoyance that blinded them for a second.

If they had actually bothered to have the argument Mur'Phon would now have been speechless, but recovered to say that it could have happened to anybody. Gir'Ar would have said something akin to "Yeah sure" in a sarcastic tone.

As they weren't having this argument Mur'Phons survival instinct and training took over in coalition. The position was untenable and the enemy wouldn't be stopped short of it, falling back was the only option and this was the best chance yet so he bolted from behind cover towards an indenture that housed the entrance to a vertical maintenance shaft to the side a few meters behind the metal slab that now looked suspiciously like Swiss cheese with more holes than cheese acting as cover. After a moment hesitation Gir'Ar followed.

The plasma cloud choose that untimely moment to dissipate. Mur'Phon dived into cover just before and wasn't seen. Gir?Ar wasn't that lucky.

"Death to the filthy Xeno!" One of the marines yelled. Gir'Ars brain shorted out and he turned towards the Marine with the last seconds of his life with a deer in headlights expression hidden behind his helmet as the bolter snarled.

The first shells didn't actually penetrate his armour, they blew him clean off his feet and sent him barrelling through the air, the follow up shells hit the now weakened armour and shattered it in mid air and penetrated. Interestingly enough there wasn't much mess, the armour mostly contained it and only a small red fountain from the hole just as the shell detonated was visible. The top rating cadet in last years graduation class of firewarriors got wiped from the universe by a hail of bolter shells.

Mur'Phon banged the stuck grill of the upper end of the maintenance shaft with his fist. It was stuck! Didn't anything on this ship work?

The noise was clearly audible for the marines and they turned towards it. In desperation Mur'Phon was about to strike it again, when it fell down straight on him with a resounding clank. He fell hard on the grill covering the way down, head swimming. That was when the grill under him chose to give way and he landed hard a deck down. He was really dizzy now, but barely conscious still. That was when his weapon lying on the side of the shaft decided it was a good time to tip over and fell down, straight onto the poor firewarrior. Even through the helmet the shock was jarring. He blacked out.
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Slowly things came back into focus. He blinked. The helmet view was dark, but it powered up as it sensed its user was awake again. The world came into focus.

He slowly managed to move the debris pinning him. In the distance he heard gunfire. He stood up a bit unsteady. Trying to remember what had happened. Then it all came back to him.

Oh shit. This is pretty much the textbook example of not good.

He was behind the enemy line of advance in a boarding action without any way of getting back to his own except punching through the front line, and he sure as hell weren't getting past the marines.

The tactical manual did have a plan for this kind of situation though. It called for the lone soldier to 'Disrupt and distract the enemy to the best of his abilities for the greater good.' Sure he'd distract them if he came in behind them. For the three seconds it took them to turn around and shoot him. He could take an escape pod, and become target practice because a lone escape pod was easy prey even for the minimally armed freighter they were docked too.

Then again the Freighter did trade with several places here, it was unlikely, but possible that he could make his way back to the Tau Empire by stowing away on the right freighters. That provided that the Marines hadn't left a sentry at the entry point. He climbed up. And saw that while there was a sentry it wasn't a marine, but what appeared to be one of the freighters very few men-at-arms standing guard by himself.

That could be a problem if he reported in. He considered shooting him, but that would be too loud. Then he saw the helmet near him. Its monoeye seemingly looking straight at him...

There was a loud clang as the helmet and the guards head met in a short, but quite intense meeting, the Tau head that had been inside unnoticed spilled out and spread purple blood even more over the corridor as the guard collapsed the head landing on top of him in a rather compromising position, the helmet bouncing back.

Mur'Phon moved. He went over to his previous position grabbing a few magazines and grenades, then he considered that he would be out of contact with other Tau for quite some time if this worked and grabbed a few more, after a moment he grabbed another few. Then he ran into the freighter, found a ventilation shaft and went in, closing the vent behind him. Now to find a spot he could spend the next few days, possibly weeks, until he could get to another ship.

It might be cowardly, but he consoled himself that someone had to carry the bad news home.

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In space the small vessel waited. The primary target had looked too tough to assault directly, but the imperial freighter that it was docked to was another matter. They were just waiting for the Space Marines to leave it and they would attack, swiftly and brutally. So they waited.
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He waited. He was hungry and he wanted to eke out his combat rations. So he was raiding the ships food stores, or rather: Anyplace on the ship he happened to find food as he wasn't exactly sure where the food stores actually were. In this case he was waiting for the small group to leave so he could grab it. It had been five hours since he snuck aboard. The marines seemed to have all but left.

He took out the dataslate from his bag pack again.

The Firewarriors unofficial guide to the galaxy. Written by Shas'O Kais just before his death. The best book ever written in the mind of Mur'Phon.

Kais was known as the first soldier to face the power known as chaos. And later as a very renowned commander, he had been praised up into the sky and the focus of innumerable propaganda. He had however not liked it, and just before his death he'd managed to write and distribute the true story as he saw it as well as his version of what he felt an average grunt needed to know.

The Ethereals had been spending decades decrying them as they showed sentiments that went quite against the Greater Good. It showed Kais succeeding through luck or others doing the main work and him spending most of the time of his early career trying to keep away from the sharp end of the stick. The guide was also decried as it gave a lot of advice on items like avoiding impending death and punishment for avoiding the bad stuff. They had become immensely popular among cadets and low level firewarriors though. The true story had driven down a lot of respect from the other castes, but the fire caste now venerated him up into the skies. In general he'd been relegated from the history books as one of the greatest Tau ever lived to half forgotten by everyone but the fire caste as the Ethereals tried to cover up the embarrassment following him getting his version of things out.

The Guide was a special case though. While officially illegal most commanders 'forgot' they had seen it if they found it during inspections. While it did indeed have sentiments that the etherals didn't like all it's intelligence on enemies was essentially correct and it made a good quick reference guide in the field if the troopers found themselves without support, far better and more to the point than the official material that usually bogged down into technical details irrelevant to fighting and killing them.

Now what does it say about behind enemy lines actions?

He scrolled to the appropriate entry.

"Behind enemy lines: There are general two main ways to unintentionally end up here, the first is to heroically charge through the enemy lines, but the rest of the army isn't good enough to keep up. The second is to hide like a coward until the enemy has passed. In general it's wise to always say the former on your AAR regardless of the actual events. To deal with what you should do here would require a book of its own so sorry, but you are on your own, just remember three things and you should have a decent chance.

1: You are not Super-Tau. If you try to fight them head on you will die. Avoid fighting if at all possible

2: Ethics and Ideals are a thing of convenience. This situation is not convenient. Do whatever you have to do.

3: Primary objective is to return to friendly forces, don't forget that.

Good Luck soldier."

Not as helpful as he'd hoped, but better than nothing.

He prepared to wait until the last two people left the room. That was when the conversation started getting interesting.
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"That's the last one." The first one said.

"Are you sure we aren?t being monitored?" His comrade replied. This wasn't something they wanted to be caught in.

"Completely."

"The Tau being taken out of action set back our timetable quite a bit. We were counting on their trade goods to equip us." The first one was obviously the nervous one

"It's no big deal. We have to move a bit more careful, but the alternate source is really even better. And we have still the other xenos in the sector to temporarily divert the blame to. The followers of the true gods always prevail in the end."

"Yes but..."

*clang*

"What was that?!"
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Mur'Phon leaned forward. What was that about true gods? The imperials only followed one god didn't they? As he leant forward he failed to notice that one of the clips he had acquired slid slowly out of its harness. It fell hard against the metal surface with a clang.

"What was that?"

"I don't know. It came from the vent."

Wordlessly they started reaching for weapons.

Mur'Phon said some obscenities under his breath and brought his weapon up.

The grill in front of the vent completely disintegrated under the blue flash as he vaporized the chest of the closest one.

The red tinged vapour flash burned the poor man next to it and he screamed. Mur'Phons armour was rated to protect against it and the suit computer automatically compensated for the red tinged fog that filled the room. He triggered another blast at the second cultists cutting his scream short. Unfortunately the blasts did damage to more than just the poor bastards being shot. The room had been picked for meetings because it was an unintentional nerve centre of circuits driving various systems of the ship. And wrecked a normally inconsequential one.
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The Captain of the freighter lent back. Sometimes life was good. He enjoyed the sip of the expensive wine he had managed to take a small portion off an earlier shipment. The comforting music came out of the antique and irreplaceable device he had been given as a gift from a wealthy friend. It was truly unique.

Or rather it had been as in just that moment it shot sparks all over the room and the music rose to a screech before it went silent completely wrecked by a freak surge as result of a normally inconsequential circuit got blown up.

He shot up as the lights of his cabin flickered. What the hell was happening to his ship!?
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*Bridge* A few minutes later*

"It's confirmed captain. We have an intruder. The surge in your cabin was caused by battle damage as it got into a firefight. It appears one of the Xenos managed to sneak over to the ship. I guess Security officer Cian spoke the truth when he said he was knocked out." There were some giggles. The story about how he'd been found out cold with a head in his lap was around the ship by now.

"Well I want that thing shot and killed! Nobody wrecks the ship of Ernst Gurto Firandres!" The captain yelled.

It was officially declared Tau Season.




I got chapter 2 written up as well. I'm just not done editing it as it just feels unsatisfactory as it is.

....I like it!

Keep going...

Interesting indeed.

I look forward to chapter two.

Well despite me not being satisfied (Can't really place what I think is wrong though) my pre-readers say it's ready to go.


Chapter 2: When it rains it pours.

The Firewarriors Unofficial Guide to the Galaxy says this about Imperial Navy Men at Arms and crewmen pushed into service as fighters:

"C'mon! Can it get any easier? These guys are for all intents and purposes just plain cannonfodder. They rarely, if ever, carry weaponry that can crack a firewarrior's armour in cover reliably, or unless it's in numbers even out in the open. The basic crewmen can rarely shoot that well anyway. And Men at Arms aren't that much better. For all intents and purposed they might as well not be armoured when it comes to our weapons.

You should however avoid getting arrogant. What they lack in lethality they make up for with sheer numbers. Our Doctrine means we never have enough fighters on hand to match them one to one, one to two or hell rarely one to four. Somehow our great and enlightened leaders think that boarding is such a minor aspect it's not worth stationing enough warriors on board to get even firepower. Which means that overall you should play it careful, if you meet them in numbers find cover and pick them off one by one or if possible use movement to engage them in detail. Make sure to bring enough ammo.

Also note that the dedicated men at arms of larger ships tend to be better trained, though still quite inferior, and will from time to time have acquired proper weaponry. This happens rarely, but keep your eyes open, it's really embarrassing to be killed by these amateurs.
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The shotgun armed crewman raced through the corridor in their hunt for the stowaway. Their captain had given the order, and given the captains egomaniacal tendencies nobody wanted to disobey.

The current plan was to station armed personnel at probable exit spots while men at arms flushed the Tau out. The first attempt didn't go so well.
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The Men at Arms Lieutenant was the only near-military officer they had, but he had a habit of being hands on. Hence he had been the one who decided to take the job of doing the flushing. The improvised flamer in his hands likely wouldn't cut it against the Tau's armour, but it would sure as hell hurt and likely be able to drive him out of the system into the waiting arms of his troops.

"Can you see him?" The cramped conditions meant that he hadn't been able to bring an aupex as well and hence relied on a crewman outside the system to feed him information.

"I think so. He is in front of you moving slowly towards you."

"Does he look close enough for the flamer to have effect?"

"Hard to see. All the metal in the way is interfering, but yeah I'd say so."

He triggered the flamer sending a jet of fire down the shaft. That should make their stow away realize he was unwanted.

"Lieutenant he's moving towards you much faster! He seems to be attacking!"

"I can handle that." He fired several times. The crewman got more and more agitated as the Tau seemed to get closer and closer.

"He's right on top of you now!"

"I can't see him!" He was getting scared now. Did he have some sort of invisibility?

"That can't be right. Wait a sec... I was holding it upside down."

"Oh frak." He turned his head slowly.

"Boo." Said Mur'Phon and fired.
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The shot was audible even without the com to the sergeant outside the vent. He had told that young fool that he should let the grunts take his chances. He gestured for one of the privates to go in. They hadn't sent more men in due to fear of friendly fire, no problem of that now.

The private started entering the shaft, and then screamed a terrible death scream as the flamer torched him alive.

Okay, so now the little bastard had a flamethrower. They were going to have to try something else.
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Mur'Phon dropped the flamer. That had to have shaken them a bit, but if they decided to send more in he couldn't count on them looking the wrong way all the time. Some more 'rear line disruption' was in order. He had noted a few interesting locations prior to being discovered. One of them seemed very likely to be a juicy target for a quick raid.
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The room was noisy. The technicians and techpriests were managing power expertly and calmly. Nobody even heard the clang as the grenades bounced on the deck.

The explosions wrecked quite a few more systems.
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The lights shipwide started flickering as the grenades wrecked a power room.. The Captain was infuriated. This alien was running circles around his security personnel and blasting holes in *his* ship! This was just unacceptable.

"Gas him out!" The Captain said.

"Sir he's in the ventilation. If we use gas it'll be all over the ship!"

"Then use Non-Lethal gas! I don?t care, get him out of those vents now!"
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The man at arms who tossed the grenade into the shaft considered. After hitting that power room he should be in this area. He put on his own mask as it rolled downwards into the shaft. With luck he'd be forced further down into the hands of the teams ready to gun him as he fled out of it.
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Mur'Phon picked up the grenade which spread the green foul smelling smoke. This was just insulting. Did they seriously think that he didn't have airtight armour? That was pretty much a must on the modern battlefield. Only civilians and light militia didn't bother in this galaxy. And even most of those had gas masks on hand. The gas rose upwards. Might as well...

He tossed it downwards.
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The men at arms were nervous. They had been told the Xeno would likely head that way. So when the gas grenade suddenly rolled out they were surprised for a second. Before the fast acting puke gas took effect.

The gas spread around the ship through the ventilation rapidly becoming tinned out. Dozens of crewmen were hit though. The Tau slipped through the net set for him again and moved to a different section.

During the chaos one of the groups opened fire in panic, hitting another group. The other group had heard all kinds of stories and though it was the xeno with captured weapons. They returned fire.

Before you knew it the entire port side of the ship was engaged in raging fire-fights. Of course the Tau was now heading straight over to the starboard side. It wasn't sure if the sensors had already been taken out or if they were taken out in the general chaos now.
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The small escort vessel was on it's own. This freighter was reading damage, they apparantly had an accident and it seemed the perfect time to strike. The Dark Eldar escort moved in. It was time to grab some fresh slaves.
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There was yet another in the long line of clangs these days as the grill hit the deck after Mur'Phon kicked it open and dropped to the deck.

This cargo hold was one of the lowest parts of the ship. It had not been caught in the general chaos yet. Perhaps he was lucky and they were carrying food here? He was still hungry after all.

He moved forward cautiously. The current plan was to get some food, screw up the ship some more then flee in an escape pod. It wasn't a good plan, it was just the best he had right now.

That was when the ship shook. Like if something was docking with it. He immediately let his imagination run off with visions of space marine battleships pouring marines into the ship to eliminate him with a casual effort. He forced himself calm. If that was so fretting about it wouldn't help one bit. Stress ruined more than delay and laziness. Besides, maybe he had gotten lucky and it was a Tau vessel there to rescue him? Unlikely, but possible after all.

He heard a noise and leaned around the corner of the crate he was behind. There was somebody working there, someone who hadn't been bothered by his not so silent entrance. He didn't seem armed. He seemed to be alone too.

He needed information. He had noted a handful of locations in the hours before he was discovered, like the power room he had wrecked, but he had no idea where the escape pods were. This guy could provide that.

Prior to this deployment he had been given a course in gothic so he could speak the language a bit, he hoped he could speak it well enough to be understood. It'd be too embarrassing to fail an interrogation because he couldn't manage to ask the questions.

He raised his weapon.

"You there, get up, slowly."

The white robed person stood up.

"Turn around." The man turned. His left eye didn't look human; it looked almost as if it had a black mechanical patch over it. Combined with his white robe Mur'Phon made the connection that he was a tech priest. That much made sense. What followed didn't.

"Can I look at it?"

"What?"

"Your weapon, can I study it?"

Mur'Phon was taken aback this was not a reaction he had even remotely expected.

"I'm holding you at gunpoint. I can gun you down at any moment and you want to study my gun?"

"Well yes. Your kind is rarely unnecessarily brutal so since you haven't shot me already I doubt you are going to shoot me unless I do something stupid."

It seemed logical, yet it seemed utterly insane at the same time. Which pretty much fit the guide's description of the Adeptus Mechanicus. He briefly considered just shooting the guy and finding someone else.

"Tell me where the escape pods are."

"Will you let me study your weapon then?"

"No. And if you ask one more time I'm going to blow off one of your legs. I'll do the same if you don't tell me where the escape pods are."

"What if I do both? Do you blow off both my legs?" The tech priest asked.

"No, both legs, one arm, I shoot of limbs based on annoyance."

"Fair enough, the escape pods are in that direction." He gestured with his left arm.

"That doesn't say me much you know."

"It's still technically telling you where they are."

"You do realize annoying the person that has a weapon trained on you is a bad idea, right?" Mur'Phon was getting frustrated. Talking to this guy was like talking to a brick wall.
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The eldar were pouring into the ship. They could almost taste the blood and fear of the helpless and shocked freighter crew.

They were shocked themselves for a second when they entered the fray.

The point squads stopped cold when they saw the fire-fight. There was no pattern they could discern. It just looked like they shot anything that had a muzzle flash. The air was filled with smoke. There was an odd smell in the air from the puke gas, and a few of the invaders without helmets who for whatever reason was somewhat less resistant than the rest felt the effect of the thinned out gas and puked their own guts up. Quite frankly they came to bring chaos and destruction, and found that the damn Mon-Keighs had taken the fun away from them by doing it themselves.

It only lasted a few seconds though before the pressure of the rest of the raiders behind them pushed them into the fray. They spilled into the ship by the dozens to kill, maim and enslave any sentient they could get their hands on.
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The bridge was silent. It didn't stay silent.

"I want these intruders off my ship!" The captain boomed.

"Sir! Our people aren't responding, there are massive failures in the system. Sensors are down, communications are down. We can't call for help and our crew is out of control. We got to abandon ship. We can't stop this assault!" The lieutenant next to him stated. He had wished to join the navy, but failed to meet the standards, so he had gone into the merchant marine as well, but he could not make this egomaniac see that these actions were getting the crew slaughtered. They had to get out of there while they could.

"This is *my* ship. We are not abandoning it for anything less than a direct order from the emperor himself!"

The bridge crew was scared, but that fear was rapidly being overridden by an even stronger fear. Mutiny was a very real possibility. They never got the chance.

The pressure door burst open. A lone eldar wych charged.

The men at arms protecting the captain tried to get their weapons in line, but she was too fast and already in close contact.

The first man raised the weapon just as the nasty looking double bladed knife cut through his arm, bone and flesh alike, like it was made of butter. Even before he managed to scream she was making her next attack, she took a horizontal cut through his gut. A maximum pain and slow death cut.

Her face was covered with an evil grin as she dodged out of the way of the autogun salvo from the next soldier. She was like lightening. As far as she was concerned everyone else was moving in slow motion and she was the only one moving normally. She was used to this and she took full advantage of it to cause as much suffering in as short time as possible. She was now death incarnate, and she loved every minute of it. The Captain was a scared man so a kick to his head took him out for torture later on. The Lieutenant next to him was scared too, but he had a core of courage as he reached for his pistol with cold determination that she felt would be too much of a bother to break, so she merely decapitated him with a quick slash. It was a shame to waste someone like that, he might have been an entertaining addition to the arena fighting back home. Oh well life was imperfect.

To everyone else she was a whirlwind of blades, one moment there, one moment here, one moment she was ripping your guts out, the next she was beheading someone who seemed to be across the room. They just couldn't keep up. They all died, though some slower and with more suffering than others.

Alone she stood victorious. Alone she savoured the taste of blood from her blades. She charged back into the general melee satisfied with having shattered the last remains of the command structure on the ship.
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The guide has this to say on the Dark Eldar:

Simple study has led to the conclusion that there are infact two kinds of Eldar. The first is the most well known. The manipulative bastards with worldships. The second are shadowy raiders.

They are much like their brethren, only spikier and with less clothes.

These people are psychopaths. They are only focused on making you suffer. Either by making sure your death is painful or by taking you prisoner and dragging you home for torture. Frankly I suspect they are overcompensating for something.

As they nearly always achieve surprise you can expect little in the way of support. However if you can keep the range open you will never need it. Armour appears to be a lost art for these people. Even your standard rifle will gut their heaviest vehicles. And their infantry has very little chance against you, while master shots their standard infantry weapons usually aren't that big a threat as they are meant to be more painful than lethal hence lacks the punch to deal with our heavier armour. Their support weapons can kill you, and have the reach to match, but they are thankfully rather few. Overall most of their firepower lacks the reach of even our standard infantry. I find it hard to believe that a species that supposedly has been starfaring for millions of years can be this badly equipped compared to us, but it hangs together with their need to cause suffering.

However, while they die very fast at range, at short distances they are sudden death, lightening fast and with numerous very lethal close combat weapons they can there slaughter our forces with near impunity. Let's face it. Our hand to hand training is substandard and it shows.

Their greatest weakness however is their need to brutalize you. It sounds odd but it makes them make mistakes no trained professional will do, and it can with a little luck be made use of. If given the choice between two ways that both seem about equal efficiency where one causes needless suffering to their target they will invariably take that one, even if they lose a lot of efficiency in doing so. Basically a variant of our Kauyon (The Patient hunter) can easily be converted to use against these people. Provided they give you time to execute it. Never a sure bet.

It's further complicated by their quick teleport strikes. They usually either use elite troops, or masses of cannon fodder. Which makes keeping the distance hard. This is where those silly long distance runs you do in training tend to come in handy. You'll be surprised at how fast you can run in these situations.

Also note there are exceptions to their weakness see: Unit list: Incubi

*The article continues with list of specific units.*
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"So can you show me the way to the escape pods then?" Mur'Phon said. This guy was just impossible, but he suspected he wasn't actually drawing out the time for reinforcements to appear; rather he was just cranky he had a gun trained on him.

"Well certainly, why didn't you just say so?"

Mur'Phon wanted to go smash his head against a wall or something. It had taken over thirty minutes to get this far.

Just then the door burst open. Mur'Phon spun around reflexively and launched a grenade from the under slung launcher. It hadn't even impacted when he registered that these weren't human.

"Eldar?" He said simply as the grenade burst among them. The blast took care of the first few, he switched from semi to full auto and let rip with the powerful pulse weapon.

Nobody in the squad survived through the doorway. And they were too intent on getting into the fight to think about hanging back and using cover.

"That's it. This day officially sucks!" He exclaimed.

"Uh? I think it might be an idea to make use of the escape pods now."

"Yah think?!" Mur'Phon was starting to believe that he indeed attracted bad luck. He gestured for the tech priest to move. Never hurt to have a meat shield in front of him.
________________________________________________________________

The wych's face was still covered by that insane and evil grin that would make people with weak nerves wet themselves. The current target looked tough, a man at arms with several scars on his face, looking every bit the worn veteran. Her experience told him that he had been in several fights and if he was scared that was forced into a tiny room in the back of his skull never to be seen by his grunts, a classic sergeant type. He might actually be a challenge, even if he was a slow Mon-Keigh. She charged. Despite that she couldn't shake the feeling that he was acting like he knew something she didn't.

There was something about his right fist? He was holding something in it. They were big hands, might hide a lot, but what did he hide? It would match the size of a... Grenade!!!

The realization made her reflexively try to break of the charge and get some distance. He knew he was dead, but he'd take her with him so she couldn't kill his men. She stopped and tossed herself away from him. It was a simple HE grenade. He didn't want to risk hurting his people with shrapnel, so she managed to avoid the main blast, but the walls and ceiling were already heavily damaged. Debris flew through the air, a fairly large chunk fell lose from the ceiling and hit her head. She blacked out.
________________________________________________________________

In space reality rippled. The barrier between the immatterium was breached.

By sheer fluke (Or Mur'Phons presence, take your pick) they materialized very close to the freighter. One of the larger vessels detected the two vessels locked in deadly boarding combat. The hive mind decided that it would be better to board the vessel and set course for it. The great devourer had arrived and the ship was decided it would be a nice appetizer.
________________________________________________________________

The Eldar had gone into frenzy, all rational thought lost. The tech priest had acquired a laspistol and turned out to be a decent shot for a civilian. Even so alone against the Eldar he would have died. The heavily armed soldier tough turned out to be a little too much for the somewhat nuts eldar to handle in their frenzied state.

"So? What?s it like being an alien?"

"Hey as far as I?m concerned you are the alien." Mur'Phon replied.

"Hm? Well from your point of view it would be like that. I actually never considered that angle."

This guy was just nuts.

That was when the hull seemed to start to just... Melt.

"What the?" Even before it finished claws started to chew through the hull. The Tyranids had arrived.

"By the omnissiah... I think we need to run."

"Like hell." Mur'Phon agreed.
________________________________________________________________

The wych blinked, trying to clear her head. Her expression had changed it was no longer the insane expression of evilness. It was more like a small scared animal. She had no idea on the current chaos and reached out. She grabbed something soft and picked it up. Then she recoiled off the deck and dropped the severed head. She didn't quite shriek, but it was close. She grabbed her weapons, and stood up and shivered a little. It was chilly. The flickering lights implied that staying here on this ship wasn't a good idea. She started walking, then broke into a run.
________________________________________________________________

The human and tau were running like hell. Occasionally they'd turn and fire some shots to slow the swarm behind them. It was like a solid wall of organic material. And it was trying it's best to crush them.

"Why do things like this always seem to home in on me!?" Mur'Phon managed to get out despite the run.

"Why didn't you tell me in advance that you attract trouble!?" the tech priest replied.

Despite the situation Mur'Phon couldn't resist. "You didn't ask."

They were approaching the escape pod area fast, most the pods were already gone. A few remained. They homed in on one of them.

They leapt the last meter into it. The tech priest slammed the button to fire it off before they were even fully inside dropping the pistol to do this and not hit the floor too hard. The door slid shut. And the pod started moving The tyranids advanced on the pod, but another bunch of crewmen trying to get out distracted them long enough for it to make it to the tube and it fired off.

As soon as it moved away from the ship the relief and stress in Mur'Phons system had a effect. He dropped his weapon.

"Hahahaha! Man I'm good!"

The tech priest in the meantime looked into the pod.

"Um? Alien."

"I'm so great. I'm more badass than Kais!"

"Yo Tau."

"When I get home they'll have to write a whole library about this!"

"We're not alone."

That got through. Mur'Phon shut up and finally noticed. They were sharing the pod, with a female eldar wych.

They both knew how fast they were, and they had both dropped their weapons.

"Oh shit." He said simply

Hm... Rather poor reception here.

Well... I'm not satisfied with the group dynamic, but I'm hoping to improve that one later on in the story.


Chapter 3: Escape pod blues.

The Guide has the following to say about Dark Eldar wyches:

"From what I have been able to gather these lightly clad hand to hand experts usually start out in arena gladiatorial battles to the death. Which means they have virtually always fought and killed repeatedly before.

Personally I suspect the best environment to face these guys in is an ice waste. They walk around practically naked, why they aren't freezing their butts off normally is beyond me. Whereas we walk in thermal regulated armor that makes sure we always are at the temperature that is the most comfortable at all times. We do have some cool items all right.

Anyway. These guys are good shots and terrifying warriors at close range. They got two weaknesses though. One is their obsession with fighting flashy, it means they will take chances no professional would make. And it is not that unlikely to give you or your mates a clear shot at giving them a pulse treatment. There is also their excess brutality. They'll take their time to kill your mates. That gives you a chance to set up a perfect firing position for when they finish and can blow them away.

If you find yourself at close range unable to take a shot and no chance of running (Well usually no point in trying then, they are faster than you anyway), put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.

________________________________________________________________

"Uh... Why hasn?t she killed us yet?? Mur'Phon whispered. They were backs to the walls, guns at their feet.

She was sitting in the other corner. Shivering a little.

"I think she wants to see us afraid before she kills us. The moment we go for our weapons she'll be all over us and not in the good way."

"I think we need to talk her out of it."

"Well... Itæs not like we have any better ideas to save us." The very idea of talking a xeno out of not ripping out their entrails and feeding them to their previous owners was unlikely, but it's not like they had any better things to do to pass the time.

The tech priest cleared his throat.

"Young lady. I realize that right now you want nothing more than killing us brutally and painfully and then dance in our blood, but I' d like you to reconsider."

"Why..." She started. Somewhat slowly. Gothic wasn't her first language.

"We can offer a wide variety of services. As well as valuable technology. Not to mention very useful and accurate information thanks to my reference guide." Mur'Phon added.

"Wha..."

"I have been rated as one of the best weapon makers in the sector. While it takes me a few tries usually, when I start getting it right I can make marvelous equipment. A match for the best equipment used by our amazing spacemarines. Surely that must be worth something to such a fine warrior as yourself."

"I..."

"If you will just hold off on killing us I am sure we can come to a satisfactory agreement, mutually beneficial to all parts." He wished he was water caste right now.

If either of them hadn't been scared out of their wits they would likely have noticed the fear which she occasionally glanced at the guns on the deck. She shivered again.

"Cold" she said simply. It was clear she felt that anything more than single words would get her cut off.

The two desperado negotiators looked at each other. Without a word they worked out a plan.

Mur'Phon reached for his backpack's ration compartment, he hoped the taste wouldn't be too bad for her, but food tended to help against cold.

The Tech Priest slipped out what appeared to be a soldier jacket Mur'Phon didn't recognize from under his robe, he'd see if the symbols matched anything in the guide later.

They reached forward slowly. As to not seem like they were trying anything. She took the jacket gratefully and started nibbling on the combat ration. Grimaced a little at the taste, but hunger took over and she managed to get it down.

Only then did she manage to get out the sentence she had been trying to say the entire time.

"Why would I want to kill you?" She said in a voice that practically radiated genuine innocence and kindness.

Their brains committed simultaneous near perfectly synchronized temporary shutdowns at that.

________________________________________________________________

It took them a few minutes before they got able to actually think again.

"So you plan to torture us then. Make us suffer until we beg you to kill us?" Mur'Phon was getting ready for a desperate dive for his weapon despite the low chance of success

She looked down. Undeniably cute yet depressing at the same time. "Am I some kind of monster?"

"Uh what... Of course not!" The techpriest got out.

"Yeah of course not. Infact you are a beautiful young lady." Mur'Phon was pretty sure this was true, that she had the kind of looks that humans though was to die for. He of course was unable to see it if that was so.

"Really?" She sounded more upbeat, but there was something to her voice that said she did know deep down that they were saying it because they though it was what she wanted to hear. She just tried to pretend she didn't realize it to herself. Complex matter

Mur'Phon however was getting a nagging suspicion.

"Wait. You don?t want to kill us?"

"No." She said in that same tone low tone. Not even a trace of annoyance from being asked again.

"Nor torture us?"

"No."

"Nor make us suffer in other ways?" Mur'Phon finished.

"No. You haven?t done me anything so why should I?" She was sounding genuinely confused, and somewhat afraid. As if she didn't want to know the answers.

"What is your name?" He finished.

"I don?t know."

"By the Omnisiah..." The techpriest said. She had amnesia.

The two looked at each other and nodded. Remind her on what she used to be may have the bad effect of reawakening her old persona. Best take it calm and keep it down for now.

"What is going on? The first I remember is waking up surrounded by a lot of... Dead people" she seemed to have trouble getting it out.

Is it even legal to look that cute?

She had the aura of a small scared animal around her that just seemed to add to cuteness factor even as an alien like him saw it.

This made what happened next all the more shocking.

The small cockroach thing was minding its own business. Unfortunately this was a bad day for everyone in system, including it.

The eldar turned. She looked at it. Her eyes widened.

Then faster than they could see she moved. With a snarl she slashed it apart into several very tiny bits!

The two other occupants jumped backwards in shock.

She stopped. Realizing what she did.

"Uh... Sorry. I don?t know what came over me."

Mur'Phon was really glad right now that his armor recycled body waste.

"Uh... No problems with us. We don't like insects either."

"Yeah infact we hate them. The bugs that chased us onto this pod wanted to make us an early appetizer. So really no problem. Just give us a warning next time. I don't think that small bug was planning to eat us."

"We were chased out by bugs? Were they the things that killed everyone?"

"Well? In the end, yes. Though it was a chaotic situation."

"I hate them." She stated. In a calm tone as if she was talking about the weather. It turned somewhat sadder immediately.

"And I don't like feeling hate. It's feels as if that emotion is burning me out from the inside."

The tech priest and the Tau looked at each other again.

This can't be real can it? Was the though that passed through both their minds.

Mur'Phon broke the silence. "Uh? What can you tell me about that planet this pod seems to be headed towards?"

"Well yes. It's Tarvin b. This system is fascinating in that there are two habitable worlds on the opposite sides of the star. Tarvin B is the least hospitable of the two and has been overlooked except as a research lab, the geology is also rather interesting..."

"So basically it's a small research world. And the other world is the primary built up world?" Mur'Phon cut him off.

"Yes that is a good way to sum it up."

"Then why do a large part of the 'Nids seem to be heading there first?"

The tech priest shrugged, however given how disasters had started the moment this Tau had appeared he had his suspicions. Saying them out loud as he had the best armor and armaments might not be the best idea though.

"I have no idea, I would say it?s a good idea to go down, grab some shuttle and run like hell to get away from them."

"Sounds like a plan, however?" He raised his weapon.

"I'm not sure why I should trust you. Back on imperial soil you might want to sell me out."

"Without me you would never have gotten off that ship you know."

"Yeah, so? It was an alliance of convenience, now it can seem that it wouldn't be convenient anymore. The question is merely who backstabs who first. And I frankly hate being backstabbed."

"Excuse me, but I have done nothing against you at all. You are the one who's been running around like a psycho with that gun threatening random servants of the omnissiah who are just minding their own business!" Say what you want. The tech priest wasn't easily scared.

"Stop it!" The wych suddenly exclaimed.

"Nobody is going to backstab anyone! Understood?!" She actually wasn't pissed. She looked more distressed than angry, also looking undeniable cute even then.

Despite this they still weren't quite convinced she was harmless. They nodded numbly.

"If anyone tries to backstab anyone I'll..." She trailed off while she tried to think of a threat she was actually willing to back up. Everything from cutting off their limbs and let them bleed to death, to castration, to finally just giving them a savage beating was considered and rejected. She didn't think she'd get herself to actually do it.

"... Well something really mean! Just need to think of something that fits it."

This of course was understood the completely opposite of what she actually meant.

"I think the lady here just took charge." Mur'Phon said weakly.

"I'd be executed as a heretic for having dealt with Xeno anyway. I might as well go all way." The tech priest replied just as weakly. Images of savage maiming that would make a chaos marine wince passed through his mind.

He reached out his hand.

"Junior Adeptus Mechanicus adept Gordonius Fixalticus at your service."

The Tau accepted it. "Mur'Phon. Shas'La of the Tash'Var sept."

"So... Since we are now allies, could I study your weapon?"

"No."

"I assure you the machine god will reward you if you let me borrow it. And I promise I will return it in one piece."

"Will that one piece work?"

"Well..."
________________________________________________________________

The Escape pod was approaching the planet now. To an observer it almost
seemed to hang in space for a moment considering if it really wanted to do this. Drop thousands of feet straight down to impact on the ground to be thoroughly beat up and likely never become space worthy again? Or could it just hang here until the emperor stepped down from the throne to get himself a beer?

In the end gravity decided that it would have none of that. It had come this far and it could damn well travel the last part of the way. It grabbed hold and dragged it downwards heedless of the scream like sound from friction as it plunged through the air with enough speed to turn an Italian driver pale.

Alongside half a dozen other pods it headed straight down. The people onboard each of them being buffeted around wildly.

They came up on the final approach. Retro rockets straightened the drop path, and then fired full power to get rid of speed. Even so the impact was truly jarring for the occupants.
________________________________________________________________

"Can't you imps make a good escape pod to save your lives? Tau pods wouldn't try to kill you in the landing."

The trio stood outside the escape pod under the hot sun of the desert. It was not a hospitable place

"If you Tau could volunteer a few pods I'll gladly duplicate them."

The wych was shaking her head.

Those two aren't for real. Up there they were about to kill each other and now they chat like they are best buddies?

"So where is this research lab you talked about?" The Tau asked. He seemed to have forgotten to shoot. She shuddered. That anyone could be so casual about killing?.

"In that direction, we should be there a bit after nightfall unless some more bad stuff gets attracted to us."

"Hey! It's not my fault!"

"I believe it is better to be safe, than sorry." The tech priest replied

She had to give a snort at that. Somehow it seemed natural that soldiers bantered like that just to keep their minds of the really bad things like that tyranid fleet. Probably some part of what she hadn't forgotten that told her that. Still, it was odd that the Tech priest seemed to fit the soldier type so well.

She tried again to remember, well anything besides skills. She knew she was some sort of fighter, but she didn't feel like a soldier. Not in the way these two both seemed to be.

That was when the ground under the Tau gave way.
________________________________________________________________

One second it was solid. The next it was collapsing.

Mur'Phon reached out trying to grab something, but there was nothing to grab, and no human or tau could react in time to stop the fall.

Of course, there weren't only Tau on hand.

He felt a hand grab firmly onto his. He heard the sound as a knife dug deeply into the ground to give something solid for her to hold onto.

"You know. You could really stand to lose some weight." The wych commented dryly as she was on her stomach trying to hold him up.

He didn't answer. He was staring into the cave. This system looked rather extensive. He switched the helmet vision over on infrared...

"Oh shit, not again!"

"Wha?" the Wych started, but the firewarrior set a new speed record on climbing up.

"RUN!!!" He yelled as he dragged the wych to her legs in pure reflex and started putting his money where his mouth was.

The tech priest started running, looked back, then started laughing as he ran.

"I knew! I knew it!"

"Shut up." Mur'Phon replied.

Up from the hole surged a group of big and hungry ambulls.

Heh heh. Very funny. Keep it up.

I loved the take off of Alien. And say it with me now: Awww, cute wychy wych!

Well.. Technically she's supposed to be the generic beautiful eldar as well, it's just that so far we've only seen her from the Tau's perspective.

And I seriously can't envision a Tau finding a human/eldar looking hot (What with that nose in the middle of their faces, those eyes with all that white and all that hair ) so he can only see her as cute.

And you are BTW the first to notice my alien reference.

Cute story, who knows what type of person/critter they'll pick up next? Light Eldar maiden, for a catfight? Ork Mek, who is tired of fighting? Slaanesh priest/ess who sells tickets for the catfight?

Nice story. Keep it up.

This made my day .

This story kicks soooo much ass

That is all

Hahaha! Great story! Keep it up, I'm interested in how this'll conclude. I think that Tau choose the Bad Luck trait from Fallout 2. Seriously.

Chapter 4: Time to be elsewhere

"I got to admit. This is rather tasty for a field meal." Gordonius commented.

"You are absolutely sure these things aren't sentient right?" The wych said as she reached for a second helping of the Ambull that was the day's choice for the menu.

They were sitting around in a small set of cliffs that hid them well from being seen from the science facility having thanks to being chased by ambulls made it there far faster than planned. Hence they took the time to have a good meal before they went in. One ambull more aggressive or stupid than the rest had graciously "volunteered" to act as the dinner.

"There has never been any indications that they possess any true cunning or intelligence."

The guide had multiple recipes for preparing meals in the field with minimal resources. Ambull was one of them. For some odd reason a lot of aliens that had opposed the Tau empire in the past were listed as well there. Mur'Phon decided not to bring up that fact just now. He had also intentionally and discretely erased humanburgers from the list while preparing the ambull. No need to piss anyone off more than necessary.

"It's a bit funny though. Poetic justice. It tries to eat us, we try to eat it right back." The wych remarked.

"Well it's only fair. Too bad 'nids aren't edible. We'd have enough food to last us a millennium." Mur'Phon replied casually adjusting the portaheater a bit to keep it hot.

The wych shuddered. "Can we talk about something else than them?"

"Gordonius. You were gonna give us a basic plan for the facility?"

"Well yes. I had to improvise to draw it, but it should be fairly good representation on the standard procedures and layout of such research facilities. Unfortunately I'm not sure what procedures they use just before an invasion."

"Right. So we can assume the layout is correct." The ambull hide had made good enough improvisational paper. The blood used to write on it just seemed a tad tacky though.

"But you can't rely on the guard routes." Gordonius finished.

"So the plan is to sneak in, find a ship, find a pilot, convince pilot to take us to the other planet and improvise from there."

"Yes. It is a temporary solution, but it will give us more time."

"Which brings up a problem. We need to be able to make it clear immediately who we are talking to when we're in there. And we're one name short."

They turned towards the wych.

"Well... Can't you just call me something short and simple?"

"What about Miku?" Came from, surprisingly, Gordonius.

"Why Miku?" Mur'Phon wondered.

"Well. No real reason."

"Miku... I can live with that."

"Okay Miku. You are forward recon. Note guard and sensors placements. If you can neutralize without being spotted do so. I'm your backup. If you run into something you can't handle yell and I'll open fire. Please note that this is a last resort thing. 'Cause if we start shooting they know we are here."

"Neutralize... I don't have to kill them do I?"

Well it would be preferable, but somehow I think saying that out loud isn't a good idea .

"Just use your best judgement." It was really worrying when an eldar raider was less bloodthirsty than you were.

"Can you explain again why we have to sneak in anyway? I mean shooting outright seems a bit... Well a good way to make sure they don't give you a chance later on."

Mur'Phon fought the urge to bury his face in his hands.

How the hell could anyone who used to be that lethal be so naïve?
_________________________________________________________________

She looked up at the night sky again. No sign of the monsters that were heading to devour the world yet. She shuddered again, though this time it wasn't just fear. Why the hell was she going around in big boots and a bikini? She was starting to suspect that her pre-amnesia self had been more than a little weird. She thanked whatever powers ruled the universe that this wasn't an ice-world. The jacket helped a lot though.

Either I was a real ditz who forgot to get dressed or my sense in clothing was on par Mur'Phons luck. Not to mention all the spikes on what little clothing she had, those made casual things like sitting down or trying to pull her legs up to stop freezing... Interesting to say the least.

Miku... She sub-vocalized it again. It wasn't so bad.

That was odd. Shouldn't there have been some guards out here?

She approached closer. Still no signs of any guards at all. She noted a surveillance camera on the fence. It wasn't moving. Infact it didn't seem to be working at all.

Power is out?

The fence wasn't that tall really, but the barbed wire on top of it made things difficult. Especially since she didn't exactly have any clothing to protect against it! She really wanted to beat her previous self for this.

Ah well you used what you had. She took off her jacket, got it over the top barbed wire, almost effortlessly climbed up and over it and managed to even get the jacket loose before letting go and landing silently on the other side of the fence. The entire movement took less than three seconds.

Honestly when it was this easy to get over their fences why did they even bother having them? Then she remembered the wildlife and figured that they probably extended underground as well to stop those ambull things. She wondered again why the other two in her group despite being soldiers were so physically slow. She wasn't that fast. Was she?

She examined the jacket, no rents whatsoever. Pretty solid stuff that.

There were still no signs of life at all. Now she was getting worried.

That's when she finally got close enough to see the rents in the wall.

Okay. Maybe teaming up with someone who seems to have the worst luck in the universe wasn't the greatest idea I've ever had.

For some reason she was sure the marks she saw were from lasguns despite not being able to remember ever seeing them in action. But there was no sign of who they had been fighting.

She turned around to go get the others.

_________________________________________________________________

The Guide on unknown abandoned facilities with little trace of the previous occupants:

"Well. There is one general advice that works in 90% of all cases. You turn around and get as far away as you can. This doesn't always work, either because you have to go in there due to circumstances, or because the guy in charge is a moron. If you do go in there you have to remember to always make sure you got expendables, weather these are gundrones, auxiliary troops like Kroot or Gue'La, or just plain fellow warriors you don't like, always have them. They will save your life if this is one of the all too many places packed full of unpleasantries. There are also a few things that are bad enough that if they happen you bug out, go AWOL or whatever is necessary to get out. Administrative punishment or even demotion is better than slow lingering death or worse. Unless the consequences of leaving are worse than these get away. These things are:

-Finding stuff written in blood on the walls. (This happens unusually often by the way, no idea why)

-Mysterious disappearances among your fellows.

There are also a few things that may save your life.

-Always travel in groups. Doing that means that if you are hit you are less likely to be the one hit and you have a lot more guns to discourage it.

-Whenever there's a place that is easily trapped or looks like a very good hiding place, break out the expendables and send them through first. Elevators, basements, hidden compartments all qualify.

-Speaking of elevators. If at all possible always take the stairs.

-Mysterious occurrences need to be investigated, but make sure you aren't the one doing the investigations.

-Don't ever tempt fate with statements like 'We're perfectly safe' or 'I can handle anything this place hides'. As well as too many other examples to list.

-Despite what procedure says and what you report in never consider the area secure until you have left it and are safely back home.

Continue into such facilities at your own risk."

___________________________________________________________________

"So basically it's been hit by someone and everyone are dead or gone." Mur'Phon asked

"Yep. And knowing our luck they are still there out of sight." Miku replied

"Great, just great. We have to get inside to get to the shuttlepad, which should be in a square roughly in the middle of the buildings."

"The good news is that we don't have to sneak to get inside." Gordonius tried to see the optimistic viewpoint.

"Yeah, now we'll just wander into a trap or something."

They reached the fence and Miku casually climbed over it again, the same gymnastic way as she got in and out last time.

"Well come on, what are you two waiting for?" She asked. For them in full getup it should be a lot easier.

"Uh... I think we'll get in another way." Mur'Phon said as he took out his short sword and got to work cutting his way in.

"Hey it's not like it's difficult." Miku replied. Mur'Phon suddenly realized she frankly didn't realize they weren't up to her skills.

This is gonna make things confusing.

Actually getting through to the shuttlepad proved rather easy. There weren't anyone between them and it. Not even rodents. The silence was unnerving.

The status of the shuttle itself was also a huge surprise.

It was fuelled and ready to go. Every system showed green. Unfortunately there was still no sign of anybody, and none of them could pilot a shuttle.

"Well... That puts a crimp on things." Mur'Phon commented.

Meanwhile Miku hugged herself and stared outwards.

"They never left did they? They were attempting to run, but whatever is down here got them before they could leave."

"Taking off and using trial and error seems like a better option every second." Gordonius said. He was pretty sure that Miku was all too right

"If we do that we're dead. This isn't exactly a simple airspeeder. The odds against it are beyond extreme."

"If whatever is down here kept the pilots alive we might find and rescue them. If not, then we are so very dead if we stay here." Gordonius argued. Whether he meant the 'nid fleet above them or whatever was down here was debatable. Both of them were now watching the edge of the pad for any movement.

Whatever Mur'Phon was going to reply was drowned out by the sudden roar of a plane engine.

_______________________________________________________________

"No sign of movement at all, but the facility looks undamaged sir." The pilot said.

Sergeant Gomez nodded. Their Valkyrie was doing another pass over the facility before going in to land on the shuttle pad.

They had been sortied in a hurry two days ago when all contact had been lost, hitchhiking on an in system freighter on a supply run to the facility, now matters were even more pressing with the Tyranids coming in. Their mission had changed from recon to also recover whatever could be recovered from the base. The expected situation changed from probably a communication problem to Tyranid vanguard.

This was a job for stormtroopers, for elite veteran troopers, not a rookie infantry squad from a just formed imperial guard regiment shipped to their location.

But it had been too late to get another force there in time to do it.

"There's somebody down on the shuttlepad!" The co-pilot exclaimed.

"Who are they?"

"I don't know, three individuals, one seems most definatly female female, at least one of them is a soldier in what appears to be some sort of carapace armor and is armed. The last guy is robed, probably a techpriest."

"Call for them to stay where they are and drop their weapons." The sergeant grinned. This was going to be an easy run. No oversized bugs were going to stop him.

"They've dropped their weapon. Wait a second... The soldier guy, it's a Tau!"

"Take us down, but keep him covered." The Tau had hit this place? Or was he merely a survivor from the trading vessel they took out yesterday?

The squad hit the ground with only two of the squad managing to trip on exit.

Unnoticed by them Mur'Phon groaned under his breath at being at the mercy of amateurs. That stung his pride.

Gomez looked over the three, the eyes were immediately drawn to the female, she was a beauty. Lightly clad, and weird pistol with a nasty looking blade on it and a weird two bladed knife at her feet. But while she was definatly hot below the neck it was surprisingly the face that held the eyes. There was just this... Cuteness and general friendliness even when held at gunpoint with her hands above her head that made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside by only looking. There was something odd about her that he couldn't quite place.

Not odd considering he wasn't familiar with dark eldar and her ears were hidden behind her black hair.

He forced his eyes away from her and looked to the next one.

The tech priest was in his white robes, now rather dirty from the day so far. A laspistol was lying at his feet.

He had frankly expected the priest to be a prisoner, but either the Tau was a lot less cautious than he should be or he had been convinced to co-operate somehow, maybe a promise to get to look on the Tau's equipment?

The Tau was the biggest mystery, there had been rumors that a Tau had managed to sneak onboard the freighter that the space marines had been staging from and made quite a bit of chaos before the Tyranids swept in and ate the ship. If it had managed to escape this far he was more cunning than Gomez could give any alien the credit for. The helmet betrayed nothing. He didn't like that. He somehow had the feeling that the Tau was laughing at him behind the helmet.

That was when the Tau started talking

"I don't suppose I can offer you people any ambull steak?" He said simply.
_______________________________________________________

"We don't know what happened! We just got here looking for a way off this accursed planet!" Mur'Phon repeated for maybe the twentieth time

This sergeant had a skull made of ceramite apparently.

"And why should I believe that xeno scum?"

"We had a dinner stop just before nightfall about three kilometers in that direction. The remains, combined with the escape pod and our tracks to them there should confirm my story down to a few hours accuracy. Is that too hard to grasp?"

Mur'Phon was getting really annoyed.

"And why are you so desperate to get away from this facility if you just got here. Some dark secret you have on this place?"

"There is a large fleet of ravaging planet eating monsters heading straight for this place, they often have vanguard forces in place, and this place is empty with marks of weapon fire. Do the math."

Sergeant Gomez on his side was getting frustrated. It never went like this in the holodramas. The aliens were always half dead from fright of dealing with the heroic agents of mankind and never seemed to put much though into their story. He was too stubborn to be shown up by an alien however.

Mur'Phon wanted his helmet back. The sergeant had demanded he took it off and tossed it into the valkyrie. Granted it was probably the only smart action he did, the multitude of sensors, vision modes, communications gear and other nifty toys in the helmet meant that he had a decisive advantage if he tried to escape. But right here that wasn't his first consideration. He kept expecting genestealers to pop up and start hacking them up any second without his helmet sensors to tell him about them.

"It appears the alien refuse to tell the truth even now. So we will have to investigate ourselves..."

Bad idea.

"We will split up in three groups each with one prisoner to cover more ground and prevent them from plotting together."

Really bad idea.

"As this area seems secure we can save some time and use the elevators to get around."

Is he deliberately trying to do every stupid thing possible?

"After all we can handle anything that can possibly be hiding here."

Mur'Phon's mouth opened and he stared wide eyed and slack jawed at the sergeant.

Okay. That's it. We're dead.

"Prepare to move out team."

Mur'Phon buried his head in his hands. He though it was lieutenants that usually was this stupid in the guard.

"Why me?" He muttered under his breath.

Okay, bud, you're doing great... keep it going!

A friend of mine drew some characters for this story a few weeks back (Yeah I've had it on the backburn working out details for quite some while). While I've invalidated all but one set of characters with changes in the story and such I can put up those images here if anyone wants me to. Already put them up on SB.

Go right ahead. Illustrations are always fun...

Rogue 11 wrote:A friend of mine drew some characters for this story a few weeks back (Yeah I've had it on the backburn working out details for quite some while). While I've invalidated all but one set of characters with changes in the story and such I can put up those images here if anyone wants me to. Already put them up on SB.

By all means, do so. It would be most kind of you.

OMG.. this is just too freakin' funny for words!! I just found this today, and I've been biting my hand to keep from laughing too loud and annoying my co-workers!

More! Please More!

Okay. Here goes:

Miku Pre-Memory loss:


Miku Post Memory loss.


If my friend makes any more images related to the story that I don't manage to invalidate with unplanned changes I'll gladly post them.

Thanks for the great feedback. Chapter 5 is well under way and I expect to have it finished either later today or tommorow evening.

Heh. Funny contrast.

Ehehehehehehehehehe. Brilliant.

This turned out to inadvertly end up as a halloween special with the nasties of 40K in place of the more classical stuff. I'm not entirely assure on the ending, but I've been assured that it isn't too bad. I'll freely admit that the Tyranid entry is the weakest guide entry yet. I just couldn't see how to make it funny.

Chapter 5:

Mur'Phon wanted desperately to follow the guide's advice and be elsewhere. Unfortunately the four guys around him with lasguns didn't hold the same opinion. He was unarmed, seriously under-equipped as everything save his basic armor was dumped in the valkyrie waiting on the shuttlepad and he was at the mercy of idiots.

The only good news was that the elevators didn't have local power as he had feared. The sergeant had simply been too stupid to consider that no power probably meant no working elevators.

The bad news was that while the facility itself was two stories tall aboveground. It was a lot deeper than he had suspected. It was a maze of corridors and rooms and small labs. It seemed to have been rather densely populated. Frankly he'd have preferred it if the guardsmen turned off their flashlights. Tau night vision would give him a serious advantage over most things that could be hiding down here, including the guardsmen. Sergeant Gomez in particular deserved a serious beating.

He had also ordered radio silence, which was odd given that as far as he knew the bugs couldn't listen in on their radio.

He wondered how the hell this idiot made sergeant, but part of him said that he probably didn't want to know.

He stared into the darkness, wherever the guardsmen weren't looking with their flashlights, he wasn't sure, but he though he saw movement. Though it could easily be imagined, for someone who said they wanted to keep low profile they were making an awful lot of noise, which hopefully would make them the first targets when they were inevitably ambushed. If it was who he though it was he wished them bon appetite. The more time they spent eating the less time they spent pursuing.

"Remember. Only HE grenades, we don't want to harm any valuable equipment."

Then again it was possible that the sheer stupidity ruined the taste. He'd just have to run faster.
_________________________________________________________________

Miku was getting jittery, she could swear she heard noises all around her, but the three guardsmen around her said they heard nothing. As trained soldiers they should be able to recognize threats a lot better than she could. It did comfort her, a little. She had no idea just how much sharper her senses were. As far as she knew the only difference between her and them was that their ears were odd. She though round ears looked kinda cute though.

Unlike Mur'Phon and Gordonius she wasn't treated as a prisoner. When they had realized she had suffered memory loss they had figured she was just some human who went along because she had no idea what else to do. Not alien or willing heretic as the other two were considered. Therefore she was in the middle of the group of three guardsmen as protected as she could be. She considered herself a prisoner though. So if she though she could give them the slip without running straight into the arms of monsters she would have. She did not like the way these people looked at her. And while it had only been a day or so she had known both Mur'Phon and Gordonius her entire remembered life. Leaving them hanging felt very wrong, so she had to help them somehow. Her conscience told her they weren't bad people who deserved what they were going to get, and in the absence of any cultural impulses or upbringing that had been erased with the rest of her memory her conscience was the only guide line she had.

Her conscience had it been an actual person would be rather pissed about being ignored as long as it had, and now she suddenly wanted it to practically run her life. Both her sense of self and her subconscious would have drawn weapons and threatened bodily harm if it had tried to pull back and let things go as they used to though. They too had hated it before and were finally starting to like how things were going. Her old memories were not missed and had they been able to they would have pushed them into the barrel of a Nova cannon and blown them clear to the Terra defense grid to be blown up there. As it was they were the equalent of put into a safe, wielded shut, and dumped in the deepest most inaccessible ocean in existence, then taking the whole planet the ocean was on and put inside a cage of the webway, then taking the whole damn webway and dump it into a warp rift, then post armed sentries at the entrance with shoot to kill orders if anything ever came back out, really itchy fingered sentries with enough firepower to make an imperial battlefleet envious. The rest of her mind would have been partying non-stop ever since.

Miku was however unaware that she indivertibly was making the dangerous situation somewhat worse. It wasn't really her fault; the guardsmen around her were really poor grade for guardsmen, so the one bringing up the rear should have had more self control. However there was the fact that her walk was both very animated and very feminine, making the view from behind quite distracting. The kind of distracting that could cause traffic accidents on a regular basis. For a guardsman who if ever got within ten meters of a commissar the universe would strike dead on the spot to get it over with so it could take a break early it was bound to cause trouble. Right now Abaddon could have led a conga line of black legion terminators while Leman Russ and the rest of the lost primarches tried to attack them with giant beer kegs in his sector and he wouldn't have noticed.

This also meant that the monsters tasked with cutting off their route of retreat really could have saved themselves the bother of doing it stealthily.
___________________________________________________________________

Gordonus looked at the power plant again.

"Are you really sure you want me to do this?"

"For the third time: Yes!!! Now just do it."

"Sometimes it's better to live in ignorance you know, better to not feel terror for those last few moments. Makes it go quicker subjectively. Or so I'm told. And it will be a big hint for the current residents that we are down here."

The room was darkened. The three troopers were covering two doors, the dark hallways beyond seemingly still and silent. They didn't trust the tech priest, but he was the only one qualified for this on hand so they figured he would do it properly at gunpoint. He was however a bit reluctant. It seemed contrary to survival to turn on the power making it clear for everyone that there were people down here. Might as well all cover themselves in barbeque sauce and just yell for them to come eat them.

"If you don't turn on the power right now I'll blow your frakking head of heretic!"

Of course, when it came between possible death later and certain death now the choice was simple, the ambull leftovers he was carrying could hopefully distract them for a moment, at least if he tossed them onto one of the guardsmen. It would have to do in place of barbeque sauce.

The proper rituals were quick, just a short prayer, only two full minutes, and then lean down and flip a tiny switch. The power plants began humming and lights came on.

He looked down the corridor they had come.

"Ah. Just as I expected, an ambush."
__________________________________________________________________

When the lights came back on Mur'Phon had a fair idea of what to expect. His hands reached instinctively for weapons that weren't there. He called out even before he saw them, so sure they were going to be there that he didn't hesitate at all.

"Tyranids!"

Gomez spun around, it was indeed Tyranids, The fast lethal Genestealers. And they were clearly intent on getting in close in hand to take them hand to hand, or more correctly hand to claw.

Mur'Phon was terrified. These were the strong fast beasts who implanted their own overriding DNA into you and turned you into an unwitting puppet of the hive mind. Lightening fast with claws that could shred through the most powerful armor there was as it was well used tissue paper. As the guide put it, rape you and make you turn out little baby genestealer hybrids who grew up to be living warp radio amateurs inviting their whole damned extended family. These were the kind of overwhelming in-laws that ate you out of your home, had personalities that just chewed you up, and tended to be a real bother for the neighbors.

Gomez stood frozen; he had never seen any actual fighting in his short career as a soldier. So facing these terrible fast clawed beasts it was just too much for him. He locked up and just stood there.

Two of his comrades outright panicked and opened out with ill aimed fully automatic fire from their weapons at what looked like the largest mass. The sheer firepower they put out keeping them back, but they would shoot up their ammo in seconds and then they'd be on them.

Mur'Phon was more interested in escape. There were two groups, the one guarding the way deeper into the complex and one blocking their retreat. The group guarding the way deeper into the complex was small, most defiantly just intended to pen them in and not be the primary killers.

The main force was behind them. It was a veritable sea of tyranids as far as he could see. No way in hell he could punch his way through that. A single well placed frag grenade was all he would need to punch through the forward force. As the group only carried HE grenades however it was going to get interesting. He needed to improvise.

All of this flashed through his mind before the two panicked troopers behind him had fired five shots. He had always had a quick mind in crisis situations.

And the answer suggested itself immediately. After all a fragmentation grenade was merely a HE charge around a shell suited to cause fragmentation. And when you though it over... Yeah that could work. It was better than die doing nothing atleast.

The last trooper started lobbing HE grenades at the main mass to little effect. He didn't notice immediately that someone had just grabbed his lasgun.

Gomez as a person had always though of himself as a great and brave person. Someone who could handle anything the universe tossed at him. He had envisioned himself as the next Cain, the next great hero of the Imperium. Of course very few live up to their own idealized version of themselves. He fell shorter than most.

He felt someone ripping something away from his harness. He felt something being pressed into his hand. He was too terrified to care that it was the Tau.

"Here hold this." Mur'Phon said as he forced the HE grenade into his hand. Making sure the handle was being held firm.

The two behind him were just about out of ammo. The front group was almost upon them. If this failed he would be the first one taken down. It was do or die time.

Mur'Phon forcefully raised Gomez's arm and pushed him forward. The arm coming straight up in the face in the front and center tyranid.

It reacted the way instinct told it to. It bit. The arm came off and Gomez screamed. The Tyranid swallowed by instinct as to not waste food but also not have it jaws tied up in the general fighting. This went fast; the grenade had been armed the moment the arm had been bit off. And now it was getting deep inside the 'Nid.

The 'Nid lashed out against Gomez, it's claw sinking deep into his chest area, but not hitting anything instantly lethal, he kept screaming.

The grenade blew. As it blew up the energy had nowhere to go. No quick ways to expand. The chitin was blown apart, the natural armor proving to be a very lethal fragmentation shell. Gomez died instantly under the hail of organic shrapnel. The 'Nids around the improvised bomb didn't fair any better. The farthest back Genestealer was far enough back that it wasn't killed instantly, but it was dying and disabled.

Mur'Phon stood up from his crouch where he had been shielding his head. Using Gomez as a shield and relying on his armor had gotten him through unscathed save a few small dents in his suit and a small scratch on his chin that bled slightly the purple cobolt rich blood of the Tau.

He brought up the lasgun he had stolen from Gomez and fired a short burst into the head of the critically wounded genestealer. Never hurt to be sure. Behind him the gunfire stopped. They had run out of ammo and were desperately reloading before the horde reached them. They wouldn't make it. They were already upon them. The grenadier reached desperately for his lasgun finding it missing.

As the last scream died Mur'Phon spun around, He fired a long burst across the Tyranids. While it was full auto this was carefully placed at the height where it did the most good against the entire front row. The corpses that collapsed were a tin line covering the entire corridor. It stalled their advance for a critical second as he repeated it with the second rank. Then the lasgun was empty, full auto like that wasted a lot of shot no matter how you did it. He discarded it and started unslinging the second lasgun he'd grabbed in the general melee as he started to run. The other lasgun clattered to the floor. Occasionally he'd fire a short burst behind him to try and keep the swarm back a bit longer

The entire fight so far had taken less than a minute.
_________________________________________________________________

The Guide on Tyranids:

"These guys I just plain hate. They just won't frakking give up. They are so damn many too. Their basic troops are so inferior that you can dispatch them by the dozens easily, but unfortunately they often come in hundreds for every one of us. And despite their appearances they aren't beasts. They can be both cunning and intelligent when it's called for. And these guys will not listen to any short of talk whatsoever. Even Orks listen somewhat even if getting any deals done is impossible, but the Tyranids will never listen. In short insulting them will grow boring soon so one of the most popular frontline games in static lines just became a lot less interesting. A shame since I really enjoy a good insult duel with the Gue'La and Orks.

Their motivation is simple: Dinner. They see you, your mates and everyone else merely as a giant 'all you can eat' buffet. This is the only motivation I've discovered. And apart from delaying them by feeding people you don't like to them it's not very useful on the battlefield.

The details I have managed to gather are sketchy, but from what bits and pieces I have gathered from intercepted imperial reports and odd stories they can in the end be called one being. One hive mind that is in effect one individual and all the other smaller creatures are but cells of this giant organism all through a trickling down system of 'officers' or more accurately synapse creatures that act as natural communications relays for their troops. Take them out and command and control is lost. Of course, it knows this too. That is what makes things interesting.

On another note, I wonder if their most basic creatures could be converted into good pets somehow. I kinda like the idea of pets with guns and teeth that big."

*Article continues on the various types of creatures.*

_____________________________________________________________________
Quite some distance away a short time earlier Miku walked a bit faster and caught up to the soldier in front of her and tapped his shoulder gently

"May I ask something?"

"Well sure Ma'am, go right ahead." The trooper was a young and eager soldier who had a strong sense of duty. He was honest, but not really that competent. He tried so very hard, but he simply didn't have an aptitude for killing. Even so he was the kind of person willing to put everything on the line to protect people he cared about, his life, even his very soul if necessary. Unlike the others he was a decent person. Also unlike the others he was however open minded enough to consider that maybe the alien had a point about what might be hiding down here. He hadn't said so however.

"Well… The soldier behind me muttered how he really wanted to 'tap that ass', I was wondering if you could tell me what that meant?"

The soldier was caught flat footed.

"Ah… Well… It's a very inappropriate way to tell someone that he wants to well… 'Do it' with a particular girl"

"Do what?" Weather it was culture or memory loss that was unsure. But right now the soldier wished he could just sink into the ground and disappear.

"Well I…" He tried to find a way to say it. He was too polite to really say it straight out. And he wasn't sure how to put it best.

That was when the lights came on saving him the bother.

"Ah good. Now we can see where we are going at last. Now we just…." The team leader trailed off as the pursuers in darkness suddenly were visible.

Miku froze for a second. Her mind racing, to better illustrate we will use a representive ship command.

The auger officer who was watching the screens for that close defense region screamed like a little girl when the long toothy face of the Genestealers came into sight. Then called he called in to his section leader.

His section leader called it to the bridge, and then promptly fainted.

The bridge crew ran around like headless chicken until the captain said decisive action was needed. Despite being comforting they couldn't just keep running in circles. If for nothing else than that they'd wear the floor badly.

The XO asked what kind of decisive action. The captain shrugged and said that they should press the Big Red Button which was followed by dramatic lightening (Despite being in space) and a lot of screaming.

After everyone stopped screaming at the prospect the Captain walked over and pressed the button.

Her mind was now on fully automatic. The Tyranids terrified her to the very core. She wanted to curl up and shiver, she wanted to run away, most of all she wanted them gone. Her finely tuned fighting instincts saw only one way of making them go away.

The soldier she had just asked took a step backwards when her hand shot out and ripped his combat knife loose. She charged straight towards the larger rear force grabbing the knife of the poorly disciplined rear guard trooper as she passed.

Then she gave a terrifying fighting scream and leapt. And Severed Genestealer limbs and heads started flying.
_________________________________________________________________

Mur'Phon turned left at a run to avoid yet another Tyranid force. They were everywhere, it was only a matter of time before they pinned him and killed him. However he outright refused to surrender to what seemed inevitable. He was going to go the way he came in. Kicking and screaming in anger.

Another force came into view and he turned right. He was rapidly running out of options. And without the mapping system on the helmet he had no idea where he was heading. His sense of direction wasn't really that great. Without aids he could get lost in a 10 by 10 meter training dome. The helmet navigation systems usually offset it, but of course that was still in the Valkyrie.

He turned left again. A dead end! A closed door at the end blocked further progress. He hit the opening panel to no effect, and then spun around. This was it. It was time to stop running.

Just as the swarm turned the corner the door slid open with a hiss, a pair of arms grabbed him and dragged him in and the door slid shut.

______________________________________________________________

"I must admit. I'm surprised that you found your way here so quick." Gordonius said. There was just him and a guardsman in the now locked down power room. The vents were closed, but there was enough air to last for a while.

"What do you mean?"

"Well on the monitors you were taking the single fastest way straight to the power room. I had no idea you knew that much about the layout."

"Uh… Well… Where are the other two guardsmen?"

"They panicked and ran out that door, then were ambushed by genestealers hiding out of sight." He gestured to the other door.

"What happened to your four guardsmen?"

"They couldn't run fast enough." Mur'Phon lied. No need to admit he had practically fed them to the 'Nids to get away himself

"Ah." Gordonius wasn't fooled, but he figured there weren't any point in letting the last guardsman know they'd sacrifice him in a heartbeat to save their own butts. It might make him a bit jittery.

"So got any plans to get out of here?" Mur'Phon knew that Gordonius wasn't fooled, he wasn't intending to fool him anyway. He was starting to like the tech priest and wouldn't use him as fodder unless it was absolutely necessary

"None. I was planning to just set the power core to overload and blow them all up. Let the Omnissiah take care of them the most direct way he can."

"Well… That certainly is one hell of a way to end this day, but we'll keep that as plan B okay?" Mur'Phon didn't want to give up quite yet.

"As you wish, but I can't see any way we can get out unless we had some major distraction."

"Like say... Miku going psycho and cutting through the horde like a massive barrage of submunition rail gun rounds?" Mur'Phon said as he flipped through the monitors.

Gordonius looked over his shoulder.

"By the Omnissiah. Look at her go!" She was definitely going to last a while. Nothing could touch her and on the screen she seemed merely a blur. She was a distortion that whenever it touched a 'nid bits of it were sent flying.

"That explains why there were so few 'nids in my way. They are all busy trying to take down that single hard prey."

"Yes. The beasts outside are pulling back leaving only a token guard force."

"Set the destruction for two hours. That should give us enough time to get out and be safely away before it blows."

"See to it. Then check if there are any armories nearby we can use."

"On it."

Neither of them noticed the small rune that said the facility was transmitting something.
__________________________________________________________________

The Guardsmen behind Miku tried to keep the horde back as much they could. More and more were swarming and it was only a matter of time before she got overwhelmed despite being likely the most lethal individual ever to set foot on this planet.

One of them had died at the claws of a Genestealer that got too close. The other two were getting closer and closer to Miku. Usually they'd appreciate the chance to get that close to a pretty girl, but given that she was in whirling death mode it was not something they were comfortable with. And currently despair was slowly getting overwhelming. Soon they would be out of ammo too.

____________________________________________________________

The Valkyrie was good to go any second. They had gotten a brief scream from Gomez a few minutes ago then nothing. They were holding off from fleeing on a desperate hope that some survivors got out.
____________________________________________________________

Miku was tiring, she didn't really notice it, but she couldn't keep it up much longer. It was looking really bleak now.

Which made the shock when a barrage of frag grenades burst in the midst of the rear pinning force that much greater.

The Guardsman besides Mur'Phon laughed in triumph as they both fired yet another salvo from the launchers they had acquisitioned. Mur'Phon was simply grinning like a madman.

A side corridor with reinforcements was deep fried from the Flamer Gordonius was wielding. All of them were loaded down with as much weaponry as they could carry, it was heavy, but they didn't expect to have to carry it for long.

Right now they packed more firepower than a first person shooter player usually did. Mur'Phon fired the last grenade from his launcher and discarded it grabbing a shotgun instead. The double action shotgun proved rather painful for the Genestealers in point blank as yet another was blown clear across the room.

"C'mon guys! We've got the door open, but can't hold it for long so get your asses moving now!"

If Miku hadn't been tired she likely wouldn't have heard. She would have been too intent on killing the Tyranids. As it was it was somewhere the monsters weren't. It was the closest to a safe place down here. She turned and ran. The polite guardsman didn't run fast enough and screamed as a genestealer sunk its claws into him. Gordonius hit them both with a flamer burst.

Mur'Phon emptied the shotgun then discarded it in favor of a lasgun again.

"Go! Go! GO!"

The breakneck pace run was taking its toll. Miku kept up, but the last guardsman with her fell behind. His screams echoed down the hall.

The Tyranids were gaining. They were practically flying up the stairs now, but even so they were gaining. They could see the door now, the dark rectangle that offered an escape from this nightmare. They got closer, closer.

The Genestealers got closer too. It seemed certain they would catch them. Then they were through. Somehow they were through.

The last guardsman slowed. His mind too shocked. For some absurd reason he assumed he was safe and fatigue made him drop.
The Genestealers didn't stop though. They swarmed out and over the guardsman, he slowed them an instant allowing the last three survivors a bit more lead on the horde behind them.

Then the valkyrie took off.

Mur'Phon gritted his teeth in desperation. They had come so close! Then it turned to disbelief followed by understanding. It was turning towards them!

"Everybody drop now!" He yelled as he dropped.

Just in time too. The Multilasers flared and the horde behind them was blown back. There was no way they could handle that much overkill coming out from a tight doorway offering an excellent chokepoint for the rapid fire heavy lasers to hit. The Valkyrie hovered low. Mur'Phon crawled out of the field of fire and gestured for the other two to follow. It was waiting for them to come aboard. Why he didn't know. Perhaps they hadn't realized all the troopers were dead. Perhaps they figured the risk to save the sole person they though was innocent was worth it? At any rate he was grateful.

They ran the last few meters and practically threw themselves on board.

"Take off now!"

"Where are the others?!" The Pilot half protested half asked.

"Dead or infested, either way we can't help them."

The pilot grimly put his hands on the throttle and set them on a path upwards. The Tau might be lying, but the odds of the soldiers coming out of that alive were minimal. So there really was no choice.

Then the first explosion rattled the ship and part of the facility blew up. The pilot put throttle to maximum, but the main blast still nearly swatted it out of the sky

Mur'Phon was speechless for a second. Gordonius looked abashed. Then Mur'Phon turned towards Gordonius anger evident on his blue/grey face.

"Two hours you said!"

"Er... Oops?"

"I made it clear we wanted plenty of time to get clear and somehow you manage to set it up so we almost get deep fried unless we had been motivated by a huge horde of ravenous aliens to run slightly faster!"

"I assure you I don't know why this happened. The machine spirit must have been grumpy."

"GRUMPY?!"

"Okay terminally suicidal then. Why it wasn't willing to talk about it I don't know. I consider myself fairly good at motivating machine spirits to live. Though might not work so well since we were going to blow it up anyway."

Mur'Phon swallowed an acidic reply and glared at him.

Couldn't the universe just leave him alone?

Hmmmmzz...

Rincewind the Tau....

I rea-ea-ealy like this concept

More More! That was just too damn good, especially the peek inside Miku's head. I need to stop reading these at work, it's so hard not to laugh out loud.

Ah, I love 40K commedies, they're fun.

I especially like this one, because it has the Firewarrior's Guide to the Galaxy.