*cough* Mark S *cough*technomage wrote:Hey necromancer, this fic's been down for a month. At this point, the only people who post is the author when he has an update. Otherwise, it's a dead fic.
And FYI, fanfic authors post when they're fucking ready to post. Real Life can be a major pain. I've known a few authors who disappear for years at a time.
Firewarriors Guide to the Galaxy (40K, Not too serious)
Moderator: LadyTevar
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Singular Quartet
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- Joined: 2002-07-04 05:33pm
- Location: This is sky. It is made of FUCKING and LIMIT.
I just hope this isn't one of the fics that gets left unfinished by the wayside 
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
I haven't forgotten about it. Just suffering from Total Writers Block. And a complication of "Influx of Real Life"
In short I'm going to Tanzania from Monday off for a month and that's had me kinda busy. And the few times I've had I could have written I have been completely unable to figure out what to write.
If a miracle happens I MAY be able to get a chapter ready just before I leave as I'm pretty much ready now and got some spare time until then.
Most likely it won't get updated until March at the earliest. Sorry.
In short I'm going to Tanzania from Monday off for a month and that's had me kinda busy. And the few times I've had I could have written I have been completely unable to figure out what to write.
If a miracle happens I MAY be able to get a chapter ready just before I leave as I'm pretty much ready now and got some spare time until then.
Most likely it won't get updated until March at the earliest. Sorry.
Hey, at least you're telling us you'll be gone, so we'll not worry as much. 
Thanks Rogue.
Thanks Rogue.Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Just when you though this thing was completely and utterly dead. I strike from the shadow with a brand new update (Just hope anyone is still interested in reading it)
Chapter 9:
Miku was angry. This wasn't exactly an earth shattering thing, when she was angry she was about as scary a teletubbie, well that was a bad example as those can be really scary at times. As scary as a sleepy kitten might be more appropriate, if you were able to forget that she could slice you apart and have your meat deboned and sorted out the most tender pieces before you hit the ground if she wanted to.
That had been enough to scare Mur'Phon as little as a day ago, but currently it was beginning to get on his nerves.
"Could you quit glaring at me? You aren't having much effect." It was the kind of glare get paint of the wall out of pity for her trying so hard yet failing so miserably. Frankly it was closer to puppy eyes than the terrifying glare she was trying for.
"You didn't have to kill him."
"I told you. He was the kind that bear grudges, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered to go after you. And it's not very convenient to have to dodge one of his revenge attempts every week or so."
"Not convenient? Not convenient!? You killed a man because it wasn't convenient to let him live?! What kind of a monster are you?!" Somewhere the gods of irony were laughing their asses off at the sheer irony of a Dark Eldar lecturing anyone else on being monsters.
"The kind that wants to survive to get home." Mur'Phon said simply.
"Before the blood starts flooding… Where are we heading next?" Gordonius's survival instinct appeared to be on vacation for the moment.
"The current plan is to take a bit of a dog leg towards the capital. I want to get some more distance from the quarantine zone to avoid the patrols there." And of course unstated to avoid tempting fate by walking too close given how fate loved to one-up them.
"Sensible idea, except that of course that will probably mean the Orks will start a miniature waagh to reach us."
Mur'Phon gave him an 'okaaaay' look.
_______________________________________________________
"They are too many! We're being overrun!" The PDF patrol com officer screamed as the ork beat the Lieutenant to death using the Lt's own ripped off leg.
_______________________________________________________
"So anyway. I was planning to lay the route by this small village here, then swing around behind that chain of mountains and skirt the edges of those marshes passing through this forest here."
"None of which are too thoroughly mapped and are deeply shrouded in myths and local supersitions. Are you sure you have though this through?" Gordonius pressed. Miku just glared sullenly at silently.
"Wait, I didn't know that. Perhaps we should consider cutting east here instead."
"There's talk of a secret military base in that area."
"Okay. North at this point then." Mur'Phon was getting worried now.
"Rumors of a monstrous beast that eats anything that moves."
"Southeast here?"
"Leads straight to the most violent town on this entire hemisphere."
"Is there ANY route which doesn't lead straight into potential horrible death?"
"Well you could go the opposite way and cross the entire planet in that direction."
Mur'Phon was sorely tempted right then, unfortunately for him fate (in the person of a righteous dead dude) had other plans for him.
"Excuse me... Are you a servant of the Machine God?" A man wearing significantly better clothes than most of the other people on the street asked Gordonius.
"Well... Yes. How can the Omnissiah aid you?"
"I'm a courier and my air car broke down. And the local tech priest appears to have well... Gotten himself killed because someone fell on him from the second floor of an inn."
Miku looked challengingly at Mur'Phon, in a look that made it clear that she considered it beyond a shadow of a doubt his fault, but the stranger didn't notice.
"So you want me to fix the aircar, very well, but in return we require transport."
"Well it will be tight, but I think we can fit you in."
"Lead the way."
_______________________________________________________________
"The Orks have broken through here, here and here. Either by luck or design they struck at the exact moment we had pulled back a few garrisons for leave and just before we could send reinforcement troops." The PDF colonel reported
"How the hell did they do that?" The advisor said. "Orks are stupid. They can't possibly have been watching our troop dispositions."
"Not all Orks are that dumb dumb, though it is peculiar. The Orks individually actually aren't that concerned with surviving. They want to fight and that's it. That they elected to attack when we were at the weakest doesn't make any sense at all." The colonel pointed out.
"Oh the reason for that is obvious. They were manipulated into it." That was the closest thing to an useful piece of information the inquisitor had said since he took over command of the government.
"By who?" The Colonel asked, wishing that the general hadn't felt it too pressing to coordinate their defense against the breakout and sent him to deal with the politicians in his place.
"You don't need to know that." The inquisitor said with the rude dismissal that was becoming his trademark. And the knowing smirk which every person in the room had to fight down the urge to knock off his face.
The colonel resisted the urge to go and bang his head into a wall. He then fought down the urge to grab the inquisitor and yell into his face that he was being an overdramatic idiot and unless he could atleast drop his cryptic hints in a way he could use to fight this pocket war here he could shut the fuck up and go and piss of the space marines or something. He then finally fought down the urge to scream.
"What you do need to know is that it's imperative that we don't overcommit on this. The whole thing is a distraction to draw away troops."
"So we should just leave our people in their path to die?" He said with his voice cold.
"Oh if it appears it'll threaten any more than the small piss-ant villages currently in their path you can nuke the orks from orbit. That should slow them down a bit." The inquisitor replied casually apparently not caring about those that died in that, not to mention the side-effects on the environment (which was sure to grab their food production from behind while the fallout started punching it in the gut) from that kind of action.
Of course, had he known what was going on he'd gladly level the entire surface of the planet and if that was it thought he had gotten off easy.
And had the inquisitor known what was going on (as opposed to pretending) he'd just as soon hijack Abaddons planetkiller (or hell even rent it if that was the only thing that worked) and blow it up. Hell he'd dig up several blackstone fortresses from somewhere and blow up the entire system to be on the safe side afterwards.
___________________________________________________________________
"You sure this is an aircar?" Mur'Phon asked a bit too used to reliable well maintained Tau technology.
"I'm not too sure myself. Gordonius admitted. He was at least used to the machinery he worked with having less of the holy substance duct tape covering them.
"What a piece of junk!" Miku exclaimed not accustomed to seeing anything that looked like it hung together with chewed bubble gum.
"She may not look like much, but she got it where it counts." The Courier said grinning.
"I take it you've installed a caf dispenser then" Mur'Phon said dryly while taking a closer look. Rusted, dented, looked more like taped back on than actually repaired for the most part. On the front end the name "Century Hawk" was proudly written in flaming lettering.
"Yes. Amongst other things it does have a state of the art caf dispenser, can handle caf, decaf and expresso. Oh and also Tanna Tea, but you really do not want to drink that." The courier was apparently immune to sarcasm.
"So is there any hope for fixing this thing?" Mur'Phon asked Gordonius.
"Well…. I think if we repolarize the repulsor-flux-capacitors, Defilibrate the ascartix coil and respectfully apply a moderate amount of kinetic energy to the port side of the engine it should work for a while."
"Uh… What?" Miku asked.
"Magnetize the hover field, quick charge the engine and then give it a good solid kick" Gordonius translated.
"You know. I'd ask if it would be safe, but I really don't think I want to know the answer." Mur'Phon commented.
"I'll get right at it."
____________________________________________________________
The Guide has this to say about Orks.
"Orks appear to be the inspiration for the mythical human creature "Manchester hooligan". From what I've gleamed from legends they appear to be exactly the same except Orks are more civilized. Orks are dedicated completely to fighting, it's their hobby, their life. Until I realized this I used to think it was pent up sexual frustration from being genderless and hence being completely unable to get laid. As it is the Orks are the happiest species in known space. And as you may know motivated soldiers are superior soldiers (Hence my "No cracking down on the porn black market" rule for our own troops).
The Orks are big, mean and firmly convinced that the rules of the universe doesn't apply to them, and oddly enough for the most part they don't. They seem to literally be able to affect the universe with raw belief. Thankfully they are mostly too stupid to make full use of it, there are in normal circumstances just three things to remember: If it's red it's faster than it should be, if it's green it's tougher than it should be and if it shoots it's got less a tendency to explode on it's own that it should have
Orks aren't smart, but they got their own brand of cunning, however since the majority is outright idiots that makes them hard to predict. It's like if we put the Water caste in charge of 90% of our army just to fool the enemy into a sense of complacency before we strike with our actual units.
Hm…. Wonder if I could get away with forming units consisting solely of water caste personnel with guns for that same purpose? It's not like we have a shortage of them. Moving on...
Orks appear to consider aiming cowardly and hence don't use it. Therefore if they shoot at you it's safer to be the target than elsewhere. The only problem is those big nasty axe-things of theirs. They tend to smart a bit if they manage to hit you. The other problem is that orks also really like to see firewarriors go squish when punched hard enough hence tend to close. They are also remarkably fast for being such bulky creatures.
Therefore: If attacked for the love of the greater good fire, fire some more, keep firing, and finally just blast away. Running is pretty much pointless unless command was obliging enough to leave a fast vehicle on hand to hijack like a piranha. If they did, well if you have survived this far I doubt you need any encouragement from me.
Oh, and Orks appear to reproduce from body odor, no I don't understand it either, just burn them when dead to ensure their stink don't become billions of more orks. If you can't burn them make sure to be far away from that place from then on starting within a few weeks at most.
Finally: The Orks are about the only other people with a sense of humor I've found in the entire galaxy. This do mean that fighting them can if you put some effort to it be more entertaining than most enemies, anything to make life at the front lines a little more bearable after all. Just remember not to be the last one to start running in a retreat.
_______________________________________________________________
The Century Hawk shuddered and creaked.
"The machine spirit is in a joking mood." Gordonius stated reassuringly.
"That or it's cranky again huh?" Mur'Phon said pointedly still remembering the research station.
"That is a possibility yes." He conceded.
"Idon'twanna'dieI'don'twannadie…" Miku said incoherently rocking slightly back and forth hugging herself in her seat trying to pretend she was somewhere else.
Of course the pilot was not noticing any of this whistling happily as he flew what appeared dangerously low to the trio and occasionally acted a bit like a guide pointing out interesting things along the way.
Mur'Phon wondered again why the hell he was here. Apart from the whole surviving thing that is. Well with a little luck he'd be off this rock within a week.
He didn't know that while Murphy's law usually ignored your hidden thoughts in this case it would make an exception.
"And to the left here we have…. Hey what are all those green guys?"
Mur'phon snapped to full attention
"Big, muscled, green and with horrible teeth?"
"Yeah pretty much."
In response he merely flicked off the safety on his carbine.
"Orks."
"Orks!" He screamed and dived wildly to get out of the line of fire.
"No whatever you do! Don't dodge!" He yelled too late as a freak shoota round blew his head off making it land in Miku's lap.
Reflexes took over. Before Miku had even started screaming he was shoving the headless corpse out of the way to take the controls.
"Can you fly this marginally venerable creation of the omnissiah?"
"No, but somebody gotta try."
In the background Miku was still screaming.
The car was in a hard dive, he pulled up hard. And felt something snap and controls suddenly got really clumsy.
"Ah shit. Brace for impact."
Miku stopped screaming for a moment, inhaled, then started screaming again.
He got out of the way of a particularly tall and thick tree barely, then pulled towards what looked like a clearing.
Miku was still screaming.
He pulled up and hit everything that might remotely be a brake. And then they hit, they plowed into the ground leaving a long open black wound in the forest behind them. The corpse of the pilot was sent flying forward smacking into a big tree with a meaty thud.
Miku finally stopped screaming.
"We're alive?"
"Either that or I'm in hell. Currently I'd give it fifty-fifty odds." Mur'Phon said adrenaline draining from his system
More dakka sounds echoed through the forest.
"We really should get a move on."
"Yeah, but to where?"
"There's that village a few klicks in that direction. As good a place as any to go."
They ran., but it sounded like orks were on their trail and gaining fast.
Mur'Phon seemed to lag a bit behind. Miku slowed down to take a look that he wasn't left behind, she looked behind her and... Nothing...
"Stop! We've lost Mur'phon!" She grabbed Gordonius and forced him to stop.
"What are you doing? We can get away while they are busy killing him in horrible ways."
"We are not leaving anyone behind!" She countered angrily.
"Well.."
"Shut up! Is there any trace of decency in either of you? Am I the only good person on this entire planet?!"
"You really should…."
"Be more like you two? Then I'd have killed you both already because I could. We can't go around acting like…."
"Orks are gaining." He finally said quickly.
"Oh." She stopped and turned. A small ork squad was right there howling in triumph at catching their kill.
That's when the blue muzzle flare from the bush lashed out burning down a few and a launched grenade from the same position took most of the rest. A single survivor hesitated for a moment weather to run or stand, a bit too long as a single shot casually dispatched him too in a gory manner sending red vapor over several bushes.
"Hah! Flawless Kayon!" Mur'Phon said emerging from his ambush place.
"You guys did great as bait."
"Bait? But…"
"How did you get the idea to start yelling? It was brilliant. They didn't even look in my direction while going after you." He continued not aware that most humans didn't know that in Kayon it was a great honor to be the lure.
"AAAAARGH! You two are driving me crazy!" Miku yelled holding her head.
"Well we…."
"Next one to make my migraine worse I will…. Well…. Something really, really mean! Like refuse to talk to them for a week!"
"Sounds like a pretty good deal to me." Gordonius muttered under his breath.
Chapter 9:
Miku was angry. This wasn't exactly an earth shattering thing, when she was angry she was about as scary a teletubbie, well that was a bad example as those can be really scary at times. As scary as a sleepy kitten might be more appropriate, if you were able to forget that she could slice you apart and have your meat deboned and sorted out the most tender pieces before you hit the ground if she wanted to.
That had been enough to scare Mur'Phon as little as a day ago, but currently it was beginning to get on his nerves.
"Could you quit glaring at me? You aren't having much effect." It was the kind of glare get paint of the wall out of pity for her trying so hard yet failing so miserably. Frankly it was closer to puppy eyes than the terrifying glare she was trying for.
"You didn't have to kill him."
"I told you. He was the kind that bear grudges, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered to go after you. And it's not very convenient to have to dodge one of his revenge attempts every week or so."
"Not convenient? Not convenient!? You killed a man because it wasn't convenient to let him live?! What kind of a monster are you?!" Somewhere the gods of irony were laughing their asses off at the sheer irony of a Dark Eldar lecturing anyone else on being monsters.
"The kind that wants to survive to get home." Mur'Phon said simply.
"Before the blood starts flooding… Where are we heading next?" Gordonius's survival instinct appeared to be on vacation for the moment.
"The current plan is to take a bit of a dog leg towards the capital. I want to get some more distance from the quarantine zone to avoid the patrols there." And of course unstated to avoid tempting fate by walking too close given how fate loved to one-up them.
"Sensible idea, except that of course that will probably mean the Orks will start a miniature waagh to reach us."
Mur'Phon gave him an 'okaaaay' look.
_______________________________________________________
"They are too many! We're being overrun!" The PDF patrol com officer screamed as the ork beat the Lieutenant to death using the Lt's own ripped off leg.
_______________________________________________________
"So anyway. I was planning to lay the route by this small village here, then swing around behind that chain of mountains and skirt the edges of those marshes passing through this forest here."
"None of which are too thoroughly mapped and are deeply shrouded in myths and local supersitions. Are you sure you have though this through?" Gordonius pressed. Miku just glared sullenly at silently.
"Wait, I didn't know that. Perhaps we should consider cutting east here instead."
"There's talk of a secret military base in that area."
"Okay. North at this point then." Mur'Phon was getting worried now.
"Rumors of a monstrous beast that eats anything that moves."
"Southeast here?"
"Leads straight to the most violent town on this entire hemisphere."
"Is there ANY route which doesn't lead straight into potential horrible death?"
"Well you could go the opposite way and cross the entire planet in that direction."
Mur'Phon was sorely tempted right then, unfortunately for him fate (in the person of a righteous dead dude) had other plans for him.
"Excuse me... Are you a servant of the Machine God?" A man wearing significantly better clothes than most of the other people on the street asked Gordonius.
"Well... Yes. How can the Omnissiah aid you?"
"I'm a courier and my air car broke down. And the local tech priest appears to have well... Gotten himself killed because someone fell on him from the second floor of an inn."
Miku looked challengingly at Mur'Phon, in a look that made it clear that she considered it beyond a shadow of a doubt his fault, but the stranger didn't notice.
"So you want me to fix the aircar, very well, but in return we require transport."
"Well it will be tight, but I think we can fit you in."
"Lead the way."
_______________________________________________________________
"The Orks have broken through here, here and here. Either by luck or design they struck at the exact moment we had pulled back a few garrisons for leave and just before we could send reinforcement troops." The PDF colonel reported
"How the hell did they do that?" The advisor said. "Orks are stupid. They can't possibly have been watching our troop dispositions."
"Not all Orks are that dumb dumb, though it is peculiar. The Orks individually actually aren't that concerned with surviving. They want to fight and that's it. That they elected to attack when we were at the weakest doesn't make any sense at all." The colonel pointed out.
"Oh the reason for that is obvious. They were manipulated into it." That was the closest thing to an useful piece of information the inquisitor had said since he took over command of the government.
"By who?" The Colonel asked, wishing that the general hadn't felt it too pressing to coordinate their defense against the breakout and sent him to deal with the politicians in his place.
"You don't need to know that." The inquisitor said with the rude dismissal that was becoming his trademark. And the knowing smirk which every person in the room had to fight down the urge to knock off his face.
The colonel resisted the urge to go and bang his head into a wall. He then fought down the urge to grab the inquisitor and yell into his face that he was being an overdramatic idiot and unless he could atleast drop his cryptic hints in a way he could use to fight this pocket war here he could shut the fuck up and go and piss of the space marines or something. He then finally fought down the urge to scream.
"What you do need to know is that it's imperative that we don't overcommit on this. The whole thing is a distraction to draw away troops."
"So we should just leave our people in their path to die?" He said with his voice cold.
"Oh if it appears it'll threaten any more than the small piss-ant villages currently in their path you can nuke the orks from orbit. That should slow them down a bit." The inquisitor replied casually apparently not caring about those that died in that, not to mention the side-effects on the environment (which was sure to grab their food production from behind while the fallout started punching it in the gut) from that kind of action.
Of course, had he known what was going on he'd gladly level the entire surface of the planet and if that was it thought he had gotten off easy.
And had the inquisitor known what was going on (as opposed to pretending) he'd just as soon hijack Abaddons planetkiller (or hell even rent it if that was the only thing that worked) and blow it up. Hell he'd dig up several blackstone fortresses from somewhere and blow up the entire system to be on the safe side afterwards.
___________________________________________________________________
"You sure this is an aircar?" Mur'Phon asked a bit too used to reliable well maintained Tau technology.
"I'm not too sure myself. Gordonius admitted. He was at least used to the machinery he worked with having less of the holy substance duct tape covering them.
"What a piece of junk!" Miku exclaimed not accustomed to seeing anything that looked like it hung together with chewed bubble gum.
"She may not look like much, but she got it where it counts." The Courier said grinning.
"I take it you've installed a caf dispenser then" Mur'Phon said dryly while taking a closer look. Rusted, dented, looked more like taped back on than actually repaired for the most part. On the front end the name "Century Hawk" was proudly written in flaming lettering.
"Yes. Amongst other things it does have a state of the art caf dispenser, can handle caf, decaf and expresso. Oh and also Tanna Tea, but you really do not want to drink that." The courier was apparently immune to sarcasm.
"So is there any hope for fixing this thing?" Mur'Phon asked Gordonius.
"Well…. I think if we repolarize the repulsor-flux-capacitors, Defilibrate the ascartix coil and respectfully apply a moderate amount of kinetic energy to the port side of the engine it should work for a while."
"Uh… What?" Miku asked.
"Magnetize the hover field, quick charge the engine and then give it a good solid kick" Gordonius translated.
"You know. I'd ask if it would be safe, but I really don't think I want to know the answer." Mur'Phon commented.
"I'll get right at it."
____________________________________________________________
The Guide has this to say about Orks.
"Orks appear to be the inspiration for the mythical human creature "Manchester hooligan". From what I've gleamed from legends they appear to be exactly the same except Orks are more civilized. Orks are dedicated completely to fighting, it's their hobby, their life. Until I realized this I used to think it was pent up sexual frustration from being genderless and hence being completely unable to get laid. As it is the Orks are the happiest species in known space. And as you may know motivated soldiers are superior soldiers (Hence my "No cracking down on the porn black market" rule for our own troops).
The Orks are big, mean and firmly convinced that the rules of the universe doesn't apply to them, and oddly enough for the most part they don't. They seem to literally be able to affect the universe with raw belief. Thankfully they are mostly too stupid to make full use of it, there are in normal circumstances just three things to remember: If it's red it's faster than it should be, if it's green it's tougher than it should be and if it shoots it's got less a tendency to explode on it's own that it should have
Orks aren't smart, but they got their own brand of cunning, however since the majority is outright idiots that makes them hard to predict. It's like if we put the Water caste in charge of 90% of our army just to fool the enemy into a sense of complacency before we strike with our actual units.
Hm…. Wonder if I could get away with forming units consisting solely of water caste personnel with guns for that same purpose? It's not like we have a shortage of them. Moving on...
Orks appear to consider aiming cowardly and hence don't use it. Therefore if they shoot at you it's safer to be the target than elsewhere. The only problem is those big nasty axe-things of theirs. They tend to smart a bit if they manage to hit you. The other problem is that orks also really like to see firewarriors go squish when punched hard enough hence tend to close. They are also remarkably fast for being such bulky creatures.
Therefore: If attacked for the love of the greater good fire, fire some more, keep firing, and finally just blast away. Running is pretty much pointless unless command was obliging enough to leave a fast vehicle on hand to hijack like a piranha. If they did, well if you have survived this far I doubt you need any encouragement from me.
Oh, and Orks appear to reproduce from body odor, no I don't understand it either, just burn them when dead to ensure their stink don't become billions of more orks. If you can't burn them make sure to be far away from that place from then on starting within a few weeks at most.
Finally: The Orks are about the only other people with a sense of humor I've found in the entire galaxy. This do mean that fighting them can if you put some effort to it be more entertaining than most enemies, anything to make life at the front lines a little more bearable after all. Just remember not to be the last one to start running in a retreat.
_______________________________________________________________
The Century Hawk shuddered and creaked.
"The machine spirit is in a joking mood." Gordonius stated reassuringly.
"That or it's cranky again huh?" Mur'Phon said pointedly still remembering the research station.
"That is a possibility yes." He conceded.
"Idon'twanna'dieI'don'twannadie…" Miku said incoherently rocking slightly back and forth hugging herself in her seat trying to pretend she was somewhere else.
Of course the pilot was not noticing any of this whistling happily as he flew what appeared dangerously low to the trio and occasionally acted a bit like a guide pointing out interesting things along the way.
Mur'Phon wondered again why the hell he was here. Apart from the whole surviving thing that is. Well with a little luck he'd be off this rock within a week.
He didn't know that while Murphy's law usually ignored your hidden thoughts in this case it would make an exception.
"And to the left here we have…. Hey what are all those green guys?"
Mur'phon snapped to full attention
"Big, muscled, green and with horrible teeth?"
"Yeah pretty much."
In response he merely flicked off the safety on his carbine.
"Orks."
"Orks!" He screamed and dived wildly to get out of the line of fire.
"No whatever you do! Don't dodge!" He yelled too late as a freak shoota round blew his head off making it land in Miku's lap.
Reflexes took over. Before Miku had even started screaming he was shoving the headless corpse out of the way to take the controls.
"Can you fly this marginally venerable creation of the omnissiah?"
"No, but somebody gotta try."
In the background Miku was still screaming.
The car was in a hard dive, he pulled up hard. And felt something snap and controls suddenly got really clumsy.
"Ah shit. Brace for impact."
Miku stopped screaming for a moment, inhaled, then started screaming again.
He got out of the way of a particularly tall and thick tree barely, then pulled towards what looked like a clearing.
Miku was still screaming.
He pulled up and hit everything that might remotely be a brake. And then they hit, they plowed into the ground leaving a long open black wound in the forest behind them. The corpse of the pilot was sent flying forward smacking into a big tree with a meaty thud.
Miku finally stopped screaming.
"We're alive?"
"Either that or I'm in hell. Currently I'd give it fifty-fifty odds." Mur'Phon said adrenaline draining from his system
More dakka sounds echoed through the forest.
"We really should get a move on."
"Yeah, but to where?"
"There's that village a few klicks in that direction. As good a place as any to go."
They ran., but it sounded like orks were on their trail and gaining fast.
Mur'Phon seemed to lag a bit behind. Miku slowed down to take a look that he wasn't left behind, she looked behind her and... Nothing...
"Stop! We've lost Mur'phon!" She grabbed Gordonius and forced him to stop.
"What are you doing? We can get away while they are busy killing him in horrible ways."
"We are not leaving anyone behind!" She countered angrily.
"Well.."
"Shut up! Is there any trace of decency in either of you? Am I the only good person on this entire planet?!"
"You really should…."
"Be more like you two? Then I'd have killed you both already because I could. We can't go around acting like…."
"Orks are gaining." He finally said quickly.
"Oh." She stopped and turned. A small ork squad was right there howling in triumph at catching their kill.
That's when the blue muzzle flare from the bush lashed out burning down a few and a launched grenade from the same position took most of the rest. A single survivor hesitated for a moment weather to run or stand, a bit too long as a single shot casually dispatched him too in a gory manner sending red vapor over several bushes.
"Hah! Flawless Kayon!" Mur'Phon said emerging from his ambush place.
"You guys did great as bait."
"Bait? But…"
"How did you get the idea to start yelling? It was brilliant. They didn't even look in my direction while going after you." He continued not aware that most humans didn't know that in Kayon it was a great honor to be the lure.
"AAAAARGH! You two are driving me crazy!" Miku yelled holding her head.
"Well we…."
"Next one to make my migraine worse I will…. Well…. Something really, really mean! Like refuse to talk to them for a week!"
"Sounds like a pretty good deal to me." Gordonius muttered under his breath.
OMG!! IT LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yesyesyes!! Thank you thank you thank you!
Yesyesyes!! Thank you thank you thank you!
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
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Comando293
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 190
- Joined: 2005-11-04 07:56pm
- Location: Right Behind You
- Contact:
-
A-Wing_Slash
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 376
- Joined: 2005-09-20 09:22pm
Century Hawk eh? Brilliant as ever 
!
!
SDN World 3: The Sultanate of Egypt
SDN World 4: The United Solarian Sovereignty
SDN World 5: San Dorado
There'll be a bodycount, we're gonna watch it rise
The folks at CNN, they won't believe their eyes
My friend drew another image. Not his best technically speaking, but I liked the overall image (Though he's drawing a TAD too many images of the hot chick in the cast this one atleast includes the rest of them too)
http://i2.tinypic.com/t630p1.jpg
Link this time because it's a tad too big for posting directly on this page
http://i2.tinypic.com/t630p1.jpg
Link this time because it's a tad too big for posting directly on this page
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The Yosemite Bear
- Mostly Harmless Nutcase (Requiescat in Pace)
- Posts: 35211
- Joined: 2002-07-21 02:38am
- Location: Dave's Not Here Man
I just realized another humourus character concept....
a catachacan who hates authority, and is more then willing to frag commisars, and steal just about anything (even items that have been built into the mantal of a planet, or are a structural part of the ship. I short every rogue nco refrence.
a catachacan who hates authority, and is more then willing to frag commisars, and steal just about anything (even items that have been built into the mantal of a planet, or are a structural part of the ship. I short every rogue nco refrence.
The scariest folk song lyrics are "My Boy Grew up to be just like me" from cats in the cradle by Harry Chapin
Chapter 10
She meditated again. It seemed the situation was still salvageable, her subordinates had been acceptably successful in rousing the Orks to action and with them on the move the odds were in her favor again. They wouldn't have to commit any forces to die in the onslaught that was about to swallow up this world. She took another overview with her visions, the only possible lynchpin was that small village there. If it held the Orks would falter too fast to do what they must, but as it stood there was just about zero chance of survival. Still she was cautious.
That was funny… The air car wreck hadn't been there in her earlier versions of this vision. She got a feeling of dread. She knew what she would find farther down that path away from it, her vision implied it was of no consequence yet she deep down knew what she would find.
She saw the trio moving rapidly away from the crash towards the village. She recognized them. She screamed in frustration.
A small part of her protested that there was virtually no chance three people could possibly change the outcome, but somehow she knew that what her visions told her was false. She just couldn't see it yet. In this she was even blinder than those accursed mon-keigh.
What the hell had she done to offend the old gods so much?!
She swore that if she came out of this alive she'd wipe out that blue skinned mon-keigh species.
_____________________________________________________________
They ran. If it had been a marathon they would have collapsed under the weight of all the gold medals by now, but running away from hordes of ravenous aliens was almost normal for them by now.
Only this time it seemed they couldn't get away, the forces behind them was slowly gaining. Already an advanced party had started shooting, their fire landing all around the trio as they ran harder.
"That way!" Mur'Phon yelled as he turned towards a village visible through the foliage thinking they would have a better chance against the advance party in there.
Entering the main street Mur'Phon stopped and hauled the other two into an alley to not have any distracting bait around while he lured them in for the kill.
Mur'Phon pulled out his last two anti-personnel mine and looked at them with regret.
"So long. Your kind has served me well." He said as he placed them then at the walls.
"C'mon!" He dropped into cover behind some trash cans further in and got ready priming a captured imperial grenade as he waited.
"WAAAAAGH!" The Orks rounded the corner with a terrible war cry as he waited…. Then pushed the trigger for the mines. About a dozen orks fell instantly. The grenade killed another four, and finally he finished off the remaining with a long burst raking the alley with his carbine and the orks suddenly found themselves in the afterlife listening to Vogon poetry read by a particularly mean warp entity.
There's some culture even the orks can't manage to ignore no matter how much they might want to.
Back in the living world Mur'Phon checked the corpses and grabbed whatever weapons looked to be of imperial manufacture and hence would actually (mostly) obey the laws of physics pawing them off to Gordonius who hid them inside his cloak. That one most assuredly didn't obey said laws.
"Where are all the people?" Miku asked from behind them.
"If my Thermal readout was correct, huddling inside the houses hoping to not get noticed."
"You get thermal vision in that thing? Can I take it apart to see how the Tau make them, just for comparison purposes of course."
Before Mur'Phon could yell no Miku's gasp of horror ended.
"We got to help them!"
"Right… How? Make sure they are nice and tender so they don't get chewed as much?" Mur'Phon replied sarcastically.
"Not funny! You came up with a way to stop those... Tyra-somethings using nothing but an old freighter and a few billion tons of alcohol. Can't you stop a few hundred green things when you got an entire village to work with?"
"Right now they are more liable to just shoot at us than listen to us!" Mur'Phon spoke back agiated.
"You don't know that unless you try! How can you be so... so... heartless!?"
"Look... I want to get home and live to a ripe old age. Being the cranky old bastard in the cadre whom everyone of the youngsters despise and wish would die in a horrible accident, but never does since the universe just plain hates them that much." Mur'Phon finished in a single breath.
Miku and Gordonious both blinked repeatedly.
"Well... That's certainly an unique life ambition..."
"I'm an unique individual. Now I say we run on, let this village slow the Orks down a few minutes and…" Suddenly something was slipped off his shoulder. He reached back.
"Hey give me back my carbine! I need it to get home alive."
Miku stood there looking defiant. She had finally had enough of being ignored by the more ruthless members of the group. In her arms she cradled Mur'Phon's pulse carbine.
"We WILL help these villagers." She stated firmly.
"Or else what?" Was she threatening him? She wasn't even pointing the weapon and he doubted she was able to even consider shooting anyone with it.
"Or else I'm giving this to Gordonius for disassembly."
Gordonious looked gleeful.
"I do not believe it will be necessary to stay in this village. Let us just push on." It was clear that on the inside he was doing his happy dance.
"You, you blackmailing little..."
She started slowly holding it out towards Gordonius who reached out after it.
"Okay, okay! We'll try to help these villagers!"
Gordonious snatched out after the carbine, but Miku pulled it away JUST before he could grasp it. She gave a beautiful smile.
"I knew I could get you to see reason."
Mur'Phon and Gordonius both mumbled some less savory things about the female gender regardless of species under their breath.
___________________________________________________________
"Hello? Anyone alive in here?" Mur'phon called into the darkness. A shotgun blast blew a big hole next to his head.
"Never mind, that's answer enough." He commented.
Another blast missed him.
"Look if you shoot again I'll start shooting back. And trust me, I'm a better shot." He heard the sounds of someone fumbling a reload and rushed in.
The mayor was behind an overturned table with an old fashioned double barreled shotgun. Mur'Phon put his own weapon to his head.
"Could we please discuss this as civilized beings instead of just exchanging fire like a bunch of rednecks?"
The mayor dropped his weapon in panic.
"Please don't kill me."
Mur'Phon slapped the forehead of his helmet.
"Look I don't plan to kill you. I'm here to help."
The mayor finally calmed down a bit.
"Really? You are with the army?"
"Er… Not exactly?"
"The guard?!"
"Not quite..."
"The arbites?"
"Well... I work with them on occasion."
"Who are you with then?" The farmer asked with a sinking feeling.
"Myself and two friends."
The Mayor sat in stunned silence.
"If it's any consolation we have a tendency to cause mass destruction." Mur'Phon added.
_______________________________________________________________
The Guide has this to say with making use of untrained locals in desperate situations:
So you are stranded out in a town somewhere, not many troops with you and many, many enemies against you. Obviously at some point someone gets the bright idea of putting the civies out on the front line. Now. On paper it looks good, they will at very least draw fire from the guys with guns.
Just one thing to remember:
THEY SUCK!
They suck harder than a black hole. Harder than an imperial prostitute. In a fight they are as liable to run around screaming and being distracting as shooting their buddies by accident. Quite a bit lower is the chance that they lay down ineffective fire. On par with the odds of you getting granted a whole inhabitable planet for yourself by bureaucratic error is the chance that they put effective fire on the enemy.
Obviously the solution would seem to be to train them, but that takes time. Better to put them to use building tons of booby traps from hell while your regular troops get ready for more.
However a firewarrior often don't get a choice in the matter. The bosses have decided to use them and then you have to live with it, Then the golden rules are:
1: Don't stand in front of them no matter what. Getting shot in the back sucks.
2: Don't stand near them at all if you can help it. They will with their antics and hysterics likely draw more fire.
3: Don't pay any attention to them. If they run it's not necessarily a given that things are that bad, use your own judgement, not theirs. As a rule of thumb usually you should be running before they decide to flee.
4: If things are that bad that you need to run and they haven't noticed don't let them see you run away. That way they'll stay and slow down the enemy for a few seconds. If at all possible try to pick out the slower ones to work with you. The one who are slightly overweight and such. If you can outrun them it'll take the enemy a shot or a second to kill them so you gain slightly more advantage.
5: Act like you know what the hell you are doing and that this is easy. It'll make them less annoying and less likely to run. Hence giving you more of a headstart.
6: The only good news, whatever your gender, the opposite sex when scared shitless are easy.
That's about all I can think off that's ever come up in this scenario.
________________________________________________________________
"Shouldn't we you know, train them or something?" Miku asked.
"With only a few hours? We would not stand a chance." Gordonius remarked back
Mur'Phon was asking various inhabitants out on what they had to fight with. So far it wasn't looking good.
"No chemical industry, no construction explosives. No serious engineering or construction equipment. No explosives. Just what do you do here."
"Farming mostly."
Mur'Phon paused, considered, and then.
"You know I take back the no explosives statement." Under his helmet he was grinning like a madman.
______________________________________________________________
*Two years ago.*
"Ah there you are Shas'El."
Shas'El Ou'Gama looked up from the map. It had to happen any moment now.
"And you are? I'm busy trying to get all these trainees to shoot in the same direction on the same day."
"Shas'Vre I'Fumo. I'm sent by O'Garg'Amel to get clarification on some unusual reports."
O'Ou'Gama didn't need to think to remember exactly what he'd sent that could be the subject.
"I want that kid OUT of my base pronto."
"We read over his record. There is nothing there warranting any special actions against him. Nor do you present any solid proof."
"There isn't any. He doesn't do anything. Things just well... Go wrong in the worst way possible when he's involved for everyone else involved."
"Surely you are joking." Vre'I'Fumo found that statement ridiculous.
Just then there was a small tremor in the ground. By experience Ou'Gama threw himself to the ground.
I'Fumo however was blown off his feet by the shockwave when the fertilizer silo in the simulated farmland battlefield blew up.
It shouldn't be possible. First Tau fertilizer should be more stable than that, secondly the silo wasn't supposed to be filled with the real thing in the first place just incase. Things had to have gone really wrong for that to happen.
As I'Fumo picked himself up the ground Ou'Gama went over and lent him a hand.
"I dare wager the recruit in question is in that direction." He pointed in the general direction of the crater out there.
_____________________________________________________________________
"You sure that's all the fertilizer you got?"
"Should be. May be one or two bags left over at Johnsons."
"Go check. We need every bit you have." Mur'Phon knew it wouldn't be ready in time, but it would keep the mayor out of his hair (What little the Tau got) until this was over.
"You aren't going to blow up the village are you?" Miku was unsure here. She didn't have any experience with this sort of thing, the only thing Mur'Phon had said was that he could get it to explode.
"Nah, just the Orks. It'll be a big boom though."
"So basically you are turning the area just outside the city into a giant booby trap, but how are you going to get the Orks in there?" Miku asked.
"I have that worked out. Say could you do me a favor? Some kid dropped this when we pulled them to the far end of town. Could you go return it?" He held out a small teddy bear.
"Sure. I'd love to."
Mur'Phon shook his head as she swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker. The way she was acting he did not want her to find out just how he was intending to get the Orks into the kill zone.
He went over to give the last pep talk to the bait, who of course had not been briefed about the bomb.
"Right. Here's the situation. There's a shit-load of green-skins heading this way. They are big, they are mean, but they are dumb and not as brave as you'd think. As long as they feel sure of winning they'll keep fighting, but the moment victory is in doubt they'll break and run. Because of that we'll use some deceit. You will be in cover here so they can't accurately count you."
In reality the holes made it near impossible to run without dying as they would take too long to get out.
"And you will lay down as much fire as possible. Accuracy is secondary, what matters is that you make it seem that the absolutely heaviest fighting is in this end of the village. That will give them pause and probably make them fall back. We should be able to keep this up for weeks if we have to, long enough for the guard to mop them. Orks are after all horribly overrated due to how savage they are. We can and we WILL stop them. And it's up to you to scare them off. Remember, put up as much fight as possible, if they don't get scared off they will at least try to avoid you and go straight into the traps we've set on the flanks. Got that?"
"We will stop these xeno scum cold!" One of them exclaimed.
"Good. We're all counting on you."
He had picked out the most bigoted, the most zealous, the least educated and finally those who had during his short stay managed to insult the Tau. They'd make nice bait.
He heard bolter fire in the distance.
"Here they come. I'm heading back to the command center to coordinate things. Good luck." He walked away briskly.
Then as soon as he was out of sight broke into a run. He didn't want to get caught in the blast if Gordonius panicked and set it off early.
He ran into the clock tower set up as makeshift command post.
"How far out are they?"
"They are about two hundred meters out now and starting a headlong rush. Not that many weapons so the defenders aren't taking that heavy casualties yet. They are laying down quite a bit of fire."
"It'll do. We'll wait until the first units are in hand to hand range before we set it off. That should give us the highest body count. Given how many they are killing, I'd say about thirty seconds. We better get to the ground floor."
"Indeed."
They rushed down to hit the detonator. Miku came running just as they were getting down.
"What's going on? Did they show up early?!" She was agiated.
"Cover your ears!" Mur'Phon yelled as Gordonius reached for the switch?
Miku had been around them long enough to act immediately. And it saved her hearing from any permanent damage.
The blast was tremendous, Mur'Phon hadn't skimped on destructive power.
A few minutes passed without anyone saying anything. No sounds of anything orky. It appeared they had gotten all in this group.
Then the mayor showed up carrying a bag of fertilizer. He was in shock.
"You blew up half the town!!!"
Miku immediately tried to calm him down.
"Now I'm sure Murphy didn't mean to do that..."
As if on cue Mur'Phon turned to Gordonius.
"I got the impression the blast was going to be larger?"
"Well it should have been, but the fertilizer obviously wasn't as high grade as I thought it was."
Miku shot them an evil (As in the usual as threatening as a small kitty) glare.
"Was it really necessary?"
"You had any better idea how to get them all? I had to put it that close or they would be too spread out. It's better to lose a few building than all the inhabitants."
Miku stood defiant for a second, then relented.
"You are right. Atleast you didn't use the people as bait."
"Uh yeah at least there's that." Mur'Phon said glad that his helmet covered his face.
"I hate to interrupt, but frankly we should get a move on before the shock wears off. Quite a few of the citizens aren't going to be that understanding."
"I can see why that would be the case yeah." Mur'Phon said.
"We're sorry for the destruction." Miku said as she turned and followed them.
A few hours later a mob with pitchforks and torches formed, but by then they were long gone.
__________________________________________________________________________
The Farseer... Just couldn't believe it.
Sure it was more sensible than how they had neutralized the Tyranids, but the consistency in how they screwed up her predictions was unbelievable.
It was as if that damned blueskin was screwing over everyone involved by his presence alone.
She could see a few more paths to success, but they were far harder to execute, and right now she felt certain that somehow that Mon'Keigh would get in the way.
She did something no Farseer had ever done before. She swore out loud with enough fervor and imagination to make seasoned sailors blush red enough that they'd attract bulls from all over the planet.
She meditated again. It seemed the situation was still salvageable, her subordinates had been acceptably successful in rousing the Orks to action and with them on the move the odds were in her favor again. They wouldn't have to commit any forces to die in the onslaught that was about to swallow up this world. She took another overview with her visions, the only possible lynchpin was that small village there. If it held the Orks would falter too fast to do what they must, but as it stood there was just about zero chance of survival. Still she was cautious.
That was funny… The air car wreck hadn't been there in her earlier versions of this vision. She got a feeling of dread. She knew what she would find farther down that path away from it, her vision implied it was of no consequence yet she deep down knew what she would find.
She saw the trio moving rapidly away from the crash towards the village. She recognized them. She screamed in frustration.
A small part of her protested that there was virtually no chance three people could possibly change the outcome, but somehow she knew that what her visions told her was false. She just couldn't see it yet. In this she was even blinder than those accursed mon-keigh.
What the hell had she done to offend the old gods so much?!
She swore that if she came out of this alive she'd wipe out that blue skinned mon-keigh species.
_____________________________________________________________
They ran. If it had been a marathon they would have collapsed under the weight of all the gold medals by now, but running away from hordes of ravenous aliens was almost normal for them by now.
Only this time it seemed they couldn't get away, the forces behind them was slowly gaining. Already an advanced party had started shooting, their fire landing all around the trio as they ran harder.
"That way!" Mur'Phon yelled as he turned towards a village visible through the foliage thinking they would have a better chance against the advance party in there.
Entering the main street Mur'Phon stopped and hauled the other two into an alley to not have any distracting bait around while he lured them in for the kill.
Mur'Phon pulled out his last two anti-personnel mine and looked at them with regret.
"So long. Your kind has served me well." He said as he placed them then at the walls.
"C'mon!" He dropped into cover behind some trash cans further in and got ready priming a captured imperial grenade as he waited.
"WAAAAAGH!" The Orks rounded the corner with a terrible war cry as he waited…. Then pushed the trigger for the mines. About a dozen orks fell instantly. The grenade killed another four, and finally he finished off the remaining with a long burst raking the alley with his carbine and the orks suddenly found themselves in the afterlife listening to Vogon poetry read by a particularly mean warp entity.
There's some culture even the orks can't manage to ignore no matter how much they might want to.
Back in the living world Mur'Phon checked the corpses and grabbed whatever weapons looked to be of imperial manufacture and hence would actually (mostly) obey the laws of physics pawing them off to Gordonius who hid them inside his cloak. That one most assuredly didn't obey said laws.
"Where are all the people?" Miku asked from behind them.
"If my Thermal readout was correct, huddling inside the houses hoping to not get noticed."
"You get thermal vision in that thing? Can I take it apart to see how the Tau make them, just for comparison purposes of course."
Before Mur'Phon could yell no Miku's gasp of horror ended.
"We got to help them!"
"Right… How? Make sure they are nice and tender so they don't get chewed as much?" Mur'Phon replied sarcastically.
"Not funny! You came up with a way to stop those... Tyra-somethings using nothing but an old freighter and a few billion tons of alcohol. Can't you stop a few hundred green things when you got an entire village to work with?"
"Right now they are more liable to just shoot at us than listen to us!" Mur'Phon spoke back agiated.
"You don't know that unless you try! How can you be so... so... heartless!?"
"Look... I want to get home and live to a ripe old age. Being the cranky old bastard in the cadre whom everyone of the youngsters despise and wish would die in a horrible accident, but never does since the universe just plain hates them that much." Mur'Phon finished in a single breath.
Miku and Gordonious both blinked repeatedly.
"Well... That's certainly an unique life ambition..."
"I'm an unique individual. Now I say we run on, let this village slow the Orks down a few minutes and…" Suddenly something was slipped off his shoulder. He reached back.
"Hey give me back my carbine! I need it to get home alive."
Miku stood there looking defiant. She had finally had enough of being ignored by the more ruthless members of the group. In her arms she cradled Mur'Phon's pulse carbine.
"We WILL help these villagers." She stated firmly.
"Or else what?" Was she threatening him? She wasn't even pointing the weapon and he doubted she was able to even consider shooting anyone with it.
"Or else I'm giving this to Gordonius for disassembly."
Gordonious looked gleeful.
"I do not believe it will be necessary to stay in this village. Let us just push on." It was clear that on the inside he was doing his happy dance.
"You, you blackmailing little..."
She started slowly holding it out towards Gordonius who reached out after it.
"Okay, okay! We'll try to help these villagers!"
Gordonious snatched out after the carbine, but Miku pulled it away JUST before he could grasp it. She gave a beautiful smile.
"I knew I could get you to see reason."
Mur'Phon and Gordonius both mumbled some less savory things about the female gender regardless of species under their breath.
___________________________________________________________
"Hello? Anyone alive in here?" Mur'phon called into the darkness. A shotgun blast blew a big hole next to his head.
"Never mind, that's answer enough." He commented.
Another blast missed him.
"Look if you shoot again I'll start shooting back. And trust me, I'm a better shot." He heard the sounds of someone fumbling a reload and rushed in.
The mayor was behind an overturned table with an old fashioned double barreled shotgun. Mur'Phon put his own weapon to his head.
"Could we please discuss this as civilized beings instead of just exchanging fire like a bunch of rednecks?"
The mayor dropped his weapon in panic.
"Please don't kill me."
Mur'Phon slapped the forehead of his helmet.
"Look I don't plan to kill you. I'm here to help."
The mayor finally calmed down a bit.
"Really? You are with the army?"
"Er… Not exactly?"
"The guard?!"
"Not quite..."
"The arbites?"
"Well... I work with them on occasion."
"Who are you with then?" The farmer asked with a sinking feeling.
"Myself and two friends."
The Mayor sat in stunned silence.
"If it's any consolation we have a tendency to cause mass destruction." Mur'Phon added.
_______________________________________________________________
The Guide has this to say with making use of untrained locals in desperate situations:
So you are stranded out in a town somewhere, not many troops with you and many, many enemies against you. Obviously at some point someone gets the bright idea of putting the civies out on the front line. Now. On paper it looks good, they will at very least draw fire from the guys with guns.
Just one thing to remember:
THEY SUCK!
They suck harder than a black hole. Harder than an imperial prostitute. In a fight they are as liable to run around screaming and being distracting as shooting their buddies by accident. Quite a bit lower is the chance that they lay down ineffective fire. On par with the odds of you getting granted a whole inhabitable planet for yourself by bureaucratic error is the chance that they put effective fire on the enemy.
Obviously the solution would seem to be to train them, but that takes time. Better to put them to use building tons of booby traps from hell while your regular troops get ready for more.
However a firewarrior often don't get a choice in the matter. The bosses have decided to use them and then you have to live with it, Then the golden rules are:
1: Don't stand in front of them no matter what. Getting shot in the back sucks.
2: Don't stand near them at all if you can help it. They will with their antics and hysterics likely draw more fire.
3: Don't pay any attention to them. If they run it's not necessarily a given that things are that bad, use your own judgement, not theirs. As a rule of thumb usually you should be running before they decide to flee.
4: If things are that bad that you need to run and they haven't noticed don't let them see you run away. That way they'll stay and slow down the enemy for a few seconds. If at all possible try to pick out the slower ones to work with you. The one who are slightly overweight and such. If you can outrun them it'll take the enemy a shot or a second to kill them so you gain slightly more advantage.
5: Act like you know what the hell you are doing and that this is easy. It'll make them less annoying and less likely to run. Hence giving you more of a headstart.
6: The only good news, whatever your gender, the opposite sex when scared shitless are easy.
That's about all I can think off that's ever come up in this scenario.
________________________________________________________________
"Shouldn't we you know, train them or something?" Miku asked.
"With only a few hours? We would not stand a chance." Gordonius remarked back
Mur'Phon was asking various inhabitants out on what they had to fight with. So far it wasn't looking good.
"No chemical industry, no construction explosives. No serious engineering or construction equipment. No explosives. Just what do you do here."
"Farming mostly."
Mur'Phon paused, considered, and then.
"You know I take back the no explosives statement." Under his helmet he was grinning like a madman.
______________________________________________________________
*Two years ago.*
"Ah there you are Shas'El."
Shas'El Ou'Gama looked up from the map. It had to happen any moment now.
"And you are? I'm busy trying to get all these trainees to shoot in the same direction on the same day."
"Shas'Vre I'Fumo. I'm sent by O'Garg'Amel to get clarification on some unusual reports."
O'Ou'Gama didn't need to think to remember exactly what he'd sent that could be the subject.
"I want that kid OUT of my base pronto."
"We read over his record. There is nothing there warranting any special actions against him. Nor do you present any solid proof."
"There isn't any. He doesn't do anything. Things just well... Go wrong in the worst way possible when he's involved for everyone else involved."
"Surely you are joking." Vre'I'Fumo found that statement ridiculous.
Just then there was a small tremor in the ground. By experience Ou'Gama threw himself to the ground.
I'Fumo however was blown off his feet by the shockwave when the fertilizer silo in the simulated farmland battlefield blew up.
It shouldn't be possible. First Tau fertilizer should be more stable than that, secondly the silo wasn't supposed to be filled with the real thing in the first place just incase. Things had to have gone really wrong for that to happen.
As I'Fumo picked himself up the ground Ou'Gama went over and lent him a hand.
"I dare wager the recruit in question is in that direction." He pointed in the general direction of the crater out there.
_____________________________________________________________________
"You sure that's all the fertilizer you got?"
"Should be. May be one or two bags left over at Johnsons."
"Go check. We need every bit you have." Mur'Phon knew it wouldn't be ready in time, but it would keep the mayor out of his hair (What little the Tau got) until this was over.
"You aren't going to blow up the village are you?" Miku was unsure here. She didn't have any experience with this sort of thing, the only thing Mur'Phon had said was that he could get it to explode.
"Nah, just the Orks. It'll be a big boom though."
"So basically you are turning the area just outside the city into a giant booby trap, but how are you going to get the Orks in there?" Miku asked.
"I have that worked out. Say could you do me a favor? Some kid dropped this when we pulled them to the far end of town. Could you go return it?" He held out a small teddy bear.
"Sure. I'd love to."
Mur'Phon shook his head as she swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker. The way she was acting he did not want her to find out just how he was intending to get the Orks into the kill zone.
He went over to give the last pep talk to the bait, who of course had not been briefed about the bomb.
"Right. Here's the situation. There's a shit-load of green-skins heading this way. They are big, they are mean, but they are dumb and not as brave as you'd think. As long as they feel sure of winning they'll keep fighting, but the moment victory is in doubt they'll break and run. Because of that we'll use some deceit. You will be in cover here so they can't accurately count you."
In reality the holes made it near impossible to run without dying as they would take too long to get out.
"And you will lay down as much fire as possible. Accuracy is secondary, what matters is that you make it seem that the absolutely heaviest fighting is in this end of the village. That will give them pause and probably make them fall back. We should be able to keep this up for weeks if we have to, long enough for the guard to mop them. Orks are after all horribly overrated due to how savage they are. We can and we WILL stop them. And it's up to you to scare them off. Remember, put up as much fight as possible, if they don't get scared off they will at least try to avoid you and go straight into the traps we've set on the flanks. Got that?"
"We will stop these xeno scum cold!" One of them exclaimed.
"Good. We're all counting on you."
He had picked out the most bigoted, the most zealous, the least educated and finally those who had during his short stay managed to insult the Tau. They'd make nice bait.
He heard bolter fire in the distance.
"Here they come. I'm heading back to the command center to coordinate things. Good luck." He walked away briskly.
Then as soon as he was out of sight broke into a run. He didn't want to get caught in the blast if Gordonius panicked and set it off early.
He ran into the clock tower set up as makeshift command post.
"How far out are they?"
"They are about two hundred meters out now and starting a headlong rush. Not that many weapons so the defenders aren't taking that heavy casualties yet. They are laying down quite a bit of fire."
"It'll do. We'll wait until the first units are in hand to hand range before we set it off. That should give us the highest body count. Given how many they are killing, I'd say about thirty seconds. We better get to the ground floor."
"Indeed."
They rushed down to hit the detonator. Miku came running just as they were getting down.
"What's going on? Did they show up early?!" She was agiated.
"Cover your ears!" Mur'Phon yelled as Gordonius reached for the switch?
Miku had been around them long enough to act immediately. And it saved her hearing from any permanent damage.
The blast was tremendous, Mur'Phon hadn't skimped on destructive power.
A few minutes passed without anyone saying anything. No sounds of anything orky. It appeared they had gotten all in this group.
Then the mayor showed up carrying a bag of fertilizer. He was in shock.
"You blew up half the town!!!"
Miku immediately tried to calm him down.
"Now I'm sure Murphy didn't mean to do that..."
As if on cue Mur'Phon turned to Gordonius.
"I got the impression the blast was going to be larger?"
"Well it should have been, but the fertilizer obviously wasn't as high grade as I thought it was."
Miku shot them an evil (As in the usual as threatening as a small kitty) glare.
"Was it really necessary?"
"You had any better idea how to get them all? I had to put it that close or they would be too spread out. It's better to lose a few building than all the inhabitants."
Miku stood defiant for a second, then relented.
"You are right. Atleast you didn't use the people as bait."
"Uh yeah at least there's that." Mur'Phon said glad that his helmet covered his face.
"I hate to interrupt, but frankly we should get a move on before the shock wears off. Quite a few of the citizens aren't going to be that understanding."
"I can see why that would be the case yeah." Mur'Phon said.
"We're sorry for the destruction." Miku said as she turned and followed them.
A few hours later a mob with pitchforks and torches formed, but by then they were long gone.
__________________________________________________________________________
The Farseer... Just couldn't believe it.
Sure it was more sensible than how they had neutralized the Tyranids, but the consistency in how they screwed up her predictions was unbelievable.
It was as if that damned blueskin was screwing over everyone involved by his presence alone.
She could see a few more paths to success, but they were far harder to execute, and right now she felt certain that somehow that Mon'Keigh would get in the way.
She did something no Farseer had ever done before. She swore out loud with enough fervor and imagination to make seasoned sailors blush red enough that they'd attract bulls from all over the planet.
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Ford Prefect
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 8254
- Joined: 2005-05-16 04:08am
- Location: The real number domain
It never really died. I just wrote myself into a serious corner. I have an outline after all that had this village in it, but I didn't elaborate in advance. So when I got there I got into a deadlock how to do it in a funny way. And none of my friends who read it had any useful suggestions.Ford Prefect wrote:*weeps openly*
It's back. It's alive!
Wrote about two lines just after chapter 9, and then about a paragraph around where LadyTevar gave me a death threat.
And then today I the words "Fertilizer Bomb" just popped into my mind and I knew how to do it and I wrote it all in one sitting.
Writers block. Weird stuff.
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Brain_Caster
- Youngling
- Posts: 120
- Joined: 2005-04-27 02:45pm
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Academia Nut
- Sith Devotee
- Posts: 2598
- Joined: 2005-08-23 10:44pm
- Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Hoorah! So it wasn't dead, just in some sort of coma. Oh happy day.
Oh, and I seriously laughed my ass off at the empty, exploding fertilizer silo. It reminded me of that Simpson's episode where Homer melts down the training trailer and the inspectors cry out, "I don't get it! There wasn't even any nuclear material on-board!"
Oh, and I seriously laughed my ass off at the empty, exploding fertilizer silo. It reminded me of that Simpson's episode where Homer melts down the training trailer and the inspectors cry out, "I don't get it! There wasn't even any nuclear material on-board!"
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen.
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
Well the implication was that someone somewhere had managed to mess up and load it up with the real thing. The thing that can go wrong but is VERY unlikely to do so. Unless Mur'Phon is involved...Academia Nut wrote:Hoorah! So it wasn't dead, just in some sort of coma. Oh happy day.
Oh, and I seriously laughed my ass off at the empty, exploding fertilizer silo. It reminded me of that Simpson's episode where Homer melts down the training trailer and the inspectors cry out, "I don't get it! There wasn't even any nuclear material on-board!"
OMG IT LIVES!!
YAY Rogue!
YAY Rogue!
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
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The Yosemite Bear
- Mostly Harmless Nutcase (Requiescat in Pace)
- Posts: 35211
- Joined: 2002-07-21 02:38am
- Location: Dave's Not Here Man
Yay! More delightful Firewarrior's Guide!
..
Fertilizer needs to be mixed with deisel fuel or something roughly equivalent to make for explodey death.
Any Imperial town should have plenty of deisel lying around, so that's not an issue.
As for back in Tau-land goes, you might have an aircraft en route to deliver air-dropped fuel containers a la the Gulf War as part of some mission accidentally drop its cargo on the fertilizer silo just as the silo was hit by errant pulse fire, or something.
..
Fertilizer needs to be mixed with deisel fuel or something roughly equivalent to make for explodey death.
Any Imperial town should have plenty of deisel lying around, so that's not an issue.
As for back in Tau-land goes, you might have an aircraft en route to deliver air-dropped fuel containers a la the Gulf War as part of some mission accidentally drop its cargo on the fertilizer silo just as the silo was hit by errant pulse fire, or something.
As said earlier. That'd be part of the implications (Since on it's own it can't explode), but seen from story only I think it works better without in story explanation.Feil wrote:As for back in Tau-land goes, you might have an aircraft en route to deliver air-dropped fuel containers a la the Gulf War as part of some mission accidentally drop its cargo on the fertilizer silo just as the silo was hit by errant pulse fire, or something.
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The Yosemite Bear
- Mostly Harmless Nutcase (Requiescat in Pace)
- Posts: 35211
- Joined: 2002-07-21 02:38am
- Location: Dave's Not Here Man
Somehow the fact that natural fertilizer (Thought it'd be artificial in this case. IIRC it blows up better) usually is shit seems to be at some level inherently funnier than using grain. So it felt more funny to write. And I'm writing this primarily because it's about as funny to write as to read.The Yosemite Bear wrote:grain silos work really well too
Still. Look out for exploding grain silos later in the story. There's a lot of farming on this planet and who knows what ideas I may get
