Hey so.
I did this a while ago, and it's a thing. A Warhammer40k thing, so some of the terminology may not be familiar to you.
The ending was written, but felt very thrown together and it sort of fell apart with each re-write so I will not be sharing it.
But enjoy what I've got.
Part 1: Callow
[spoiler=]
Callow - unfledged; inexperienced
There was nothing but a flurry of sounds, static, pro-sanguine blood splattered on her respirator. A roar of anguish and static then painful silence as the sights and time blurred together.
_________________________________
The next thing she remembered, was the sounds of a commander barking at the small guardsman company, or what was left after the last advance, during a period of lull. The buzz of the machines plugged into her mind impulse unit was not enough to drown them out, as much as she desperately wished it would. She was the only one that had been about with her duties unabated once he had dismissed them. A meager red-robed apprentice of the Mechanicus.
Even back then, she hated being called by the name she was born with. Out of caution or bad association was unsure. So they suited to calling her by the first thing an outspoken guardsman had dug out from his pockets.
“Dice!”
She froze before turning to face the company leader, a commissar trailing behind him. “Yes, Captain?”
“I need you to bolt down the loose plating and flatten out the kinks on these Basilisks.” He started, drilling out his request as he would address the other guardsmen in their squads. It was almost monotonous to listen to by this point. “We need everything we have if we are going to continue this advance.”
Dice’s cold logic broke in light of these new orders, her eyes sparked anxiously. “Not all of them have been completely repaired. The machine s-”
“No time.” The commissar bit at her sharply. “We need to make do with what we have, and as soon as possible.”
“You should have informed me earlier.” She’d emphasize, before turning to the captain. “Sir, I-”
“Dice. Don’t.” He interrupted, before softening a little. “…I know you have a lot on your plate, especially since Magos Praetus died. But I need those Basilisks, and I need them now.”
She jerked, as did a loose joint on the machine she was plugged into, but quickly turned her head, making no other signs of acknowledgment. The captain gave her an odd look.
“Dice, you are all I have until the next Valkyrie comes in with reinforcements and the other priests. I need these tanks up. Can you handle it?”
“Of course.” Dice blurted out, with little hesitation. She bowed before moving on to another part of the camp, where the other damaged machine spirits waited.
“She’s…odd.” The commissar’s eyes narrowed, the paranoia in his features quickly rising. “For a tech-priest I mean. Though that still isn’t saying much.”
“Praetus was killed in the last battle.“ The captain shrugged. "Dice is now the only acting Tech-priest for us. Techies aren’t much for emotion, but she’s probably rattled.”
“I don’t like it.” The commissar said gruffly. “I don’t like trusting this mission, -any- mission, to a novice.”
“Maybe.” The captain quipped, turning on his heel. “But like it or not, she’s all we have for the next three days.”
He left that undeniable fact hang in the air as the two parted ways.
[/spoiler]
Part 2: Cachexic
[spoiler=]
Cachexic - Having an unhealthy physical or mental state
________________________________
The lights on the control panel of the Sentinel shone a ready green, another spirit sated, the hum of its engine rung with the need for battle. Dice’s left hand hovered over the machine’s switches as she sat inside, as if her flesh was unworthy of such contact.
“Hey! I see you got the Sentinel up and working!” A voice barked happily from below.
Dice’s hand jerked back, peering down the right leg of the Sentinel. She found herself looking eye to eye with Lex, the right hand man of the Lieutenant from squad 4. His spiky mud colored hair was really all she remembered of him. He was…friendly, but certainly not a friend. The other guardsman didn’t bother to address her unless they needed something fixed, while Lex used to invite her over for poker instead.
The requests were almost always refused.
“I did nothing.” Dice respond humbly, throwing her right leg out to begin dismounting the Sentinel. “The spirit of this Sentinel is eager to help serve the Emperor.”
Lex grinned up at the machine as she said this, his helmet tucked under one arm, and the other having his hand rested on his hip. “Well if its a fight it wants, it’s a fight it’ll get.”
With that out of the way however, Dice felt a wave of dread wash over when seeing his expression grow more serious, looking the tech novice in the eyes.
“Listen, Dice, we’re moving out in a couple of hours, I need you to come with and stick close to us to ensure everything stays online. Green squad reported that there’s a hell of a firefight going on over there.”
- ERROR -
The diagnostic screen of her data slate flashed, with an startlingly red burst of light. She twitched involuntarily, before realizing she had been plugged into her data slate via an impulse cord to keep track of repairs, which she quickly pulled from the back of her neck.
“Uh, you okay buddy?”
A flash of mild disgust crossed over her features at being called ‘buddy’, but she forced it to subside. “I’m fine.”
Lex pursed his lips, frowning. “You want to talk about it?”
Under the cover of her draping sleeves, Dice’s hands clasped into fists when knowing the direction this conversation was going.
“I heard that Praetus was your mentor and all, and the way he went-”
“I know.” Static leaked through her respirator mask out of irritation before straining to speak calmly, “I don’t need to be reminded.”
“Ju-”
“I need my equipment before we go.”
Lex paused, then nodded and watched her leave. He never figured out her age, but she had to be young if death still bothered her this badly.
Mechanicus or not, they both knew she was still human inside.
...
The transport doors had barely dropped before the company was already being fired upon. The only thing that gave the soldiers enough time to take cover without certain death was the volley of fire from the sentinel’s providing ample cover.
At the pace the other guardsman moved, Dice was alone walking onto the battlefield with a bolt pistol in hand. Her Magos’ single remaining servo-skull buzzed around her fervently, equipped with a large repeater rifle on its underside and awaiting her orders.
Her fleshy eyes struggled to absorb the situation she had been dropped down into. Only knowing she was on the outskirts of what was once the capital of this planet’s region. The once magnificent city was nothing but ruin now. A metropolis of stone and smoke. Her eyes squinted as she looked to the sky, which was red with what she would know later as warp taint, only broken by the passing black ships that were descending to the planet.
Rockets, lasfire, and many colorful insults flew in all directions, disorienting the young novice. She fell back to the transport ship, her grip of iron clung to a pipe protruding from one of the side walls. But she learned quickly this was no place to catch one’s breath.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
Without warning, Dice hit the dirt, spear tackled to the ground just as lasfire erupted at what was once head level. She tried to zero in on her attacker, only to face the grim expression of the commissar.
A commissar saving someone. That was…certainly a first.
She was hauled to her feet with a single jerk of his arm as he bellowed out. “Get your ass to fourth squad or so help me I will shoot you now!”
“Of-yes-yessir!” The novice stammered, straightening herself as she was shoved in the direction of what was left of an outer city wall. She could hear the rumbling of a Basilisk engine and familiar faces from the 4th squad of the company.
“Dice!” Lex jeered as his helmeted head popped out from the door into the Basilisk. “Get over here, you’re going to miss the party!”
“I don’t see how invading a chaos infested city is a PARTY!” Dice shouted back, looking over her shoulder to see her servo-skull easily keeping up with her.
- Targeting systems online: Current threats = 0 -
The Sentinels and Basilisk advanced onward to the city, with their single tech priest in tow. Laspistols sounded all across the field, only interrupted as they were overpowered by the sounds of heavy cannon fire.
Between the lulls of cannons, Dice was able to pick out the sounds of massive rubble piles being shifted by some behemoth. “ON THE RIGHT!” She cried out, just as a Leman Russ broke through the outer walls of a partially demolished building. The symbol of the aquila had been hastily scratched off and replaced with an eight pointed star, painted by something that looked very similar to blood.
It was only able to get one shot off before the other sentinel’s fired on the enemy, almost instantly putting down the corrupted machine. But not before an APHE round slammed into the cockpit of the Basilisk Dice was accompanying.
She was thrown to the ground from the resulting blast, the heat from the round would have burned the skin from her face had she not covered it with her arms. Her sleeves burned off instead, leaving her red, scarred, and blistered arms exposed.
“DAMN——LLED L—-W—-DO NOW?!” A solider screamed out as Dice’s ears rang. Suddenly, she felt two calloused hands wrap under her arms, hoisting her up to her feet abruptly.
“WE KEEP MOVING!” Another answered, being the one that had helped the novice back up before he patted her on the back hard, forcing her to continue down the road with the other Sentinels as they maneuvered around the destroyed metal husk of the Basilisk.
The next two hours were less coherent for Dice as the company fought, killed, and bled. She ran between Sentinel’s, working to keep them functioning while avoiding fire from cultists taking cover in the concrete shells of what were once sturdy Imperium buildings.
The novice tiredly stepped over the bodies of the dying as she worked, knowing even if she was not busy with the machines, she was able to do nothing for them. But at last, they reached the city square.
It was only then did things really go wrong.
[/spoiler]
Part 3: Naufrageous
[spoiler=]
Naufrageous - In a state of danger or ruin.
_________________________________________________________
The ground itself erupted with explosions. Their sensors had noticed too late that the entire square had been rigged with mines. The Sentinels toppled over, the Machine Spirits groaned in pain with the bent metal and dying engines.
It didn’t take Dice long after she waved her arms to clear the kicked up debris from her vision to realize there were no more Machine Spirits to repair here.
- Defensive Protocols Activated -
Her servo-skull beeped, quickly rounding a ruined Sentinel to hover over her right shoulder, its rifle aimed into the smoke.
- Standing by -
The silhouettes from the fog of destruction broke to reveal several soldiers, their battle gear tarnished with symbols of Chaos.
“I told you they would fall for it.” One of them cackled, while another let out an excited hoot.
- Targets: 4 humans. Initializing weapon systems, targeting vital organs -
“Yeah but–uh…wait, what the hell?” One of the traitors squinted through the rubble, now staring at Dice as she leveled her bolt pistol with wide eyes.
- Engaging -
Dice’s first shot missed, but her servo-skull was implanted with advanced targeting systems. The skull emitted a red laser from its left eye socket, tracking their attackers. A traitor’s head exploded in a flash of light from lasfire, the second one barely had time to blink when he too lost his head.
“A survivor!” One of them bellowed to supposed reinforcements behind them. “KILL HER!”
As another turned solider fell, Dice’s bolter managed to strike true dead in the chest of the taller one in their group, causing him to take a knee but not quite keel over. She turned heel and ran to try and find cover while their numbers were temporarily culled, able to make out the sounds of smaller fire fights around her that had broken out in the square from survivors of the ambush and mines.
- Defensive Protocols on Standby -
The skull beeped, watching over the novice loyally as she half threw herself behind a small three foot high chunk of wall that had punctured the ground on its side. She tried to peer up from the wall to survey the total damage of the surprise attack.
The Sentinels were damaged beyond repair. The Machine spirits lost. Pilots dead. She muttered a short prayer for them under her breath just before she felt two lasers penetrate her body, searing her flesh. Pain shot up her spine and her vision blurred.
She fell to the ground and looked up just in time to see her Magos’ servo-skull be shot down immediately after, nothing but sparks and metal as it collapsed in a heap beside her.
“Well, that was easy.” A deep voice mused. A man in an Imperial Guardsman uniform walked out from behind another wall, the insignia on his breastplate signaled he was once a lieutenant. He chuckled before aiming down his MK63 Lasgun directly at Dice’s head.
“Ohhhhh,” He chirped. “We have a techie here I see.” The heretic grinned, revealing stained teeth.
“S-Scum…” Dice sputtered, trying to regulate her breathing from the pain of her wounds, her bolter was in reach, but her closest arm moved like dead weight. Only managing to twitch.
He stomped on her arm, fracturing her ulna and popping a few of the burn blisters on her wrist. He watched her squirm, shouting in pain.
“Aww, what’s wrong techie? Is your arm malfunctioning?” He laughed, leaning into her face after lowering his weapon downward.
Dice thanked the Omnissiah for being blessed with a stupid heretic. She used his time of jesting to try and recover some strength. Though she paled when seeing another group of traitor Guardsmen pouring in, one more decorated individual from the groups stepped forward, looking disconcerted.
“Drawing them in this close was a bad idea.” He nagged. “We’re about to be overrun. What do we do?”
“Fear not.” The Lieutenant boomed, removing his flak boot off of Dice’s arm to stomp the ground beneath them. “Reinforcements are on the way.”
“Hey, what do you wanna do with this thing?” Another one of the guardsman slid down a rubble pile, jogging over to Dice before tapping her on the head with the tip of his lasgun.
“Leave her be.” The lieutenant replied, waving off the concern. “She’s not a threat anymore. Besides, once the reinforcements arrive, I’m sure they’d love to take her as a sacrifice.”
He laughed as all but one of the heretic guardsman left to help hold back the next wave of Imperium, one which sent a near electrical surge down her spine. “They’ll be starting the ceremony any time now.”
...
Dice could barely summon the strength to move her limbs. Regardless of she could move or not, she knew that panicking would only make things worse. Being “sacrificed” to whatever these traitors were talking about sounded just as unpleasant on the other hand.
There was a long minute, one that felt like an eternity, before the air suddenly filled with a single monotone hum. A strange energy bounced off of the walls of the city now, almost kinetically.
Dice rolled her head to look off to the north as she saw a tear of hellish red light split the air off in the distance. But not distant enough for Dice to feel comfortable with it, she gasped a curse, which prompted the lieutenant to kick her.
“Quiet, techie.” He’d tease over her wheeze, turning his head to the rift as well but with much more excitement and giddiness.
Dice’s mind was thrown back to her Magos, the pain he endured, the sounds of horror and binary and static he emitted as he died had said it all. She was a novice, but she would not go out like that.
Her fractured arm sent spikes of pain down her back, but her hand finally clasped her bolt pistol as th