Novella: Prize from the Past
Prize from the Past
Find out what Rake and the other mercenaries of Battalion 17 discover in the Crypts that ignites their downfall at the hands of Nefer Thul, Agrioverlord of the city of Murdo.
There was a reason I could often get away with talking out of the left side of my ass. For all the grief I’d had mentoring under Master Slintock while trying to hone my psyki, the old bastard had taught me some protoling[1]. That gave me a literacy level beyond most of my peers and allowed me access to some Ancestor databases. That kind of knowledge comes with some level of blind trust from those who couldn’t understand the language. I tried not to abuse that trust. Not too much.
Although I can sling a gun like the rest of my brethren while they are scavenging ‘lastisteel, metal frags, bullets, and power chips for their armor and weapons, I can usually be found grubbing for datacrystals instead. I must admit I’m a bit of a hacker at heart and this has gotten me out of some hotter front line duties. Bastia, while she can push a man to tears, knows the value of a crack tech. She lets me have some liberties as I have increased her chances of vulturing some choice goodies that others have missed. Not to mention that the tricks I yoinked from old texts have kept the Battalion in better health than the last sawbones managed.
Having some natural talent helps. What can I say? I have a way with organic biology. My hands work miracles with the thread and needle. I can lay on hands and seek out illness at least as good as the average Medalyzer ‘bot.
That’s good value, considering Medalyzers are few and far between, especially functioning ones. And they require a lot of precious Joules to crank. Me? Get me a plate of tasty K-cals[2] and a jar of aged, golden, peat-smoked hooch and I’m good to go for a couple of hours... well, unless the damage is severe. Then I might pour all my mental energy into it, and I’ll need to eat and sleep for a week before I can face even the slightest infection again.
Psywork takes its toll, I’m tellin’ you. I can drop fifteen pounds after a serious near death session. And that’s nutri-weight, not brow sweat. Secret: Us psypaths eat a lot. They call me Rake ‘cause I rake it all in but stay thin as my namesake agri tool.
But I keep all that slag under wraps. Popular rumor is I got a tapeworm eating too many of Tiny’s blue plate specials. None of my brethren know my special skills. It’s just not popular. What with the Psykopalypse myth and all.
Turning my attention back to the matter at hand, I tried to puzzle out why this mission was at all important. Bastia’s urgency implied that the cache I was tracking must be highly valuable. She must’ve known more about what we were expected to find than we did. Despite the limited information I could snatch from the datacryst that the Raj gave us to work with, our fearless leader wanted to be personally involved. Most blind seek ‘n’ snatch missions would have been an NCO and a patrol, at best. But here she was, leading by glare and grunt. In the flesh.
The ‘crys did indicate top-level secrecy, but contained mostly compound schematics and co-ords. It worried me that we had no Sec-Com Intel. There was no knowing what sort of internal security this bunker had or what may still be operable. And getting the CO killed on a mission wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be known for.
I waited for backup and the breech team to arrive, then climbed out of the crawler’s grab seat and squinted. The harsh sunlight glinted off the reflective, obsidian-like slag covering what we knew to be an Ancestor SpecTech lab bunker. About ten or twelve meters beneath our feet, another era awaited.
Eat that, time travel cultist whack jobs.
The bunker was probably made of Porete[3] or Fluxmold[4] before the surface got obliterated. Tough stuff. So I needed to locate an entrance ‘cause blowin’ slog up can get messy and breaky and... well. Got to save the bunker busters for the likes of gobblers or spice wyrms. Those funkers can swallow a whole patrol with one gulp. And if you can’t blast your way out you’re wyrm calories.
Suddenly, I was being screamed at by a cat.
“Okay, Rake. Now that you’ve gleaned all your dingle berries, where do we start drilling, dammit?!”
Colonel Bastia stood, bandoliers across her breasts, looking like a four-legged frown.
The CO happened to be a centauri. To be more specific:A pantherataur mynama. Part black panther, part woman and 100% business. She was, in my not so humble opinion, a never give up, never surrender toughass bitch. She could claw you to death with her front paws and record a vid with her human hands while doing it.
We all love her dearly and fear her daily.
Bastia’s also a master strategist and one of those natural born leaders. She kept the battalion together after Colonel Tok took a molecular disruption round to the dome at his field com site. If Bastia hadn’t been majoring our flank sweep, she’d’a been standing right next to him. Might have turned her noggin into a fine red mist as well.
“Yes ma’am!” I shouted back, firing off one of those crisp, textbook salutes.
She rolled her eyes. “Just get on with it, sergeant suck-ass.”
[1] Protoling: The primary Ancient language, linguistics skills applying to dead languages.
[2] K-cals: And food or food substitute that provides energy.
[3] Porete: A tough concrete hybrid building material used by the Ancestors.
[4] Fluxmold: A tough, sprayable building material used by the Ancestors.