I've had this and another story lying around for awhile now and I forced my way through it, so the quality is far from good enough in my opinion, but if I did not finish it, I would not be able to progress with any of the other stories, so here it is: Fatman's story.
That guy, Luigi, had already taken most of the food, but I grabbed whatever was left and stuffed it into my pockets. The door was slowly opening so people was gathering near it, ready to leave, so I stayed a little back to not be in anyone's way. When they had piled out of the transport and provided enough room, I walked outside to see that there was several people who had started an argument about what to do, some had found weapons from some sort of crate at the side of the transport and was handing them out.
The area outside the transport looked pretty rundown, a lot worse shape than what I was used to back on Terminus prime. The air was also hummid and smelled terrible, several people had already thrown up due to it, even if it was really bad, i was thankful that i managed to keep my own food down.
I tried to listen in on the arguments when I felt a sharp pain in my side, one of the thugs had apparently prodded me with one of the blades. "hey fatty, take one", he looked like he was about to stab me, but when I stepped back a little, he just threw the sword in my direction and said "no fun" before going elsewhere. I did not remember the thug's name but I certainly did not like that look he gave me.
"this way" said one of the guardsmen, guardswoman infact, the only one that looked like a feral worlder. She had started to walk in the direction of a small passageway, without giving the others in the group any option but to follow, we all knew we had to get to the middle hive, and staying was not an option.
Most people was up front and had searched the area but we seems to be passing through a passage with several rooms on the side, there was some comments about cover, which got me thinking that there might be hostiles in the area. I must have started shaking because one of the arbites commented "you should not eat now, its hard to run on a full stomach", at first I was confused as to what he meant but then I noticed my habbit had kicked in, whenever I was stressed or nervous, I eat food to calm my nerves.
There was some noice up ahead, I barely got the sentance "what the inquisition promised" before the sound of weapons being drawn blocked out the sound of the rest, we had apparently been attacked.
I rolled into one of the sidepassages while the arbitor had his sword drawn and shouted at the nearby non-combatant "Follow the priest into cover!" and they all piled into the sideroom I was in, it would be a lot easier for the arbite to block the entrance when he did not need to protect several people in different places.
Not long after we had gotten into the sideroom, several gangers with blades and gang-scars attacked us, they had apparently gotten past the main group of combatants and was aiming for us since we would prove easier targets. The arbite did what he could, but he was far from as efficient with a sword as the gangers were and he ended up on the floor, brawling with one of them as 2 other gangers entered our sideroom.
One of the gangers advanced on the scribe and another on a robed hiveworlder, both were flurishing their swords and making a frightening display that cowed the lot of us, even I was trying to hide behind anything I could find. But the illusion of hopelessness was shattered when one of the gangers screamed in pain as 2 large rats were gnawing at his arm, he had dropped his sword and were stumbling around the room, the other ganger along with us, looked in horror at what was happening. Several more rats had appeared underneath the gangers clothing and were gnawing at him, slowly tearing chunks off him untill he was just a spasming body on the ground and the rats vanished somewhere, how or where we could not find any logical explanation to.
the scribe was the first to snap out of the situation, or maybe just paniced, she picked up a bent metal pipe and swung it at the shocked ganger, knocking him to the ground, he was about to get back up when more of us joined in, we picked up whatever we got our hands on, or just used our fists. the group beat on the ganger way beyond what would kill him, I had not joined the frenzy due to shock but only by my words did they stop. "citisens! we must not linger! more will come and put our life in peril! we have to make our way to the middle hive!". It was more a display of fake confidence than anything I felt myself, but the group seemed to need it and they moved out to help the combatants.
The arbite was still lying on the ground, but thankfully he had managed to deal with his opponent by the time we had dealt with ours. I leant him a hand as he was trying to rise, and he answered with a huff "see? told you that you should not eat". he patted me on the back and we made our way towards the main fight, which from the looks of it, had already dispersed.
Most of us got to sit down once the situation had calmed down, I was amongst them, there was little for us to do than try to get out adrenaline shock down, while the some of the others were interrogating one of the gangers what had apparently been injured enough so he could not run. He was giving them some satisfying information, well in the terms of explaining the events but not in terms of easing the perils we were in. I would of course not learn this until later when rumors started to spread, but I noticed that the prisoner had offered, or forced to offer himself as a guide to the middle hive and to avoid his fellow gangers.
It was not long after that we set out, with some of us acting as scouts both up ahead and behind, and with the ganger as a guide, we easily made our way past most patrols or took detours to avoid them. I was thankful that both the direction and the scouts abilities to keep us unnoticed was successful, but when I saw the end of our journey, it was apparenty that not everything was going to be easy.
We had to cross a outlying part of the ganger's main camp, climb down some chains to a pier, and cross a hive sump-river by using the metal piers, then climb a tower that would lead towards the middle hive.
I was in no possition to argue as several of the headstrong members of our group was already pushing ahead, and alarms had started sounding around the ganger base. Our guide had said something and started to climb down the chains, and the sister militant ordered everyone else to follow.
I was a bit slow, so I saw the first group reach the bottow before i even got to the ropes, and by then the second group had already started climbing down. The combatants were taking up possitions against the hostile gangers, but since they were not equipped with anything other than swords, out situation looked grim.
I was in a bit of a shock of what happened next, one of the scouts had picked up a small piece of broken metal and handed it to one of the nobles, saying "throw the grenade!". I was about to comment when the scout pushed me towards the chains and started to climb down himself, which i was forced to follow. Behind me I heard "Fire in the Hole!" and saw the rest of the combatants followed our decend to the piers.
At the bottom, I almost stepped on someone and one of the sister militant from the second group pushed me aside and shouted "NOOOO!". The body was of Katherin, the sister famolous who had stopped the all out battle in the transport. we were quite packed and the gangers would follow soon, so I was waved on ahead, but I did notice that there was a blade sticking out of the body, a blade that clearly had belonged to a ganger, I looked around for our guide and saw him up ahead, way too far to had done it.... who could it be?
I had no time to think, I waddled across the pier as fast as I could along with the rest, looking back several times to notice that the gangers were progressing. however, I had barely gotten 1/3 of the way when a huge spray of water emerged from the sump to the far right, something large was comming towards me. Judging from the actions of the gangers, seeing them running away, it was clear that we were in peril, very much so.
I ran, ran as fast as I could, which I'm sad to admitt was not very fast. The creature in the sump was attacking the pier but we had avoided him so far by spreading around on the different paths we could take, and when some of our group reached the far end, they started to shout directions. I was clearly the slowest one and they shouted directions for me as this massive creature shook the piers around me. I was really panicing and the adrenaline was pumping like mad, I had not even realised that I had reached the end and was running up the ramps towards the tower.
By the time i reached the end of the ramp, the fatigue had caught up with me and when I stared at the ladders reaching beyond the celling, I was filled with hopelessness and sat down. someone asked if I was alright but I just answered "just need to rest". They apparently got annoyed and left me to climb the ladders along with the others.
It took quite awhile for me to get my motivation back, as I saw that I would be left alone in the underhive, so I made my slow progression towards the top of the ladders, it was a slow and painful, I almost fell several times. But when I reached the top, I was relieved for a few split seconds as I got some helping hands, but they proved to be from someone unexpected.
The men who "helped" me was wearing red carapace armour, chainmail and batons. They dragged me away from the ladder and started beating on me until I fainted.
When I woke up, I found myself in a cell along with the body of katherin. Outside the cell stood a man with a =][= on the collar of his coat. "You have failed your task and you do not belong in the inquisition". I was not sure what to think, my mind was processing the information coldly, or maybe i was just too fatigued and beat up to care. Seeing my lack of expression, the man continued "you are to deliver the body of Katherin back to Thaur, then make your way to Terminus Prime, the inquisition will make use of you in different ways". With that, he left and one of the other prisoners opened my cell with a key he had gotten.
I followed the inquisitorial agent, while carrying the body for a little while before being told where the transport would be arranged. In the meanwhile, One of the sister militant performed a minor blessing for the deceased, it was a worthy action which gained my respect so I thanked her and told her that I would take care of the body and see it to its destination.
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