Cain Archives 09 - Cain's Last Stand by Warhammer

Author:Warhammer [Warhammer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Sandy Mitchell «Cainʹs Last Stand»

enginseer: a prognostication which had singly failed to dismay her, as she'd always been more interested in getting her hands grubby than the theological side of her vocation in any case. Clearly her unexpected promotion hadn't done much to change that, which was something of a relief to me; I'd always found her atypical ebullience a great deal easier to deal with than the emotionless intellect of most of the tech-priests I'd come into contact with over the years.

'So what happened?' I asked, angling my path to intersect Jurgen's.

To my surprise Felicia fell in at my shoulder, as naturally and companionably as if we'd last seen each other a few days ago, rather than the best part of a century.

'We stumbled across this place,' she reminded me, pausing next to the metal column behind which I'd sought refuge such a short time before. 'None of the rest of you could possibly have known what it was, or cared, but once they realised a tech-priest had been inside, the project leaders got a little nervous.' I tried to picture a cabal of nervous inquisitors, and failed miserably. 'They thought I might have seen enough to work out what was going on here, so when the facility re-opened, they recruited me.'

'How very far-sighted of them,' I commented, my eye suddenly catching sight of a name engraved on the nearest face of the obelisk. It was a familiar one, Kolfax, the guide who'd led us out of the desert, only to be felled by the orks during our desperate battle here, and with a shiver I finally realised what it was which had saved my life: a memorial to the fallen of that decisive and bloody action. With a faint pang, I found I couldn't recall his face at all, or any of the others whose names had been so carefully etched into the smooth metal surface.

'Yes, it was,' Felicia agreed. 'Although they didn't realise it at first, they just had me fetching and carrying for the magi. Then they started to appreciate that what a job like this really needs is an unconventional approach.'

'Which you would most certainly have provided,' I agreed dryly.

'I did.' Felicia nodded, producing a ration bar from a pocket of her robes, and began to chew thoughtfully; clearly her habit of snacking at odd moments had remained with her, even after all these years, another character quirk most tech-priests would have regarded as eccentric at best. 'Of course some of the more conventionally-minded ones resisted giving me more responsibility at first, but they couldn't argue with the results I was getting.'

'So now you're in charge here,' I said.

Felicia chuckled, which surprised me; I'd forgotten how rich and good-humoured her laugh was, another trait which I had no doubt had failed to impress her superiors. 'Omnissiah's cogs, no. Who wants all that paperwork? I just supervise the project team.'

'Good afternoon, miss,' Jurgen said, apparently completely unsurprised to see her. But then I'd seldom seen him express surprise about anything.

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