Darktide Collected Stories by Various

Author:Various
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-08T08:48:28+00:00

DIRECT ORDERS

by Sarah Cawkwell

Two night cycles previously – at best guess – half of the strike team seated at a table playing a semi-serious game of Darktown Whist. Others were cleaning and maintaining their weapons, some sleeping, but at least it was all of them. Still together. A unit. A squad. A team. Friends.

Now?

Now only four remained and the circumstances were most definitely not conducive to playing games. Strafing gunfire ripped through the ruins of the hab block in which they were taking shelter. Everywhere the sounds of death and dying echoed throughout the blasted streets like a ghastly opera playing to a very small, select audience. The traitors of the Moebian 6th were hammering Chasm Station, but then it felt as though everywhere in Tertium was being hammered. Maybe everywhere on Atoma.

Vox communication with the other strike teams scattered throughout the sector - and worse, with the orbiting Mourningstar - had broken down after a heavy stubber shell had punched through the equipment as well as the man carrying it and they were running out of places to take cover in the long reaches of Ironside Alley.

'Odds not so good this time, Sarge,' muttered Alusha, the team's demolitions expert. Her long black hair, usually wound up tightly beneath her cap, had come loose and hung in strands around her harassed face. She propped her lasgun on the ground before her and frantically took stock of what explosives she had left in her arsenal.

Not many.

Sergeant Taril groaned softly, running his hands through his thinning hair. His helmet was long since gone, thrown off by the blast that had scattered the strike team in all directions, apart from Kerrin, whose luck ran out when he'd been too close to the impact to be able to escape the fire and spinning shrapnel. What remained of Kerrin when the smoke and dust had cleared had not been a pretty sight. An even less pretty sight was that of the big Ogryn, Tig, as he had cradled his best friend's torso in his arms, trying to convince himself that everything was fine.

Kerrin and Tig formed an instant bond from the moment the Ogryn had arrived, newly assigned to the strike team: a big, clumsy mountain of muscle with the flat, blocky features and overly-hirsute body of his kind. He'd come to them comparatively recently. Young for an Ogryn, what he lacked in knowledge and social grace – and by the Throne, he had precious little of either – Tig made up for with single-minded determination, unwavering loyalty and boundless energy. At first the team had only reluctantly accepted his company, but his endless child-like enthusiasm and relentless optimism had quickly worn them down. Within days they had warmed to him, within a week none of them could recall the team without him.

Overhead, a squadron of blunt-nosed, ramshackle attack craft banked sharply to their left with a scream of tortured plasma jets, peeling off in pursuit of the remaining thunderbolt fighters.

Tig hunkered down beside Taril.

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