Inquistor Battle Report

Jacobs tapped the scanner screen again; it had been malfunctioning so much lately he didn't feel like reporting something that wasn't actually there again like last time. Duty officer Salek approached "Report trooper" "it seems to be another of these meteorites, but the computations show that it slowed itself before impact, we have nothing on record that describes that type of    action.. Just trying to run a database match with HQ" " hmm looks like our scouts will finally earn their combat pay"

Scout sergeant Wilks sat bemused at all the activity in the base, transports loading up and commissars barking orders at the tech crews as they went about  their business.  The evacuation of the planet had been ordered by the adepts on Terra after the holding action in the segmentum illustria was defeated by  the endless hive fleet.  Rumours had trickled in that the 117th Cadian infantry had been wiped out on Thoth and that the bugs were heading in this direction,  no one wanted to be here when they arrived.

A young staff officer looking impatiently at the unshaven veteran startled    Wilks out of his daydream, "I have orders for you from Colonel Rathen,  he has a mission for you"

The Colonels office in the imperial guards HQ was lavishly decorated and had a vast marble floor which you could see the reflection of the great painting of the siege of Tavistock VII on the ceiling, the vast sculpted plascrete desk had a holo projection of what looked like a typical settlement on this barren rock of a planet. "Come, sit down, we have a mission for you"

Saltiigrok had been a trader for 15 summers on this planet, now all his trade  was slipping away from him, the war boss Greshnnik would not be happy to see his selection of fine contraband suddenly dry up but it seems the imperials  were leaving and no one wanted to trade any longer. He had to score one last big hit so that he could go back with something impressive for his master, the old scanning equipment that he'd used to track down stores had been converted  with the use of a hammer to scan the skies for downed transports. The imperials  were in too much of a hurry to waste time looking for their lost transports    and it seemed a waste that this salvage went unclaimed, then at last he picked a blip up on the screen that crashed in a settlement not 40 clicks from where he was camped, pay day had come early.

Wilks approached with caution, the briefing had said that whatever had dropped last night was unknown from any of the planets records and there were no recorded transport engine failures so this had to be something odd.  Wilks gripped the stock of his autogun as a noise came from behind the wall of a demolished settlement, slowly a settler wandered into view and Wilks relaxed again. It seemed that  the locals weren't too bothered about whatever had landed as they continued their work, this made Wilks relax a bit more as he neared the coordinates of the crashed object.

The bio scanner reading went off the scale as he approached the building where the object had crashed, there was a light mist around the building, but no fire or debris from anything other than the destroyed building.    Saltiigrok arrived just on the outskirts of the settlement and left his skimmer to carry on the rest of the way on foot, the seismic readings on the impact indicated a medium sized object which would probably contain enough stores to get at least ten thousand teef on the market, a big haul indeed for a private trader. As he got closer he could hear noise, human settlers come to steal his claim, after two seconds thought, Saltiigrok decided that being a big ork it  would be better to scare the humans away with a charge than try and barter with them for possession of the stores.

As Wilks approached the building there was a tinge of burnt flesh in the air,    as he peered over the wall Wilks' jaw dropped ... Tyranids. The mysetic spore  was empty, the fleshy walls splayed open like a banana, but where was its cargo?

Wilks turned sharply as he heard a roar over to his right, he span round and   dropped to one knee, autogun held up in the direction of the shouting. Nothing visible from his position, but defiantly something.

The settler turned to see the ork come out charging from beside the building,  teeth bared and chain axe swinging wildly from above his head, the settler froze with fear and then fear turned to abject terror as his friend who he'd taken breakfast with only 2 hours earlier suddenly bent double as the ork approached then arched backwards as a creature spilt forward from the settlers torso spraying blood across the ruins.

The ork slowed for a second as the shock of the tyranid ripping itself from the settler worked its way into his consciousness, this was enough of a delay for the creature as it launched itself at the ork digging one of it's bony spines into the orks right leg. Saltiigrok let out a roar of pain as the creature attached itself to his leg; he swiped with his chain axe but missed as the creature scrambled around his leg ripping the spine from the orks leg as it scrambled up his torso.

Wilks had read some of the files on the bio-infections that came with the initial attacks from tyranid fleets and as he approached the howling to the right he noticed that one of the settlers was coughing and spitting in front of him, he eased himself against the wall and fired a couple of snapshots at the settler.   Where tyranids were involved you didn't take chances, the settlers chest crumpled as the autogun rounds ripped through the settlers clothing. Seeing one friend    disappearing in an explosion of chitin and spines and another split open by autogun rounds was enough to cause the others to panic and flee. Wilks fired four more snap shots at one of the fleeing settlers taking his legs out and then seeing his head explode as the final round hit him in the back of the head, as he turned to take out the remaining two he saw behind the fallen settler  what had been causing the shouting. Saltiigrok was flaying madly as he tried to remove the tyranid from his back as it pierced his armour again, then he heard gunfire and saw the sparks around him as the bullets blew chunks of plascrete from the surrounding ruins, the alien turned towards the source of the gunfire and hissed. This was the time the ork needed to grab the tyranid and throw it before him on the ground, he raised his chain axe and sparks flew as he lunged down at the flailing creature.

Wilks dashed to the wall opposite and leaned round to see the ork fighting with the alien creature, flicking the fire selector to full auto Wilks opened fire on the two of them. As the bullets pinged around them one hit the tyranid but bounced off its chitin armour, as it turned to hiss at Wilks the ork took its chance and grabbed the tyranid throwing it before him. Wilks grabbed a hallucinogen grenade from his belt and threw the grenade towards the fighting, then turned to run to find the two settlers that ran the other way. He caught a glimpse of one of them cowering in the building across the road and unclipped a frag    grenade, he ran stooped across the road and sat next to the window, he could hear two men talking. The grenade landed at the feet of Henken, he looked up at Speen as if to say goodbye. The blast of flame that came out of the window reached half way across the road and Wilks was covered in dust as the frag grenade ripped through the ground floor of the building. As the dust settled Wilks stood up and peered through the window, there was very little left of the two settlers. The job was still not done; Wilks' attention went back towards the ork.

Saltiigrok hacked at the dead tyranids leg and put it in his pack as a trophy, all the time not noticing the wispy smoke around him as the grenade next to him spilled its neuro- toxins into his system, he suddenly decided that he was    extremely happy and couldn't remember why he had come to this settlement but decided that he would enjoy it whilst he was here, the ork stood up to his full height and a grin grew across his face as he began to skip around the dead body of the tyranid until out of the corner of his eye he noticed some flowers, he lumbered towards the flower bed and began discarding his equipment as he went, once he got to the flowers he suddenly came back to the real world and realised    there was a human out there that had taken shots at him, it was time for revenge.

Wilks sneaked between the buildings to see the ork had killed the tyranid and was now picking up his gun from the floor; he steadied his aim and waited for the ork to come into view. As Saltiigrok stood up with his heavy stubber, he turned to see a glint of reflective metal and then saw the muzzle flash and felt a large pain in his chest and felt his legs give way beneath him, then all was black.

A half dazed glimpse of the humans face was all he needed to remember this man by, he was carrying off the bodies of the tyranid and other humans but had left the ork for dead, Saltiigrok would have that mans leg as his trophy if he had to spend all of his fortune to find him....  this was not over.

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