Fiction

The Profit, Outweighed

Berend looked through his binox, and sighed to himself.  It didn't look like he was going to be knocking yards with his mates at the hall, this evening.  "You see ‘em, Fram?" he said quietly into his throat mike.  Linked by fibre optic cable, about eight meters away, he could see Fram wincing in agreement.    A platoon's worth of Imperial troops in Chimeras were coming over the ridge, led by another Chimera in the livery of the Adeptus Mechanicus.  And there was dust in the distance, indicating more
company.

Fram cursed, then replied, "Don't know how they found us, but they did.  Back to camp: It's time to go."

"Wait.  Look. There's more."

Behind the APCs appeared another vehicle; Berend and the other three members of the Sky Ferrets immediately recognized it as a Leman Russ battle tank.  The tech preists were taking no chances this time.

"Pye, set a ‘geist' up... Regroup at marker 59.1.. Take the long way home"   Berend figured the decoy would cover their retreat.  Once at the rendevous, they mounted their powerboards and zig-zagged their way back to the excavation site.   A distant explosion and that look on Pye's face told Berend that the Poltergieist worked.  Hopefully it got one of the ‘finder-keepers'.  "At least," he thought, "It will give us some time."

"Are you sure ye weren't followed?"   Guildmaster Goldwater always asked the same questions, when the team had to abandon a dig.

"I can never be sure, Guildmaster, " Berend replied with a slight bow, "but we ve outrun them each time."   The conversation ended as the the first shells whistled over head.  A warrior from the Brotherhood, stumbled through the workers who were striking camp.  "Guildmaster, Squad Beryl reports three walkers supported by troops....one or two squads... to the east and closing fast.  No word yet from the Engineers. The Warlord is forming up a perimeter"

Guildmaster Goldwater looked coldly into Berend's eyes and then ran off. Berend heard him yell, "There's always the first time..." and the rest trailed off among the commotion. Then Berend was off to the ‘cage'- the staging area for his unit- The Winged Ferrets.  As he trundled across the dig, he heard the Warlord directing his expeditionary force through the shared comlink, and then, a horrid squealing shot through his earpiece.  Berend almost stumbled  into an excavation pit when he closed his eyes, momentarily disoriented.  He yanked the offending  earpiece out of his ear, and his head started to clear of the  offending noise.  One of his first thoughts was  that the Imperials had just raised the bar on their evac..

Fram had already assembled the squad and had Berend's gear together.  "Warlord said we go out long and bring home some gems" "Whose?"  Berend already guessed the targets as he was handed his long rifle.  "Finder keeper...alive." said Fram.  Berend could tell that his mates already knew, and that they weren't happy about it.  Picking off a a Commissar from a distance, was pretty routine, and always enjoyable.  Tranquing a tech priest and dragging the body back was something else. The sounds of gunfire meant the Guild's small detachment of heavy trikes had already moved to the dig's perimeter and returned fire with their heavy   weapons.  It was time to go to work.  "We'll flank them from the west and hope that they didn't bring more suprizes.  Let's hope that the jamming works both ways.  Hand signals.  Let's fly." 

Binks DeVilbiss had just put the final turn on the fluid cap of his paint sprayer when word came down about the expeditionary force.  He made it to the lodge in time to hear the Aeronaut master wish his charges the speed of their ancestors.     A quick briefing later, and they too went to work.

A standard expedition consists of one or two archotech teams with house troops from the underwriting stronghold,or strongholds,  to act  in support of the teams.   In this case, the strong hold of the Golden Void, were both paymasters and security.   The Engineers' Guild, assist with the technical side of the dig, and firepower with their  bikes and heavy weapons trikes. The indentured porters of the Archeology, or the Explorers' Guild do the actual excavation at the site, and they are supervised by guild members.  Two flights of gyros- prop-driven, microplanes with lift-providing gravmotors- were attached to provide escort for the supply vehicles.    Three hover trucks were sent to the dig site, and one remained at the base camp.  The base camp is always set up a distance away and maintains the off-planet transport of the expedition.  These are heavily  camoflaged and hopefully shielded from any long-range scanning.

The Adeptus Mechanicus monitor Imperial space, and when they can locate  Squat archotech digs, the priests send in troops.  Their intent is to massacre the expedition, and then claim the recovered the STC  ‘found' -which is the only way that the Inquisition will allow them to retain alien- contaminated tech.   The archotech  is made pure by the bloodshed of the abhumans who first brought it to light.

Now this planet was very far from any Imperium outposts and the guilds thought they could get in and out without much notice.  But now, the expedition found itself in a fighting retreat.

Binks' flight had to keep a corridor open for the expedition's retreat.  It was a good guess that Space Marines were not involved, as they had the nasty habit of purging planets from orbit.  The finder-keepers must have pulled in part of the  Guard, or some other troops, to add more authority to their presence.  Binks hoped that it
was a little authority.  With this jamming, his flight would only know what authority, when they slammed, props up, into it. 

The Winged Ferrets were also having a tough time of it.  While they were used to operating with hand signals, they also depended on monitoring enemy comms or at minimum, using a scanner.  The four Sky Surfers weren't drawing much fire, but they were flanking their quarry wider than usual   In the glimses Berend was able to see of the  Imperial  battle order, he figured that the Tech Priests weren't much better off then they were.  The Ferrets couldn't get their prize until the priests showed themselves.  But they would have to stop moving, and dismount, to collect.   The enemy made a cautious, and steady advance, pausing long enough to lob ordinance into the camp.  Berend knew that the finder-keepers wanted the camp intact.  If they  had been facing the Inquisition- and he remembered what he had heard about the massacre at
Frose II-  the marines would have already had the site destroyed.  Whatever Goldwater had found must have been valuable...and the extra time the Tech Priests needed, was to his advantage.  Berend gestured to Fram, and the other two powerboarders.   We follow.  Slowly.  Hot.  Berend and the rest of this squad coaxed their powerboards forward, long rifles at the ready.

Guildmaster Goldwater and his team had loaded up what Archotech they could grab and then they were in transit, back to the base camp.  Until they were overtaken by the priests and their hired muscle.  The squadron of guild trikes covering their retreat fell victim, one by one, to a crossfire between the remaining Sentinel and Chimeras.   He figured that some of the attackers must have stopped to secure the camp- there was no time to set charges- and the rest were sent up to seal off the escape.   Hopefully the other bike squad could join them down the trail.

Rather than slow down to shoot, one of the Imperial vehicles poured on the speed to try to cut off the convoy while the others alternated firing on the remaining Brotherhood vehicles.   The boltercannons of the Squat APC's did little to the front armour of the approaching Chimeras. while the  back armour of the Squat  vehicles could be penetrated with a lucky shot.  An explosion rocked a Brotherhood APC and sent it skidding off of the trail and into some rubble.  Moments later it vapourized from fire from the battletank following up the pursueing force.

Now the guildmaster was slammed into the side of his truck as the driver jinked violently to left.   A Sentinel had sprayed the front of the guildmaster's hover truck, with multilaser fire, and the driver had tried to dodge the incoming bolts.  Had tried to dodge them.  A bolt caught the driver- burning through him- and this caused the hover truck to go out of control.  Then the truck behind the first bounced into the plenum of the first and went careening out of control into the third, with a result much like a demented billiard game.  A few more bounces, and then, no moving.   Scratched.

The squealing was getting real loud now, so the gyro flights were sure that they had found the fighting.  It was there when they crested a small ridge.  Three cargo trucks off the trail, all with some battle damage and a troop carrier in the middle. One walker swishing his weapon menacingly , a pair of Chimeras, covering the troop carrier- some
guardsmen out and deployed in a defensive positionon the flank, and the rest taking prisoners. And, for the love of Llam, a Leman Russ.  Of course, there had to be a Leman Russ.  Binks smiled.  He knew what  had to be done.  And the other two members of his flight knew he was smiling, and what he was about to do.   They hated this.

You see, Binks has a rep in the Gyro Corp.  It is mostly for his recklessness, and   for the special weapon he has mounted in the tail of his gyro.  He, for some reason, thought of mounting the wing's paint sprayer into the back of his craft; figuring that this would  deter those who flew too close, behind him.    On his first patrol, with his
new invention, he dropped a a trailing vyper in a wash of neon orange.  The poor faeries flying the thing didn't have a clue... even after they hit the ground.  Dead.    And now,  Binks was going to make pretty pictures again.

The other two aeronauts in his flight hated pretty pictures.

The sentinel pilot heard the wail of an aircraft motor off to his right, and it was closing on him way too fast.  Turning  his machine to face this possible threat, he looked up to see a prop and belly fly dangerously close to the top of his head and take off to his left.   As he tracked the bogie to the left, a wet cloud of Safety Green paint hit him right in the goggles. The sentinel took a step back, and   continued turning to the left,  as the pilot pulled a tear sheet off of his goggles.  He raised the sight on the multilaser to catch the gyro as it jinked right towards the Russ.

The last thing the sentinel pilot saw was red splattering over the fresh green paint , as his walker toppled to the ground.  The rest of Bink's flight had caught up to the fray.  Binks flew low just over the turret, and almost capped the tank commander, who dropped into his cupola,  wondering where this green stuff on his fatiques came from, as
he dogged  the hatch shut.  The hull gunner was quick to react to this new threat and clipped the gyro on the left just as a trail of heavy bolter shells slammed into the hide of his tank.  His return fire must have hit something important in the flyer because its  tail  started to droop,  and the gyro  flipped end-over-end, off to the right, and over a
small rock formation.  The stricken aeronaut hoped his ancestors would look kindly upon his premature, and ungainly arrival....

Binks, unaware of the fate of his wingman,  proceeded with phase two of pretty pictures.  Specifically- phase two was an Immellan turn.  He shunted the grav fluxes around on his gyro and jerked back around- facing the way he came- and opened fire at the rapidly approaching  back end of the tank.  A skootch of the stick and he was back over the top, firing on the guardsmen in front of the Russ,  but with that really big gun pointed directly at his ‘six'.  Fortunately for Binks, the crew of the tank was way too busy now to notice him.  The interior of the tank was fast getting warmer and the heat had the tell-tale scent of engine coolant.  Figuring their chances better in the firefight, outside,  then par-boiling, inside-  they bailed.  And only two of them were caught and killed by small arms fire, as they headed for cover.  It was a good day
for the crew.

Some of the guardsmen watching  the Expedition  prisoners  reacted quickly to this change of momentum.  In the fire-fight, those inexperienced guardsmen who flinched or hit the dirt were set on by the cooler- headed prisoners.  The vets tried to even the odds by  opening up on the  prisoners -hoping to kill as many as they could before the
prisoners could react.  This strategy resulted only in  a partial success.   The Squats threw themselves against their captors, and with gun butts, rocks and fists, set to avenge this wrong.

Berend motioned to his unit to fan out and deploy in cover around him, and wait for their   target to appear. This way one of them would surely get a shot at the Tech Priest. In the next few moments, they saw gyros screaming  in,  a big green cloud, heavy caliber fire, a single gyro spin low and out of control, over to the left, more heavy caliber fire, steam coming out of the back of the tank, and Fram's cry as the squad took fire on the right flank. Berend spun to his right and shot at whatever was approaching.   He saw Fram hanging limply in the underbrush with a smoking hole in the back of his armour and a squad of guardsmen advancing and firing.  Some were pulling out their combat knives. He was particularly worried about the one with the newly-ignited flamer.   A couple of quick long rifle shots from him and the rest of his squad started to slow the guardsmen's advance,  but the commissar that appeared out from behind the squad made it clear that they were to continue forwards.

Nobody likes to take fire from sniper rifles, and the guardsmen reluctantly advanced on the Ferret's position.  Until, by the will of the ancestors, the commissar fell twitching to the ground.  Nevermind that the recon squad was using tranqs; the guardsmen were not of a mind to find out what took the commisar out of  action.   They fell back, firing- but not nearly as effectively- until out of the danger of the long rifles.  Berend rubbed some dirt over a smouldering patch of his mesh.   He had some repair work to do tonight.

He motioned to the rest of his unit to join up with him.  Fram was the only unlucky one,  and the other three quickly  thanked their ancestors for the addtional time that was now afforded to them.  One took the point, and the other went to check the paralysed guardsmen.  Berend set cover.  The guardsmen with the flamer had gone down, and leaking fuel started caused his tunic to start to smoulder. The powerboarder could see the terror building in the guardsman's  glazed eyes.  A couple of quick gestures communicated this to Berend.  His eyes dilated with acknowledgement, but the squad leader  turned away quickly. A new battlefield situation had caught his attention. He quickly motioned to the powerboarder to shovel some dirt over the near-burning guardsman, take the flamer and join him.  The occasional long rifle shot from the
point discouraged the rest of the guardsmen from closing.

The Adeptus Mechanicus death squad was falling back, and right into the Ferret's postion.   The remenants of the squad that wacked Fram was running for their transport, and the other Chimera was leaving a lot lighter than it arrived.  And both were firing their multilasers at the hunkered down Squats and at the transports, trying to destroy what archotech they contained.  Two chimeras, in reverse, heading towards him, and distracted.  Brerend was liking these odds.  He took up the flamer and waited for the lead Chimera to come to him.

Kicking his board into action he scooted along side the accelerating Chimera and fired the flamer into the first vision slit he saw.  The back blast caught him as most of the flames burned brightly and dripped down the side of the APC. Now his longcoat had little spots of flame sprouting from it.   Smoking, he circled to the front of the vehicle.
The driver had not noticed his first attack and the heavy bolter was still unloading into   the happless expedition.  A quick thrust and a squeeze of the flamer's trigger was all it took to silence the weapon, and for the assault door to spring open and twist under the retreating chimera, jamming the vehicle to  a halt.  Smoke poured out of the back of the stricken APC as guardsmen bolted out,  some trying to beat out the fires  on their fatiques.  The lucky ones were to be dropped by the remaining two sniper rifles of Ferrets.

The remaining Chimera opened fire on the Ferrets position and cut down one scout-   the other ducking down out of the way.  Berend kicked off of his ride, and ran around to the back of the stopped vehicle, and with couple of flamer shots , finished off the survivors.

And explosion from the side with the other Chimera and the sound of aircraft engines told Berend that the fight was mostly over.

"You copy down there?" came a low voice over the commlink. It was obvious that the jamming equipment had been destroyed.  Berend potted up his set. "To whom do I owe a drink, m'lord?", he asked. "Binks DeVilbiss.  And I will have to collect later, as I have to find my lost wing"

"Commander Berend of the Winged Ferrets here, sir."  Berend looked at the remainder of his squad, who was busy taking ID off of his dead companion.

"Two have ‘joined theirs' in my unit"

<crack> "May their Ancestors receive them gladly. Out"

"Berend, motion in the Chimera."

The squad leader wheeled to face the back of the charred APC.  A figure in power armour was threading his way through the wreckage of the interior, pistol up and armour burnt in many places.   It was obvious that the figure hadn't noticed him.   Berend trundled off to one side-flamer at the ready.  He could feel his remaining team member
readying his sniper rifle.  A Squat sized power-armoured figure emerged from the back of the Chimera,  with the device of the Adeptus Mechanicus, emblazoned on his blackened chest.  The Tech Priest felt the nudge and his sensors indicated the rise in temperature as Berend shoved the flamer into the back of the figure"s head.

"Getting some fresh air...traitor?"  "Put down the pistol- real slow- and to your knees with you."

The Tech Priest jerked back, swatting the flamer out of Berend's hands. As it went off, it scorcthed his power amour and the spatter started even more tiny fires on Berend's long coat.  This distracted Berend long enough for the tech priest to catch him across the chest with a power armoured- back swing. The force of the blow dropped Berend to his knees, as the priest continued to pummel him. All the sky surfer could do was to attempt to dodge the blows as they were struck, and hope that his
mate with the long rifle was ‘one with his gun' today.

It took three long rifle hits to bring their trophy down.

"Again, the profit, is outweighed by the cost/  our Ancestors gain what was lost," muttered Guildmaster Goldwater, as he looked over the wreckage that was his archotech expedition.  "Gather, and be gone" was the order given.  A guild apprentice with a bloodied arm in a makeshift sling, approached the Squat leader with the tally.

"A third of the expedition has gone to "join their's", six more wounded, and we were able to salvage about two thirds of the find.  Transportation back to the ships is being worked out.  We can tow one of the trucks with the Impy's tank. It took a hit in a  coolant line and we've plugged it and transfered coolant from the burned APC."

Squats waste no time in a salvage operation.

"Good news, as well, Guildmaster, one of our attack bikes made it back with crew... unscathed."

"Who?"

"Mossrite and Hagstrum, sir."

"They were always the lucky ones..."  Goldwater could see that the apprentice was nervous about the next part of his report.  "Well?"

"What shall be done with the prisoners?"   There were about eighteen Imperials left out of the pursueing force and some of them were badly wounded and some were starting to shake off the effects of the long rifles.  Including the commisar.   Goldwater knew that he'd like to bury these butchers here and now , for what they did to his charges.  There wasn't really too much else that could be done to punish them, except just leave them.

The scavengers would be coming for the dead soon enough.

Berend and the last Sky Ferret placed the long rifles and powerboards of their departed comrades on the equipment truck.  It was a sad thought,  that when it was his time to join his ancestors, that someone would not be there to "send his on his shield "- so his wargear would be returned to his family.  It was his hope that some future kinsman would take up board and rifle- in his memory and honour.    This was the way of the Brotherhood.  Berend looked at what was left of his cammeoline longcoat, and at the battered powerboard at his feet, and shook his head.   "More than likely", he thought, "I'd go in some damn awkward way".   Speed had been known to do just that.

The sound of revving engines and grinding transmissions, reminded  him of  the situation at hand.   Berend kicked on to his mount, shouting to his squad,   "We're still on payroll, and and the job's not quite done yet-  is it mate?   Let's fly."   The remaining sky surfer  nodded in agreeement,  and then nodded  back towards the prisoners.  He  then smiled evilly at the squad leader.  In one sponataneous motion,  they both drew their long rifles,  pulled a 180 pivot,  and dumped two darts into the commisar- as the effects of the first tranq had apparently almost left his system.  Over the din of the evac, the  scout must have heard the commisar's  shaken voice,    both praying to the emperor, and  attempting  to rally his men on to a counter-attack. 

The Sky Ferrets were long gone by the time the commisar stiffened, and
toppled, face first,  into the sand.