Hey guys, apologies about the long absence, but I’ve been working abroad for the last few months and it’s been keeping me busy! Rest assured, I should be back to posting regular content over the forseeable future.
My latest project is a Novella based upon games workshop’s brilliant role playing game, Dark Heresy. A gritty, violent and brutal look at humanities future, with agents of the Holy Inquisition being the few who work in the darkness to serve the light. They are tasked with the preservation of humanity by rooting out and exterminating it’s enemies.
I’ve just finished the first chapter, although it is subject to editing and tweaking before the final version. I hope you all enjoy it, although I understand the setting and style may not be everybodies cup of tea!
Without further Ado, here’s the first chapter in the series, as always let me know any thoughts or feedback you may have.
Quiet. Almost serene.
That was the sound of a starport hurtling out of orbit, careening towards a planet. The monolith structure was tearing itself apart under the immense pressure of it’s graceless fall. Small explosions rippled across the star station, pieces of the metal giant twisting and breaking away with alarming regularity.
But, sat comfortably on his ship a few hundred thousand kilometers away, surrounded by the vast vacuum of space, Roth couldn’t hear the screams of the dying.
The titanic groans of the tearing metal were rendered silent by the emptiness between them.
All the pain, all the suffering, muted entirely.
Much like every other experience he’d had of death and agony, it had either been viewed from afar or safely behind a monitor. Many times had the consequences of his actions resulted in destruction and other horrors affecting innocent lives, but such was the price of his duty.
Innocence means nothing.
Roth’s wrinkled eyes drank in the sight of six million lives ending. The blasts of the distant explosions reflecting in his greying pupils. He sat there for what seemed like an eternity, watching every tiny detail. Trying to make himself feel every death of the citizens, but even with horrific scene before him, only one word blossomed in his mind.
Necessary.
Their lives are the sacrifice to preserve countless more. After all, what is a few million lives weighed against untold billions?
“The starport is dead, plummeting into the very planet it was supposed to orbit. The Aquilla, our ship, has basically no fuel. The mysterious ship belonging to Vance, the man who we were told to kill, who is also the only man trying to destroy the xenos artifact, is heading straight to the surface of the planet about to be hit by a few million tonnes of space station. Did I miss anything?” Volkrad asked from the centre of the room, one arm resting on the mapping desk, the other resting on the pommel of his sword. A weary smile was stretched upon his face, the kind of smile that attempts to soothe, to calm.
Although the duelist wore a blade at his hip, Roth very much doubted the loud, cocksure man had ever used it. Sure, he could talk a good game, his boasts frequent and his stories vast, but as for actually doing anything…another matter entirely.
The man wears a feather in his hat for Emperor’s sake.
“We’ve gotta call tha boss.” Fink said slowly from the corner, his brutish speech a polar opposite of the resonant, confident tones Volkrad projected. The large mutant was unmissable, a hulking, misshapen shadow of a man, with biceps as large as Roth’s head. He would stand out in any crowd, no matter how thick or dense.The ogryn was a killing machine, no doubt or question about it. His muscular form genetically bred for grueling, fierce combat, the kind that held no promises for his future other than a painful, violent end. No Ogryns ever died of old age.
Yet, as fearsome as the giant soldier was, he was perhaps one of the gentlest souls Roth had ever encountered. He had the temperament of a child, mostly quiet and only speaking in simple sentences, but when his anger was roused…it was a horrific sight indeed.
“That is a given. The question is, do we follow Vance’s ship down to the planet before we attempt contact?” Severen spoke from the shadows. The last pieces of his greying hair fluttered and billowed in the gentle breeze of the ship’s circulation system.
Severen, was different. He was at least a man, unlike the brute Fink, but he too bore the scars of abnormality. He was relatively thin and wiry, built with little muscle or fat on his bones. Long, white, imperial robes covered his gangly limbs well enough, but as well as his shaved head full of cybernetic implants, he had a very distinguishing feature indeed.
He had no eyes.
Roth couldn’t work out if they had been taken from him, or perhaps an accident at birth.
A child without eyes. Now there’s a thought. Roth pondered to himself.They say that a man’s eyes are windows to his soul…What does that mean for him?
He knew most astropaths forfeited their eyes in acceptance of the power that coursed through their souls, but he had never seen one this close, this real before. Severen had spoken with a quiet confidence, the kind that made sensible men stop and listen. How exactly it commanded respect, Roth wasn’t sure. Maybe it was a trick of the warp or some other fragment of mysterious power.
“Nonsense!” Volkrad’s brash voice sounded again, interrupting Roth’s thoughts rudely. “We must first contact the inquisitor and make our report, everything else can wait.”
“Even a planet about to be stricken with xenos heresy? That foul artefact is heading straight for it, Emperor knows what will happen when it hits the surface.” Severen said, a snarl just hovering on the fringes of his voice, so slight it was barely noticeable, even in the confines of the small starship.
It had been clear to Roth that there were too many big personalities in the small warband for everyone to get along in perfect harmony. At the moment, they were not too dissimilar from a pack of wild dogs, each one snapping and barking his thoughts and opinions. Making their decisions often difficult to make, as someone always had something to say.
Whilst Severen made a good point, Roth was going to have to agree with Volkrad and Fink. The inquisitor needed to know just what exactly was going on in this tiny system.
“Volkrad’s right Severen. The Inquisitor needs to know.” Roth said.
The psyker’s frown deepened in response. “As you wish, but know that it is not just precious time we are wasting. Innocent souls on that planet may be dwindling down as we speak.” He turned to face out the window behind him, although he had no eyes for which to see the carnage that lay only a few hundred kilometers away.
Volkrad looked startled at the fact the group majority had sided with him, but to his credit, it was concealed instantly with a soft shake of his head. “How long will it take you to establish a link with him?” He asked, still polite, still amicable.
Severen remained silent, his empty sockets still gazing out of the viewing glass, watching the space station’s violent death throes.
Volkrad scoffed and looked to the other members of the group, catching both Fink’s and Roth’s eyes. “It’s a miracle nobody has taken insult at your rudeness witch.” He paused letting one hand caress the pommel of his blade pointedly.
“If another noble had spoken to me like that on my home planet, he would find himself with my blade at his throat.” Volkrad’s voice had dropped into a threatening quiet, his teeth grinding on the occasional syllable.
The blind Astropath still gave no indication he had heard the duelist, still watching quietly from the window. A few tense moments passed. Only the quiet creak and whir of the air circulation could be heard amongst the silent men.
“Did. You. Hear. Me?” Fire was in Volkrad’s eyes now, the controlled flickering of anger unmissable.
“Quiet! I’m searching for him.” Severn hissed, his face a mask of concentration.
Silence remained between them all for another hour until Severen eventually contacted the Inquisitor’s Astropath. It was not the comfortable kind of silence that is shared amongst content friends, but rather the lingering kind of silence, sat in the room like an unwelcome guest.
Teller of Some Tales 