Albrek Vodak's page

Spire #16 sub-basement maintenance accessway number 232

"Alright follow me." I lead the group down the rest of the corridor toward the exit. "Brek, Ishmael; we are going to be needing someone to keep an eye out for the others. They will be counting on us to tail them."

"We'll stay behind then, Sav. I think I can get us into one of these storage chambers until the others arrive. We'll make contact and let them know where you were headed, then hunker down for a bit and see if we've picked up a tail."

Spire #16 sub-basement maintenance accessway number 232

"We need to get her to a safe bed. Should be easy now. She's marked."

"Brek, you think its safe for Druuther to carry her? Or do we need a Saw Bones to come here?"

Albrek seems as pale as Quincus now that you look at him closer. He shakes his head, whether to clear his thoughts or shake away the beads of perspiration accumulating there, you cannot be certain.

"I've done all I can. She needs a real medicae; facilities and equipment. I've doped her up with as much opiate and blood coagulant as she can tolerate, as much as I'd dare. With the wound bound, travel shouldn't be an issue, as long as we're close. Lingering here probably wouldn't do much for the health of any of us, anyway."

Albrek coughs to one side, away from the wound, before turning and looking irritably in your direction.

"Throne's Sake, Sav, just don't stand there gawking, hold this in place while I bind it with tape!"

Hearing the sounds of combat behind me. I know I have to make a choice. Apply pressure to Quincus's wound before she bleeds out. Or reload the shotgun and help the others. The choice is easy.

"Sunshine I need to cauterize your wound or your going to bleed out. Then I am going to tear your robes and make a quick bandage. Keep your gun pointed over my shoulder in case that fragger thinks we are an easy meal. You trust me yes?" I begin to knee down to look at the wound more closely. If my shotgun barrel is hot enough to do the job I will use it. If not I will open a shotgun cartridge poor the black powder in and light it. "Now this is going to hurt something awful. So grip my arm, or shove something between your teeth to bite down on." I wait for her acknowledgement.

As you kneel before Quincus, you touch your fingertip to the hot shotgun barrel. Albrek suddenly slides in beside you, medicae bag in hand, and begins to rifle through it, speaking to you in a tone that you subconsciously associate with physicians and emergency medicae techs.

"Do me a favor, Sav, kill that thing before you kill her with your 'underhive-medicine'. I've got this covered...it was a long time ago, but I was a medic once..."

Albrek coughs loudly into his hand, wiping at his brow. He appears pale and almost feverish to you, but whether that is due to the stress of the moment or something else, you cannot be certain. There is no question as to his determination.

As the guardsman pulls away the tattered robes you can see a pair of deep, suppurating puncture wounds beneath the fold of her lightweight flak vask. They are very bad, but not the dire injury that you feared.

Sav can still take another half-action if he chooses, Albrek seems to have the situation in hand for the moment.

Albrek, his training as a guardsman taking over, immediately adjusts his aim when Savalos fells the duct wolf attacking Quincus. He turns instead toward the third beast, sets his lasgun to his shoulder, and fires between Ishmael and Druuther toward the creature.

Albrek's attack, BS = 40, Semi-auto Burst (+10), modified BS = 50, attack roll, 1d100 ⇒ 56

The buzzing crack of the lasgun sounds but the blast of las fire sears the air above the beast, missing it entirely.

Suddenly with no viable target, the guardsman senses rather than actually sees the duct wolves pouncing from atop the pipe when Druuther spins and fires.

He quickly adjusts his aim, screaming a warning to the others that comes a moment too late.

"Above!!! Two more!!!"

Albrek pulls his lasgun from his shoulder, checks the charge pack, and stalks after Savalos. Moving as silently as possible, his eyes scan back and forth to either side of the wide passageway, trying to make out any signs of movement behind the rusted grill-work of the overhead doors.

"Stay close together, if we are lucky it is only a solitary rogue..."

Albrek nods, taking the scrip of parchment before placing it almost reverentially in one of the many utility pockets covering his flak vest.

"Be wary."

"I am in agreement with Uriah. We have little to nothing to go on at this point, save that our contact has been kidnapped and we were almost killed by some rogue guardsmen. If his retainers were the ones to betray him, they could have easily arranged for a cadre of arbitrators to meet us on the landing pad instead of Quincus, here. Or worse, had the spire gunners blast us out of the sky."

Albrek looks across the table to Savalos, raising one eyebrow.

"Just the same, we should be proceed with caution."

"Well I think a trip to the sixth penal camp for starters. Men confess things to Priests which otherwise they would take to the grave. If were lucky one of the prisoners will know those stiffs on the Void Needle, and more of the picture of whats going on."

Albrek's eyes scan back and forth, watching Savalos pace as the hiver thinks out loud. He coughs quietly into his hand, clearing his throat.

"What troubles me the most, Sav, is that those guardsmen weren't old enough to have been mustered out. They were either active duty or AWOL deserters, and I can count on one hand the number of times that I remember enlisted grunts being allowed to take their leave six thousand miles away in one of the hives. They would have needed authorization from someone high up on the food chain."

Albrek shivers slightly, the chill seeming to come from an unbidden memory of the eerie taint that seemed to cling to your ambushers on the Void Needle.

"The only thing more rare in the Oremor Guard's Penal Legions are deserters. I never knew of a one that lived long enough to get off their claustrum's plantation, never mind escape one of the southern continents."

My expression softens a bit as I see Quincus drop her facade. "Brek, can you write down the numbers and symbols of where those penal guardmen came from? If we are lucky we can find there transfer orders to this spire, or at least records of which penal camp they came from. Then we can go from there."

Albrek shifts his attention to Savalos from where he was standing vigilant by the suite's doors, peering out of the flanking windows into the adjoining corridor.

"There is no need to to transcribe it, Sav."

Albrek rolls back his sleeve to show the inside of his right forearm, where a nearly identical tattoo is inked, only with the number '7' above the double-headed scythe instead.

"The symbol is a chit-sickle, when paired with a High Gothic numeral it represents the service-tattoo of one of the Oremor Penal Legions. In the case of our deaders on the Void Needle, they belonged to the 6th Legion. They were our neighbors where I was stationed on Unduz II, farming the flood plains of the continent's eastern coast from their claustrum. Some of their number even assisted some seasons on our plantation during harvest time."

Albrek steps between Ishmael and Uriah, tossing his half-smoked lho-stick to the floor, using every bit of the discipline drilled into him by the Imperial Guard to avoid shouting, instead hissing through his teeth in his anger.

"You are making a mockery of our Master's rosette, both of you. Put your petty egos aside. Or do I need to remind both of you that the first Dictate is:

Thy Master's will shalt be the whole of the law!

We were all chosen by Master Ahmazzi, all for a reason. Let us not devolve into mindless bickering when our task is now at hand!"

Albrek lights his long awaited lho-stick, and takes a deep drag, relieved to no longer be playing a part. He glares at Ishmael's thinly-veiled insult to Uriah, but can't help but agree with the basic premise.

"Savalos is correct, too much open space, too many eyes potentially upon us. I want to be nowhere near this shuttle when the rest of the Arbites figure out what has happened and descend upon it. I fear even Thul here would be hard pressed to find a way to talk us out of that kind of mess."

Albrek lets out a long, relieved sigh, and moves toward the descending passenger ramp.

"I need a lho-stick..."

"What troubles me most, is that they were guardsmen from the 6th Oremor Penal Legion. These are not common mercs or hired muscle. I once served in the 7th at a claustrum on Unduz II. These men were well-trained and committed to their objective. Whether or not they were mustered out, deserters, or active duty, they would have sacrificed anything to kill the five of us, of that I am sure, based on their behavior."

"Whatever we decide, we should proceed with caution, assuming nothing."

Albrek leans silently inside the archway connecting the rest of the shuttle to the pilot's compartment, his eyes wide in anticipation as the burgeoning glow of the world beyond the bulk-hauler's edge hoves into view, illuminating the dim interior of the Churraptus. He grits his teeth in spite of himself as a wash of emotion passes over him. Never, not once in his many years away, did he ever dream he would one day return to this, his birthworld. The smells of the fungoid molts being harvested on the claustrum plantations, the feel of the humid, tropical monsoon rains as they lashed the southern islands, the adversity-born camaraderie felt amongst his fellow guardsman of the close-knit penal legions. Whatever this homecoming held, weal or woe, Albrek cared not. He was home.