Chapter 3: Frak This, We’re Outta Here!

“Running! Excellent idea.”

Going from the front entrance to the trailer to the back of the Taurox was hardly the most nerve-wracking task I’ve ever had to undertake, but it was definitely somewhere up there in the top fifty. The two hatches, when opened, faced the camp and thus hid us from the cultists as we crept out of the trailer and into the Taurox, but even so I couldn’t help but be convinced that any second we’d be up to our necks in cultists pointing guns, shock mauls, and other, more unpleasant things at my unarmored and unprotected face. Given that was exactly what was about to happen, I’d argue I was fairly justified in my paranoia.

Fortunately, the cultists didn’t pounce on us right this instant, and we reached the back half of the Taurox’s interior without incident. And keeping the cages tucked away out of sight at the back of the trailer seemed like the only half-smart idea they’d come up with so far, at least if the way my wargear and my companions’ things were packed away in a box conveniently placed right beneath the bench I’d been shackled to a handful of hours ago was any indication.

“Good. They didn’t think to keep our equipment in a place where they’d be able to see us stealing it back.” I commented as I reached into the box with one wing, pulling my chainsword out as I used my other wing to pass the Shock Prod to Blackjack. It was chipped, scruffed up, and looking a little too battered for my comfort, but then again, it had always looked that way, and it still looked to be in working order. Not that I was stupid enough to check if it was right this instant; the signature roar of a chainsword would be a dead giveaway to the fact that we were up to something…

“Is that a sword that’s also a chainsaw?!”

I glanced over at P-21. He’d been all but glued to my side following his… erm… encounter with Tentacles, but he wasn’t shivering anymore. And he’d recovered enough to pick up on the fact that my choice of melee weapon was apparently considered a little excessive amongst ponies. Knowing what I know now, it’s little wonder he’d recovered so fast; after all, someone whose career can be handily summed up by the phrase ‘breeding slave’ would have plenty of practice at dealing with being plowed.

“Yeah. It is.” I said, a little sheepishly, hiding the spike of panic that had just shot through me behind a layer of embarrassment like the well-practiced fraud I am.

“Has anyone explained the concept of “overkill” to you?” P-21 asked pointedly as I frantically wracked my brain for a way to avoid tipping these xenos off to the fact that I was really a human transformed into one of them through some incomprehensible warp-sorcery.

“Where I’m from, I’m usually the one doing the explaining. As far as most people I’m used to dealing with are concerned, there is no such thing as “overkill.” There is only “open fire” and “reload”.” Like all good lies, that one was partially true; you have no idea how much I’ve had to fight to get my colleagues to implement rational, common-sense solutions to problems, such as not engaging in morale-butchering summary executions to use a relatively recent example. I just left out the part about how ‘my people’ were a bunch of bipedal hyper-intelligent space-monkeys who’d founded a galaxy-spanning theocratic fascist regime with a morbid fear of any sapient creature that wasn’t them and an unhealthy fondness for lighting everything around them on fire. 1

P-21 raised an eyebrow. “People?” Frak. I’d completely forgotten about the unique quirks of the particular dialect of low gothic these creatures speak.2 “Why’d you say ‘people’ instead of-?”

“Found your Pipbuck!” Blackjack exclaimed, swiveling around as the ‘Pipbuck 3000-D’ that had been strapped to my leg lifted up out of the crate and drifted toward me, enveloped in the same telltale alabaster glow the mare’s horn was emitting. She’d found a black and navy-blue form-fitting jacket of some kind, the number “99” emblazoned on the side and the word “security” visible on its back. She also had a small baton strapped to her back along with the shock maul I’d given her.

For a second, I silently thanked the alabaster mare for inadvertently deflecting attention from my verbal slip-up… and then instantly took it back when Blackjack grabbed my leg with her telekinesis and slipped the Pipbuck onto it.

I reared backward with a yelp as my vision flashed red, various diagrams and rectangular notification boxes about “Broadcaster Connection Established”, “Downloading KTE-06” popping up in the edges of my vision. “Gah! What the-“ I started to exclaim, batting at the air in an attempt to dispel the strange xenotech-induced hallucinations… and trailed off into silence as I noticed the looks Blackjack and P-21 were giving me.

“You had that Pipbuck on your leg… but you never bothered to turn it on?” Blackjack asked, quirking an eyebrow. Another popup appeared in my vision and announced “Download Complete!”, the soft, cheery-sounding chime that accompanied it standing in stark contrast to the look of intense, unrelenting scrutiny P-21 was giving me.

“Seriously, what the fuck is up with-“ The light-blue pony started to ask.

Fortunately, my silent prayers for Him on Terra to cause something to distract my companions from my rapidly-crumbling facade as an ordinary pony were answered with atypical promptness. Unfortunately, they were answered in the absolute worst way possible; the distraction came in the form of a cultist opening the door leading to the Taurox’s cockpit, taking one look at the three of us, and then reaching for his bolt pistol. I spun around, making for the back exit… and then realized that a half dozen cloaked pony cultists were standing right outside the Taurox’s back, holding an impressive variety of autoguns, las-weaponry, and assorted melee weapons in their mouths, hooves, and telekinesis, all of them pointed right at my face. And standing behind them was the same blue-cloaked cultist who’d knocked me unconscious earlier.

Oh, and the Emperor chose this precise moment to throw yet another curveball my way. Another round of translucent, rectangular popups briefly filled my vision; “Pipbuck Broadcaster Activated.” “Connection Established.” “Remote Steering Enabled.”

At least this curveball worked out in my favor, for the most part.

“Did you really thi-” I don’t catch what the human cultist said next; he was cut off by the Taurox suddenly and energetically going into reverse, scattering the cultists like a bunch of squishy bowling balls and catapulting me, Blackjack, and P-21 into the two cultists up front, sending all five of us tumbling into the Taurox’s cockpit. The landing knocked the wind out of all of us; I was the first to recover, right as the Taurox reversed directions and began powering away from the camp with all possible haste. Thinking quickly, I leaned into the change in momentum, using it to hasten the process of staggering to my feet even as my finger-feathers curled around the handle of my laspistol and brought it to bear.

The recoil from the laspistol wasn’t much, but the weapon still had enough kick to catch me off guard and knock itself right out of my grip. That was little consolation for the cultist; the lasbolt the weapon produced before it fell from my feathery fingers still struck him right in the eye. If only I could take a holo-photo of the massive chunk the lasbolt took out of the cultist’s head; it would’ve been great to shove that photo into the face of anyone I caught making fun of the Imperial Guard’s standard wargear and point out that my dinky “flashlight” laspistol did that to him.3 Though even if I had gotten that photo, I’d first need to somehow skirt the usual Imperial punishment for being a xeno to do that…

Neither of my companions were anywhere near as pleased with that result as I was, if the expressions of horror on their now-blood-soaked faces were any indication. Unfortunately, I had more pressing issues to deal with than the fact that they’d obviously never witnessed a proper close-quarters duel to the death in all its horrifying splendor before. Such as my other opponent, who had brandished a crackling shock prod and was swinging it at my face.

Blocking the cultist’s attack with my chainsword was out of the question; the electrical charge would have traveled through the metal and into my wing, incapacitating me in an instant as my electrified body dropped to the deck like a ton of bricks. Instead, I ducked under his swing, rolling away from the cultist in hopes of buying myself time to snatch up my laspistol and snap off some more shots.

The insane machine spirit residing in my Pipbuck had other ideas. The Taurox abruptly swerved hard to the side, sending both me and my opponent stumbling toward one of the cockpit’s open windows. Acting on reflex, I moved with the sudden change in direction and threw myself at the cultist, taking a swing at his legs with my chainsword. The churning sawteeth sliced through the cultist’s knees like a hot knife through butter.

And then I slammed into the cultist’s chest, and his dismembered form was sent careening out the Taurox’s open window, vanishing into the cloud of dust the speeding Taurox was kicking up. I didn’t follow him out, thank the Emperor, but I did get the wind knocked out of me. And while I was getting my breath back, the first cultist—who’d somehow regrown the missing parts of his once-mangled head—climbed to his feet and leveled a bolt pistol at my face.4

But before he could pull the trigger, a shock maul wreathed in a familiar white glow swung through the air, impacting on his shoulder. Said shoulder promptly dislocated with a sharp, painful-sounding crack, the cultist letting loose a barely-human screech of pain as his aim was thrown off. The electric charge from the weapon only stunned him for a few seconds, but a few seconds was all that I needed to regain my bearings, perform a forward somersault and roll between his legs, swivel around on my front hooves and forcefully slam my hind legs into his back. The cultist was promptly sent flying through the same window as his companion, his neck snapping backwards into an angle no one with half a brain could ever call natural as his forehead impacted on the top of its frame. And then the cultist was gone, vanishing into the same dust that had enveloped the other cultist.

For a long, long second, the three of us just stood there, leaning against the walls of the Taurox, Blackjack and I panting from exertion as the adrenaline (at least, I assumed it was adrenaline) slowly worked its way out of our systems.5

“…you okay?” I finally asked the alabaster pony, having recovered from the latest in a long succession of near-death experiences to take note of the fact that her still-bloodsoaked face was going pale.

“Never better…” Blackjack murmured softly, before collapsing into a dead faint.

LEVEL UP! (3x)

Strength Attribute Increased by One

New Perk Added: Backstabber — Some might frown upon you for exercising this particular talent, but when shit hits the fan you gotta do whatcha gotta do! Your ranged sneak attacks do 2.5x normal damage and your melee sneak attacks do 4x normal damage.

New Perk Added: Cooler Under Fire — Your fire-forged reflexes allow you to make the most of your S.A.T.S.’s battery! Not that you even know what that is at the moment, but once you find out, you’ll find that all attacks you make with it cost 20% less action points!

Level 5, +9 to base Special

SPECIAL Stats
Strength: 4
Perception: 5
Endurance: 3
Charisma: 8
Intelligence: 4
Agility: 3
Luck: 10

1: A rather accurate (if highly generalized and less-than-flattering) summary of humanity writ large, I must admit.

2: As Ciaphas Cain already noted, Ponies generally say “ponies”, “anypony”, and “somepony”, as opposed to “people”, “anyone”, and “someone”.

3: Contrary to popular belief, Lasguns are far from the useless ‘flashlight’ firearms some Imperial propaganda pieces portray them as. A well-placed lasbolt shot to the spine can and will split an average human in half, as countless overconfident chaos cultists have learned the hard way.

4: Evidently said cultist benefited from ‘Skin-shifting’, a phenomenon that periodically affects those who serve the ruinous powers. Far as we can tell, it happens whenever the dark gods decide to squeeze a little more fun out of a fallen servant of theirs; whatever injury that felled them is promptly undone, thus bringing them back to life, though the process has a tendency to cause mutations and do a number on the recipient’s sanity. It is named for the way it causes an affected cultist’s skin and flesh to ‘shift’ as their wounds close up.

5: And he assumed correctly, oddly enough…

Author's Note

This chapter was originally meant to be part of the last one, but said chapter took longer than I’d have liked, so I decided to break them into two chapters.