electrical smack could be heard in the distance right before a voice roared down the dirty rusted metal cargo space.
"Shut up you scum! You are here to pay for your crimes against the Imperium and his Most Glorious God Emperor On Terra! Your wicked ways and actions have finally caught up to you! Every last one of you will fight and die in the God Emperor's name against the Enemies of Humanity in the 275th Golgotha Penal Legion! So stop your pathetic mewling and accept your fate and put on your uniforms! No one in this cage will get any food till you all shut up and suit up!" Another electrical zap from a electro whip could be heard again followed by cries of fear and pain.
I sat in a corner of the cage that the pressgangers of the ship tossed me into along with the other unfortunate souls captured. I had laid there on top of the pile of other unconscious victims in the transport cart until we were brought aboard the ship like livestock and the deep vibrations of the transport shuttle jostled others awake. I let myself get shifted around and 'woke up' shortly after, I had to twist a few opportunistic fingers but I got some space without losing anything. We were all then herded from the transport into lines where armored voidsmen clasped explosive collars on us and handed us a set of breathers and a cheap outfit that stank of chemicals before ushering us into cages. Those in my cage were dressed well to do with relatively clean and intact clothes so they were not from the under hive and most likely from the middle hive sections. That was strange as most conscription tend to happen among the lower hives due to the much larger abundance of people and lower lack of status. For them to take even people higher up in the hive either meant they really needed more numbers or the nobility were doing their screwed up games again and purging the populace of people they didn't like. Probably both.
I looked out among the rows and stacks of cages just like ours. From my vantage point I could count at least 12 cages in my row with 3 cages on top based on the fact that the ones across from us were stacked that high, that meant there were at least 2400 men. women, and children in this single aisle alone being transported to Armageddon. Estimating, I guess there to be at least 10 such rows for 12,000 future slave soldiers in this single cargo bay alone. So it was not unlikely to assume there were probably over a hundred thousand conscripts on this ship that were captured and shipped off.
I ignored the mass of frightened Humanity around me as I mentally distracted myself from forming any attachment to them. As most likely all of them will be dead within 10 minutes of us landing on the ground if we were lucky. I tried to remember what I could about Armageddon, all I remembered was that Commissar Yarrick was the main protagonist there, with a ork warboss with a long ass name being his nemesis, and the whole planet was pretty much uninhabitable due to the hive cities pollution contaminating everything to the point of lethality.
Damn it all, I was hoping that I could avoid events like this where I would be put into the line of fire like this and I could just quietly grow stronger. Then again, that Inquisitor and his pet psyker was getting hotter on my trail so this might be for the best. At least I had light years between me and him and a entire war zone to hide in. Not like it would be hard for me to break free and go to ground with my current skill level.
I mentally pulled up all my screens and rechecked my current status.
Character SheetInventorySkillsRelationships
Yeah, looking at the very worst of my physical stats I was till two and a half times stronger than even a trained veteran in terms of just strength, of course that does not take into account non baseline humans like skitarri, space marines, ogryns, or just plain gene/cybernetically augmented veterans whose bonuses vary wildly depending on the quality and purpose of the augments. At least however I could overpower and escape any normal Imperial Guard force without even taking into account my speed and skills.
I am so glad I actually did that data raid even if it did cause me and other people a lot of problems. The sheer amount of skills and blueprints gained were insane and some of those skills granted my massive passive boosts to my stats such as the tactics and strategy skills which collectively boosted my Intelligence and Wisdom by 50% each. The blueprints plus my previous garbage raids basically gave me the ability to produce anything and everything I would need in the foreseeable future with the only problem being that some things I make would be too damn heavy for me to put back into my inventory so I had to be careful with those items, like tanks.
The greatest gain from my time on Golgotha however were my stat perks, especially the last 2 intelligence perks. I could now effectively reverse engineer things and possibly use the original Gamer's mana based spells. Well, as soon as I figured it out anyways, still a bit wary of playing around with mana in case it somehow attracted demons or something or, well, whenever I was not about to be in the Warp or have an Inquisitor on my ass. Mana spells would be useful.
I frowned though at the relationships section. The Inquisitor and Lord were those I recognized, but who the hell were the ones in question marks? How the hell are they even watching me and why is one of them even determined? WTF? The two above the last one though, their statuses seem to imply they're on opposite sides potentially. The fact that they are watching me even now most likely means psykery. My mind began putting together 2+2 and started getting numbers I was not comfortable with.
'Emperor? Chaos?' I thought with dread building in my gut.
Relationships
'Fuck!' They are onto me! Also the ship is about to enter the Warp! I am about to go into their territory! Dammit dammit dammit! What should I do? Take over the ship? Then what? I was most likely on a nigh unarmored transport ship so where would I run to? I can't escape without going into the Warp due to a lack of other FTL methods so that option was out as sublight travel would just see me getting captured by other ships. Without the Warp I was effectively trapped in system with me leaving it just dooming me to thousands of years of isolation and just me potentially getting captured by Warp exiting Chaos raiders. Plus if I stay here I would just end up being captured by the Inquisitor as I had no doubt he would be picking up my trail soon. Better to overestimate than underestimate in this case.
Shit shit shit! Damn it! Fuck, alright, guess all I can do is....no...hope that the Emperor can keep them off me? Oh God Emperor no...I wanted to avoid this kind of scenario!
I kept my face neutral to the outside world even as my emotions raged inside of me before being forcefully calmed down by Gamer's Mind and then raging again over and over. This was basically one of THE worst scenarios that could happen to me, to gain the attention of the gods of this galaxy before I was ready. A minute of that and I finally calmed down and just accepted that there was nothing I could do at this point except hope the Emperor could bail my ass out and has got my back.
I rested my head back on the bars of the cage and thought back to my time at the restaurant and everyone I became familiar with. There was Josef the boss who took me in even if it was initially just for cheap labor I had to thank the man for giving me a place to work and an alibi, most would have just outright ignored someone like me just showing up for a job. Then, there were the chefs Jack, Tion, and Liko who taught me a few things about cooking when things were slow in the kitchen even when they did not have to. Then, there were the serving and cleaning staff who grew quite familiar with me as I helped do their share of the workload without asking for anything, sure they were suspicious of me at first, but a few weeks of doing it without trying to extort or blackmail them to the boss soon won them over. Even if I never actually considered them friends I did at least care if they were ok or not. I mean I didn't see any of them with me in the cage so they probably were not in here.
A couple hours went by according to my Gamer System provided clock when suddenly the world lurched and I could hear whispers at the edge of my hearing and the air tasted like rock, before things snapped right back into normality.
The cargo bay went silent before the air was filled with chanting and hymns as every single person on the ship prayed to the God Emperor to keep them safe on the journey, even the guards were praying not even attempting to shut us up as they were scared as well. I honestly expected the chanting to stop after like an hour before the captain told the guards to silence us all again and prepare us for whatever slap dash suicide troop training they had in store for us when suddenly reality lurched again and the taste of gold filled the air as four simultaneous cries of anger, laughter, moans, and gibberish echoed through the hold right before reality snapped back to normality again.
Wait, were we out of the Warp already? What? I knew Warp travel could be damn near any duration, but that was not even a minute! Were we even at our destination or were we lost in time and space?
My question was soon answered as the ship's speaker crackled to life.
"Attention all crew! We are currently in orbit above Armaggedon! Prep-"
*BOOM*
The captain was cut off as a large explosion rocked the ship and everything began rattling and shaking causing everybody in the cages to begin screaming even as the guards began to run. The alarms and sirens were blaring around us as normal lighting turned off and the emergency shipboard red lighting kicked in, casting everything in a ominous lighting.
"ABANDON SHIP! SHIP'S ENGINE BEEN DESTROYED AND WE ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH THE PLANET! EVERYONE TO THE SAVIOR PODS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I REPEAT NOT A DRILL! MAY THE GOD EMPEROR BE WITH YOU-" The captain was once again cut off as something just tore through the side of the cargo bay across from me. My perception instantly slowed allowing me to see everything. I could see the massive hole in the floor, the sight of the red of re-entry licking the edges, the trajectory of whatever it was that just tore through it as it also tore through the cages full of people, leaving behind a cloud of red mist and flying body parts, and exiting out the ceiling into more sections of the ship.
That was all I saw, my perfect memory recording every detail of the scene and the faces of all those around me and on the intact heads of those who had no idea what just killed them, right before everything sped up again as every cage in the bay got violently sucked out through the rent and my world became chaotic.
My vision span round and round even as my lungs began to burst from lack of pressure even though I felt no discomfort from the lack of unneeded air while my body burned from the flames that ignited my body alongside all those around me. Round and round we went tumbling into the atmosphere of the planet, the screaming becoming louder and louder as the atmosphere became thicker and thicker to better carry the screaming of our bodies travelling at speed through its embrace and the cries of those somehow still alive and suffering.
I needed to get out! I needed to escape the cage before I smashed into the ground with the cage into paste! I reached out and grabbed behind me luckily finding a bar and used it to orient myself even as my regeneration kicked in and restored my vision as it was no longer burning. My HP was down by half but recovering slowly, too slowly for my taste. I grabbed with my other hand another bar and proceeded to pull using all of my strength and activating RIP to boost my ability to tear through these bars. Bars which were thick enough to hold back bears quickly bent under my grips and allowed me to squeeze between.
I immediately let go of the cage, tumbling around a few times before I properly caught the air and proceeded to control my descent by going spread eagle and taking in the view before me.
The sky was yellow with toxins and heavy metals, causing my eyes to tear and my lungs to burn even as I witnessed the sky be filled with burning debris of cages and starship hull. The bulk of which screaming far to the side of me trailing black smoke, it looked like the captain was trying to control the descent of the ship as the ship tried to level out.
An amazing sight, but would be much more amazing if I was not falling to my death. I immediately put my brain into overdrive trying to figure out a way to escape a gory flat death doing millions of vector calculations to try to bleed off the fall momentum as much as possible to roll myself to safety when I had a sudden bout of inspiration and proceeded to smack myself in the head.
A fucking parachute! I could just craft a damn parachute or glider and land that way!
DING! +1 WISDOM POINT!
'Yes thank you I realize I am still dumb!' I thought to myself as I quickly opened the crafting menu, searched for, and crafted myself a glider and a parachute. The vehicle appearing beneath my hands as it instantly formed from the materials in my inventory causing me to drop vertically before I quickly brought it back to level out. Now that I was out of immediate danger I brought my attention to the next immediate danger. The damn poisons in the air as I noticed my HP dropping and rising like a damn seesaw as I gained Poison Resistance skill levels alarmingly rapidly. A quick crafting action had me equipped in advanced chemical warfare gear and a much more effective rebreather.
I then put my attention to the ship now far below me with the captain trying to save his ship somehow. To no avail as it still hit the ground at a steep angle despite his controlled descent and it went critical. My eyes went blind as the ship exploded, turning my vision white and my HP bar dropping as the shockwave reached me tearing my glider to pieces and sending me falling once more.
It took a few moments before my eyes healed and then a few more for me to rebuild my glider but now I was much closer to the ground. Taking in the terrain below me I could not see much good news for myself. I could literally see green tides that were moving with smoke coming from them, orks, to the west and south of me, while there were jungles to the east and a large hive city to the north with even more smoke coming from that! The ork tides were moving towards the east and the north showing that any resistance left to the west and south were already crushed and they were advancing to the next fight.
I was high enough in the sky that I would not be able to glide my way to the hive city to the north or past the jungles to the east to the other hive city beyond it. If I tried to make a aircraft to reach either than the same thing which shot the ship down or ork fighters will detect me and shoot me down, or the Imperials will shoot me down thinking I was a ork fighter.
So there was one very dumb option left to me as far as I could tell.
Sighing, I proceeded to let go of the glider and let myself drop like a rock even as I kept track of my altitude for minimum height parachute deployment to avoid ork detection.
Plan is to land in the giant ass plains below ahead of the ork armies and try to hide under the ground like a true Minecrafter hiding from mobs. Then get rid of this damn explosive collar, properly gear up, and skill up for a fight.
Steve would be proud.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
AN: Whooo boy! That was a close one! Chaos almost got my ship! Then the orks got to it. Shit.
Ship Travel
Rolling 1d100 + 100
( 58 ) + 100 = 158 Chaos Combined
Rolling 1d100 + 150
( 27 ) + 150 = 177 Emperor + Gellar Field
Rolling 1d100
( 83 ) = 83 Warp Travel Arrives Earlier than you left M41.941.6
Rolling 1d100-15
( 36 ) - 15 = 21 Landing
Rolling 1d10
( 3 ) = 3 Landing Zone: Plain of Anthrand
Last edited: Jun 8, 2020
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tri2
Jun 8, 2020
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Mr. Idiot
A Cosmic Singularity of all that is Stupidity.
Jun 8, 2020
#549
Yes! Another chapter! Excellent!
Hello Emps my main man! I hope some communication occurs.
Ugh... I hope mc tells chaos to go frick themselves in a most spectacular manner.
Time to kill some orks.
Another great chapter, keep up the awesome work and thank you.
Last edited: Jun 8,