Subject: Servitor
From: Jacques Chester <jchester@ozemail.com.au>
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 20:53:15 -0800

Ayo choombas;

I've finished 'Servitor', and I included a few suggestions made to me by 
Joel Benford. Thanks, choombatta.

I've also posted a re: Servitor item that ties in with Servitor's 
relation between CP and WH40K. My WH40K/CP FAQ is currently being 
upgraded, keep an eye out for it.

One last item;

my next story will represent a new stage in my writng: *character 
planning*. I've already mapped out the 'hero', a Space Wolf presumed to 
be dead.

And a bit nuts.

Keep your eyes peeled for 'The Wulfen Sole'.

JC
-- 
\ \ \
 \ \ \
  \ \ \ Ripperjack - for the dough, choombatta!
        jchester@ozemail.com.au

NOTE- Ripperjack Enterprises is a figament of my
imagination. The views expressed herein are not
necessarily those of the ficticious orginization
I don't work for.


SERVITOR - A WH40K short story.

By: Jacques NM Chester =A9/Copyright Jacques Chester, 1996.

All copyrights as per my public disclaimer released with the story
'Ashes to Ashes'.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

							SERVITOR.

	------
	=

	'A good commander does not lead his troops into battle just
	because he knows they will follow him.'
	=

		- Tactica Imperium
	=

	------

>From a distance, he's a bit scary, now. Closer up, he's not too bad.
His left arm's been replaced, with this unwieldy cybernetic lifting
thing. His face is half gone, covered by a metal mask with optics
and a sort of hissing clicking hole where his mouth was.

His lungs are now machine, of course.

There's a little slot on the side of his head now, where they feed in
programs that tell him how to dig holes or lift stuff or fix tanks.
He's got a few scars, and his hair cells are all dead.

He doesn't remember me. Or anything else about his former life.

Around his neck, there hangs a little plaque:

	'To those whom it may concern;
	=

	This man was discovered stealing from a travelling
	Tech Adept on the hive world of Necromunda. He no
	longer has any memory of his former life, and he
	will obey any orders we give him.
	=

	If you would be a free man, with a past and future of
	your own choosing, let this be an example to you:
	=

	Nobody crosses the Adeptus Mechanicus.'

It's Jono. He was my best friend.

			*               *               *
					=

It all started pretty harmlessly. We got a job from this guy in a
bar. The Chatsubo. Now, Hue (the bar owner) reckons that 'Chatsubo'
is this ancient word meaning bar.

It's slag, of course. Hue will do anything to sell his bar, if it'll
bring a cred.

We was there, one time, me an Jono and a few others. We was
commenting on Hue's naming of the Chat, as usual saying it was
probably the sound of one of his guilder mates sneezing:

'ahh .. ahh .. CHAT - SUUUBOOOHH!!'

As usual, Hue was assuring us with his one working eye that yes, it
was a real word. No, no, he didn't remember where he'd found it. He
thought it may have been something he'd seen in his travels with the
Planetary Defense Force.

"It's probably the name of your favorite whore pit over in the sister
spires" Joked someone. We thought it was pretty funny.
"Maybe the Brothelier Maximus comes here, hey Hue?"
"Har bloody har. Shut up an' drink."
"The voice of admission if ever I heard it!" Was a shout from this
guy in a corner.
"You'd know about admissions, wouldn't you?"
"Yep! I've been busted by the Arbites often enough. They call me
canary, cuz I sing so wel-"
"Arr, shut up and drink!"

So anyway, this kind of banter in the Chat wasn't too unusual.

The only time when the Chat gets real quiet's when a new face
appears. We're all pretty wary about the chat, being lower-hivers and
all, so the appearance of any industrial middle-hiver is a real good
excuse for tight lips and open eyes and ears.

Middle-hivers are usually backed; by their clan, or even their house.
When a house comes looking for you, don't expect to be alive real
long around the lowerhive. If you cross a house, you have to go
underhive and hope the tendrils of their power don't reach you.

Perhaps pray.

Well, that time this middle-hiver appeared, and the chat went real
quiet like. We all sort of stopped and stared at this bloke, checking
his appearancee, apparent age and status, weapons, armour. . .

Van Sar. No doubt at all.

Van Sar.

The facial structure and his posture gave him away. Although he'd
left his green suit at home, it was too easy to spot. Where the Van
Sar excelled in tech, they lacked in darkhive finesse. They shoulda
gone through some ex-Delaque lower-hiver crimester, they would of
gotten less attention.

But I know now just why they couldn't entrust (should I say 'enrisk')
the task to any slithery Delaques.

Personally, I'm an Orlocke man meself.
Always have been, wouldn't be anythin' else.

Now, I'm not a member of any gang, really, I'm more of a dealing type
of person. I generally help people with their problems. So after the
customary tight lip phase of strangerhood, I found out what he
wanted.

"I need you to fetch some items for me."
"Steal them?"
"If that's what you call it, yes. From a traveller who'll be passing
through soon."

Well, I've picked up a few items here and there for various scumniks
and gang leaders, but I've never been in the employ of a house
before. It was time to be cautious:

"So what's the catch?"
"None. We pay well, you keep your mouth firmly shut."
"Or you and your middlehive soldiers will make me quiet."
"Yep."
"So tell me more about this money. I like the idea of cash
re-imbursement."
"Forty thousand guilder creds. Ten grand upfront, thirty after, in
bricks, if you like."
"I like."

By then, of course, I was just hanging on the man's words. Stupid me,
forgot the first rule of value service: The more you pay, the more
you expect to recieve. For fourty *thousand* guilder creds, he
could've asked me to walk to the next spire barefoot without
blinking.

"This traveller. About him. Just what do I need to know about him?"
"Nothing, save for his expected security rig."

The Van Sar bloke had glanced about in what he thought was a sneaky
fashion, and then leaned in at me a bit.

"Come to the Land-Train fabricator area tonight, and you'll be met
outside the entrance to the Machine mystic hall. I advise you to
listen to them."

And then he left. Never saw him again, anyway.

			*		*		*
			=

Of course I was there that night! Fourty thousand guilder creds, in
bricks, is serious cashola. They woz there also. Three of 'em,
professionals.

Probably ex-PDF, two of them, pretty scrappy soldiers. And the third
possibly ex-Guard. The PDF's carried laspistols, and the ImpGuard
type carried a bolt-pistol.

I myself was only carrying a dagger. Not that it'd do much good.

"You here for the job?" The ImpGuard bloke had said.
"Yep, that's me. Whatddya want?"
"Follow me. Be quiet, or we'll shoot you."

Being possesed of a sense of survival and an age of .. something, I
new that the Guardsmen was serious. And his PDF henchmen.

We passed through a whole bunch of areas, them quietly grunting to
and gesturing to each other. =


A couple of times, we passed some arbitrator patrols. At these
moments, the Guard would hustle us all behind some incomplete Mammoth
class land-train, or wedge us between some of the gargantuan fuel
storage tanks.

Finally in a little niche behind the factiory walls, he sat me down,
threw my dagger away, and shot the two PDF guys. Their
command-sabotaged weapons were scooped up and put away by the
ImpGuard bloke in his litte bag.

"Right." He grunted. His beard was black, and his features very Van
Sar. He carried a spider tatoo on his cheek, and a web with '8' in
the middle of it on his right shoulder.

"Necromundan eigth spiders. Exclusively Van Sar. Best unit there is
in the Guard." He sort of stared at me to say: 'Just say different,
scumnik.'

"What's the job?"
"There will be a Tech Priest passing thorugh this part of the hive
come three days. We think he may be carrying some rare tech, and we'd
like you to get it for us."

I dunno. The room was dark, with lurking shadows in each corner, and
it was also small.

"Very funny, soldier man. What's the job?"

It was sometime about then that I realised that the man was deadly
serious. So ok, he shot a few guys. They were PDF scum anyway, and
the gangs each hiveday would often kill a thousand times as many.

But that was just scum. This was close, personal. This was *my* neck
sticking out.

He spoke again, staring me in the eye.

"Don't get smart, skinnyboy. You don't know the first thing about
proper tactical raids, which is why you were chosen. Shut up and put
this on."

He handed me a force-hypnolearner machine. In five minutes, my brain
was pumped full of briefing material. Tech Adepts usually carried
laser and plasma weapons, a defenitely deadly combo.
They were usually alone - useful. Little or no armour, inept empathy
for all mechanical . . .

And when I came to, there was a little box at my side. Inside was ten
grand in merchant guild credit bricks.

Money. Enough for me to retire on.

			*		*		*
			=

"No. It's insane, Jaki." was what Jono said later. I'd popped into
the chat with my little box, with a fraction of my now swollen
fortune. The rest was in safekeeping with one of the Merchants'
Guild.

The chat was pretty empty, that day. It was that time of the year
when all the upperhive men came down for a touch of naughty (their
wives keeping tabs on upperhive brothels) , providing rich and often
stupid pickings for the lowerhive. Of course, these men would travel
incognito ('just' twenty bodyguards) to avoid detection during their
little excursions to 'inspect their factories'.

I'd just told Jono about my plan. He was against it, didn't know why
at the time.

"Look, Jaki; if we take this job, what happens? We get hunted by the
bloody Techs! All of 'em! Including the fracking tens of millions of
the buggers on Necromunda *alone*! Are you insane?"
"It'll be dark. The Adept won't be expecting anything."
"And what if he's a Archiver Tech? They have those bloody memory
enhancer implants of theirs. They remeber *everything* from there,
Jaki. Everything."
"Why would a Clerical Tech leave the Sol Sys, Jono? Out here you only
get Mech Techs and the odd Electro Priest. Easy to handle, easy to
kill."

Jono snorted, then muttered something about me drinking to much of
Hue's 'Guarunteed purest water'. Then I showed him five hundred creds
worth of bricks.

"Shit, Jaki! Were'd you get that kind of money?"
"From the bloke I was telling you about."
"And I'm lord Helmawr. Who'd you mug?"
"No-one! I told you, Jono. This is the advance payment for the run.
If you help me, I'll give you half of the proceeds."
"And how much is that?"
"About one and a half grand each. We could move uphive, Jono! See
real sunlight, eat real food and not synthgruel. We could even visit
one of the famous upperhive brothels... But if we don't do this,
Jono, we'll be here for the rest of our miserable little lives,
scraping a living from the hab until the hab thinks we're excess and
kills us."

Jono stood up then, and he walked over to the bar. At the time, I'd
cursed myself, thinking that he'd gone to the bar to ignore me, like
he had so many times before. But then he brought back a drink for
both of us, some of Hue's brownish 'guarunteed purest vodka'.

Several moments later, and Jono was spluttering a reed-eyed plan of
action.

			*		*		*
			=

So there I was, a week later, hiding inside a heap of refuse. Bits of
mouldy synthfood were all over me, as well as discarded clothing,
equipment, packaging.

Ahhhh, the joys of modern society. Where one can just chuck your
rubbish out into the nearest tunnel and not think about it again.

Others would think about it. Ratskins. Scavvies.

Me.

"Is he gone yet, Jono?"
"Shhhh. I'll tell you when."

This was all whispered through subvocals, of course. The plan was to
wait for the Adept to leave his little abode, dash in, grab the tech
and bugger off, quick as we could.

The Tech Adept *would* leave. We had made care of this. Careful
observation of several enviromental factors around the little
workshop where the Adept was staying made it clear that he would
leave it occasionally, going where we couldn't trace them.

"Detail, detail, detail." is what Jono had said earlier, in the chat.
Detail, he had explained, was the thing that brought success or
failure. I wanted to succeed, didn't I?

Of course I did. So I needed to pay attention to details.

Like the Tech's routine, of which there seemed to be none
discernible.

Something that Jono hadn't thought of. Boredom, boredom, boredom.
Sitting in a rubbish heap waiting for some machine-freak to buzz off
wasn't the highlight of my career.

"There's movement ... I think he's leaving."

*About bloody time* I'd thought to myself, before moving. My task was
to grab the tech myself - Jono was to cover me and to watch for the
Adept's return.

I sprinted down the dark tunnel, dodging various pieces of scrap that
littered the area about the workshop, climbed through a small, rusty
access tunnel and into a small chamber opposite the Tech's worshop. I
withdrew the plasma grenade bought for this purpose, waited for it to
charge up. Just before I armed it, I remembered the guilder's words:

"When you use it, protect your eyes. The plasma is contained within
an energy field during fusion, but the light let through is as bright
as a million flash grenades. And keep back, or you'll be fried in the
reaction."

Quickly, I scurried behind a small machine, leaving the plasma
grenade on a ten second delay fuse. Time passed for me then, like wet
sand through the hourglass. A million things played on my mind -
would the Adept return unexpectedly? Would he notice the grenade
going off? Was I far enough from the grenade's blast radius?

A moment later, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. The only
time that'd happened to me before was when I'd been lost for an hour
in a slag pond. When the arbite's had pulled me out, it'd been the
first time I'd been happy to see them.

But that'd been dark.

This was light. So bright I couldn't see anything anymore. There was
no heat, and little noise. When my eyes recovered, I turned to see a
perfect spherical hole in the wall leading to the workshop. Success!

"I'm in."
"Copy."

I searched around the room. Bits of mechstuff everywhere, and judging
by it, the Adept was a simple maintainance TechMech, tasked to take
care of a piece of machinery, or possibly a reactor princep, in
charge of a Titan's reactor.

STC was what I was to look for. I didn't know what the Guard's helmet
had meant by it, but I knew that's what I had to look for.

STC.

And there it was. I collared it and put it in my bag.

"Jono! I've got the Tech!"

Nothing happened at the time. I freaked.

"Jono! Jono! What's wrong? Can you hear me-" About then, I realised
that Jono was probably dead. My lowerhive instincts told me to run.

			*		*		*
			=

Ten grand is a lot. It was enough to get me a few worlds away, to
another hive, clutching my little bag. I've fiddled with it a bit. It
runs strange little ikons across its screen, and buzzes and flashes
what I think are error messages in some strange language I don't
understand.

I contacted the Tech Priests on Mars. They offered me safety, a new
life and a hundred thousand creds in exchange for my package. They
sent me a messenger.

Guess what?

It was Jono.