Campaign: Damos Crusade
Personal Journal of Nicole Zachary
Quote of the Day[]
When Life gives you boys, you make a waaagh!
-Uncle Grok
Section heading[]
The Day had started just as I had expected it, me working down in the hanger calibrating the guns on the furies, running diagnostics on engines, and making some adjustments to the controls. One of the pilots was complaining that Fury number K43lUM was drifting off to the left a little too much. I had discovered that the bolts that had kept the stick aligned had either cracked or loosened, most likely from when we were bombing orks a few weeks ago. I was in the middle of replacing the bolts when suddenly Erika’s voice broke through the speakers around the ship ordering all officers to bridge. I couldn’t help but sigh, I had stuff to do, and things to fix, which normally would fall to the tech priests but, I never ask them to; I can repair my own ships and I do it a hell of a lot faster since I don’t pray to the Omnissiah every 30 seconds. I put my Omnitool down on the tool box and picked up my data slate and walked towards to the ships main elevator to the bridge. The elevator began to take off to the upper decks of the ships as I checked my messages, nothing new. I put the slat into my arm and saw my reflection in the chrome metal of the elevator. My long white hair was put into a pony tail so it would stay out of my face while working; my cheeks had a few spots of engine grease on them. My white tank top was a mess wrinkled and had a very spots of engine grease, and oil on it, kind of stupid to wear white when working on an engine. My olive pants were covered in all sorts of grime and sut, and my boots well at least those were still clean as far as I could tell, at this point I was grateful I wasn’t tracking oil onto the elevator.
When I got off I everyone was mostly there, including the wolfman, and the teenager we picked up a few systems back. Erika stood in front of her tactical table her back towards us as Moll and Leo joined us last, the only person I didn’t see was the Eldar. Erika turned around and began to speak about our latest assignment. According to her we were to going to assassinate a pirate lord. This particular pirate lord had been paid off by Tarrons family to not raid their ships, and instead protect them. However, we the new crusade going on the Damos family can’t afford to pay the fee that he wanted for them to go through his territory. As I heard the words “can’t afford” My only thought was “So the mountain has a peak after all”. The plan was to assassinate the pirate lord using a very some kind of posion that would cause the implants in his stomach to fail this would result in him drowning on his own fluids and kill him. In truth it wasn’t something I really understood, I got the concept but the details and the reasoning behind the posion working were somewhat lost on me, biology was never my strongest subject. Erika sent us back to our jobs as we went into the warp.
For about a week and a half in the warp nothing had happened, well to me anyways our techpriest Alan had been raving about how he had saw his grandfather and gave him a warning about a guy in a red cloak and not looking at a pile of skulls. Sounded like an Omen to me, but I paid it no mind as I continued my usual duties of repairs and overall ship diagnostics. However, one night while I was asleep I had a dream no a nightmare. I was sitting in my cockpit flying as we were under attack, it was nothing new to me and it was a small force flight squadron so to me it was more fun than dangerous. However when I was about to turn on the fury, my entire body had frozen, I had forgotten which button started the damn thing. It was as if my connection to not only my ship but everything I had ever known about flying. I watched in horror still stuck in the hanger as everyone else took off, defense force was disorganized and they were getting slaughtered as I slammed my fists and kept cursing at the controls. I kept looking at the controls and slamming my hands pushing every button sweating and swearing on the verge of tears. I looked up from the controls and saw that my entire squadron was dead, debris floating in the void as the attacking squadron was coming in for the kill and began slamming the ship as hard as they could. I could hear the screams of several crewmen dying debris falling on them crushing. I felt myself scream trying my hardest to get the ship moving and ended up destroying the controls the computers sparking my fists bleeding. Suddenly the cockpit’s canopy locked came down locking me into the ship. I tried everything to get it open but everything I tried did nothing. I turned my head again to look at the flight deck and could only watch in horror as a fire had started and the debris had knocked over several fuel barrels and started to leak. The leaked fuel had caught fire quickly; I started trying to kick the canopy desperately my body sweating in fear and frustration. As I kicked the canopy as hard as I could and broke a glass only to see that the fire had reached the barrels. I only had time to scream in terror as the barrels exploded and engulfed me the ship and the entire deck in an explosion.
I awoke still screaming and sweating in my bed, my breath ragged and my chest pounding like a drum. I sat quickly and held my knees feeling a tear run down my cheek; I wiped it away feeling pathetic. I’m a grown woman 23 years old, a nobelite from the Zachary house, daughter to one of the heroes and admirals of Jikah … yet here I was scared like a child. I quickly threw the sheets from my body and got dressed in the first things I could find. I walked out to the flight deck, it was the graveyard shift not many of the normal crewmen were up at this hour, and the deck was mostly deserted save for a few tech priests that were at different ends of the deck. I rubbed my hand against the metal of the ship as I walked past it and climbed the ladder into the cockpit. My body tensed when suddenly by reflex my finger hit the ignition and the sound of the engine starting filled me with relief. I closed my eyes and relaxed into my seat comforted in by the hum of the engine. Suddenly the sound of a raspy mechanical voice brought me out of my little world and my eyes snapped open. “Have you gone mad we’re in the middle of warp?!” I looked over the edge and saw a techpriest staring at me with his cold mechanical eyes. I turned off and climbed out of the cockpit and looked at the techpriest. “Sorry, I did some maintenance earlier and wanted to be sure that she was running smoothly.” The techpriest shook his head and began to walk away, I could hear him make comments about how fleshies wouldn’t know the difference between a starship engine oil, and plasma coolant. I rolled my eyes and went back my quarters grabbed a glass of water and went back to sleep.