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For Blodwynn..
With a muttered curse security trooper Ophelia Pyrex of squad XLV25 stomped down the dimly-lit corridors. No one else was out, not at this late hour. Night cycle was meant for rest, the lights would dim and the station’s inhabitants turned in for the night. Even the normally vibrant and noisy station seemed to wind down during this cycle, a faint hum the only sound softly resonating through its corridors. Ophelia was pissed, having pulled a double shift during the day cycle, patrolling and checking her section of the station for almost twelve hours on end. At the end of her shift she skipped out on the mess and instead went straight to her bunk after turning in her weapons at the armoury. It wasn't meant to be, as a mere two hours later a general request for assistance was given to her sleeping hall. It was a low-key security check, someone was required to check it out. A quick vote was made and she was elected to go and check things out. They simply shoved her out with her uniform in a bundle and locked the door behind her.
Sump-sucking, warp spawned bastards and bitches.
Anger boiled inside her at the treatment from her squad members. One day she would show them a thing or two about how she felt about them. They would pay for their horrid treatment. They would pay.
Her heart was thumping in her ears and a sudden flash of heat went through her. She had her baton in one hand, her knuckles white from the hard grip on it. With an angry sigh she shoved the thing back into the loop on her belt, pausing a moment to control her breathing again. Her temper was getting to her again.
Her temper was a fickle thing, one she had trouble controlling from time to time. In the past, there had been moments when it got the better of her. She had broken the arm and nose of one boy seven years ago, he deserved that fair and square, shouldn't have pushed her like that. She sighed again as she carried on, remembering the twenty lashes she got as punishment, she remembered remaining stubbornly quiet, biting her lip instead of crying out. Why did she receive punishment for something she hadn't even started? It wasn't fair, but then again nothing was on this forsaken station. Left stranded by her own family, cast out by everybody else, being thrown into the worst security lot with a downgraded pay. Things were never looking up around here.
She reached her destination, a weary old man in his underwear waving her over.
'Took you long enough,' he grumped as he pointed up to the ceiling. 'Damn rodents are at it again, making quite a ruckus. Get rid of them so I can get some damned sleep for a change.'
Ophelia told the man to get back into his quarters, promising to take care of the things in the vents. Typical, people never call in the proper department. This was supposed to be reported to the maintenance staff, not security. With a final sigh she pulled her lamp pack from her belt, clicked it on and hooked it to the strap of her armour. She looked up at the rusty hatch for a moment, listening.
Nothing.
She hoisted herself up along an equally rusty ladder to the hatch and thumped her fist against the release override. The locks promptly clicked off but the hatch didn’t swing up. Son of a.. She clambered a little higher onto the ladder and awkwardly slammed her shoulder against the hatch several times until it gave way completely. With a grunt she threw the hatch upwards, reached for her light and shone into the corridor.
A thick layer of dust coated the inside of the vent, along with a long decayed rat. Ophelia shook her head and clambered back down, angry at the old man for making her come all the way for a faulty call and a false one at that. She decided against berating the old man, instead she stretched and decided to head for the nearby observation dome, gaze at the stars for a bit. Maybe catch some sleep there as well.
As she walked along she could feel a judder run through the section of the station. That's odd, no ships were supposed to dock here at this hour. She decided against calling it in, checking things out might be better. She'd hate having to get chewed out by her supervisor for making an untruthful call. Instead she just went straight for the relevant airlock, surprised to find a lone clerk there at work on his cogitator. Nobody else was around. As Ophelia approached the clerk turned around, giving a slightly annoyed look. He turned his attention back to his cogitator for a moment before turning his full attention to her. He didn't say anything, prompting Ophelia to speak up first.
'Good evening, security officer Pyrex of detachment XLV25. I heard a ship dock, I thought this sector was supposed to cease all activities until the next day cycle?'
'Good evening,' he nodded and smiled easily. 'Well you know, sometimes we get them at the oddest of hours.'
Ophelia didn't buy it, it was very suspicious. Having a late night dock during night cycle was already unheard of in the lower levels, but unattended? No, this was not looking right at all.
'Don't we have the higher level docks for that sort of thing? We lock these down during night cycle for a reason. Don't want angry people deprived of sleep now do we?'
'I know but this was a last-minute redirect, the upper levels were full or already reserved, you should know by now girl that sometimes things don’t go as planned. Now run along, this won't take long.'
Ophelia bit back a rather scathing retort at his disdainful reply, instead she snapped her shotgun open and slid a pair of shells in, clicking it shut. The clerk started to say something but shut up as he saw her glare and the way she held her weapon.
'Standard procedures are to be upheld. Doesn't this station pride itself on routine and regulation? It is standard procedure that someone of security is around to help check all arriving vessels, we don't want the crazies to come pouring out and brutally kill you now would we?'
Wisely he shut up. Ophelia slung the weapon across her back again and folded her arms, trying to make herself stand out as a figure of authority. A hard feat to pull off with her bedraggled look and filthy uniform. After a few moments had passed the iris shutters ground open with a groaning hiss, revealing a lone man in a stained overalls standing in the airlock, a slate in one of his dirty hands. He stepped out of the lock and flinched at the sight of Ophelia, not sure what to do. Nervously he made a slight bow and handed the slate to her instead of the clerk.
'Business?'
The man nervously nodded his head and forced himself to smile. He was having a hard time for some reason. Normally spacers would be either easy going or rude as hell. Could this guy be coming down with a case of the crazies?
'Aya, business mamzel. Spices and minerals for the markets of Scintilla.'
She checked the slate, it all checked out so far. "the Ferryman": a small Exodus class freighter with a warp drive and just enough room for a small crew of around twenty. Experience told Ophelia that these ships always ran with less crew than that, due to the short distances travelled and the type of cargo being hauled. These ships were normally packed full of cheap produce and other things, making almost non-stop tours with just enough time in between to unload and replace the crew.
'How many crew?'
The man nervously wrung his hands as he answered, a strange tremble in his voice.
'Three mamzel: pilot, navigator and me, the mechanic.'
He patted his overalls with that last word, he even smiled. Proud little b*****d she
Thought to herself. Ophelia nodded as she absently scrolled through the slate. These ships were known for their low crew, high payload hauls. Always a few every month that stop by for checkups and a few moments of rest before moving on. Nothing special. She was about to hand back the slate when she got second thoughts. It was an odd feeling in the back of her head but she couldn't shake it. Something was off about that ship. She shot the man a look, he looked back at her nervously, wondering if something was wrong. She glanced over her shoulder at the clerk, who was busy writing something down in his log. Could be nothing, or it could be something. Ophelia let out a long, slow sigh as she handed the slate back to the man.
'Cargo. I want to check your cargo for a bit. If that checks out you are free to go.'
The man stammered something, prompting Ophelia to demand him to speak up.
'It's locked. Orders of the boss, the goods are to be kept under lock until we reach our final destination.' He nervously smiled and shrugged. 'Besides, we don’t have the key.'
Ophelia shook her head and dragged the man along by the greasy collar of his dirty overalls into the long metal corridor connecting the ship to the station. She ignored the outrage of the clerk as she entered the ship, telling him to shut up and stay put.
She was guided through the cramped corridors of the ship all the way to the back of it. The man paused a moment in front of the door of the cargo bay, giving Ophelia a nervous glance. His hand hovered over the handle that opened the large door. In reply she gave him a shove to the side and pulled the lever herself.
The hold was filled with massive steel cargo containers, all locked down. There was however one that fell a bit out of place. This container looked like all the others, a massive red crate with faded paint of some company stencilled onto the side ages ago. The doors however were locked with a rusty chain and padlock, unlike the others, whom were just closed with the containers' own locking mechanism.
'Oh you have got to be kidding me! Is this all? Key my a**.'
Despite the protests of the man she searched the hold for something heavy, settling for a hammer from a nearby toolbox. With a quick blow she broke the lock and pulled the chain free from the two handles. She lifted one and pulled the door open, harsh light invading the stale darkness within. Shying away from the light were several ragged shapes, making odd yelps and hushed warnings.
'Oh-kay.'
Ophelia half reached for her baton on instinct, not sure what was in there. They seemed normal enough, but mutants were rife in the system and always looking for a way to a better world. They were truly desperate to spread their cancerous influences elsewhere. She called out, demanding the occupants to step into the light. None dared to comply, staying away from the beam of light stabbing inward.
She repeated her order.
However, not all clung to the shadows as a brute of a man ran forward, an industrial circular saw held above his head. As he closed in and Ophelia backed away she managed a glimpse at the weapon, noting that it was fused to his arm. Either he was a former indentured worker from some Mechanicum plant or some sort of ex-gladiator she had heard about once. With a curse she went for her shotgun, cursing as she tried to pull it free from her back. Just barely she managed to bring up her shotgun in both hands, trying her best to block the attack. The circular saw hit the metal barrel and wooden grip, slicing through it in a blinding shower of sparks, making Ophelia fall backwards, the saw barely missing her torso as it arced past. She landed hard on the metal decking, the breath knocked from her as she lay there sprawled. The crazed man stepped into the light, blinking as he went. He was a big b*****d, easily six foot-something, reeking of sweat, oil and exhaust from his makeshift weapon, he let out a savage scream as he stepped towards Ophelia, his saw held over his head again. She was however still holding on to both parts of her shotgun.
'Thanks,' she brought her shortened weapon up and blew her assailant away with both barrels at short range. She cursed as her weapon thumped into her chest from the blowback, firing a shotgun one-handed always was a bad idea according to the head proctor. Her attacker fell backwards, his torso and head peppered with a lethal hail of shot. As she shot to her feet she broke her weapon open, quickly grabbing two new shells from the bandolier clinging to her hips. She whipped the weapon shut and shouldered it, aiming into the darkened compartment.
'Any takers? No? Good, now stand back and stay there!'
Slowly she moved towards the door and closed it, quickly looking for something to shove between the two handles. She settled on a large pry bar, giving it a kick to keep it in place. From the inside of the container came muffled screaming and scratching at the door.
Metal softly grated against metal behind her.
She whirled on her heel, bringing her weapon up again. A man in a patched together leather jacket with a compact holdout laspistol was aiming at her. Narrowly dodging the first shot Ophelia dove forward, banging off both barrels as she flew through the air. Her shots missed but at least it forced the man into cover of the door opening. She scrambled for cover herself, frantically reloading her weapon and blindly firing from behind cover. Looking at her bandolier she saw that only two shells remained. She always knew that the tightly regulated ammo rations would be the end of her some day. She would have to make these shots count.
With a sigh she gripped her weapon tightly, counting to three before jumping away from her cover, sighting her shotgun at the door and the man standing there.
She didn't shout out a warning. She didn't wait for him to react. Ignoring every bit of training in regards to handling the situation she blasted both barrels into his direction, peppering him. He fell backwards, making disgusting gurgling sounds for a few moments. Then he thankfully stopped moving. Slowly she moved up and prodded him with the toe of her boot just to be sure. A ruined and bloodied face and throat stared up at the ceiling. The one remaining eye was glazed and rolled into the socket. He was dead alright. As she looked up again she saw something move through the corridor, away from her.
It was that technician.
'Hold it right there damn it!'
He didn't, instead he bolted, running straight for the station. With a curse Ophelia reached for new shells and, and, damn it! She forgot about that. She whipped her weapon shut and ran after the man, cursing herself for forgetting to pay attention to her current predicament. As she ran she reached for her baton, cursing again. She had probably lost it during the scuffle in the hold. Up ahead she could hear the hatch grind open again.
'Stop!' She screamed as she rounded the corner, dismayed that the man was not paying heed to her warning as he now tried climbing through the still opening hatch. She flung her empty weapon at the man, throwing herself after it. She thundered into his back and both slammed hard into metal deck. She could hear something crack as the man let out a yelp. She saw him fumble for something inside his overalls. A blade? A compact? A grenade? Ophelia wasn't about to let him reach for it as she jumped on top of him, reaching for something, anything to put him out of action. Her hand grasped something heavy and without thinking she grabbed it and started beating the man with it. She let out a scream of anger as she landed the first blow, her long pent up rage finally finding an outlet as she bludgeoned the man's head into a pulp.
'He's dead.'
As if waking up from a dream Ophelia snapped out of her rage and back to her senses. Slowly she looked up from the ruin of the man she chased, noting a tall man in a simple grey coat standing before her. Behind him stood a rather shocked head proctor. At his feet lay the clerk, dead. The man held a smoking gun in one of his hands.
'Quite dead even,' he said after a moment. 'How about you put down that tool and get up?'
She felt something heavy in her right hand. It was a standard duty wrench, smeared with blood and grey matter. She didn’t dare look down at the man she had beaten to death with it. An eerie feeling overcame her suddenly. Here she was, a dead man on the ground and a proverbial smoking gun (or dripping blunt object) in her hand. Add to the tally two others lying in the ship and things were not looking too good for her all of the sudden.
'He tried to run,' she said unevenly after a moment. 'He's a smuggler. They got muties and other things in those containers back there. He and his friend tried to kill me.'
The head proctor started to shout something but the man simply held up his hand, silencing him instantly. This stranger had some power to shut up the highest ranking law enforcer on the station.
'Smugglers. Indeed they are, or were in his case. Trying to take the downtrodden and miserable to better places. Or so they claim. This haul has mutants and several blood gladiators, taken from the pits and bowels of pitiful worlds, destined for some place even darker.' He turned to the head proctor. 'You, see to it that the cargo is properly checked, secured and disposed of. I will want a full report of this as soon as possible. Make no mistakes, you can ill-afford them as of now. If it wasn't for this weary enforcer they would have escaped from us yet again.'
The head proctor nodded nervously, saluted sharply and ran off, shouting frenzied orders into his personal vox.
'Come now Ophelia, I want to talk to you in private.'
Ophelia blinked at the direct use of her name and let go of the wrench, not sure what to make of the man as he helped her to her feet and guided her along the station to another airlock. Two armed guards flanked the lock there, they were bedecked in heavy grey carapace armour with black cloth uniforms, dark visors covering their faces. Held across their chests were menacing heavy calibre automatics.
As they approached both guards saluted and one murmured something into his receiver, a curt crackle coming from his helmet. A moment later the iris ground open and the man stood there in front of it, politely holding his hand out to the ship anchored at the other side, beckoning her to step through.
'You have proven yourself most useful. You possess certain skills that could be of use to me, and with our training and guidance you can become more than you ever will be here. All I ask in return is your loyalty and your unquestioning devotion to the God Emperor of Terra. What say you?'
He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out his balled fist, holding it up to her. As he opened it a small red pin lay there, a simple red bar, a capitol "I".
'Do you accept?'
She hesitated for a moment, her hand hovering over his.
'I- Will I get to see something of this galaxy? More than just endless steel corridors and stinking ship interiors?'
The man chuckled.
'Your travels will take you places, some horrible, some others can only dream of. But yes, you will see more than just the insides of ships and orbitals.'
Ophelia smiled and took the pin, admiring the simple thing for a moment. Was this it then? Her ticket out? She stuck it onto the collar of her armour and followed the man to the ship, ready to serve her new master.
+ + +
I was asked to write the background for a Dark Heresy character that is played by a friend. She wanted her character to have a nice background that was a tad more interesting and defining than the standard "did something special and now serves the Inquisition" angle. Granted, I did just that, but I've tried my best to get those defining traits into the story as well, hopefully giving a good presentation of the how and why behind this character.
At first I wanted to go for the "routine check-up of a lone vessel" but decided to go for the angle of chance instead. Sometimes chance and not skill or experience can land you a spot amongst the ranks of the inquisition. Though I am certain that this character will be most able at holding her own at what lays ahead.
All in all the background is well-received and it is now up to her to take it from here. Some things just feel horribly off to me plus some aspects of the character might change for the sake of the person who plays her.
For those interested, here's the character sheet so to say of the relevant character, along with a given description, some traits and whatnots to give me a feel of the character.
+ + +
Character name: Ophelia Pyrex
Origin: Void Born – Orbital way station
Career path: Arbitrator - Trooper
Statistics:
WS BS S T Ag Int Per WP Fel
27 33 26 26 34 34 23 40 28
Gear: Shotgun + 12 shells, baton (club), flak vest, uniform (excellent quality), 3 doses of stimm, injector, Arbitrator ID, chrono and a flask of Amasec
Skills: Speak Language (Low Gothic, Ship Dialect), Literacy, Common Lore (Adeptus Arbites), Common Lore (Imperium), Inquiry
Talents: Basic Weapons Training (SP), Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), Rapid Reload
Traits: Charmed, Ill-Omened, Shipwise, Void Accustomed
Description: A lean female aged 23 years old, has blonde hair, grey eyes and a slightly pallid skin from spending a lifetime in orbit and on ships. Due to working on an orbital way station of sorts she has none of the common immune system defects most void born show from living an entire life in the stars.
Nature: Ophelia is somewhat choleric, very melancholic and phlegmatic. She hates her former peers onboard the station, she passionately hates her family for abandoning her several years ago and she yearns for a shot at seeing and exploring the galaxy at large. Despite her dislike for her former peers and comrades she has proven herself a loyal and dedicated member of the retinue, willing to give everything for her new master, her new peers and the Emperor. In return all she asks for is a chance to see the Imperium beyond the creaking walls of the orbital station that her home for the last 23 years.
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