Love and Krieg 8, More Writefags Keep Coming Edition

You blink. No one ever asked you what's what, you usually just made sure dey didnt do nuffin dumby like dieing cause dey got shot a little. You blinked. "Go ahead."

"When your unit, the Catachans, got absorbed by the sixfortyfives... what was it like. Having to work with," The woman thumbed her hand over the underground trench behind her, the vast small that's been the subject of your not good dreams. "This. Us, me. Was it difficult?"

You shrugged. "Whats a diff-u-cult? Dat sound's heretical... I ain't heretical, i finish the green stuff on my plate all proper like."

Fifteehate thought, trying to rephrase the purpose. "Was it hard? Losing your friends and being stuck in this? Having to go into tunnels every day and digging when your job's to fight. We've had other regiments serve with us, they are always cleaner. Even the penals. More pure or something, normal I guess. Forgivable." Fifteehate paused, steam lingering from her mask. "Interregiiment moral is always... suboptimal."

"Oh... I don't know." You shrugged. "I mean I did it, so dat's dat right?"

Fifteehate slumped, you can tell because her head tilted a bit lower to her torso. "Inquiry withdrawn."

You shrugged. "Da smalls not fun but I don't know whats the fuss about, yous just as normal as all da other littleun's i got to fight with."

There is a pause, the two of you playing the quiet game in front of the urinal.

You win. "Thudd you are a idiot." Your buddy muttered as she walked away.

Well dat wasn't very nice... You shrug, ambling back to the mess tent, if your fast enough maybe you can borrow da spare rations.

Thats all for now, I found out that juggling so many things makes it harder to slip into thudds voice so I tried to put that a bit harder, beyond the simple semi mangled grammar of course.

Thud sounds like Banjo from Discworld, raised right and proper-Like by Ma Lilywhite.

wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Ma_Lilywhite

Tactical bump.

Adorable. Yey

Alpha slung his rifle and motioned Beta and Gael to get back to the tank. "We were ordered to do so. You are injured, Adept Rorken will assess you. We are leaving in five minutes."

"W-what? When I told the quartermaster I h-had medical knowledge, I meant in terms of anatomy and biology and s-stuff." Miria blurted as Alpha ascended the hull.

Alpha stared at her for a moment. "Improvise. You do not lack imagination." Then he disappeared within.

+You, you...Oh!+ Well at least the Krieg had mastered snark, if that could be considered an emotion.

+Right, well I'm not checking a head wound wearing this.+

Miria pulled her helmet and mask off, ruffling her errant locks. Her hair was getting pretty unruly between the sweat and humidity.

From the ground, the man seemed to rifle through his pockets, looking for something. "Ah dun suppose yun got any...any...oh."

"Is-is there something on my face?" Miria asked.

The man belatedly closed his mouth, then his eyes drifted slightly lower. "...Iffn that's what ya'll lookit under them gasmasks and cloaks, making ya wear 'em is wunna th' saddest things in this here blighted galaxy Ah ever seen."

Miria felt her cheeks flushing. "Uhm. I'm not Krieg s-sir, just liaised to them. I am a-an Adept of the Cult Mechanicus."

"Them Cogheads?! So yer'n gon cut all them bits off 'stead? An' fill yerself up wit tubes and wires? Ah take it back, thas even sadder." He dragged his eyes back up to her face.

"Pard' mah manners, Ah'm a mite...shook up bein' shoved down th' gullet a that thing." He jabbed a thumb at the carcass behind them.
"Happen jus as soon as Ah landed, right askance that grey dungheap lookin tower off yonder. Plum thankful yun swung by ta grab me. Name's Barls, Barl Graves, leastwise till Ah get me a new ship, then back ta Cap'n Graves." He stuck out a hand, which Miria took after a moment.

"Y-you were the c-captain of the other transport? You rammed an o-ork ship? Are you mad?!" Miria gawked as he doffed his hat.

"Mad lustin' after a ladyfair's favor belike." He frowned as he found what he was looking for, a pack of lho sticks, totally squashed. "S'truth, Ah dun ken what came over me. Summat had ta be done, elsewise a lot ah good men, iffn ya could call them gasmasks and 'clessiarch eunuchs men, were gon end up twistin in the void." He shrugged and tossed the pack in the mud. "Jus in th' wrong place at the right time Ah reckon."

He waved off Miria's uncertain ministrations. "None a that, Ah'm fit ta go, and eager ta find th' rest a mah crew." He started off toward 301.

"We h-have vehicles recovering the other pods a-as we speak."

Some of the tension left his shoulders. "...Ah reckon thas th' best I can ask fer."

Miria nodded. "E-every effort is being made. Captain McKeon w-was quite insistent we find them a-all."

A small smile creaked across his face. "...Really. That's mighty fine a her. Looks like Ah got summat ta look forward to after all."

By the time they had linked up to the convoy again, it was nearly noon the following day. The regiment had carved a path in the jungle undergrowth easy enough to follow, and much easier to traverse than cutting through the trackless wilderness, but even so, the sun was high in the sky before Gamma was able to raise any allied elements on the vox. From there, they advanced together unmolested to the Imperial base, nestled in the valley mouth of a cave riddled mountain range.

As they rolled up, Miria saw that the staging area they were in was merely one of several, with Hydra batteries and emplaced guns dotting the cliffsides around them, and several makeshift bunkers carved out here and there. The section they were going to was especially dug in, apparently demarcated for forces from Krieg. It was crisscrossed with massive earthen and wood breastworks, gun pits, pillboxes and trenches winding up and down the section of cleared forest and only terminating at the actual mountainside itself.

Silent men in greatcoats of some variation of grey to black manned the weapon systems, tracking the approach of 300 company's armor column with their guns. Miria wondered just how willing they would be to open fire on a seemingly allied formation.

+Probably the instant they were ordered to.+

She shuddered.

The Russ ended its long, strange journey from Pallas in a dirt tarmac motor pool, surrounded by other vehicles in various states of repair.

Former captain Graves bid the crew of 301 goodbye, and went off to locate what remained of his men.

As Miria watched him walk off, as she watched Delta, Gamma and Beta begin removing their entrenching tools from the equipment racks and head off in the direction of the nearest gunpit, as Alpha pressed into her hands another perfectly filled out Munitorum requisition form (this time in a plastic waterproof sleeve) for the parts and materials they would need to repair 301, Miria was struck.

+I...I think I need to understand these people better. Alpha may have been being an ass, in his weirdly Krieg way, but he was right.+

Her servitor had come up alongside her again, his remaining eye flitting from her face to the surrounding environment. The rain was dripping from his oversized augmetics.

"I d-don't want you to get soaked again Gael, c-can you take a rest inside the tank f-for a bit?"

"This rain warm." He said.

"S-so, you like this rain?" Miria asked.

Gael brought his three sided claw out, and let the droplets patter against the limb. Rain pooled in the broad, flat fingers, and fell off the sides. He watched it for a moment, then brought his hand down again.

"Gael is helping." He intoned, clomping back to 301 and taking up a defensive stance, scanning the area for threats.

Miria felt something tighten in her chest as she watched the cyborg walk off. +He saved all our lives...and because of what he has been reduced to, I am utterly powerless to thank him in any way that would mean anything to him. What did he fail in, that was so monumental he deserved...this?+

She had several things she needed to discuss with Alpha. Badly. He had left to attend the all companies briefing being held in the command tent for the regiment, as soon as Colonel 209 and 111 had received their own briefings with the General. Miria imagined that would be happening soon, so she had a window right now where Alpha had no pressing duties, and she had an excuse in her hands in the form of her Munitorum requisition form to head to the command area as well. She started off, with one backward glance to where Gael was still slowly patrolling through the motor pool.

Gael is best Gael, great stuff as always.