RAT-TAT-TAT
The burst of my heavy stubber bit my hands, not even the callouses on them able to take the rattle of the gun from painful to merely stinging. The stink of hot metal pierced through the haze of powder and smoke, blood and puke, shit and piss, a smell that I never thought would ever be a balm on my mind. Now it was.
RAT-TAT-TAT
It continued to fire in short bursts, target picked and delivered into the beyond that awaited us all with every bullet painstakingly manufactured far away from the prying eyes of the Dark Priests that had chained us in their void-metal cage, each one containing the whispered breath of prayer for deliverance from bloodied hands working in the meager hours allotted for sleep.
RAT-TAT-TAT
I shift my aim, a servitor hastily assembled for war lumbering through a door on the left, the head still screaming and begging, the mind within able to plead for death and deliverance thanks to the shoddy job of the Dark Priests. I shoot. I ignore the screams of agony. Instead, I silently count down a number. Eight more bullets before the barrel warps.
RAT-TAT-TAT
Five. The servitor continues to lumber, bolter fused into its flesh with searing metals and biting machine spirits screaming unholy litanies as the mind is eaten and devoured, symbols that once burned in my eyes decades ago now merely whispering across its body. I ignore the voices. There was no time to listen to the whispers.
RAT-TAT-TAT
Two. The last of the burst hit something critical, causing the flesh-machine to fall over dead, and I swivel around, joining the others firing all they got downrange into the hall below us, or as best as I was able. The Soul Grinder shrieking and yelling in utter ecstasy beyond mortal comprehension, each wound another strike into supple flesh I yearned to touch, devour, to run my knife deep and bathe in the steaming blood. Later, I remind myself. Now was the time for war.
RAT-TAT-crrrk
"BARREL!" I scream, taking my hammer from my thigh and smashing it against the lever, holding the now slowly melting piece of metal in place. Only two swings are needed before the long metal rod falls, just a second before a new barrel is rammed into my gun, and I hammer the lever back up. "NEED AMMO!" I scream, aiming below, and let my gun roar its hymn of devastation unblemished by fallible metal.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT
I don't know if anything I threw against my seductive pet writhing without my touch down there did more than excite it, but I was more than willing to keep firing. All to keep the one below fighting, to help them deliver us.
Deliver us from the Dark Priests.
From the Void-Metal Cage, we labored within.
And the lies and nightmares whispering in our minds when we would dream after a shift not harsh enough to create tools and weapons for the unholy legions.
I could do no more than fire.
Fire and scream:
[] FOR THE EMPEROR!
[Dogmatic] - Three years ago, a woman came to the Void-Metal Cage, her back bent and head low like all, but her eyes were filled with fire and hatred. She was not a beast of burden like us, for most of us knew no other life as this, but a warrior, a soldier of the God-Emperor! A Commissar who rallied those able to fight, taught them many things, and gave us the spines we needed to fight back in His Holy Name. Fervour shall see us through this obstacle; discipline shall see us join the Empire once more.
(Your people will adhere to a version of the Cult Imperialis.)
(Gain Trait: The Imperium's Finest - Roll 3d6 instead of 2d6 for combat, but discard the lowest dice if you roll above a combined total of 6.)
[] FOR THE STAR CHILD!
[Iconoclastic] - He had labored here all his life alongside us, born to one forced to breed more laborers. Nothing marked him beyond the whips and teeth of machinery too hungry to wait to be fed oil, metal, and liquid. And yet, one day, he stood, two decades after assembly, and spoke. He talked to the Mutants. He talked to the Ogryns. He talked to the Laborers. And then he declared to the Dark Priests with a hymn on his lips and a screaming sword of whirring metal-teeth of the coming of the Lord, our God. We follow, for there is no death better spent than one spent to bring forth the Star Child's birth from the God-Emperor.
(Your people believe that the God-Emperor will die and be then reborn as a new God worthy of Mankind.)
(Gain Trait: A Hand To Hold The Candle - All your people are passively resistant to trivial Chaos Corruption. This can be upgraded.)
[] GODS, DELIVER YOUR SERVANTS!
[Heretical] - There was only one truth and one service left for those who had nothing and could gain everything. The Imperium would kill them all in glee if they joined, and the Galaxy would rend them asunder if they sought to build a new home amidst the stars, but the Gods...the Gods richly rewarded those who gave and sacrificed those eager and unwilling in their service. They knew that more than any, for this place, was steeped in story and potential within the Warp, and those dwelling within would be raised by their hand atop a galaxy that shall tremble before their might and before their domain. So it will be written, so it shall be read.
(Your servants are slaves to Chaos. Punishment and Reward await those who sacrifice themselves and others.)
(Gain Trait: To The Altar - You can sacrifice Actions, Units, Places, and Populations for Rewards; the greater the sacrifice, the greater the Reward. Sacrificing the willing yields more significant results.)
