Arkhans Story Part 1

 

Panthos 5 Agri world

Arkhan grunted as he pushed the hard metal of the Agri crawler,
"Come on guys heave!!" a gruff voice yelled that was Silus Khatkes the crew boss,
Arkhan dug his heels in and started to push. The Agri crawler a large 8 wheeled heavy monster was stuck in some mud only just but enough to force the entire work crew to have waste hours getting it out.
"Now you'd think an Agri crawler could go on agricultural land wouldn't you....yet here we are" the voice belonged to Shem Varatorn. Arkhan turned to face Shem with a smile on his face
"You'd think so wouldn't you?"
The Agri Crawler lurched forward, a few ears of corn dropped out of the storage tank and Arkhan collapsed into the mud as the weight he was pushing against suddenly moved, Shem laughed, took a drag on his Lho Stick and put a hand out for Arkhan to take.
" So missing the big hive yet?" he said as he pulled Arkhan up. Arkhan grimaced at the wet sticky mud on his work overalls,
"No chance,  I can actually breath out here"
Shem looked around and nodded. Little did he know Arkhan had ment more than just being free from the constant smog of the factories. Free from his old life, free from the gang, free from looking over his shoulder for Arbites or a rival gang.
"Mount up!" a voice from the front shouted. That was Silus Khatkes, obviously time to head back to camp. He wouldn't be happy with the delay and only a half full Agri crawler Arkhan thought. Arkhan cambered up onto the crawler and found a spot. The other crew were finding a spot too, no one liked to walk back to camp. Shem was sat on a wheel arch just below Arkhan, the crawler rumbled forward and Arkhan gripped the bar he was next to for stability. He lent back and stared at the sky, the sun was going down and he was starting to see the stars.  He noticed flashes amongst the stars.
"Hey Shem, is that normal?" he asked looking up. Shem was pulling out a ration bar,
"Hey I know we're friends but we ain't that close ha ha ha"  he laughed a deep friendly laugh. Arkhan rolled his eyes,
"I ment that, you frakhead" he pointed up. Shem looked up and studied the flashes. He removed his hat and scratched his head.
"Now I ain't never seen anything  like that before".
They both stared at the sky, one star suddenly started to get brighter. Arkhan started to worry he looked to Shem hoping that he would laugh at his 'Big city' of ignorance but he could see the confusion in Shems eyes.
"Silus! Silus!! What's that?" Shem was pointing up. The rest of the work crew all started to look up. The star was now burning a trail across the evening sky still getting closer. The crawler stopped and a large bellied man stood up from the controls. He stared up, scratched his head.
" That there is a meteorite I reckon."
The ball of fire arched and disappeared behind a hill to the right of the crawler. A loud rumble and flash indicated what ever it was had hit the ground. The ground shook sending a few of the guys off the crawler. Arkhan jumped down and helped a man called Elam up. Silus looked around,
"I reckon we go and have a look at this here meteorite. Might be something valuable to make this frak of a day better"
Arkhan grunted in agreement, extra credits are always good and he'd never seen a meteorite before. Everyone clambered back aboard and Silus headed in the direction of where the meteorite may have landed.

They started to see the scorched earth where the meteorite had ploughed a path along the ground. Flames flickered in the damaged earth as they followed the trail Arkhan saw something glint in a flame light. He spotted a chunk of broke bent metal, no wait several chunks of metal all along the trail. He climbed to the front of the crawler
"Silus, do meteorites normal contain chunks of metal?" Arkhan asked,
Silus looked at him with a quizzically SO Arkhan pointed at the ground. Silus looked down,
"Now a meteorite does contain metal but that right there looks man-made. Well this is a conundrum... OK well looks like we will find out, look over there"
Arkhan looked ahead, stuck into the ground was a twisted lump of metal and Arkhan saw it was certainly man made.
The crawler stopped and the work crew all jumped off and walked as close as they dare to the burning chunk of metal. Arkhan could see it was a type of vehicle but apart from the crawler and a few small vehicles he hadn't seen that many. Not to many in the depths of the Hive. Shem stood next to him taking a drag on his Lho stick,
"What in the emperors name is that?"
Several of the crew muttered similar questions.
"It's a navy fighter." a voice piped up. Arkhan looked around he hadn't heard that voice before. A tall older man with a shaved head had spoken, Arkhan recognised him as Dax. They hadn't spoken but he remembered Shem pointing him out, Dax kept himself to himself and worked hard.
Silus went and stood next to him,
"How'd you know that Dax?"
Dax kicked over some of the hot metal
"Looks there's navy markings and when I was in the PDF we were sent to a crash site for a navy craft and it looked a lot like this.  We should have a search round see of we can find any bodies" Dax said in reserved quiet voice almost like he didn't want to advertise his PDF service.
Silus clapped his hands,
"OK let's have a good search round and see what we can find" the work crew started to seperate and look around the area.
Shem and Arkhan followed a smaller trail ripped into the ground into some trees.
"Well it don't look good. Those flickering stars and now this. Somethings going on up there." he looked up as if to add to his point, Arkhan had no idea, born and raised in the Hive he hadn't seen the sky until he had bought passage from out of the hive. His old life didn't leave a lot of time for wondering about things off world. What Shem said made a feeling in the back of his neck pick up. He hadn't felt that feeling for a long time. The feeling when your walking through an old bit of the Hive and younknow something bad is going to happen.
The 2 walked another 10 or so metres and discovered another bit of wreckage lying next to it was body. Arkhan walked over to it, he saw a male in some kind of overall, he was clearly dead his neck was at a wierd angle and was missing an arm.
"frak man I have never seen anything like that before" Shem said from behind Arkhan.  Arkhan thought to himself sadly I have seen worse.
Arkhan bent down next to the body and went through his pockets looking for some ID. He found a necklace with some tags on, he looked at them
"Ratibor Vaararn" he said to no one in particular. Shem turned round  from what he was looking at.
"Emperor watch over you Ratibor Vaararn".
Arkhan pulled out a packet of Lho Sticks from the man's pocket. He turned to Shem,
"Here ya go. He won't need them any more" he tossed the pack to Shem who caught them with one hand.
"Thanks Ratibor. We should head back"  Shem said
"Yeah you're right." as Arkhan stood back up he noticed a glint in a Bush to the right of the body. Shem was looking back towards the work crew and didn't seem to notice it. Arkhan went over to the Bush and bent down. Lying just inside was a  sleek green Las pistol, much nicer than the ones from the under Hive. Which would make sense as it was navy issue not hang issue. He tucked thr Las pistol into his waist band and went back over to Ratibor Vaararns body. He had a quick scan and found what he was after, 3 power packs for the Las pistol. He quickly shoved them in his pockets,
"You coming?" Shem shouted
A flash of panic what would Shem think of he saw him? Arkhan would certainly have to answer some awkward questions. Why had he took the pistol Arkhan didn't know but he still couldn't shake that feeling that something bad was gonna happen. It had kept him alive in thebunderhive so he didn't question it.
"Arkhan what you doing for thrones sake?" Shem had turned back towards where they had find the navy pilot.
Arkhan thought quickly,

He took one of the tags from around the neck and stood up. 

"just getting one of his tags. I figure Silus can hand it up the chain so someone knows where this poor frak ended up".

Shem looked thoughtful,

"Grand idea"

The 2 walked back to the main crash site

. Everyone was staring to gather back round. Silus came up to Shem and Arkhan,

"Find anything?" he asked. He looked worried Arkhan could tell.

"More wreckage bit we did find a body." Arkhan handed Silus the tag

"Ratibor Vaararn. Guessing pilot or crew"

Silus took the tag solemnly.

"Thats something at least. OK people let's head back. We have a pilots name so when we get back to town we can use the town vox to report this crash. We also got some bits of kit that I reckon will make us some extra credits."  everyone climbed back onboard the crawler. And Silus started to drive back to town.

As the work crew all sat silently on the journey back their peace was shattered by a loud horn. Dax was the first to sit up,

" What the hell? That's the Hive alarm. I haven't heard that in fifteen years!"

Everyone was up now and staring at the Hive. It was so large you could always see it from quite far away. The air around the Hive shimmered with a faint blue light.

"That's the void shields" Dax said. Silus had stopped the crawler to look now. Arkhan knew his feeling had been correct, he vaguely remembered something about the horn being tested when he was a child in the Hive but the underhive had little concerns about the rest of the Hive you mostly were just trying to stay alive.

Flashes erupted from the Hive and traces of fire leapt skyward into the clouds. Then the sounds came, huge booms rolled like thunder. The void shields flickered and several large explosions lit up the evening sky. Dots in the sky could be seen now zipping around the hive.then a large ship appeared through the clouds. The space ship was huge and looked like it shouldn't be landing on a planet. The ship came down and crashed into the ground. A second later the sound of the ship hitting the ground hit Arkhan and the work crew. It was the loudest sound Arkhan had ever heard the ground rumbled and a huge dirt cloud was thrown into the air.

"We need to get back to town now!" Silus shouted. The crawler started moving. All the crew could watch in shock as the explosions kept erupting on the Hives shields.

Arkhan couldn't help but wonder what was happening In the Hive. Would the people he knew know anything about this. The under hive was pretty cut off. He felt a pang of guilt for leaving but it passed quickly. A red flyer screeched over head, Arkhan swore he saw a green inhuman pilot grinning madly. Another flyer appeared a grey winged vehicle with a silver Aquila on the wings. It flew behind the red flyer. Flashes erupted from the wings and the red flyer disintegrated in mid air some of the work crew cheered.

Arkhan turned to the crew

"Did you guys see the pilot. What was that thing?"

Dax faced Arkhan

"That was an ork. We are in serious trouble. 

Arkhan scratched his head, 

" Um, Dax whats an ork? "