“Fuck” Jerricus sighed. “This job is going to be the death of me”. Jerricus pulled himself up from the ledge from which he was hanging. He sat down on the edge of a small but quite secluded little balcony and started to massage his hands. Which fucking Guardsman takes 25 min to smoke a Lho-stick! And on the captain’s balcony no less. Didn’t he have rounds to do? Or some weapon cleaning or some shit? There really was a lack of discipline in the Imperium’s Finest. He looked out of the Hive whilst trying to relax his muscles. The air really was cleaner on the top levels of the hive.
He heard his master speak about the upper levels quite a bit but he always thought he was exaggerating. Here he found out that everything was true about those bold statements. He could even nearly, if ever so slightly, make out the faint blue hue of what must be the sky. At first he wasn’t so keen on coming here and stealing from the Imperial Guard, he didn’t trust the client his master has spoken about someone going by L.G. or something like it, but even though he did not yet have what they came for his pockets were already full with small gold trinkets. He stood up, muscles finally ready to proceed after having been forced to hang from this very balcony. Slowly he made his way over to the window, looking into it to see if the chamber was still empty. It seemed to be safe. He tripped the lock of the window, pushed it open and took a handful of the dreary flowers on the windowsill and crushed them in his hand before going in. He was going to need all the luck he could pluck.
With quick firm steps he went over to the big cabinet on the other side of the room and pulled it open. Inside he found the ledger he needed, just as his master predicted it would be. How his master came to know so much about the layout of the place still was a secret to Jerricus. Even after being the apprentice to Master Kane for about 3 years now he still wasn’t made privy to all the old man’s secrets. He leafed through the ledger and saw that it was the names of all the deserters from the last 5 years. There weren’t quite so many as he thought. Only about 200 names divided among 20 pages. Irvine, Morren, Holmes, Kellam, Leo, Nictis, Savant, Marth, Dred and Woods were the ones open on this page. Poor fucking basterds. Everyone knew that deserters were hunted down quite fiercely by various bounty hunters. They normally don’t last long.
He tucked the book safely in a small sack, already quite full with golden trinkets, and roped it tightly around his waist. “One down, one to go” he breathed to himself. It was his most high profile job up until now, breaking into the Imperial Guard recruitment center of the hive, stealing the ledger and killing a certain Captain Dane. This job was going to confirm him as a real assassin, not just the apprentice of Master Kane, but someone capable of handling even the most dangerous jobs available. He took a quick glance at the Captain’s itinerary open on his desk before heading out. “Perfect” he thought to himself as he made his way through the door to the left of the desk. The Captain is in prayer at the chapel on the floor below. His master told him that Dane was a firm follower of a radical sub faction of the ecclesiarchy know as the “Witnesses” and a believer as devout as Captain Dane will surely conduct his prayers in solitude, not wanting to be disturbed by loudmouthed Guardsmen.
Slowly he made his way through the hall which he knew would be as good as empty whist Captain Dane was praying. When he came upon the floor below he saw 2 men guarding the entrance of the antechamber leading to the enclosed chapel. He took out a hallucinogen grenade prepared specifically for this, rolled it towards the guards after checking if his facemask was tightly secured. The gas escaped odorless and colorless from the container. When they noticed the small ball at their feet it was already too late. They went down like bricks. Moving quickly towards them Jerricus caught one of them and in a flurry of movement pulled him aside in the antechamber and hid him from sight. The second guard swiftly followed the first.
Jerricus looked around the room, he could see a window with a couple of dehydrated weeds on the outside windowsill, and a door leading to what must be the chapel. “Maybe I just need a tad more luck “he stepped over to the window, opened it, took a handful of weeds and started to crush them in his hand. All of a sudden a hand reached up to his face, took him by the collar and tried to pull him through the window onto the pavement 5 stories down. He only weighed 55 kg but they were 55 kg of pure muscle, he braced against the window and pushed back with all his might. His attacker sensed the sudden weight shift and instead of pulling, pushed himself up. The momentum helped his assailant to get a perch upon the windowsill. Without any weight hanging down his collar Jerricus shot back and fell down on his behind. He looked up to the window and saw a woman in tight black body armor, with small copper buttons on the wrist guards, a half facemask leaving only her mouth uncovered and small crane’s engraved on the double daggers sticking out on both sides of her belt. He recognized her instantly. “Goddamit Zofia!” he whispered whilst listening for any sound coming from the chapel. “The fuck are you doing here?” Zofia looked back at Jerricus with incredulity. “Me?” she whispered back “what about you?”
“This is my fucking part of the hive, nobody steals in these parts but me!” she hissed. She was getting angrier by the second judging by the pitch of her voice. “I’m on a job! Just be quiet, there is a Captain in the room next door “. “That’s impossible Jerricus, I know your master won’t send you on these kinds of jobs just yet!” “You are just here to steal on my territory, to get back at me for not showing up last time”. “Zofia shut the fuck up!” he mouthed and tried to take her arm and pull her away from the door. She saw him reaching for her arm and with lightning fast reflexes took the finger on his outstretched hand and squeezed. Hard. Jerricus couldn’t stifle a yelp of pain. They both heard a voice from the Chapel shouting: ”Now I’ve had it!” “Prepare to work shoveling shit for the next 2 weeks” “trying to interrupt my prayers” “Ha, well see about that!”
Captain Dane opened up the door leading to the antechamber thinking to find Derek and Soren talking to each other. Fully prepared to unload a shitload of verbal abuse on their heads. But instead saw something else entirely. In the antechamber a man was halfway to his knees, and a woman was holding his hand in some kind of lock shouting something about liars and thieves. He began to shout.
ALARM! INTRUDERS!
“Fuck” Jerricus sighed. Zofia noticed the Captain at the same time as he did. When people had to describe Zofia they said a lot of things. Things like: Beautiful, nuts, mentally ill, hot, insane, unreasonable, deranged, gorgeous, irrational, irresponsible, really fucking bat-shit crazy. But no one would ever call Zofia Nox slow. In the blink of an eye she drew the two daggers on the sides of her belt and threw them in one fluid motion towards Captain Dane. He had no chance whatsoever. The first dagger pierced his throat and the second his heart.
“Fuck!” Jerricus said, impression clearly audible in his voice. “Nice fucking throw Zofia!” She looked at him as a huge grin split her face in two. “I guess you weren’t lying after all Shiv” calling him by his nickname. “Even dead he looks like a captain”. Jerricus started to hear muffled footsteps and voices coming from several floors down. “We need to go now!” Zofia looked up at him “Hey! I know, let’s make a fire!” She was really fucking crazy. “What do you mean!? We need to leave right fucking now!” Jerricus shouted. “You know a fire as a distraction!” she exclaimed happily “They work bloody brilliant as a distraction, I always wanted to torch something pretty!” “Torch the place with me Shiv! Afterwards we will escape using the rope I used to climb to the window.”
I am not having this conversation Jerricus thought to himself as he walked to the window. Lo and behold there was a rope leading from the window down to a small ledge from which they could easily escape through a garbage chute. He took a hold of Zofia just as he saw two burly guards coming through the door and jumped through the window.
