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“I bet you can’t hit that shot.”
Warden-763 turned his faceplate to look at his current Inquisition operative ally. Who was, as some would say, ‘grinning ear to ear’.
It had begun only recently, the Alpha Primus Skitarii units cooperating with the forces of Inquisitor Grendyl. Over the course of a month, the Skitarii forces had done wonderfully in increasing the combat potential of the Inqusitorial forces aboard the Mourningstar, but as expected, there were…
Well. If one were feeling charitable, one might call them ‘growing pains’. One cannot expect the elite foot soldiers forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus to get along quite so easily with these ‘rejects’.
But, the mountain of Moebian 6th corpses being picked over for plasteel and diamantine behind them by their other two allies were a testament to their skills when combined.
“This one will not rise to cheap provocation,” was the Skitarii ranger’s answer to his Veteran ally, whose grin had now fallen off a bridge into a scowl. Speaking of bridges, the wind (not actually wind, more likely an errant piece of machinery down here in Throneside causing air to escape) blew fiercely, causing Warden-763’s red robes to rustle with the movement, alongside his nearest ally’s backpack, filled to the brim with weapon materials.
“Aw, you’re no fun,” the Veteran replied. “Not even for all the plasteel I have on me?”
“No.” Warden-763’s galvanic rifle was brought up. Metallic finger off the trigger circuit, the butt of the rifle brought into the shoulder plate as the barrel was pointed straight up.
“What, afraid you can’t make that shot?”
Warden-763 looked back to the heretic in question. Down the very, very long bridge was a heretic soldier of the Moebian 6th with a communications unit for a backpack, currently reporting in to his superiors about the fact that a Mourningstar team had just made contact with his unit.
His very, very, very dead unit that was currently being picked over for spare rations by a hungry ogryn.
The distance, all told, was about one-point-three miles. For an unaugmented human, that’s quite the distance. The Veteran needed to squint to see any details on the heretic he was pointing out.
“No. This one is more than capable of acquiring that target.”
“Then hit it! Come on, what’s the point of not shooting him!?”
“Because it makes you angry,” came the reply that made the Veteran throw his arms in the air.
“Oh, NOW you have a personality! You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
Warden-763 turned away, rifle still pointing upwards. The other half of their team, the psyker and the ogryn, must be made aware that it was time to move on. They had lingered quite long enough-
“All those augments and upgrades must be damn useless, eh?”
BANG!
The ogryn and the psyker both snapped their head towards the sound, and the Veteran damn near jumped out of his skin as Warden-763, in one smooth motion that took approximately zero-point-five seconds:
Stopped.
Pivoted.
Shouldered the rifle.
Aimed.
And fired.
The Veteran looked, agape, from the smoke of the rifle, to the heretic he had pointed out earlier—
Only to see the Moebian communications officer crumple like a puppet with its strings cut, a smoking blue hole in his helmet.
“…karking Hel,” the Veteran muttered, hands going to his own helmet. He quickly grabs his las rifle, going to rush to the others to tell them they needed to get going…
When a metal hand grabs his shoulder. He stops, turns, looks—
Only to see that same metal hand outstretched.
“The plasteel.”
“…HAH!” A quick laughs escapes the unaugmented human, before he quickly hands the Skitarii his backpack filled with loot.
“You ain’t so bad, you know.”
The Veteran couldn’t believe his ears when he heard a quiet scoff of amusement from the Ranger.