Editing Ghosts of Rage (Warhammer High) (section)

=== Lockdown ===

There is a notion among most people in the Imperium that all ships have a beautiful names attached to them. As seen in holovideos throughout history, only true love can be found on such ships that travel the galaxy.

Wherever this romantic notion has come from is obviously false. This is blatantly apparent for anyone who has seen the prison vessel called the Gradgral. No love has ever been found within the many cells of this ship. In general, the Gradgral is a horrible looking vessel. It was old, and most would decide its time had come and passed long ago but somehow it managed to barely live.

Out of a population of a thousand souls on board the Gradgral, only a fifth weren’t prisoners. Most of that were naval officers and mechanics, leaving only eighty Arbites in charge of eight hundred prisoners.

Eight hundred prisoners that were some of the worst in the entire Segmentum Pacificus. These criminals were too dangerous to keep on their home planets, either due to insufficient funding by the government to keep them jailed or too many of their friends to not bust them out of prison. It was then proposed to have prison ships roam from planet to planet, shuffling criminals around until their end days. Therefore, ten to one odds made it so that the guards had to be careful not to get swarmed by the maniacs.

Thankfully, being on a ship made things easier. Choke points were strategically created to ensure that the most vital parts of the ships would not be easy to take, even with numbers. As well, all systems on the Gradgral needed voice and DNA authentication, making it hard to take control of the ship with force. Finally, with the ship being in space most of the time, there wasn’t much to escape too other than an air lock to vacuum, so most prisoners didn’t try anything funny.

All these defenses meant little to stop actually gang fighting. It was quite common for the prisoners to kill one another over rivalries and blood feuds. Although the average person in the Imperium would not care if the criminals killed one another, this wasn’t how the Imperial Lords saw it. Every prisoners’ soul belonged to the Imperium, and only the Imperium decides when they die.

This made it so that the captains couldn’t lose a certain percentage of their cargo per tour without being fined or possibly court martialled. In the Gradgral’s case, out of 800 prisoners, only 100 were allowed to die without any inquires. The ship was in its third month out of a six month trip and so far 37 prisoners were killed. The officers found this well within their expectations.

This however put a strain on the guards most of the time, having to endanger their lives to protect those who forfeited their own. That is why when there was a stabbing of an important figure of the Croms gang, the Arbites were already prepared in the corridors when the first sign of fighting began.

Captain Dain stood in front of his squad, gripping his riot shotgun carefully as he awaited his orders to march. Behind him were a dozen men and woman under his command. The majority were veterans on the ship, having served with him for several years, so his trust in their skills was absolute.

They only had one rookie with them today, a young teenager having signed up three months ago when the tour started. Usually there was a whole procedure and training involved before being allowed to join the guards, but this new recruit had shown enough skill and courage that they made a special case for this one.

Dain felt that this was a mistake. There were so many unknowns when it came to the stranger. No background search, no way of knowing if there were any ties to the prisoners on board. Plus, she was a girl so it made her an obvious target. Indeed, Kate Gunnar was a total liability for him, but orders were orders.

As being the newbie, she stood beside him in her full battle gear. Thankfully, she wasn’t allowed a stun gun yet, so she sported the standard shock maul and shield. Even with her weapons and armor equipped, she seemed totally unburdened by the weight. He could see why with her being over six feet tall and well muscled for a female at her age. At least she wasn’t a total weakling.

“How are you holding up rookie?” he asked her, having to look up to the tall woman.

The young teenager turned her head and grunted. “Alright...sir,” she added at the end. It had taken awhile for her to get used to the idea of a chain of command, but she was catching on quickly enough.

He nodded slowly as he turned back to the closed steel door. “Just stick close to the group and we will cover you. What is this, your third riot so far?”

The teenager didn’t respond to him, and Dain could imagine she was at least a bit afraid. Or she was being annoyed by his constant questions. “Its kinda unlucky, you know? You are getting off at the next port and this shit comes into the way. Ain’t that warp?”

She still said nothing. He would’ve kept pushing for a response if his commanding officer didn’t radio in a moment later. “Something’s happening Dain. Get ready to move in, thirty seconds.”

The captain nodded as he spoke over the radio to his squad. “Get ready, twenty five till the doors open.”

He heard the sound of shotguns being cocked and shock mauls turning on from his squad. Behind the large steel gate, he could already hear shouting and some fighting, knowing that they would be walking into a fight quickly enough.

“Take em down quickly and move to the next target. Unless they are on the floor, they are asking of it, understood?” he told his squad. A unified shout was all he needed to hear. They were ready.

The gate in front of him lifted as light poured in from the other side.  The sounds of fighting intensified as the door fully opened in front of them. As expected, it seemed that over a fifty prisoners in this area were fighting and things were getting worse by the moment.

“Move in!” he ordered and raised his shotgun to the closest target. He fired a moment later and stunned the man, downing him within a second. He turned to another target as the melee members of his squad moved forward, keeping the prisoners off the ranged arbites.

Four dozen guards had moved into the room in similar fashion. The response was immediate, as prisoners hated the guards more than they hated each other. The tide turned towards them as expected, and that is why people like Kate Gunnar stood in front of him with their shields while he shot them from afar.

What he didn’t expect was the new surge of prisoners from above. Although the fighting had started between the Croms gang and the Iggies, the Kefkas felt it was an obvious time to show the guards to stop meddling in their affairs. So when a new surge of sixty prisoners fell from the third floor above, Dain new shit was about to get real.

“Command, we have new targets appearing,” he shouted into his headset. “Seems like the Kefka’s want a piece of the action. Send in the-”

He was cut off when a Kefka fell on top of him from above. Dain fell over from the solid mass of man as he tried his best to wrestle his gun back. The prisoners, a large beefy man with a cybernetic eye, yelled at him wildly as he held on to the shotgun, prying it away from the captain.

He roared victoriously as he slammed the gun down on the man like a club, smashing the butt of the gun into his body repeatedly. Dain groaned from the attack, his armor only good against gun shots and knife wounds, not a blunt object. He could feel his bones breaking and wondered if this was how his career was going to come to an end, being beaten to death with his own gun.

His relief came when a shock maul slammed into the man’s ribcage, sending an electric current through his muscles. The man convulsed for a second before falling over beside Dain. Looking up, he noted that of all people in his squad, the rookie had come to save him.

Her helmet had fallen off in the fighting, showing the young woman’s face to the entire room. Her short hair whipped around as she looked for new targets. Dain had never seen such rage as Kate was portraying. With her eyes wide and teeth clenched, she looked as crazy as the prisoners in the room.

A prisoner charged from behind her, and Dain raised a hand to warn her of her impending doom. It seemed unnecessary as she turned around and slammed the face of her shield into the man’s body, sending him flying backwards. Another prisoner ran up and grabbed the shield, which she let go immediately. She immediately slammed her maul into the side of his leg and knocked him out.

One of the guards must have been downed as well, as another maul rolled up beside Kate’s feet. Picking it up with her free hand, she roared as she stepped forward, dual wielding the mauls into the mass of prisoners who dared face her.

Eventually, the prisoners began to back off from the angry teenager as she felled any challenger with exceptional ease. No one seemed to move as fast as she was, striking with such force to down even the largest of men. A group of ten prisoners stared at the angry brunette as she stepped forward, growling at them. They were stupefied and scared of the young woman, seemingly an entity of rage and fury unlike which any of them had ever seen. Another roar and she jumped forward into the mass, swinging her mauls in every direction.

As reserve guards came into the room from behind Dain, the fight began to subside as it swung back into their favor. He stood up with the help from one of his squadmates as he continued to watch the destruction that followed Kate Gunnar.

---

The riot was eventually pacified, after a further half hour of fighting. In total, 8 prisoners were killed, bringing the tally up to 45 deaths in total. As well five guards were injured, some that would take months to heal, two were dead. Somehow, the deaths of the guards did not count to the total.

Dain ached all over, but that didn’t stop him from completing his work. Indeed, he had reports to write, letters for the dead guards, check in with his commanding officer. As well, he had to take care of the rookie standing in front of him.

Indeed, everyone on the ship knew her as Kate Gunnar, a new recruit and apparently the hero from that day’s riot. Having felled over two dozen prisoners and saved the life of Captain Dain, her reputation had grown substantially. Yet no one knew her real name, one that would raise many questions about her past.

Indeed, Furia had kept the name her name a secret for obvious reason. If news got around that the a royal member, heiress of the World Eaters Legion, was travelling on one of the most dangerous ships in the segmentum, then it would be long before the Imperial dogs came chasing.

Only one year had passed since she had left Terra and she had changed since then. She was taller, beginning to look like a true primarch. She had grown in her strength, giving her more of a muscular look then what she had in high school. She didn’t have the mass that her uncles did, so she still kept her slim figure. From a distance, she looked like a girl, but as you got closer, you would need to be careful to treat her anything less than a fighter.  She no longer dyed her hair red, keeping it to the natural brown she was born with.

Dain nodded as he finished filling out her request. “You sure about this Kate? Could use someone like you on the ship for much longer.”

She grunted. “Positive. I’m getting off at the next stop.”

Dain shrugged at her, not understanding. “From everything I remember, Nenavist is a shit hole. There are better ports you know.”

She shook her head at him. “Nenavist is what I signed up for. That was the agreement.”

“Yeah, I remember. Funny, I was going to refuse letting you go like this since it was so unconventional. Warp, you are a mystery to me Kate. But you saved my life today.” He signed the papers and handed them to the tall teenager. “The ship should be coming out of warp within a couple hours. Best of luck, Kate.”