Editing 97th Conglomerate's Tyrannic War (section)

=== Part 2: Deployment Day Minus 2 ===
Warp travel afforded one nothing remotely resembling restful sleep. This had become something that Samson hoped came with experience, but he’s tried to sleep through Warp trips more than enough times to realize he was deluded if he read any truth in it. He awoke, groggy and mildly depressed, but also nervous. As he got out of his bunk in the barracks, he was immediately faced by a woman standing and glaring at him not 6 inches from his face.

She was about half a head shorter than he was, yet still intimidating. Her hair was butch, short, and messy, almost like a man’s. She had captivating eyes, soft features, but scarred like a veteran. A vertical scar cut downwards from the direction of the nose across her mouth on her left side, and one very long scar went from the edge of her right eye all the way up across her scalp, stopping almost at the ear. Her light blue eyes starkly contrasted her dark brown hair. She was dressed like Samson, having just woken up, in standard issue grey boxer shorts and a pale grey undershirt. Hers was only different in that it revealed a good deal of her midriff. 

“Who the feck you lookin’ at?” She sounded pissed and annoyed, sneering at him. Samson could immediately tell she came from a very Low Gothic world, especially in the way she basically failed to pronounce the ‘h’ sound in ‘who’. She was sizing him up, determining if she’d just gotten pissed at the wrong person. She had never seen him before, but he looked a certain type. She took a step back. “Oh, you’re the fresh meat, aren’t you?” 

“What?” Samson asked, still disoriented from having just woken up. 

“I didn’t bloody well stutter.” She jabbed her finger into his chest forcefully. Her voice became less Low Gothic as she calmed down. She turned around, spinning on her bare feet back to her bunk. 

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Samson asked, trying not to get too distracted by the sway of her hips. She wasn’t particularly butch, but she hadn’t lost any of her femininity to being a member of the Guard. She had dainty feet, slender legs, and an almost perfect curvature to her features, especially the contours of her neck. ''Hold yourself together Samson… I’m pretty sure this is [[Heresy]] what I’m contemplating…''

“That’s none of your bloody business, fresh meat.” She bit, shooting him a sideways glance while she turned and stood for a moment facing her bunk. Samson had a perfect view of her profile. She wasn’t absurdly buxom like what most people imagined, but she wasn’t a damn washboard either. She was a damn near perfectly desirable balance between femininity and masculinity. Most of her femininity was in her figure, and the masculinity was in her attitude and personality. “What about yours?”

“That’s… none of your bloody business.” Samson replied almost cleverly. She gave him a smirk as she bent down and slid her footlocker out from underneath the bottom bunk, her dog-tags jingling against each other under her shirt. 

“Well, if you’re the new guy…” She began, opening the footlocker and starting by buttoning up her fatigue shirt. “… Aren’t you to be reporting to Quartermaster Sentzke?”

“I guess so.” Samson replied, now having started getting dressed himself. He couldn’t help but scan her up and down as she pulled the trousers up over her legs. 

“Well, in that case, walk with me.” She said, finishing lacing up her boots. Samson now rushed to finish getting dressed, for fear that she’d walk off without him. 

No more than 5 minutes later they were walking down the long corridor to the common areas. Incense burned every 10 meters-ish and Mechanicus symbols were embossed on almost every door that was restricted to Guardsmen access. Their heavy combat boots made a dull thud with each footfall on the metal floor of the corridor. For a while they hadn’t said a word to each other, the woman not thinking it worth her time, and Samson having been too nervous to even know what say without sounding like an idiot. As the woman kept looking at the Samson out of the corner of her eye, she couldn’t help but notice just how green he looked.

“So how’d a muppet like you get plucked for the 97th?” She asked, her voice failing to echo due to white noise created by the ship’s ceaseless thrumming. The broken silence caught Samson off guard and he flinched. 

“I was part of a unit that had seen combat before…” He replied, trying to avoid the subject. 

The pair emerged from the end of the hallway into a massive hangar bay that had been crudely converted into something resembling a town or something. This was the common area, something like a central square. To the right as they came in was a court for sport-like activities. In another area were alcoves where mess shops were, guardsman sitting at the tables eating and chatting amongst themselves. In the back corner in the distance (almost 300 meters away), there were training areas with building mock-ups and live-fire ranges. Samson found himself shocked to hear the cacophonous clatter of autogun fire echoing through the crowded shanty buildings. To add, the whole space was alive with the sound of chit-chat and power tools, the smell of mechanical grease and cooking grox meat, and the air had a vaguely metallic taste to it. The whole complex reminded him of an urban world hab-block. 

“Lead the way.” Samson stepped to the side and gestured with his arm for her to go first, being that she was the one helping him find the Quartermaster’s office. She walked just past him, making sure he was following her close enough to continue the conversation. 

“Care to be a bit more descriptive, shiny?” She toyed, trying to coax the details out of him with her bottomless wit and charm (lol).

“I’d rather not. I’m here with 97th now, despite how I shouldn’t be.” He mumbled the last words with more than a bit of irritation. She took note of his tone.

“I get it…” She comforted, cutting back down an alleyway with Samson in tow. “… We all have a past. Some of us are just more proud of it than others.”

“Thanks.” Samson gratified, feeling somewhat assuaged by her consideration. He looked around, his head on a swivel as she walked towards a door in an alley square that opened into an area with some dust bins, a large commercial garbage compactor, and a few benches. He felt, well, lost. “Where the hell are we?”

“Quartermaster’s.” She replied, as if it’d be obvious. She gestured, pointing lazily and generally towards the door. It was an old metal door with oil stains crawling down from the top and around the knob. “He doesn’t like the commotion of the rec area.” She pointed out. She waited till he was on the doorstep with her, standing under the dark red awning that hung over it.

When the door opened, Samson was greeted by shelves and counters and rolling tables and racks covered in junk. When he said junk, he meant junk. All manner of spare parts, knickknacks, supplies, kit, and anything else you could think of but food, booze, and women. He ambled around the store, scanning and skimming over all this junk while the woman made her way to the back behind the counter, checking the back room for the Quartermaster. One thing Samson noticed almost immediately was the lack of anything related to lasguns. Like, there were maybe one or two things that might’ve been add-ons, but none of the standard equipment that you usually see in a Quartermaster’s inventory. Power packs, focusing lenses, hot-shot packs, recharger packs, scopes, all seemed to be absent. Samson had just picked up a peculiar box magazine with old metal slugs in it, the kind with a brass jacket and all, when he heard rustling in the back room.

“AGH, FECK OFF NATASHA!” Called the gravelly voice of a man over the sound of someone punching someone else. 

“Then don’t sleep on the fecking job, you stupid sonovabitch!” Her voice carried, clearly pissed off at the Quartermaster (assuming that was the man’s voice). She walked out of the doorway, placing her bum on the counter and spun, swinging her legs over to the store-side of it. The man stood in the doorframe behind her, rubbing his left arm and shoulder. Well, now Samson knew who was doing the punching. Crossing her arms, the woman gave hasty introductions, still bitterly pissed in her tone. “Sentzke, this is the shiny.” She gestured at Samson. “Shiny, this is the Quartermaster, Staff Sergeant Sentzke.” She gestured at the man she had just finished wailing on. 

“Pleasure to meet you, sir.” Samson nodded, trying to be a bit more formal, and trying a bit to cool off the tension between Sentzke and the woman, crossing his arms behind his back at ease. “Private Samson, sir." He added, indicating himself. 

“First off, I’m not an officer, so don’t call me sir.” Sentzke began, starting to the counter where he began opening drawers searching for Samson’s requisition sheet. “You may either address me as Sergeant, or simply Sentzke.” The rough man was short, had dark eyes, dark hair, a face of scruffy stubble, and… huh, Samson had only just noticed that Sentzke’s left hand was augmetic. He had a broad face and nose, rough features, and a good number of predominant scars that crisscrossed his face like a road map. “Secondly, don’t touch shit without asking.” His deep, gravelly voice was intimidating to Samson, to say the least.

“Sorry, sir- Sergeant.” Samson would need to get used to that. At last, Sentzke found the slip of parchment in the drawer with the requisition list for Private Samson. “Do you guys not have dataslates?”

“Well, when you have a regiment with the absurdly complex logistics ours has, most of the other crew on the ship get dataslates, not people like Company Quartermasters.” Sentzke replied. He walked out from behind the counter and began scanning shelves and countertops for the items on the list, naming the items as he grabbed them, dropping them in a disorganized pile on the main counter next to the cogitator. “1 undershirt, Black. 1 fatigue pants, Dark Grey. 1 fatigue jacket, Dark Grey. 1 pair combat boots, 18-hole, Black, steel-toed. 1 pair carapace boot spats, Black. 1 set torso carapace armour, Mephiston Red…” 

''Carapace Armour?'' Samson’s surprise was apparent on his face as his thoughts cut in while Sentzke listed dryly. ''Is that standard for the whole regiment?'' Sentzke simply continued while Samson mulled it over in his head. 

“… 1 pair carapace pauldrons, Mephiston Red. 1 carapace helmet, Mephiston Red…” Samson drifted off as Sentzke listed the mundane supplies like underwear and toiletries. 

His attention peaked when the Quartermaster walked into the back room behind the counter. He moved toward the counter near the cogitator as Sentzke’s, bracing his arms against the old wooden surface of the countertop. He turned and looked over his shoulder at the woman, whose name he was trying to remember. 

''I remember Sentzke yelling at her by name…'' He thought straining to remember, which showed a bit on his face as though he were worried.

“You okay, Samson?” She asked, almost concerned. She was leaning up against a set of shelves, her arms crossed just under her bust and her feet crossed halfway down the shin. 

“Yeah.” He waved off the feeling. He couldn’t help but feel his face go flushed and hot as he jerked his body back forward, glaring across the counter at a spot on the wall. 

He turned around to look at her again, but then she started doing a series of gestures with her hands, mouthing words to explain the meaning. One gesture was her simply raising her middle finger, followed by pointing at herself. Then there was a gesture where one hand made a ring with her index finger and thumb, and the other hand’s index finger… well, Samson understood her meaning immediately. His mind raced and he couldn’t even think straight with all the blood that had rushed to his head and ''his (other) head''. His attention was snapped back to the task at hand when the voice of Quartermaster Sentzke faded back into the room. 

“… 1 Autogun, Mars Pattern, M35. 1 utility belt, Black. Ammunition and other non-standard kit will be subject to approval by your Platoon Officer and, beyond that, your Sergeant.” Sentzke concluded, flipping the requisition list back and forth looking for the sergeant's name when he stifled a laugh through his nose. 

“Is there a problem, Sentzke?” The woman asked, unamused. 

“Natasha, you’re gonna feckin’ hate me…” Sentzke said through the teeth of his shit-eating grin. 

“No…” She looked like she realized what he was saying. The whole time Samson’s eyes had been shooting back and forth between each of them as each of them spoke. 

“What’s going on?!” Samson barked in confusion, annoyed that they spoke like he wasn’t here. Sentzke raised a finger to Samson. 

“Your sergeant, Private Samson, is the gruff woman known as Natasha Octavius.” Sentzke said almost formally. It didn’t take long for Samson’s gaze to immediately shoot to the woman who had just… well, you know. She almost immediately glared at Samson the second he looked to her. Her eyes burned through him, realizing her face was flushing pink because of what she had done only moments ago. She composed herself, pinched the bridge of her nose, and looked at Sentzke almost calmly when her head rose again. 

“Please be shitting me…” She pleaded, to which Sentzke gave a look that said he was enjoying this a bit too much. “You have to be shitting me…” 

“I’m sorry…” Samson said apologetically, feeling a tightening in his stomach. 

“Forget it.” She said with frustration, stomping towards the door. “Grab your kit and meet me at the range.”

It took Samson about 20 minutes to get kitted up and find the firing range. The autogun was heavy, much heavier than the lasgun he was so used to carrying back with his old regiment. The weapon lacked a magazine in its well, and was made of heavy black metals. Samson had never seen a weapon like it, little lone fired one. When he got to the line of firing stations Natasha was waiting for him, her butt rested on the edge of an ammunition crate. She shot him an annoyed glance, heavily regretting her… forwardness, in the Quartermaster’s office. She pushed her buttocks off the crates and stood to her full height of 5’7” and stepped towards Samson with one hand held outwards. 

“Your weapon…” She requested, waiting with her hand. Samson swung the heavy rifle around with his left hand, since his right was still lugging an awkwardly large rucksack. 

She accepted the weapon effortlessly and stood it on its butt on the ammo crates she had been sitting on. She field-stripped the weapon and Samson made note of the numerous components and moving parts. While no more than 10 parts, it was a lot more than the normal 2 a lasgun had. She picked up the weapon and looked down the length of the rifle’s iron sights, making sure Sentzke hadn’t given him complete shit. When she had finished her inspection of the components, she reassembled the rifle and handed the finished product back to Samson. 

“Now strip it.” She said bluntly, more of a statement than an order.

“Um, what?” Samson was immediately confused, his jaw slackening. 

“I didn’t stutter, Guardsman!” She threw the rifle into Samson’s gut, forcing him to drop his rucksack and keep the weapon from smacking into the ground. “I SAID STRIP IT!” 

Several hours of yelling and tedious instruction followed, until Samson could execute a field strip in less than a minute. This was nowhere near the blindingly fast 17 seconds it took Natasha to strip the rifle. 

“Now go to Station 1 and sight the nearest target.” She pointed to the station at the far left of the range, the end they were at. No one ever took Station 1 because it was the farthest walk from the rest of the hab-block. 

Samson walked up to the counter, slapped a single clip up into the magazine-well of the rifle, and placed an extra magazine down on the counter. Yanking back and slapping home the charging handle with a satisfying clack, he raised his exceedingly heavy rifle towards the nearest target at 25 meters. The weapon's weight was hard to support, his arms trembling slightly and the weapons sights swaying lazily across the center of the red and blue concentric rings of the ballistic foam sheet that hung from the ceiling rails. 

“Are you waiting for a fecking invitation?” The sergeant taunted. “Shoot the bloody thing!” With that, Samson squeezed the trigger for a brief moment.

The gun barked out a clattering staccato of metal slugs towards the target, the recoil sending the practically-fresh Private stumbling backwards, fighting being thrown by the weapon’s instability and weight. He recovered from the burst and held the rifle at ease, looking back at the sergeant. 

“Let me guess...” He began, looking at the sergeant with sympathetic eyes. “… It’s going to be a long day.”

“I don’t even think you have something resembling a clue.” The disgruntled NCO replied, rolling her eyes. She grabbed his rifle and showed him how it was done.