Colonel Sandino seethed with anger. He and his men had just returned from a years-long voyage for the Inquisition, faced perils and horrors both from xenos and warp-spawn, and had only managed the final few light-years to a civilized planet due to the assistance of an off-course transport barge.
Only to be told at the last by this pompous, petty excuse for a local monarch that his men would have to wait in orbit for another month!
The monarch’s advisor spoke for the King: “I’m sure you understand the need for this, Colonel – some of your crew had contact with the transport barge before the outbreak of the plague that debilitates them so grievously. To allow any chance of contagion on the planet is simply unthinkable.”
Colonel Sandino clamped down on his anger. It wasn't contagion this pathetic little monarch feared, but the presence of the Colonel's elite commandos on a planet he ruled only because he controlled the only armed force. He tried again, looking the King directly in the eye where he sat in his ornate throne behind his advisors.
“There has been no sign of contagion aboard my ship, your Majesty, as the Sister Hospitaller confirmed before my officers and I were allowed down…”
“I’m sorry, Colonel,” the advisor interrupted smoothly, “but it simply cannot…”
“I’m speaking to the King, you fool!” Sandino snapped, as his iron control broke. Rage carving a snarl across his face, he surged up from his knees, backhanding the advisor and mounting the steps to the throne.
“Listen, you royal son of a-“
The Colonel’s tirade cut off short as a pair of Royal Guardsmen leveled their stun pikes and triggered jolts of energy into his chest. The world went gray. Distantly, he heard shouts, several thumps, and then more stun pikes as his unarmed officers leaped up from their knees, only to be shocked back down by the Royal Guardsmen behind them.
Just before he blacked out entirely, the Colonel heard a high-pitched voice, close at hand – the King finally speaking for himself.
“Get them out of here! All of them! Take them back to their ship and let them rot there! They will never set foot on my world again, do you hear me! Never!”
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3 comments:
This piece fits into the Snakes' story near the end of Part One. I felt the original post didn't explain fully why the King didn't let the Snakes land.
I also thought it would be cool to have a bunch of little short vignettes to throw in as filler on various pages, like they do in the 40K and FoW books.
Cool!
One of the units I had in mind was very similar to what you described. I was going to model a Veteran squad as the King's personal guard, armed with halberds that can shoot (i.e. CCW & laspistol).
Yeah, I was reading your mind. :)
I wrote "pikes", but in my head, yeah, they were halberds. The idea being they had the blades at one end, and "stun guns" at the other. Perhaps ceremonial ones with stun guns, and battle ones with lasguns.
Might be stretching it to make them "pistol and CCW", though. Maybe more like a +2Strength weapon? Although with pistol and CCW, you wouldn't have to change any rules.
Also, in my mental image, they were wearing WHFB Elven helmets. ;)
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