Dark Mechanicus - #2 Sustain, Endure, Survive

Dark Mechanicus - The Machine Cult of Junkatta

Sustain, Endure, Survive

2

The finger sized maggot creatures tasted bad going in and worse coming out. Identified as the only source of sustenance by the emergency survival cogitator, Ronalt Wiese had gathered as many as possible from beneath the stable junk piles. With no heat source available to him they were consumed raw. Upon regurgitating them an hour later, he found them quite resistant to his stomach acids. He watched, dry wretching as the maggots crawled from his pool of vomit and began burying themselves in the earth again. He resigned himself to grinding them down to a paste with a large rock. 

   

The steersman slept. Grateful for the linen he tore from a freight crash site that still beared some mark of its previous use, it now kept the cold away as he slept in one of the surviving freight containers. The crash site had provided him with a wealth of supplies that made further survival a possibility. The freight must have been heading for a mine facility because the contents made up standard issue kit for subterranean work. He found a case of Chem globes but feared to use them outside, in case it drew unwanted attention. The filtered breather-masks he found were a welcome relief from the enviro-helm he had been wearing, which deadened sound and reduced his vision to 90 degrees. The masks were light, had a soft-plas fitting to his face and there were an abundance of filters. The final prize he removed from the crash site was a portable rock drill that fastened to his wrist. It took three presses of the igniter to get the drill spluttering into life, and he waved it clumsily around impersonating the gladiators he admired as a youth. The new found security Ronalt felt for being armed manifested in a tuneful hum that remained until sleep.

He was woken by his bladder and left the container to piss. Looking up at the night sky, the clouds echoing the glow from the industrial forge district to the west, his gaze fell to the rock cliffs to the north that towered over the surrounding area. Somewhere near the top of the cliffs a band of green lights pulsed slowly, menacingly like nesting birds of prey surveying their next meal. Ronalt finished and walked as casually as possible back into the container. He ruffled his linen to fool a glancing trespasser, filled his pockets with mask filters and chem globes, strapped the rock drill to his wrist and with one thumb on the igniter took position by the entrance to spring his trap. After two hours waiting in the dark, the fire in his nervous system dissipated incrementally and it wasn't long before the steersman conceded to sleep. The lights accompanied him for the next three nights never moving from their nest on the rock cliff.

     

"Rust Phantoms" - Skraptarii Rangers of the Junkatta Machine Cult 

Threat level analysis - Arc weapon technology detected