From Kaerls to Huscarls.

[aleifr]

Aleifr's fingers flexed a little as the shuttle began to rumble with the thrum of it's engines, digging into his harness as he felt the thing lift off the ground. He still wasn't used to this. Even after months of serving the Rout and seeing the wonders that they had at their disposal, riding in the belly of one of their flying ships still made him vaguely uneasy - at least until they'd hit the point where they were flying smoothly.

Once they were, he unbuckled the harness strapping him into his seat and made his way to the viewport at the back of the ship. Thick, white clouds filled up most of the view, but he could see little scraps of Fenris through the gaps. Mountains, ice, braces of pine trees and the endless expanse of Asaheim. As they climbed, the details grew harder to make out and his perpetual scowl deepened.

He was grateful to Jarl Ironwolf for the honor he'd given him - him and Aila both. He'd be a fucking idiot not to considering he's to be serving one of the Allfather's agents directly ... but it was strange to think that he might not see this place again. Their world. Their home. He didn't like that thought.

But his jarl had given him a task, and he'd see it through.

Comments

[aleifr]

"Experienced, I take it?" Aleifr grunts. He suspects he'll get on better with them, but he doesn't much care how fun they are to talk to as long as they're good at their jobs.

He is listening, McCoy. Ignore his wandering eyes as he tries to memorize the layout.

[letitallout]

"Very," McCoy says with a nod. "The Inquisitor will use them rather than the Adeptus Sororitas when she has a choice in the matter."

"Are they much better?" Aila has recovered enough to realize that his talkativeness is an asset at the moment, and since Aleifr's memorizing the route, she feels safe focusing on McCoy.

"That's...a matter of perspective," he replies as they reach the elevators. "They're certainly less likely to offer their opinions unsolicited."

[aleifr]

"And they shouldn't."

Advising your thane is one thing, but you do it in the proper way. Unless they're the Allfather's perfect idiot - something he's firmly convinced isn't true of Frost - you give them the respect they're owed.

[letitallout]

Aila nods in agreement and McCoy glances over his shoulder at them as he enters the lift. "I'm sure the Inquisitor will appreciate that opinion."

He beckons for the two of them to look at the buttons on the panel inside the elevator, and Aila peeks around his shoulder. "These are the crew decks. You'll spend most of your time here, unless you find cargo holds absolutely fascinating. Restricted decks are the usual--bridge, navigation, officer country, Inquisitor's quarters, detention block." He presses one of the crew deck buttons and the lift starts to move. "Technically the Mechanicus sections aren't fully off-limits, but they'll chase you out if you go poking around."

"Anyone can get to the armory?" Aila doesn't like that, and looks at Aleifr with a frown. That seems sloppy.

"If they can cut their way through the guards, the gun servitors, and the blast doors, yes, I suppose they can," McCoy says mildly.

[aleifr]

Aleifr shrugs. McCoy's explanation seems to satisfy him for the moment, the armory isn't defenseless and he doubts the Inquisitor would have someone on her crew that isn't trustworthy - especially when their minds are an open book to her. If there are enemies on the ship ... well, he suspects they'll have bigger problems than security clearance at that point.

"Anything else we should know?" Aleifr asks, cocking his head to the side.

[letitallout]

"If she didn't give you a specific assignment, there's not much for you to worry about beyond keeping that Fenrisian edge sharp," McCoy says, rocking back on his heels. "The mess is open 24 hours, Brother Kurt holds services in the chapel daily, and the gymnasium has all the training equipment you'll need."

The door slides open in front of them, revealing a deck indistinguishable from the one they'd just departed except that the stripe along the wall at waist height is a different color. Aila's shoulder brushes against Aleifr as they follow McCoy into the hallway, something easily dismissed as crowding in the tight quarters of the elevator car if one didn't know how rare it is for her to misjudge space like that. She can't take his arm in public, after all.

"Everyone knew you were coming, so the worst you should expect is some curiosity." McCoy pauses at a closed set of doors to scan his palm print again. The runes above the door say 'Armory,' she thinks, only getting about halfway through sounding them out before McCoy's leading them into a room with a man in armor sitting at a desk. His hands are invisible in his lap, and the look he's giving the two of them makes Aila tense up. Only force of will keeps her hand off her bolt pistol.

"Corporal, these are the Inquisitor's new retainers," McCoy says as though he doesn't notice them scoping each other out, and given how far out of his way he went to disclaim any martial competence, maybe he doesn't. "As discussed," he adds, words clipped. Maybe he did notice.

The man glances down at a display on his desk, nods, and Aila no longer feels like she might have to shoot him. McCoy indicates the door on the other side of the anteroom. "Go ahead. You'll need to sign anything out, and I think we'd all prefer if you weren't wandering around with krak grenades, but you know your business."

She's through the door before he finishes talking. The Kaerls' armory back on Fenris had been bigger, but the Inquisitor's has more variety, and Aila sees things she only recognizes because she'd paid attention during training. This is better than a feast day.

[aleifr]

Aleifr offers McCoy a small shrug as an explanation of sorts. They know their business and she loves their job. Though, when he walks into the armory behind Aila ...

There is a certain twinkle in his eye. He'll even flash her a small smile as he moves past her to inspect the rows of weaponry.

He sees boltguns - not astartes pattern, but sized for human hands. He sees the fat-barreled lascannons the Long Fangs sometimes carried, grenades of a dozen varieties, mines for blowing off limbs or tank treads ...

And then he finds what he's been looking for.

He pulls a power sword off the rack, and holds it up to the light to inspect the blade. The craftsmanship's incredible. It's the sort of weapon that a varangyr or a Jarl would carry among the Rout, and if he wanted it, it was his.

His thumb shifts and brushes against the activator on the hilt. A firmer press of the button and suddenly a sheath of glowing, blue energy crackles into being around the blade.

His smile's a little broader, now, and his apprehensions about their new duty, his healthy fear of their new thane ... that's all gone for the moment.

Today's a good day.

[letitallout]

Aila tears her eyes off the bolter ammunition--she doesn't even know what half of those shells do--when she hears the sound of a power blade switching on.

"Shame it's not an axe," she says with a laugh. Aleifr can use a sword just fine, but she doubts seeing one in his hands will ever strike her as normal.

[aleifr]

"The Inquisitor said that she'd pick up anything else we needed from the Mechanicus." Aleifr glances at her over his shoulder.

"I think they can manage an axe."

[letitallout]

"That they can," McCoy says from the doorway where he's watching them with amusement.

Aila goes back to perusing the selection, pulling a long-las from its brackets. Hardly as impressive as Aleifr's find, but she hasn't touched one since she'd qualified on it during training. "Do they make stalker bolters sized for mortals?"

"Probably," McCoy replies. "I'm sure the Arbites have sharpshooters."

"Add that to the list," Aila says with another laugh. If Aleifr's getting a power axe, she doubts the Mechanicus will balk at a bolter.

[aleifr]

"We've a list, do we?" Aleifr asks, a glimmer of amused faux-surprise in his eye.

Considering the armies the Mechanicus have to equip? He'd be surprise if they didn't churn out axes, bolters, and more by the hour. They'll have no trouble getting what they need.

[letitallout]

"I'd rather have it and not need it than the other way around," Aila points out, unabashed, more of her attention on the labels of the ammunition crates than on Aleifr. She still finds offworlder runes tricky to read.

[aleifr]

He'd drink to that if he had a tankard handy, though that little smirk she finds so infuriating is playing across his lips. She makes a good point, but he knows her well enough to know that she'd amass a dragon's horde of weaponry for no other reason than her own pleasure.

"They're bullets." He says, indicating the crates she's examining. "Left are boltgun variants, right are autoguns."

[letitallout]

"I know what an ammo crate looks like," Aila grumbles under her breath. She fully intends to trade her autogun for a more accurate lasgun on the way out, so she leaves the ammunition where it sits.

"You said no krak grenades. What about antipersonnel?" she asks McCoy, grinning over her shoulder.

"Planning to repel some boarders in the near future?" he replies, not taking the bait.

"You never know," Aila says, hefting a concussion grenade.

"That might represent an excessive degree of preparedness," McCoy says, but he doesn't tell her to put it back, which as far as she's concerned is permission.

[aleifr]

"Our thane mentioned that we know that ignorance can be as lethal as a bolter round." Aleifr says from across the room without looking away from a velvet-lined box of golden rings that seems bafflingly out of place among the weapons that lined every other inch of the room.

"We tend to feel the same way about not having the right tools for a job."

[letitallout]

McCoy sighs while Aila helps herself to a grenade belt, but again doesn't outright tell her she can't take grenades if she wants them. She's even mostly sticking to flash grenades. Don't want to damage anything important in a spaceship if you can help it.

"Aleifr," he says instead, "the right tools for the job notwithstanding, if you're planning on taking one of the digi-weapons, I'm going to insist on clearing that directly with the Inquisitor first."

[aleifr]

And once again, Aleifr's response is non-verbal. Just a silent glance over his shoulder that asks for clarification. He just thought they looked like they belonged in someone's strongbox instead of their armory.

[letitallout]

"Digital weapons." McCoy expands the term. "Each one of those rings is the equivalent of a pistol, and not some backwater world's slug-thrower, either. That one in the middle with the diamond skull is more or less a miniaturized inferno pistol."

Aila's head snaps up and she frowns at McCoy in disbelief for a moment before she abandons her grenade requisitioning to go peer around Aleifr's arm at the innocuous-looking jewelry. She doesn't like rings herself--you can hurt yourself punching someone--but she might make an exception for an inferno pistol.

[aleifr]

Aleifr, for his part, simply looks back towards McCoy, eyes narrowing slightly in an effort to determine whether the good doctor is fucking with him.

When he's fairly certain that's not the case ... his eyes go wider and he just looks down at Aila and shakes his head in plainfaced awe. What a fucking world they've come to.

[letitallout]

After meeting the Inquisitor, Aila would have thought she'd exhausted her capacity to be shocked for the day, but apparently not. She returns Aleifr's look with a wide-eyed one of her own while McCoy keeps talking.

"Each of them's worth a governor's ransom, and more to the point, they're fiendishly difficult to reload, so I'm going to have to ask you to stick to grenades," he says, correctly assessing which of them is likeliest to fill her pockets with irreplaceable artifacts.

[aleifr]

A correct guess, but gods be damned if Aleifr isn't tempted himself. A moment ago, he'd never have imagined that, outside of the stories of ancient heroes and gothi, a ring could be anything more than a pretty bauble. Yet here are half a dozen that could blow a man's skull to pieces sitting right here in front of him.

He wants to wear one just to see what it feels like to hold it and fire it, but they belong to his thane and not him.

"I'd ask how much a governor gets ransomed for, but ..."

Well, he's only heard of throne gelt. He doesn't know what one of them will get you.

[letitallout]

"I really couldn't say, to be honest." McCoy shrugs. "It's come up a few times that I know of, but the Inquisitor's always called the bluff."

Aila tears her eyes away from the deceptively elegant jewelry to look at McCoy over the rack of rifles that divides the armory in half. "Were they bluffing?"

"Not all of them," McCoy says mildly.

[aleifr]

Aleifr would be more impressed, but the information doesn't come as much of a surprise, honestly. She's an agent of the Allfather's will. It'd be more of a shock if she didn't have nerves harder than an Astartes's plate.

He just gives a vaguely approving nod as he meanders to the other side of the rack and looks for a bolt pistol that fits his hand.

[letitallout]

McCoy watches him try the various pistols. "If you find one you like, our tech-priests can modify the grip, no Forge World required."

"His family doesn't know when to stop growing," Aila chimes in from where she's looking at lasguns.

[aleifr]

"I'd have to fire them before I tell you whether or not I like them." Aleifr replies to McCoy with a casual shrug. The ship may not be big enough to house a company, but he's seen enough soldiers around that he's confident there's a firing range hidden somewhere to keep them sharp.

Then his attention returns to Aila. He glances at her over the top of the rack -- proving her point, really, but he's grinning.

"Still bitter?"