The Warthog

     Pain was the first thing Techmarine Brother Hargarth felt as his mind swam up out of the darkness. Next was the chill of ferrocrete upon is cheek. His thoughts were sluggish, barely focused, as he tried to remember where he was.
     Slowly the memories crawled into his consious mind... the visit of the Space Wolves Company to Fenrir Secondus, the great feast given in their honour, talking with the Iron Priest Beorngar , amidst flagon after flagon of the potent native brew zamar. Rememberance of the firey brew sparked off waves of pure agony in Hargaths head .. it felt like someone had taken a thunderhammer to him, and was determined to make him suffer .. it was working.
     With a groan the Marine of the Lupus Vindicatus pulled himself upright, wobbling till his blindly groping hands found something solid to lean against. Hargarth kept his eyes clenched tightly shut, knowing the pain that would sear through him as soon as he opened them. Twisting, he leant back against the soothing cold metal of ..something.
     From beside him came a hideous gutteral snarl, sounding far too close for comfort. Refelxively he looked round, gasping as the light hit his eyes. It took a moment or two to gather himself and see what was making that noise. Lying on the floor beside him were a pair of power armoured legs in Space Wolf grey. The rest of the figure was underneath the vehicle that Hargarth had his back to. Glancing around the floor he saw scattered tools, wires, pieces of metal, various internal components and dozens of empty bottles. Hargarth groaned, sending fresh shards of pain through his skull.
     With an effort he made it to his knees, crawling away from the side of the vechile, more fragments of memory bubbling to the surface of his mind. He could vaguely remember discussing many aspects of marine vechiles with Beorngar, the two of them getting progressively drunker. Vaguer still were the memories of stumbling down to the cavernous vechile repair bays, somehow having donned their armour along the way.
     After that it was only fragments .. he could remember working on ..something.. he couldn't remember what that was now, but at the time it had seemed so important to them both. Hazy images of cutting, welding and pulling at handfulls of wires drifted across his minds eye. Hargarth swallowed hard against the rising gorge in his throat, only his marine abilities keeping him moving. Crawling to a nearby lifter he pulled himself upright, and with an effort turned around to see what was behind him.
     Even with his trained eye Hargarth could really tell what sat in front of him. Slowly details began to resolve themselves. The body of this ..craft .. had once been a rhino. He recognised it as the one 2nd Company had left in to be canabalised, its track drive mechanism shattered in their last engagement with the Eldar pirates. The tracks themselves were nowhere to be seen, and sheets of ceramite armour covered their housing. Vents which looked to him like air intakes were located on the slant of what used to be the housing. A pair of landing skids, roughly crafted , emerged from the underside of the vechile as it rested on the bay floor. Poking out from between them were Beorngar's legs, his snoring now muffled to a dull roaring.
     From the rear quarter of the rhino emerged what looked like the flight control wings of a land speeder, its tail rising from the rear of the rhino. Nestled upon its roof were two sets of land speeder engines.
     Looking around Hargarth could see the remains of two speeders, their hulls gutted, with wires sprouting from innumerable access panels. >From under the front of the vechiles body Hargarth could make out the sleek shape of an assault cannon, its barrels almost touching the floor. A rough mount had been fashioned for it, and it looked like it could move.
     Walking very slowly and carefully Hargarth approached the craft. Gingerly he moved in through the open doorway in the side of it, staggering slightly as he moved through the newly constructed front and reached the pilots cockpit. Hargarth slumped down into the seat and stared at the control panel, willing it to come into focus.
     Eventually the blur in front of his eyes shifted, becoming the controls from one of the landspeeders, crudely welded into place. Where the rhino's origional controls were he didn't know. It looked like the control sticks for the rhinos tracks had been replaced by those from the speeders. One contained a thumb stick and trigger .. he had vague recolections of that being to control the gun in the nose .. it did that on the speeder anyway. Resting his thumb lightly on it he pushed on the thumb stick. From outside came the whine of activated servos, and on the control panel in front of him a small display lit up with the view of the bay, a targetting rune floating in the center of the screen. Carefully Hargarth lifted his hand from the stick. Although he knew there was no ammunition stored down here, better to be safe than sorry.
     Carefully he extracted himself from the vechile and moved over to where the still snoring Iron Priest lay. Grabbing a nearby ankle Hargarth hauled him out from under the body of the craft, the snores continuing uninterupted. Picking up an unopened bottle of zamar he took a quick mouthfull, winced as the firey liquid burned its way down his throat, then upended it over Beorngar. The snoring broke off in a gurgling cough as the Iron Priest rolled to his feet, or at least tried to.
     Unfortunately his choice of direction took him back under the body of the craft where he'd been lying. Hargarth winced as Beorngar's head thumped into the underside of the craft with a loud thud. The Iron Priest dropped right back to the floor and lay there for several moments, staring up at the craft above him.
     Muttering something in what Hargarth presumed to be his native Fenrisian, Beorngar clambered out from under the craft, his hands pressed to his head. Hargarth knew exactly how Beorngar felt ..he wasn't in much better shape himself.
     The two marines stood side by side, looking at the craft they'd created. Beorngar turned to face Hargarth , grinning broadly. "Well, looks like we made a good go at our flying transport, eh?" he said. The Iron Priest seemed to be recovering much faster than Hargarth did, as he reached for another unopened bottle. Cracking it on the casing of the power lifter beside them he tilted it back, the amber liquid rapidly draining from the bottle. "Come on lad" he said, striding towards the hatch and climbing in .. "Let's see how she flies".
End.

The Warthog

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