Why me Sel cursed as she trudged over the broken glass that the blast had flung into the kitchens. Already rinds of ice were forming over everything and it was going to be a bastard of a job to keep pickets out here now that the void shield was down and the full fury of the storm was gusting in. The troopers had fallen back into the adjoining rooms but they couldn’t stay there, not and watch the approaches to the house. Idly she wondered if it might be possible to get some work out of the household troops. That was a laugh. Sel pushed into the pantry where second squad was busily pillaging everything before it got freezer burned by this ridiculous planet, she saw sausages, fruits, even a whole chicken disappearing into packs.


“Spade, Ruskins, Mills, Tandor, and….” Sel’s eyes wandered over the assembled troopers, all of whom had frozen in mid pilferage.

“Kolcek,” she declared with malicious pleasure, “Gear and outfront in thirty seconds!” Kolcek stuffed a ham into his rucksack and glared.

“Why me?” he asked, unconsciously echoing Sel’s thoughts of a few moments before. Sel grinned, it was not a friendly or reassuring expression.

“Given that you shot me, it might save time if you just assume you will be on any crappy job I can find for the foreseeable forever,” she told the dejected trooper. Kolcek cursed but was already grabbing his gear.


The hike up to the generator took nearly a quarter of an hour. It was easier going than it might have been, the snow having not yet had time to settle as it surely would in another hour or so. The half squad of troopers spread out in an extended line with ten meters between each of them, the best they could do with visibility. They made their way over the manicured garden and up the shallow side of the rift valley, picking there way over increasingly slippery terrain. The lights of the main house were still visible below them, though wavering and distant now.


“Couldn’t we at least have brought a chimera?” Kolcek bitched, breathing on his hands and rubbing them together. Sel privately though his continual griping boded well for his future in the guard, assuming someone didn’t empty his head with a las bolt in the immediate future.

“Chimera’s are valuable Kolcek,” Sel replied tiredly as she swept her carbine left to right.

“Unlike us?” the private objected.

“Well, unlike you,” Sel partially agreed, getting a chuckle from the rest of the troopers, “now shut up, we are close.”


The shield node was the size of a two story hab, a large blocky structure topped by an oddly foreshortened concave disc. Sel’s keen eye deduced that the reason for the malfunction was the fact that the dish had been blown off and slid fifty meters down the valley wall. They approached in line, one element leapfrogging the other until they reached the dish, then they melted around it to clear the building, doing a credible job of it that Sel steadfastly refused to credit to Sargent Crispin’s obsessive drilling on the void ship.  They found no enemies, and as soon as the place was reasonably secured, Sel set Spade to look over the damage. It took the woman perhaps a quarter hour before she jogged back to the base building, inside of which they had managed to get a small fire going.


“Amateur hour Corporal,” Spade reported, thrusting her hand over the barrel in which the ruins of several pieces of furniture cheerfully blazed.


“What do you mean?” Sel asked, waving the troops around so that the news didn’t have to be repeated.


“Looks to me like someone just wedged a krack grenade in the works and waited for it to pivot. Probably lucky they didn’t take their hand off doing it, once it went off the weight of the dish basically ripped itself free.”

“And that is amateur because….?” Sel pressed. Spade shrugged.

“Only luck it worked, might just have easily of gone bang and the blast was wasted, you really need a melta charge to be sure of taking down something like this. You think it was rebels?”
“How would they have gotten through the shield to begin with, and if they did why wait to hit us?”

“They might be coming down the main drag now, saboteurs on the inside?” Spade suggested.


“If you are going to get someone inside, why not get them a melta charge?” Sel speculated.


“Im going to call it in,” Sel replied and Spade fiddled with the vox set till they got a strong link.

“Brave Six this is bravo…uhhh whatever my number is,” Sel began, “Kaiden, it looks like this was some kind of low tech sabotage with basic equipment.” She hesitated for a second.

“Whoever did it might be long gone or back in the mansion for all we know. Seldon out.”