Snow White and the Seven Heavy Bolters by Phil Tortorici

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I can not take credit for the name. This site was named by Aaron Cains.

Snow White and the Seven Heavy Bolters
by Phil Tortorici

"Xenophobia can be a good thing.
Especially in matters of faith."

The stopover on the Imperial planet, Yardbird's Dream, was more
distracting than it should have been, thought the missionary. It was a
standard cargo transfer/ refueling stop, but it made him clutch his
devotional icon a little tighter than usual. The atmosphere of the
mining planet was a little stale,.he could tell is was tainted with
industrial waste. Yet it seemed there was some thing else wrong with it
and he knew this from the moment he took his first breaths of the
planet's recycled air. Thoughts that he had locked away for years were
seeping up to surface and breaking into his conscious mind. The
transport's crew had warned him that Yardbird's Dream had this affect on
newcomers, and, if he was intent on visiting the port's facilities, a
series of inoculations would relieve the worst of it.The ship's doctor
said that eventually the dwellers would become immune to the effects.
The missionary would have none of this primitive science/ heretical
talk. "Faith Conquers Reason" after all, and he could not show a lack
of faith in front of the faithful.

Still these thoughts continued to surface, and his fervent prayers to
the emperor, gave him no quiet. There had to be only one answer to this,
and of course, the answer had to be a some sort of an incursion of
chaos on Yardbird's Dream; Slannesh, the depraved had to be behind this
in some twisted way. Perhaps they had uncovered some long buried and
forgotten chaos device, and tried to hide it from the Imperium by the
innoculation of newcomers with a serum derived from its evil essence.
Oh yes, Yardbird's Dream had to be purged, but first it had to be
secured. His report would detail the problem, If he could just clear
his head. This would have to wait until he was back on the transport,
thrusting away from this vile planet. They would pay.

The Battle Sisters of a minor order of the Adeptus Sororitas were
dispatched to hold the spaceport until units of the Inquistion could
arrive to assess the problem. Sister Whiteney was part of one of the
security force squads sent to guard the port at Yardbird's Dream; her
heavy bolter held at the ready to cut down the Emperor's enemies.
Should they decide to attack. These people didn't look particularly
dangerous, but this, of course, is the way chaos works. She knew this
to be true, as she was taught this in her novice years. Her novice
years were spent in a place such as this, first running with a gang down
the nameless corridors of one of the miliions of hives in the imperium,
until an Adeptus Sorritas from the Hospitalers showed her the true
way. Then she had eventually been accepted into the convent, and
started her service as a novice, which wasn't very glorious, at all.
Most of her duties consisted of ministering to the poor and
weak-of-faith of her hive, and instruction in the ways of her order. In
her gang, she eventually earned the right to wield a heavy stubber, to
cut down rival gangs, for the territorial rights to scavenge for her
gang's and dependants' survival. She smiled and patted her heavy
bolter, with affection. Faith works in strange ways.

Funny she should be thinking about this now. She hadn't thought about
this in years. A memory of an aunt telling a very long Whiteney stories
by light of the glow tubes brought another smile to her face.

Her thoughts were yanked back to the present by the sound of bolter
fire. Lots of bolter fire. Her battle squad had joined a
rapidly-forming assault perineter and were pouring fire into the
civilian traffic around the landing pad. Cries of "Purge the Heretics!"
mixed with the sounds of people dying horrible flaming deaths. In the
midst of emptying clip after clip of heavy bolter ammo into the crowd, a
stray, sane, thought gave her pause. "Flamers in a spaceport? Wouldn't
there be fuel around?"

That is when the first shock wave of expoding fuel storage hit her,
throwing her to the ground, after an apparently endless freeflight.
"Lydia turned up the dorm heater way too high, again.", she thought as
she blacked out.
______

"What a fraggin' mess...what in Garth's Name happened here? ‘Oy, Doc,
‘dis one's still breathing....get a litter here quick. Nasty leg hit."
"Move along lads...I don't like the way power rods look. Scavenge some
guns and gear and let's go. Last call..."
"The ‘eavy bolter broke her fall... doesn't look too bad...when I's
cleans off da guts, that is to say... toss it on da litter wit her"

"...Auntie?...tell me a story..."
---------
Rightly or wrongly, there is this phenomena about captives feeling
sympathetic to their captors. This has been discussed by intellectuals
for milenia. And Sister Whiteney didn't quite understand what she was
feeling, but it wasn't right. She wasn't a captive, in the proper
sense of the word, but had been schooled on a strict ration of
xenophobia and faith. It took her weeks for her wounds to heal, and
took her months to adjust to the fact that the Kaptain of this Squat
mercenary vessel was not going to turn it around to take her back to
where-ever, and air isn't free, you know, and she's better pull her
weight, and watch out for that bulkhead....
Her faith? Well it just wasn't the same again.

She's big enough to handle the ay-see we scavenged off of Farsang' s
Folly...You said you knows how to handle a big gun, well here's yer
chance, sister. It's gotta be better than scow duty, and keep yer head
down, or it ‘ll get blown off.

They're paying us to do a job, and we gots to live to collect. Look
lively, lads.

Good job, lads. Didja see da sister there, with that ay-see...she wuz
pretty good wit da thing....ha..you shoulda seen Grumpy try to handle
it, before.... You were in on the action, so yer's in on the
split...fair iz fair.

Would you be looking for a contract?

Whiteney smiled, and nodded. "These liitle guys are aren't so bad...
for mutants. after all.", she thought. "The convent wasn't much bigger
than this, either. " And giving a mental shrug, she thought to herself,
"Eh. I could get used to this, too."

Well, sister?

Her expression darkened. "Don't call me ‘sister' anymore." Then a smile
spread across her scarred face, as a child hood memory broke surface and
floated up to meet the reality of the situation. "I'm in. And I'll go
by the handle of ‘Snow White'...thank you."

Wot?

"I'll explain later; first round's on me."