Drabble Challenge: The floor is lava
His own footsteps echoed down the tight maintenance corridor. Too narrow for his rifle, the confines had forced the assassin to draw his Exitus pistol. He could hear gunfire in the main complex overhead, the sharp whine of lasfire answered by the snap-crack of autoguns. He ran faster, towards the glow of light ahead of him.
The corridor opened suddenly into a circular chamber and Draste skidded to a halt with a string of swears on his lips. He had nearly fallen from the raised entryway into a pit of molten plasma. The heat was searing and as the assassin looked around he understood what had happened.
The entire complex had shook moments after the assault began. No ordinance had been the cause and the vibrations had emanated from deep within the bowels of the structure. The plasma core had malfunctioned, of its own accord or due to planned sabotage remained unknown, but the containment glass had broken and now the superheated liquid was sloshing around free. Already it had chewed through the dozen or so support columns, turning them to slag. The ceiling overhead bowed down slightly.
“Uh, Boss?” Draste said, activating the vox link in his helmet with a blink at the appropriate rune on his HUD. “Gotta problem here.”
Static came back initially. When it cleared all the assassin could hear were the sounds of a heated fire fight. “What’s the problem, Orval?” Radcliffe’s tone was clipped and clearly irritated. Things were not going as well as he wanted them to.
“Cannot proceed to the target. The floor is lava.”
There was a long pause. Draste could make out the telltale boom of the handcanon of a revolver the Lord Inquisitor favored when things went to hell. The Vindicare never ceased to be amazed just how accurate Radcliffe could be with that thing. And the stopping power-oh the stopping power of those psybolt rounds. Draste had seen Radcliffe drop a traitor Astartes with it. Right between the eyes.
The assassin shook his head. Now is not the time to get a hard on for someone else’s weapon he thought.
“We don’t have time for your games, Orval. They are pressing back. You need to complete your task.”
“AIn’t fooling this time, Boss,” Draste said, a little insulted Radcliffe would assume he was playing games at a time like this. “Plasma core overloaded. Spilled its guts all over the place. I’m cut off from progression.”
Something exploded on Radcliffe’s end of the link, drowning the vox in static and white noise that bled away to a piercing ring as audio receptors struggled to compensate for the sudden noise. “Damn it Orval, get creative. You’re a fekking assassin for Throne’s sake.”
Draste heard sudden panicked shouting and the link cut off abruptly.
“Well..... fek me sideways,” the assassin sighed. “Alright, Orval, you said it yourself. The floor is lava. Just like your younger days at the Scholarum. Only this time if you fek it up, you’ll die. No pressure.”