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I wrote this for a fanfiction contest for a podcast. The requirement was that the short story blend 40K with a modern IP. I chose to do House. Internet points for anyone who can spot all the I.G. references! Enjoy, and C&C always welcome!
An Urgent Haus Call
By Riley O’Connor/Warptide
The first medic of the Plainsboro fourteenth regiment leaned back on his plas-stool, enjoying the contents of a picto-mag in the last rays of the setting sun streaming in his medi-hab. He refused to let himself be disturbed when a series of loud knocks shook the door, nor when it was kicked in and the company commissar strolled up to him. Grigory Haus could tell she was on edge by the way she fingered the trigger on her bolt pistol, as well as her pointing its barrel directly at him.
“Grigory Haus, why are you trying to murder our men?” Commissar Liza Cuddi leveled a stare at the medic. That cold gaze worried him more than the firearm, though he would never let it show.
“I’d never be so bold as to infringe on your own duties, Commissar.” Haus shot back, not bothering to look up from his picto-mag.
“You are killing the lord commander,” the commissar seethed.
“No, but the Gellerpox was.” Haus mollified her with a contemptuous glance. “I cured him.”
The commissar lowered her bolt pistol. “Tell that to the servitor he just vomited blood all over.”
“Impossible. We put him on the best bact-killers before the Gellerpox progressed to morti-phage two.” Haus slapped down the picto-mag, revealing the disrobed troopers within. He limped off his plas-stool, shoving it back into the table with the butt of his plank-stic cane. “Guardsman Foreman, get medi-servitor Chase and report!”
Moments later, a well-built guardsman strolled in trailed by a sputtering, lurching hunk of flesh and surgical equipment in a faded lab coat.
“What is it Haus? I just worked three twenty-hour shifts and…” the medica guardsman stopped and glared at Haus. “Is that my picto-mag?”
“Sharing is caring, just ask them. While you’re at it, ask them how they fit those into their flak jackets.” Haus pointed at the disrobed troopers standing at attention. “Now focus. Our beloved lord commander just vomited up blood.”
“But we already—”
"It’s not Gellerpox. So much for our first and only diagnosis.” Grigory Haus leaned on his cane and did an about-face. At his command large data-slate emerged from the floor, its screen lighting up with dozens of symptoms, complications, and illnesses, most of them crossed out. Haus strode up and placed a view-pic of the lord commander currently in quarantine. He was pale and covered in blood. “We need ideas. What do you have?”
“Wow, the commander looks as gaunt as a ghost. Looks like we’re his last-chancers.” Foreman stood with his arms akimbo.
“I shall obey. Differential diagnosis routine initiated,” the servitor drawled mechanically.
“Well we know he traveled here before the fleet. Maybe he picked something up before he got to Nuge Ursii IV… Mortlock’s Disease?” Foreman hazarded.
“Huugh… highly-contagious,” the servitor droned. “We would have seen, hmm… more cases.”
“Fine. Nurgle’s Rot.” Foreman crossed his arms. “Most of the early symptoms are similar to Gellerpox, and the bact-killers wouldn’t clear the initial infection point.”
Haus glared at Corporal Foreman, then glanced briefly at the medi-servitor whose drool was currently pooling by the commissar’s left boot.
“One of you has had a full lobotomy. Right now I’m not sure which.” Haus said, adding and then crossing off the diseases from the board. He continued to pace around the medi-hab. “The lord commander is no lowly trooper like us. If he had Nurgle’s Rot, inquisitorial agents would have detected it.”
“Diagnostic routine seven-two-one terminated,” the servitor murmured.
Haus stopped his pacing instantly, inadvertently putting pressure on his bad leg. He stifled a cry of pain, focusing on the data slate. Terminate. Exterminatus. Of course.
“When are you going to get an augmetic replacement? It’s just as good as a real leg,” Commissar Cuddi chided.
“Fifty years,” Grigory Haus muttered.
Commissar Cuddi scoffed. “That’s an optimistic life-expectancy for a man your age in the guard. Especially if the lord commander dies on your watch.”
“No. Didn’t you read the campaign logs? Prior to this rebellion, prior to this colonization even, there was a heretical insurgency on Nuge Ursii IV. The Astartes virus-bombed the planet. Exterminatus. Now those viruses eventually stop replicating and killing when they run out of fuel, also known as heretics and imperial citizens, but sometimes not all of them disappear for good. Just like heresy, a small cell can lay dormant for many years without harming a soul. Until you disturb it by, say, churning up old sediment and setting up your headquarters over the initial blast site. We’ll need to injec-ulate everyone in the compound with the pan-vax, starting with the lord commander.”
“But we have no evidence that that virus is present, and if it’s Bleeding Maw that treatment could kill him!” Foreman threw his hands in the air.
“The viru-test takes three hours, and if we don’t cure him by then he’s as dead as Abaddon’s barber.”
Foreman sighed, but reached into a compartment in medi-servitor chase and withdrew a long alumi-needle. He removed the plastek end and inspected the tip. “Straight silver, for the emperor.”
Commissar Cuddi nodded and led the medica guardsman and servitor from the tent.
First medic Grigory Haus set his cane down, sighed, and slid down onto his plas-stool. His thumbed to the next page of the picto-mag, taking his time to properly acknowledge his fellow soldier’s exquisite physiques.
“Mmm… it’s not just Cadia that stands.”
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