Author Information
My name is Jack and this is my first ever short story
Deliverance
Major Jonas Voss, CO of the Thracian 11th Regiment, had being captured along with his 50 surviving troopers by their greatest enemies. He had no hope of survival and was hated by all around him. He saw two young enemy soldiers spit on the floor, remembering when he was that idealistic and young, taken in by propaganda...
15 years ago
Trooper Voss was terrified. The Chaos soldiers had hurled themselves recklessly into no man’s land. Despite taking huge losses, there were still of thousands of the inhuman monstrosities. About a dozen of them leapt into seventeen section’s trench, they had gruesome runes carved into their faces and wore flak-armour covered in blood and gore.
Voss felt vomit rising in his throat and almost fainted as three of his friends were hacked to death by enemies. One of the enemy opened his mouth revealing sharpened bloody teeth. It roared and six of his friends fled. Some returned fire sporadically, killing half of them.
Suddenly, the chaos troops charged and Voss put his lasgun on full auto, shut his eyes and prayed for deliverance. He pulled the trigger and opened his eyes. The beast was dead. His first kill. He was more confident now and he flicked his lasgun onto burst-fire and killed two more. The men rallied behind him and shot the remaining Chaos troops. It was over.
Present Day
He turned to his left and saw Captain Darna. He was tall and covered in tattoos, respected by the men and loathed by the enemy. After the short brutal action at the Pandora system, where Voss had been commended for bravery, a charismatic Sergeant named Darna was rotated into 17th section because of the heavy losses. Darna had a prosthetic leg after an encounter with an Ork at the Charadon system...
12 years ago
Charadon VIII was a hellhole, infested by orks and covered in shell holes and corpses. Over 100,000 guardsmen had died in eight months. Trooper Voss had been in the Guard almost four years now but having to share his fox-hole with a decaying corpse still shocked him. “STAND TO!” Bellowed Sergeant Darna, spit spraying from his
mouth. “WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!”
The men of seventeen section looked down the sights of their lasguns to see dozens of blood crazed orks. They jumped into the first fox-hole and the five inhabitants didn’t stand a chance. Voss could hear the screaming and he wished he was somewhere else, anywhere else. Another fox hole was assaulted and the men killed.
They were heavily outnumbered and the order came to retreat. Many of the men just ran but some of the more disciplined troops gave them covering fire. Sergeant Darna was the last men to leave and just as he started sprinting, a gargantuan Ork appeared from behind him and hacked through Darna’s knee with its choppa.
“Jenkins, give me covering fire!” Yelled Voss.
Before he realised what he was doing, Voss ran forward and shot the Ork in the head. It fell over dead. Voss picked up his Sergeant and flung him onto his shoulder. Voss dropped a demo charge and sprinted off with a dozen Orks chasing him. He dived headfirst into the nearest fox hole as the demo charge went off. The dozen pursuing Orks caught the full blast and most were killed. Before the rest had a chance to retaliate, Voss picked up his Sergeant and carried him off.
Three months and 100,000 deaths later, the Guard High Command decided to evacuate the planet. As well as 200,000 dead guardsman and the 300,000 wounded guardsmen, almost the entire civilian population was wiped out. Voss was promoted to Corporal and given a medal. This was small consolation however as he lost several friends including Trooper Jenkins for no gains at all to the Imperium, just a colossal waste of human life.
Present Day
Voss looked at his tattered uniform and studied his Macharian Cross. It was once highly polished and proud. Now it was dull. He remembered the glorious day when he had won his medal...
7 years ago
Sergeant Voss looked around at his men. Some were sleeping. Some were half-heartedly trying to play cards. Some were writing home to their far-off families. All were haggard and demoralised. They were fighting the Eldar which was like trying to hold smoke. It was impossible to fight them because when they attacked they disappeared again before sufficient reinforcements could be found to engage them. The Imperial forces were being torn apart bit by agonising bit. Voss felt he had seen enough dying to last a lifetime.
Suddenly, the vox chattered to life.
“Sir.”Called Lance Corporal Steiner, the unit’s vox operator. “We’ve got new orders. The entire company is to report to 467:654 to prepare for an attack on the Eldar and rendezvous with C Company and 4 armoured companies from the Cadian 12th.
Voss frowned. This was serious, 600 infantry and 40 tanks. They must have found an Eldar webway gate. He relayed the orders to the rest of the company and the troop-carriers turned around and headed in a new direction. He shut his eyes to try and get some much needed sleep.
Seven hours later
An impossibly loud BANG woke Voss up. He felt his transport veer off the road and roll. His ears were ringing and his vision was cloudy. The acrid smell of smoke and petrol filled his nostrils.
“Everybody get out now!” He bawled. He kicked the transports door open, carrying the wounded body of Trooper Wodkis. Four more of his men crawled out before the vehicle exploded.
Voss was devastated. Out of the thirty men in his section, only six had survived and two of them were wounded. He looked around for the culprits of this slaughter and saw over twenty-five Eldar grav-tanks skim away into the distance. “Fan out and search for survivors.” He croaked, his throat filled with dust.
532 infantry were dead and all the tanks were destroyed along with all the transports and their drivers. That was over 600 fatalities. He had just under seventy men left. Many of the survivors were wounded in some way although luckily they could all walk except for three who had being badly burned and wouldn’t survive outside of a hospital. They cried out for some release from the terrible pain and Voss gave each the Emperors Benediction. What else could he have done? He prayed for forgiveness but he doubted the Emperor was listening.
“Right, let’s kill every one of the xeno bastards!”
6 hours later
Despite having less than 70 men, the attack succeeded although Voss couldn’t remember a thing. It was just a blur of slaughter and gore. The only thing he could remember clearly was a single word, chanted by them men over and over. “Kh-“
No! He must not think about it. He had to forget. He felt disgusted with himself and he knew he had done a terrible thing but it had helped the Imperium, had it not? He had destroyed the webway gate and the Eldar had vanished soon after. Back to the warp. His officers had awarded him the Macharian Cross and promoted him to Major. They thought he was a hero of the Imperium but he was anything but.
Present day
Voss was thinking about the most momentous occasion in his life and he realised it was probably that fateful day at Calon City...
3 years ago...
This wasn’t war. Major Voss and his men were trying to keep the peace at Calon City, but it was incredibly hard with a Khornate Cult thriving in the shadows. They would dress as civilians and then reveal dreadful melee weapons such as axes and chainswords and then rip into the patrols. Major Voss was leading a large patrol through the cities crowded marketplace with Colonel Bayle. The men loved him. He was like a father to them. Voss’s thought wandered, he began thinking of all the ways he could kill the scum that were killing his men... He wrenched his thoughts back to reality. He must not get into a blood-frenzy with all of these civilians around. It had happened nine times since the incident with the Eldar five years ago. Each time was worse than the last. It happened to most of the men to. One of the few men to be affected was Colonel Bayle. He was beginning to get suspicious but he turned a blind eye, hoping he was wrong.
Suddenly, one of the civilians pulled and vibroblade out of his coat. He leapt onto the half-track and began sawing manically at the Colonel’s throat before pulling it off and holding it up in the air as a trophy. The men roared. No! He looked at Sergeant Darna. He had the look of the blood-frenzy about him. Everyone did. He felt it himself. He tried to resist but he failed and yelled; “Blood for the Blood God!” His men were firing indiscriminately into the crowd, slaughtering thousands.
3 hours later
I
t was done. The entire civilian population had been killed as well as three PDF regiments. There was no going back.
“Send a message to our naval elements, they are to pick us up and then set a course for the Eye Of Terror.”
Present Day
He was about to be executed by his greatest enemy: The Imperium. After three years of raiding they had captured him and were about to claim their revenge. Imperial Guardsmen frogmarched him to the firing squad. He heard the Lasguns fire and prayed for deliverance.
The End
