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Okay, so I'm writing this story just for fun, but also for an English class as we are allowed to write a creative story. It's not to be graded by the teacher, but it's just a fun exercise. Other people will be reading this.

Keep in mind that I don't know that much. The explanations about the AdMech and hive worlds and whatnot are there so that other people who are reading this story will know what the heck is going on. It's not a terribly good story unfortunately, but then again I'm not even half-way done. So yeah, I'm going to need a lot of critique. Oh yeah, please try and be kind of nice about it.

So without further ado, here it is:


The Last Stand of the 300th Praetorian
“Doctor, he is emerging from his comatose state,” said the medical servitor to the surgeon.
“Good, good, “replied the surgeon. “Servitor V-4, let the guests in. I believe that they wish to speak with the patient.”
The medical servitor, which was essentially a human being if you could still call it that, fitted with electrical arms and legs, and other technological parts by the Adeptus Mechanicus which was stationed on Mars, its monopoly on technology in the Imperium unrivaled.

The guests entered, accompanied by a bodyguard. The leading figure was Brigadier-General James Whitfield. He was dressed gallantly with brazen brass armor platebody, the Imperial Aquila emblazoned on his chest. James Whitfield applied some wax to his moustache, which was drooping.

“Leave us, doctor. It would be unfortunate if we would have to terminate you for hearing this conversation.”

Left with no room to argue, the surgeon and his servitors left the room.

“Now that they are gone…” continued the Brigadier General, “Let’s get down to business, shall we?” The General sat down next to the wounded soldier. “I want to know what happened at Asharnezzer. Don’t worry, my scribes will record everything you say, and we’ll be here as long as it will take. But first, I would like your name, soldier; and your regiment.”

“I am…Alasdair Venables, Weapon Specialist of the 300th Praetorian Expeditionary Force. I was assigned to the weapons team under Sergeant Montgomery.”

“Mm…so you’re a Praetorian, are you? Fierce fighters. Hive Worlds do that to you, I suppose.”
Praetoria was a hive world in the Segmentum Tempestus. Essentially, a hive world is essentially a city planet, containing tens of billions of people. Densely packed, crime is very common in hive worlds, dozens of gangs fighting every single day. But what is one, or ten, lives amongst 16 billion?

Alasdair continued. “The 300th Praetorian was to scout out the Asharnezzer system, which had stopped paying its taxes to the Imperium decades ago. A rounding error had ignored the system until recently, or at least, that’s what I had heard. At the time it seemed like it would be a short mission. Just threaten the governors with virus bombing, and they’d pay up. Of course, nothing is ever like it seems, is it?”
Alasdair stopped to inject some more morphine by pressing a button, and then went on with his story.

“When we got to the system, it was in complete and utter chaos. I don’t think that any of us had ever seen anything like it. It was under an attack by a renegade Imperial Guard legion under the name of the Tyrants of Asharzunipal. This was practically a perfect storm of events, as we hadn’t thought to bring our larger battleships. The Adeptus Mechanicus, like with everything, holds a tight leash on their technology, and the Battlefleet stationed in the Segmentum Tempestus only gave us some of their more outdated cruisers and destroyers. Anyway, like I said, it was total and utter chaos. Right when we had finished our warp travel, Private Jones began to act strangely. No one knew what the heck was going on. But when he began muttering things about some odd thing like the Ruinous Powers or something along those lines, the Commissar shot him. To be honest I’m happy he did, Jones was always kind of a bastard and he’d done enough to deserve it.”

“I see. So do you know what he was talking about?” questioned a Priest that was along with the General.
“No, why?” replied Alasdair.

“No reason. Blessed is the mind too small to doubt…” said the Priest. “Go on with your story, please.”

Alasdair’s eyes betrayed his confusion. What was happening? Not knowing otherwise, he went back to talking about what had happened. “One of the Renegade cruisers intercepted our force. It got into a fierce battle with one of our cruisers, the HES Auckland, in which the Auckland was destroyed minutes later. Its diversion saved the rest of the fleet. We were able to escape unharmed, except for our lost cruiser of course. Morale was low, of course, but the Commissars kept it up, with their guns consistently at their sides, ready to blow some poor chap’s head off.

We made planetside about 30 standard minutes later, and encountered heavy resistance. The HES Dreadnought exploded spectacularly when it was hit with a lance battery, literally cut in half. Our remaining 7 ships landed, battered but still together.”

TO BE CONTINUED

Cookies for those who finished!

I'm sorry if that was painful to read.

i liked it, and not painful in the least, waiting for the next installment

Good start

Some points:
- Avoid info dumps. Even though your reader may not know anything about the 40k universe, a good writer will fit the pertinent information into the dialogue or description as necessary. For example, the General could ask Alasdair which hive he came from, Alasdair could reply with something like "Alpha hive, population sixteen million" or whatever, it'd sound more natural.

You did a really nice job of this in the last part where you described the landing, people have no idea what a 'cruiser' or a 'lance battery' is, but they'll get it.

- Avoid using 'you' to address your reader directly.

- Language. Watch the informality. Case in point, Alasdair is talking to the Brigadier General. You might want to add in something like Alasdair attempting to salute the General even though he's lying wounded in a hospital bed or saying 'sir' a lot before the General tells him to stop.

On the General, avoid using rhetorical questions. He's a man of high status, he's used to giving orders, not requests. Example "Let's get down to business shall we?"

You have a nice bit with the priest questioning Alasdair.

- Character. Right now Alasdair is just giving information. He's a wounded, shell-shocked soldier. Is he scared? haunted? bitter? You can still narrate most of the story from his point of view, but show the reader that he's more than just an info dump.

Again, real good start!

Cool, thank you so much for the pointers!

I'm going to work on the next draft, and add in more stuff.

This is going to be a goos one i can feel it