Lone Wolf Sentinel Pilot
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Just a short story I've written trying to show how being on the receiving end of a Waaagh wouldn't be much fun. I' don't have a particularly firm plan for this, just making it up as I go, but I might carry it on if it's liked.
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Beneath a bruise-coloured sky, madness was about to be unleashed.
Private Grigori Vashlev of the Vostokhan 149th could almost feel it in the cloying atmosphere of this wretched world. The sense of foreboding had been hanging over him and his comrades since the day they’d stepped of the troopship. It was in that menacing sky and the emotionless stares of the haggard veterans who manned the ramparts of the hastily-constructed forward operating base they had been diverted to hold. Something about the planet seemed cold and hostile, causing Vashlev and the other Vostokhan to draw their greatcoats tightly around themselves.
Their objective was clear: keep the Orks out of the base.
The base sprawled along the plain, a forest of Munitorum-issue tents surrounding the silent Leman Russ tanks with their Tallarn markings. Secure in their earthen ramparts, the tanks seemed almost to stand aloof like watchful giants, heedless of the ragged sprawl of humanity that had collected around them. Along the southern perimeter of this untidy mass a trench of astonishing length stretched from horizon to horizon, part of the network that had now sliced across a considerable portion of the landmass the soldiers found themselves on. Now, the Vostokhan were ranged along the firestep, anxiously facing towards the forbidding treeline where the plains gave way to tangled forest.
“Guardsmen!” a voice cried. Vashlev turned to see Commissar Kryczek standing over the trench a little further along from his position, his gaunt frame like a scarecrow against the sky. His cadaverous face, often seen spewing invective and hatred of the xenos, the heretic, the traitor, bore a mirthless smile that seemed so unnatural and bloodthirsty that Vashlev felt a flicker of unease. Troopers gathered to hear him.
“We have received word from the scouts. The xenos scum draw near! Prepare yourselves, servants of the Throne! Let no man take a step back!” He powered up his chainsword and held it aloft, strutting back and forth like a haggard chicken. “They will pay with their blood!”
As he ranted on, Vashlev felt a nudge. He glanced over to see his squadmate, Private Sasha Dimitrov, leaning over to whisper something, wearing her customary deadpan expression.
“Do you think I should remind him that the Guard has women, too?” she murmured wryly.
“Try reminding him we're human beings in general. I think he reckons we’re just made on a production line.”
“Quiet,” muttered another male voice. This was Anton Kolov, a twitchy, serious-minded fellow whom Vashlev had been able to befriend during transit. At first Vashlev had marked Kolov down as a stuffy jobsworth, constantly scraping to the commissars and officers, but after seeing Kryczek berating and humiliating him over a misaligned blanket during a kit inspection he’d come to realise that Kolov’s officiousness was motivated by fear. After lights out, when no-one could see his face, Kolov would talk with feeling about his hatred of the Commisariat and Kryczek in particular.
“Don’t worry, Anton,” smiled Dimitrov.”You know Kryczek, he’ll probably want to be first into battle. With any luck he’ll meet the biggest Ork they’ve got.”
Kryczek’s diatribe built to its conclusion. “Today they see what happens to those who defy the destiny of Man! Today they will meet their death! And you, men of the Imperium, will be the ones to deliver it to them! Now, to your positions!” The Guardsmen turned back to the parapet, levelling their weapons.
That was when the insanity began.
Banshee screams filled the sky and the treeline became a mass of tumbling, shattered dirt and shrapnel. Basilisk positions far behind the lines had opened fire, raining carnage upon the Ork force advancing beneath the dense canopy. The bombardment continued for several minutes, a colossal swathe of the forest being pulverised into an apocalyptic wasteland of churned and cratered dirt. To the Guardsmen in the trench, it seemed nothing could have survived.
For almost a minute, there was silence. Then, a sound began to build, growing in volume as if the planet itself was about to bellow in rage at the wounds inflicted upon it.
Vashlev recalled how, in one briefing session held in the hangar of the troopship, Colonel Ivanov, commander of the regiment, had referred to the xenos invasion by its Orkish name. When he had referred to something called the “Waaagh,” the sheer incongruity of the comical-sounding word spoken by a refined aristocrat had brought scattered murmurs of laughter from the assembled troops.
That was because they hadn’t faced Orks before.
Nothing could compare to the experience of hearing the Orkish war cry howled from tens of thousands of throats. It was not really a recognisable word that was uttered: it was a primal bellow, a roar that shook the diaphragm and stabbed straight into the hindbrain. It was the sound of war itself, thundering exultation in the prospect of worlds laid waste and armies ground into the ashes. It carried the promise of roaring guns, gore-drenched axes, human skulls thrust upon spikes of blackened iron.
The ruined treeline erupted in a tide of howling bodies that advanced with terrible momentum. The feeble sunlight glinted from scraps of improvised armour and weapons whose crudeness made them no less lethal. As the vanguard of the Ork force drew near, the Guardsmen had their first opportunity to see xenos in the flesh. The first, and for many, their last.
Vashlev noticed that his hands were trembling violently and he gripped his lasgun in the vain hope this would check the tremors. To his left, Dimitrov appeared a model of rigid coolness straight from a propaganda poster, until he noticed that her eyes were screwed shut and she appeared to taking deep, deliberate breaths as if to prevent hyperventilating. To his right, he saw Kolov’s eyeballs standing from their sockets like hab-domes, swivelling frantically like those of a maddened horse as if he was trying to comprehend the size of the enemy force. Had Vashlev known it, soldiers all along the trench were experiencing similar moments of terror, only the guns of the Commissars at their backs stopping many from bolting right there. And the soundtrack to this surreal spectacle was the seismic pounding of thousands of boots and that cacophonous bellowing.
“Prepare for battle!” roared Kryczek. “Not one step back! Any who fail in their duty will die by my hand! Now open fire!”
The troopers obeyed. Fingers tightened on triggers and a barking volley of las-fire and heavy bolter rounds rippled along the front. The sheer volume of fire cut down dozens of Orks where shots found heads, legs and vital organs, but a dispiriting number continued to charge even with smoking wounds gouged into them. The battle cannons of the tanks boomed, flinging scores of bodies above their fellows, but still the carpet of warriors surged from the forest.
More and more sprinted onward, hurdling their dead and brandishing a vicious array of swords, cleavers, axes and bludgeons, spraying a torrent of rounds from bulky pistols and automatic rifles that few unaugmented humans could have hoped to comfortably wield. Some of these shots began to find their mark, and soldiers were snatched off their feet and hurled against the trench walls or flung to the ground.
“Again!”
Another shattering torrent of fire, and this time more Orks fell. Tank shots gouged tunnels through the ranks of xenos and opened up vast clearings among the throng. But it was like trying to stop the tide. Some were entangled in the barbed wire just beyond the parapet, but more surged from behind, clambering over their comrades or – in the case of the ones wearing heavier armour – simply smashing through.
Vashlev now gave up any pretence of aiming – there was little need now, with so many attackers so close – and simply snatched at the trigger, sending wild volleys of fire into the horde. And then they were at the trench.
“Die!” screeched Kryczek, rushing to intercept the attackers about to crest the parapet. His determination to be first into hand-to-hand combat with the foe was his downfall. Without slowing down, a snarling Ork landed in the trench, smashed him aside while bringing a smoke-belching chainsword up in a brutal uppercut, and sprang up the back wall of the trench before sprinting on into the encampment. Blood and entrails arced into the air like streamers, and Kryczek’s ruined body sprawled in the trench bottom.
Vashlev gaped. All the rage, all the bile, all the promises to crush the alien aggressor beneath the heel of the Imperium – ended with one blow. But there was little time to muse on such matters. An Ork thumped down right next to him and he shot the alien point-blank through the forehead. He swivelled like a gun-servitor to blast another that stood whooping on the parapet. Seeing Kolov scrambling away from two laughing warriors a few metres along, he squeezed off a full-auto burst that felled them and then yelped with fright as another reeled past him from behind to crash into the dirt. He whirled to see Dimitrov jogging forward, lowering her rifle. It seemed that, in their section of trench at least, the assault had been blunted somewhat, for fewer Orks now landed among the humans, though they could hear heavy fighting deeper into the perimeter.
She said something, but Vashlev neither knew or cared what. Survival was paramount. He hauled Kolov to his feet and fired down the trench into another knot of Orks who were sprinting toward him. The three of them poured fire into the small enemy mob, cutting them down. They moved around each other, picking off Orks as they jumped down, but barring lucky shots each one took several hits before he fell. Their power cells were steadily drying up.
Suddenly a tremendous impact bore Vashlev to the ground. He rolled on to his back and looked up to see a towering Ork looming above him. In his peripheral vision he was aware of Dimitrov and Kolov struggling to regain their footing, the xenos having floored them with whirling sweep of the vast rockrete-headed maul he was now raising above his head, ready to bring it down in a two-handed swing. Just as the blow was about to be swung, a las-bolt speared his head diagonally and he slithered sideways, an expression of puzzled annoyance on his face.
Vashlev looked up to see a Vostokhan officer overlooking the trench, and became aware that the din of the battle had started to abate. Getting to his feet, he started when Dimitrov laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Still alive? she quipped, but Vashlev could tell her heart wasn’t in it. She and Kolov were spattered with blood and grime, their faces ashen. Vashlev could only assume he looked equally haggard. Evidently the fact that the Ork had landed between them had meant that they had only been struck by the haft of the weapon he wielded, or they would never have been able to get to their feet again.
“At the moment,” he croaked. “Do you think we’ve seen them off for a bit?”
“I’ll say we have,” grinned the officer, whom Vashlev recognised him as Sergeant Roshenko. “A few of them made it into the camp, going for the tanks, but we’ve got them contained. Come with me.”
They jogged through the maze of tents, many of them now flattened or tattered, towards the sound of the nearest firefight. However, after a short distance they became aware of a faint rumble. Roshenko lifted the magnoculars he wore around his neck and looked to the south.
“Oh no,” he whispered.
The second wave had arrived. The first attackers had done their duty, battering the Imperial ranks and punching holes in their defences. Though cunning enough to hold his next wave back, the Ork Warboss was an overconfident warrior and he would later be extremely disappointed to find how heavy the first wave’s losses had been, but such news would have been of scant comfort to the beleaguered humans. The newly arrived Orks had advanced at a slower pace, impatient for battle yet kept in line by the veteran lieutenants of the Warboss. Among their ranks were many carrying rocket launchers and heavy machine guns. A few warheads were already arcing randomly into the base.
A sergeant ran past screaming breathless orders at anyone who came near, and the defence turned into a farce. Squads were split up as soldiers chose in the confusion to either press on into the base or sprint back to the trenches through increasingly heavy bursts of incoming fire. The heavy bolter nests were nowhere near sufficient to hold off the attackers, though they felled many. Vashlev, Dimitrov and Kolov leapt into the nearest section of trench, and as Roshenko was about to join them a lucky rocket struck him square in the chest and turned him into a greasy mist of gore.
“I thought they said Orks were thick?” Vashlev cried.
The soldiers who had made it to the trench fired, but it was merely token resistance. Becoming horribly aware of the solid shot whipping through the air around him, Vashlev was simply seized by terror and flung himself prone. Kolov and Dimitrov, assuming he had seen something big incoming, automatically followed suit, and so their lives were saved.
A battle cannon shell burst in the shattered dirt a short distance in front of their part of the trench, falling just in front of the Ork lines, and shrapnel scythed out in a manner that would surely have decapitated anyone on the firestep. Suddenly, darkness fell. Vashlev glanced up to see a vast shadow over him. One of the tanks, for some reason known only to its maddened commander, had sped forward to engage the horde and almost cleared the trench, and now it sat across it like a bridge, unwittingly shielding the three comrades underneath. Vashlev bitterly reflected that heroic gestures were the last thing they needed. The heavy bolters in its sponsons let out a deafening racket as the poured shots into the Orks, the clamouring noise causing the three Vostokhan to press their hands to their ears and howl in despair.
Had they known, this reckless manoeuvre was all that allowed them to survive the battle. Such was the fury of the stranded tank that even the hardened Orks started to veer away from it to find less dangerous entry points. Reduced to cowering heaps beneath the shelter of the doomed machine, the Vostokhan were in an island of relative safety that no Ork strayed into. That was why, long after the second wave had captured the base, long after the tank's bolters had run dry and its crew dragged from the torn-open hatch, the three emerged from their fear-maddened state to find that they were the only living humans in the trench.
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are da best!!! 
