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Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Hi all.

First time for quite a while I've posted some fiction. Unlike my previous efforts, I'm not going to post it all up in one sitting, so hopefully folks won't be scared off by a 10k wall of text

It's all finished and I'll post it chunk by digestible chunk over the next few days. Please feel free to comment and chime in!

Without further ado, here goes ...



If I want to survive this war, I just have to get through today.

A touch simplistic, I know, as this particular war has been grinding on for upwards of thirty years now, but setting goals beyond the immediate just underlines the vanishingly small hope I have of actually pulling this off, so I try to break it down into manageable chunks.

Not that I’ve weathered it for the full duration, of course. We were rotated in about a month ago, taking the place of the 701st Iron Dragoons in the line. We’d come in from peacekeeping duties out in the Saccahabib Cluster, where the worst we had to worry about were dirty looks from the locals. Seeing the mauled and broken remains of the Dragoons being airlifted out was something of a wake-up call and really gave me the motivation to walk out of here intact.

So far, what I’ve seen of this planet hasn’t given me much incentive to love it. Arisia V used to be a relatively pretty world, by all accounts. Not too crowded, not too industrial – the Imperium was only just really beginning to turn its attention to wringing it dry of resources. Four major continents, three of which are long gone, nuked to ash or pounded into chem-rotted sinkholes. Both sides are fighting tooth and nail over the remaining real estate, worthless though it now is. Whoever wins is going to be real disappointed with their prize.

Listening to the little guys around me, it’s clear that nobody on the ground actually has any idea about the reason we’re actually still fighting. Some say the locals seceded from the Imperium, other that some kind of underground cult pulled a coup and overthrew the planetary governorship. Whatever the case, here we are. We won’t be allowed to leave until the job’s done, no matter how many millions of men or billions of tons of materiel it takes.

For the Emperor!

The evening and the weather are both drawing in. The splashing approach of the regimental Commissar jolts me from my somewhat morbid introspection, and I snap to, casting around for something to look busy with. I was in the middle of loading Earthshaker rounds onto a Trojan for transport frontwards before I got distracted, so I bend my back and crack on, sweeping up two of the eighty pound shells at a time, one in each hand, and slamming them roughly into their racking. Out of the corner of my eye I notice Commissar Hartzkoff wince slightly at my apparent carelessness but I play dumb and carry on. Staying in character is the main thing that’ll keep me alive through this war. Well, that and not getting shot too badly. Anyway, the shells are safe as habs all the time they’re not fused. Any idiot knows that.

‘Varrk’.

I stop loading and turn round, crashing a fist against my plate armour in salute. At rigid attention, I look down at him attentively. Hartzkoff’s new to the regiment, a freshly-minted product of the Officio Prefectus. As such, he hasn’t yet had all the humanity excoriated from him and is worth getting on the good side of. The relentless light drizzle of particulate-heavy rain collects at the peak of his beautiful, shiny cap, leaving dirt-tracked runnels in its wake.

‘Yes, boss?’ I mumble. As always, actual speech is difficult for me; I tend to slur and stumble over my words.

Understandable really, given my lamentably brutish physiognomy, but annoying nonetheless. I can console myself with the fact that it helps people underestimate me, mistakenly conflating difficulty in articulating with difficulty in thinking. Cold comfort, though, I have to concede.

‘Varrk, we move out when sun returns. Go fight bad people and protect our friends. Fly on big birds, go in first and break big gun.’ Hartzkoff points back over his shoulder in the vague direction of the pair of regiment-attached Valkyries parked nearby under camo netting and behind good, solid berms. I know they’re solid because it was the other lads and me who built them. ‘This big, important fight, Varrk’, he continues, his voice compelling and earnest as it’s been trained from childhood to be. ‘Fight strong and brave, yes?’

I nod vigorously, saluting hard. Satisfied, Hartzkoff turns on his heel and stalks away. I watch him go, noting with wry amusement that he’s surreptitiously holding up the ends of his long, black leather coat to prevent it from trailing in the ground-up mud that sticks to absolutely everything. Once he’s departed, I start to scheme my own schemes. It’s useful, usually being given advance notice of planned offensives. I know it’s done because ‘my kind’ are perceived as being stupid and easily confused, therefore requiring longer to process new orders or adapt to the changing battlefield than ‘regular’ guardsmen. Thrust us headfirst into an unknown and unfamiliar situation and you’re asking for trouble, they say sagely.

To the best of my knowledge, by the way, I am the only one of my kind who isn’t dumb as a stump. Call it a quirk of genetics or what have you, but I’m a gak-ton smarter than I look. Certainly smart enough not to let on about it, that’s for sure.

Shells loaded, I lumber off on a meandering course that takes me past the Navy Valkyries. Little guardsmen move aside to let me pass but nobody tries to stop me. As long as I stay in character, I’m functionally invisible.

Under the netting, the drizzle’s less of an annoyance. I take a moment to savour the respite, rubbing a big, meaty hand across my bald head to dry it off whilst I consider the two assault carriers. The one on the left, the one with the nude lady painted on the nose, is being worked on by its crew – it looks to my uneducated eye like they’re swapping out the air filters on the intakes. I know from eavesdropping on the crew chiefs as they chatter that they’ve been running into problems with heavy particulate loading in the atmosphere causing poor running of the turbojets. It pleases me to see preventive maintenance in action.

The second Valkyrie, the one with the exaggerated snarling mouth and canine teeth painted around the front, shows no such sign of upkeep. I sprauchle casually round until I can take a squint into the main compartment via the dropped rear assault ramp. Two crew asleep, the others hunched over a folding table engaging in some form of card-based mathematical wagering contest.

I know which Valkyrie I’m boarding in the morning …

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

And the story continues ...


On my way back to the lads, I swing by the field kitchen. If I’ve timed it right, they’ve just finished serving the second shift and should be about to get rid of the slops. Salivating a little, I unbuckle the mess tin I always keep at my hip and go looking for Marty.

The little fat guy is in his element, waving a ladle like a Lord Marshal’s baton as he directs his platoon of kitchen corpsmen to prep for the next service. His team bustles around him, working despite rather than under his tutelage, casually performing the everyday miracle of keeping this section of the front adequately fed and watered.

I make myself known to Marty, grinning winningly as I proffer the ammo box that I’ve repurposed into a mess tin. He smiles back, waving and gesticulating in that exaggerated way one does when trying to connect with the slow or the dull. It’s nothing personal, I know, it’s just the insult of everyday existence; I’m the bigger man, so I’ll let it go all the time I keep getting free food.

‘Hey there, Varrk!’ he rasps cheerily, beckoning me forwards. I clump in, hunkering down under the tarp and taking care not to step on anyone or anything that might be important. Or squishy. Corpsmen flow around me like the tide around a rock as extra rations get dolloped into my mess tin. Marty’s bionic left arm growls, tics and sputters as he works, the movement catching dim reflections from the low-grade lumens hanging from the struts above us.

It triggers a memory, a time back when Marty was younger, thinner and all four of his limbs had been Mark I original. He’d been a squad leader in an armoured fist unit, back when we were fighting the greenskins on Vandemons’ Land. Too eager to exploit a breakthrough in the Orks’ defensive lines, he’d found himself overextended and cut off. By the time we’d caught up, he’d lost his squad and his arm to a jacked-up mob of boyz. As our flying wedge thundered in, I remember hitting the biggest one at a dead run, my slab shield taking it square in its ugly tusked face, just as it was about to bite Marty in half. That had been a hell of a fight, a glorious excuse to just turn everything off upstairs and immerse myself in the exhilarating brutality of the moment. Even thinking about it now takes me tingle and an unwitting smile creeps across my face.

Marty finishes topping up my slop and looks up at me. He smiles in return, mistaking my blood-tinged reverie for simple friendship. His good arm pats my forearm and he’s silent for a moment. I decide to break the mood before this turns awkward, so I blink a couple of times and belch before lifting the mess tin to my nose and taking a good, noisy sniff.

‘Fanks’, I growl carefully, then turn and lumber back out into the rain-laced night. I pace myself, making sure I finish my meal before I make it back to the bivvy. The last thing I want tonight is to give Kaldun any excuse to try and throw his weight around. We have a delicately-negotiated truce in place whereby he pretends that he’s in charge of the team and I pretend to go along with it. It reassures the little guardsmen, mostly – they like it when the chain of command is seen to be functioning correctly, even with us auxilla.

Kaldun was always a royal pain to be around, even before they took him away to have the surgery. He came back with rank insignia, cranial implants and a mistaken belief that he was now top dog in our tight-knit little crew. It took a couple of nights of silent, savage beatings to disabuse him of this notion and now we more or less get along okay.

The nutrient paste, chunks of meat (other) and bulking agent slide down my gullet as I walk past rows of neatly-ranked tents, the little guardsmen inside trying to grab as much sleep as they can before tomorrow’s offensive. A couple of times sentries make to challenge me, then suddenly appear to think better of it before turning to patrol in other directions. Were I in their shoes, I have to admit I’d probably do the same.

I run a finger round the inside of the tin, making sure I’ve gotten every last morsel. Momentarily content, I give out a happy sigh and stow my mess tin before re-joining my squad in our little encampment. Under our ‘borrowed’ field tent, most of them are already asleep, sprawled supine in the mud and snoring like rockgrinders. The fire’s burning low so I cast around for more wood to bank it up, breaking up ammo boxes and carefully layering the fragments atop the flames. That should see us through until morning.

I grab my slab shield from where I’d earlier rammed it vertically down into the muddy ground and lay it carefully out so one end is licked by the flames of the fire. I lie atop it, enjoying the stinging prickle of the conducted heat and idly watching the flicker shadows cast on the worn, patched canvas above me. The faint drumming of the rain and the popping crackle of the burning wood makes for an adequate white noise and I let myself roll into sleep.

Hey, I survived today! Just have to do the same tomorrow …


Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Next part's up:


My dreams of farming are blinked away as I’m jolted awake. It’s still dark and Kaldun’s doing his damn squad leader thing, kicking the other lads awake with malicious jabs of his iron-shod boots. He makes his way round to me but I catch his eye before he lets fly and he stumbles, settling instead for a foul-mouthed, semi-intelligible curse as a motivational wake-up call. Behind him, framed in the doorway, Commissar Hartzkoff stands silently and watches. He’s still holding his coat tails clear of the mud with one hand. The other is holding a bulky, heavy-looking container liberally emblazoned with runes of radiation-appeasing and the yellow and black warning symbols of the holy nuclear trinity. The case appears to be shackled to his wrist. A few of the lads clock the Commissar and nudge one another, muttering hushed whispers of ‘Hat!’

When we’re all up and standing in an approximation of a straight line, Hartzkoff pivots neatly, motioning for us to follow him. Around us, the little guardsmen are packing up and heading out, forming into squads and making their way to the motor pool where the regimental Chimeras are being coaxed into growling, belligerent life by their crews. The air’s already thick with exhaust fumes and churning aggression but at least it’s finally stopped raining.

The eight of us are led to the waiting Valkyries and split into two sticks of four. It takes a minute or two for a couple of my brothers in arms to get the concept. There’s a further hiccup when I find myself pointed towards the Valkyrie with the snarling painted mouth and the flight crew with the more laissez faire attitude towards preventative maintenance.
Feigning stupidity (and you have no idea how much it irks me to have to pull that particular card), I ignore where I’m supposed to go and casually wander across to the other gunship. Kaldun, of course, immediately bustles over to try and intimidate me into moving back to where I should be but I play it dumb, staring vacantly through his exasperated grunting and pointedly ignoring his jabbing finger. The more irate he becomes, the further I retreat into a mind’s eye view of a thatched farmhouse surrounded by a rustic apple orchard, sunlight dappling through the leaves to caress the fertile earth…

Our impasse is broken as, all across the encampment, vox horns begin to blare, sounding out the call to arms. Kaldun breaks off and glares at me, simple hatred working across his thuggish, beetle-browed face. He’s given it his best shot but I haven’t moved. He’s dimly aware that he’s lost, but he’s not sure what or how. Careful that we’re not being observed, I wink at him before turning to lumber up the assault ramp into the Valkyrie’s red-lit interior. His expression unreadable, Hartzkoff joins Kaldun and the rest of the lads in the other aircraft.

Once inside, I shoulder my way to the rear of the compartment, turning to sit down on my slab shield with my back against the bulkhead that separates us from the pilots. This is where the armour’s thickest and I’ll happily take all the extra protection I can get. My three squad mates are all clustered up near the ramp; whether eager to get stuck in to the fight or just trying to see the last of the daylight as the ramp grinds closed, I’m not sure. I can smell their uneasiness, their inherent mistrust of the cramped interior and the fact we’ll soon be pinballing through flak fire in it, trusting our lives to the Emperor and the questionable skills of the flight crew. It’s a mistrust I share but I’m doing my thing to hold it together, mentally retreating to my little farmhouse again until such time as we either make the combat drop or get blown from the storm-tossed skies in a great, greasy fireball.

There’s a rising howl transmitted through the airframe as the Valkyrie’s turbines begin to spin up. I stare fixedly rearwards as we lurch upwards, slipping violently sideways for a second before full power kicks in and we launch ourselves towards our target. The door gunners lean in towards each other and bump fists briefly before turning their attention to their gimbal-mounted heavy bolters, slapping the first rounds into place and making sure the chain feeds are running smoothly. Once they’re satisfied, they secure their harnesses and slide the heavy armoured side doors open, letting in the full, unfiltered roar of the engines and the banshee scream of the air. Do they look relaxed? Worried? Hard to tell as their faces are obscured behind heavy black goggles and rebreather masks.

A green lumen blinks on, a staccato warning that we’re over the front line and now in hostile airspace. Our pilots immediately cut the Valkyrie some slack, allowing the war machine a little leeway as we hammer forwards. The assault carrier dips and rolls, canting from side to side as it hugs the nap of the earth. I stretch my arms out sideways and press my palms against the walls to hold myself in place, still trying to picture myself in my minds-eye rural idyll. Just survive today and I’m a step closer. Just survive today …

Flak coughs and ugly, vicious flowers bloom in the air all around us, the buffeting and barking of overlapping explosions becoming lost in the overload of aural madness in which we’re caught. I can see it’s starting to get to Manzy – he’s shaking and his eyes are rolling like a grox that realises it’s being led off to the slaughtorium. This could be unfortunate if he loses it at this particular moment, so I reluctantly haul myself to my feet and carefully make my way rearwards, pulling a fire extinguisher from its bracket on the bulkhead as I do so.

I stand behind my agitated squad mate, one hand firmly grasping an overhead strap whilst I get a sapper’s grip on the extinguisher with the other. Raising it high, I bring the makeshift baton down hard on the back of Manzy’s skull with a ringing thud. The extinguisher crumples with the impact, splitting where it’s bent around the shape of his stupid head, and pressurised foam blasts out, freezing and soaking the dumb grunt. Between the concussion and the shock, Manzy calms down and gets a lid on it. Drama over.

I turn to resume my seat. Both door gunners are staring at me, expressions unreadable behind their goggles. I shrug and go to squeeze past them. They make plenty of room for me.


Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Next part's up ...


There’s a sound like hard hail and warning klaxons begin to scream. The Valkyrie falls away to port, spewing chaff and flares in a desperate attempt to shake the barrage of AA fire that’s tagged us. Our heavy bolters open up with a defiant roar, the gunners firing seemingly blindly from both sides as we roll and jink. Caught on my feet, I hold on for dear life through the evasive manoeuvring, trying to keep one foot planted on my shield to prevent it from bouncing around the interior and killing or injuring us all. Country farmhouse. Country farmhouse. Country farmhouse.

The emplacements bracketing us suddenly disappear in a twisted curtain of white-hot promethium as our top cover makes its presence felt. Our two escorting Thunderbolts pull up sharply from their bombing runs and hurtle skywards again, turbofan engines screaming through the roiling smoke of destruction left twisting in their wake.

Taking advantage of the momentary respite, the pilot walls the throttle and the Valkyrie surges forward, powering hard towards our designated drop-off zone. Another minute or so and we’ll be in a position to bail, I reckon.

As if on cue, the assault ramp begins to labour open. The other two lads in the stick each grab one of Manzy’s arms and hoist him to his feet. He’s a little woozy, but manages to stand upright. The three of them begin to bang their mauls against their slab shields, psyching themselves for the moment when we’ll be hitting the battlefield. They sound like trip hammers, drowning out the roar of the Valkyrie and the ongoing thunder of the destruction all around us. It’s a bellicose tattoo, a siren song calling to me, teasing forth the primal brutishness I keep suppressed deep within my animal hindbrain. I’m salivating and I taste coppery blood in my mouth. The urge to get stuck in and smash all before me looms, large and dark. I take an almost involuntary step forwards.

A cold, detached part of my mind points out that if I let these urges control me I’m probably going to die here today. No farmhouse! It needs repeating a couple of times but eventually the animal subsides, slinking back to its cave. My muscles unclench, I take a calming breath and then, gripping my maul in one massive hand, I heft my slab shield and make my way up to join my brothers. The battlefield bobs and rolls past beneath us, the view over the dropped ramp at once both captivating and horrifying.

Close behind us is the other Valkyrie. Its painted mouth seems to grins wolfishly at me as it jinks from side to side. Suddenly, the airframe shudders as one of its two primary turbojets spews out a ball of blue-white fire from the exhaust before failing spectacularly.

That’ll be the particulate loading, then …

This close to the ground, there’s nothing the pilots can do. The stricken assault carrier rolls over onto one side and plummets, its port wing hitting the ground and digging in. The crumpling wreck spins end over end a couple of times, tearing itself apart upon the war-torn surface of the battlefield. It slides to a halt in the lee of a wrecked Banesword, a rusting superheavy memorial to an earlier attempt to storm this particular front. Miraculously, the Valkyrie doesn’t explode, although it doesn’t look too good for the poor saps inside it. It’s a safe bet that both the pilots are dead, as the entire front end has been pulped and sheared off. The main compartment’s battered, rent and smoking but still vaguely intact.

Our comrades in arms have fallen short scarcely a couple of hundred yards from our objective. Even if they’d crash-landed directly onto it, I doubt they’d have scratched it. Looks like the ‘big gun’ Hartzkoff wanted us to go and break is actually an emplaced macro-cannon.

I only have time for a quick glance before we’re bailing out but what I can see makes me feel like I should be negatively reassessing my chances of making it through the day.

It’s essentially a weapon lifted from a capital ship, transplanted down to the planet’s surface and turned into the mother of all gun emplacements. The structure housing it is a good seven or eight stories tall, built of layered ceramite and plasteel plating over a rockcrete base that is itself several feet thick. In places, it’s been further reinforced by having densely-packed earth banked up against it, giving it a half-buried look. This is all topped off with the distinctive visual hazing of an active void shield, protecting it from orbital or ranged bombardment.

It forms the foremost point of the main enemy defensive line, a network of walls, trenches, earthworks and barricades stretching away for miles. This is the line our offensive is going to hit in a short while and this is the gun that’s going to cause us no end of grief if we can’t silence it.

We’re obviously not going to be able to scratch it with our mauls. To make a dent in something like that you’d need …

I look back at the crashed Valkyrie.

… a nuke.


Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





St. Louis, MO

Good work so far, please continue as you can.

I'm pulling for him to make it to the farm.
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Thanks - glad you're enjoying it!

It'd be great if he makes it to the farm rather than just buying it ...

Next update should be tomorrow.

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in at
Bounding Assault Marine






Austria, Segmentum Solar

Nice, I'll keep reading this! Great stuff so far!

   
Made in no
Terrifying Doombull





Hefnaheim

Bullgryns are one of the Things that makes me grin on a Sunday evening! Combined with you`r very good work and descriptions makes for a great Sunday evening read, keep them comming
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Thanks AmberWarden! Appreciate the nice words, my friend.

Hey Trondheim - glad you're liking it so far. It's been great fun to write and I hope the story keeps you grinning, mate!

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Next part's up!


The deck tilts backwards, the assault ramp dragging across the mud-slicked ground, as the pilots execute a tail walk deployment. The three lads in front of me charge forwards unhesitatingly, exiting the Valkyrie with their shields linked and their heads down. Squinting through the armourglass vision slits, they orient themselves so they’re pointing towards the macro cannon emplacement and barrel towards it, sliding and splashing as they go. Point defence guns track them and open up, and the air grows thick with kicked-up mud, gun smoke and hot, flying death. I give it a second to make sure the enemy are fully engaged before diving clear myself. Hunched over and zig-zagging, I pelt towards the holed carcass of the long-dead Banesword, looking for shelter in the dead space behind its rusting hull.

Our Valkyrie breaks for the dubious safety of the skies, pausing only long enough to unload both rocket pods as suppressing fire before hightailing it away. I slide behind cover in a shower of mud and water, pressing myself against something solid and metallic whilst I catch my breath. Risking a glance round the corner, I see that the lads’ charge appears to have stalled, even their simple-minded determination and locked shields not enough to carry them all the way clear to the objective. From the looks of it, they’ve sought the shelter of one of the many blast craters pitting the open ground and have hunkered down in the filthy mud hole. Either that or they simply didn’t see the gaping hole before them and fell into it as they raced forwards. Either way, they’re squatting down, shields held stoically over their heads whilst they wait for new instructions. Opportunist fire from the defensive line discourages them from moving.

Keeping a low profile, I make my way over to the stricken Valkyrie. The starboard-side sliding door is hanging off its top runner, buckled almost in half from the impact of the crash. Using my maul as a lever, I apply some pressure and wrench it aside, the metal shrieking and grating as I force it open. The corpse of one of the door gunners flops out, draping itself across my shoulder and spattering me with an odious cocktail of miscellaneous bodily fluids. The body smells of blood, smoke and faecal matter. With a growl of disgust, I shrug it off and force my way into the charnel house within.

None of my brothers made it. They’re still mostly intact but the amount of damage they’ve taken is far beyond even our ability to soak up. It looks like they’ve repeatedly and persistently been bounced off every interior surface of the Valkyrie until there’s little left but pulped bags of oozing meat in dented armour. There’s no sign of Commissar Hartzkoff or his fancy nuclear briefcase and I pound a fist into the bulkhead in frustration, leaving a pie-shaped dent in the plating. The pain spurs me, and I’m suddenly genuinely furious at the unfairness and injustice of this whole damn stupid situation. How the hell am I supposed to survive today if I have no chance of completing the mission? I cast about for something more satisfying (and less painful) upon which to vent my feelings and I chance upon the battered corpse of Kaldun, curled in a near-foetal position, still clutching his shield. A tooth-bared grin crawls lazily across my features and my knuckles crack as I tighten up my fists.

I reach down, grab him by the scruff of the neck and haul his carcass upright. As I do so, Hartzkoff tumbles free of Kaldun’s protective grasp. The Commissar slides to the deck, unconscious and badly battered but undeniably still alive. My mouth goes slack with astonishment, and I almost drop the corpse on top of him. Dumb as a box of rocks and mean-spirited as he was, Kaldun took his oaths to ‘protect the hat’ seriously, shielding the squishy little guy with his body throughout the crash landing. My fury dissipates. Game on.

Pushing my late, lamented ex-squad leader aside, I scoop Hartzkoff up and back out of the Valkyrie. Once in the open, I take a second to give him a careful look over, making sure he’s not in imminent danger of death. He’s taken a nasty blow to the head, leaving him with blood-matted hair and an egg-sized lump on his temple. His left arm looks broken too, so I quickly fashion a splint from pieces of spar and some canvas. Best to do this whilst he’s out, as I presume it’s somewhat on the painful side.

Once I’ve done all I can for him (which admittedly isn’t much, as my medicae secundus field training is obviously more focussed on patching up my own kind rather than his), I take a moment to size up the battlefield and plan my next move. I’m going to need to hook up with my brothers in the mud hole, as that’s the only realistic chance I’ve got of getting Hartzkoff and his nuke anywhere near the macro-cannon emplacement.

They’re about fifty yards ahead of me, and then a hundred yards short of the objective. There’re some smatterings of cover in the way and the odd partially-collapsed trench but it’s mostly a bullet-torn, shell-pocked free fire zone. Of course. If I even attempt to make it across open ground to where they’re holed up, I’m going to get cut to ribbons.

I need a distraction. And fast. I’m acutely aware of the need to destroy this emplacement before our latest advance comes rolling over the horizon and I’m caught slap-bang in the middle of the fireworks.

Glancing in the mud around me, I bend down and scoop up a rock about the size of a krak grenade. I give it a thoughtful heft to get a gauge of its weight and then draw back my arm and let fly. The rock arcs through the air and hits one of my hunkered-down brothers square in the back of the head. I hear the surprised bellow, muffled by distance, and he swings round and peers angrily in my general direction. I stifle a smirk when I see it’s poor old Manzy who took the hit. His head’s going to be lumpier than Marty’s porridge by the day’s end.

I lift Hartzkoff’s unconscious body up by the back of the neck in front of me so the lads can see it. Once I’ve got their attention, I grab his unbroken arm by the elbow and make a beckoning gesture with it. The three heads go into a huddle whilst I fret and grumble under my breath. Obey the hat, lads. Follow your conditioning.

A decision is made, a consensus reached. My squad mates fix their shields together and back up out of the shell hole, falling back to my position. The incoming fire goes from opportunistic and sporadic to full-on lethal. They weather it with the placid stoicism of the unimaginative, retreating footstep by indefatigable footstep, shields battered by the relentless barrage of fire. I’m torn between admiration and pity for the dumb slobs.

One of the lads takes a lucky shot that ricochets off a fragment of battlefield debris and whines up under his shield. It hits him in the meat of his calf, just behind his armoured shin plate. He bellows in surprise and pain and jerks reflexively upright. His shield discipline gone, he presents a gift of a target to the enemy gunners, and they home in on him without hesitation or pity. Small- and mid-calibre shots pepper him. Most of them whang furiously off his armour but a few, a vicious few, hit home, punching through where protection is lacking or has been stripped away. He shudders with the impacts, his maul slipping from his grasp to splash into the mire beneath his boots. With the last of his strength, he pushes away from his two brothers and stands alone, shield half-lowered in tired and bewildered acceptance of his fate.

A las-cannon cores him through, and he stands dead on his feet for a good ten seconds before slowly toppling backwards into the mud’s sucking embrace.

Manzy and the other remaining lad take full advantage of this tragic little vignette to hotfoot it the remainder of the way, pounding backwards round the corner into the sheltering cover of the dead Banesword. They show no signs of slowing, so I drop to my knees and sweep their legs with my maul. They hit the deck hard, sliding on their backs through the filth with twin looks of vague surprise on their faces. I’m on top of them before they have a chance to get their bearings; they’re going to need to accept their place in the new scheme of things pretty damn quick if things are going to work out.

Booting the closest one in the ribs (sorry, Manzy), I gesture for them to get to their feet. I snarl and growl and do whatever else I can remember Kaldun doing in similar situations to encourage them to move faster. I’ve got a fistful of Hartzkoff’s fancy leather coat and he’s hanging like a de-stringed marionette; I shake him a little to inject a dash of urgency into the two lads, fighting the urge to look over my shoulder to see if the advance has crested the horizon yet.

Once the two of them are standing, I make my pitch. I have to appeal to their training, to what’s been drummed into them every day since day one of basic. Raising the commissar’s limp body, I look them in the eye.

‘Protect the hat!’

They don’t look convinced. Manzy, in particular, is frowning more than usual. I repeat the order.

‘Protect the hat!’

Manzy leans in towards Hartzkoff. I’m not sure if he’s going to sniff him or try to take a bite out of him. In the end, he settles for a tentative poke with a big, stubby finger.

‘Hat dead?’

I fight to keep a look of general, non-specific belligerence on my face whilst inside I’m screaming with built-up frustration. Farmhouse. Orchard. Farmhouse. Orchard. Now is not the time I want to hear Manzy come out with the longest sentence he’s ever put together in his whole miserable, misbegotten life. I just need him to do what he’s been damn well conditioned to do.

‘Hat not dead’, I reply through gritted teeth, punctuating each word with a slight muscular tic, causing Hartzkoff’s body to twitch along in time. ‘Hat sleep. We go smash big gun or hat be sad’.

Brus clears his throat, looking like he’s about to weigh in for the first time. The lad’s not known for being much of a talker, so it’s always a bit of a surprise when he does choose to open his mouth. You know that classical trope of the guy who almost never speaks, but on the rare occasion he does it’s always something profound or pithy?

‘Hat good’.

Brus is not that trope. But it’s all I have to work with, so I latch onto it with the desperate tenacity of a drowning man.

‘Yes! Hat good! Make hat happy – get safe to big gun, okay? Hat be pleased, much food’.

If I can’t appeal to their sense of duty, I’ll try more venal drivers.

Manzy and Brus exchange what they probably think are furtive glances before coming to some silent agreement.

Manzy speaks for the pair of them, nodding as he does so. His voice sounds like tectonic plates shifting. ‘We protect hat. For food. Plan?’

I fight to keep the relief out of my voice, taking a second to compose myself and stay in character before I answer.

‘Plan tricky. Listen good …’



Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Next part's up! As always, C&C greatly appreciated ...


‘Chaaaarge!’

Manzy and Brus thunder forwards, shields locked. I’m tucked in tight behind them, cradling Hartzkoff in one arm whilst I keep my shield high to protect us all from elevated threats. My maul’s slung at my hip, thudding reassuringly (albeit painfully) into my calf as we gallop onwards. The racket is incredible – it sounds like we’re inside a promethium barrel that’s being worked over by industrial servitors with pneumatic hammers. Bullets howl and whine around us, unable to punch through our shield wall. I’m shouting constantly, incoherently, urging the two lads to keep it up, keep the momentum of the charge going. If we slow, if we falter, we’re exposed and dead.

We hurtle past the mud hole and keep going. We’re less than a hundred yards from the emplacement. The good news is that we’re probably inside the minimum range of the serious anti-armour defences. The bad news is we’re fast approaching the optimum range for the point defence weapons – I don’t need to be able to see them to know that assault cannons are starting to spool up and pilot lights for heavy flamers are being ignited.

To continue the frontal assault is nothing more than suicide.

So I don’t.

I noticed when I surveyed the area earlier that there’s an old, abandoned trench line that runs at an oblique angle back towards the emplacement. It’s taken a few too many direct hits to remain viable and is only a few feet deep in places but it looks like it could be used to get pretty close without drawing too much attention. Assuming one had a suitable distraction to keep the enemy gunners occupied.

Manzy and Brus hurdle the gap of the trench, panting hard and pushing themselves onwards. I stop, drop and roll, slamming into the far wall of the collapsed trench and coming up quickly onto my elbows and knees. I reckon I have another minute or so before the charge of the dumb brigade reaches its inevitable, lamentable conclusion and I want to make up as much distance as I can before anyone starts looking for me. I sling Hartzkoff up onto my back so I can use both arms to propel myself forwards in a half-drag, half-crawl that sees me slithering through the mud at a prodigious pace.

I crest a lip and slide down into a shell crater, splashing face-first into a couple of bloated, putrescent corpses. Their uniforms are so far gone it’s impossible to tell for whom they gave their lives. Defenders or attackers, the dead have a simple commonality.

I shoulder them aside and wade through the stinking, flyblown morass. The bark and roar of gunfire is still hammering away off to the side, so Manzy and Brus are still running inadvertent cover for me and the Commissar. The end of the trench is in sight and I redouble my efforts, pounding up out of the crater onto firmer footing and barrelling forwards. I risk straightening up a little to get my bearings; when I go up and over the top, I have less than ten yards to cover before I reach the dubious shelter of the emplacement’s outer walls.

Slug rifles poking from murder holes swivel to face me, and I half-hear startled shouts as the more alert of the wall defenders raise the alarm. Everyone with a bead on me opens up as I swarm up out of the collapsed trench. My slab shield’s raised and braced, and I stay hunched down behind it as I close the distance, half-running, half-sliding through the mud. The odd angled shot pings off my body armour or (in one unfortunate case) smacks wetly into the meat of my shoulder. The stinging pain occasions an involuntary yelp and I almost drop Hartzkoff. I’m teetering between panic and animalistic fury for a moment, my head a confused, murky whirl of doubts and possibilities. Keep it together … just make it through today. Farmhouse! Farmhouse!

My mantra centres me, focuses me on the immediacy of my situation. Not daring to slow down, I hit the wall at full tilt, shield-first. There’s a bone-jarring crump! of impact and I almost bounce backwards into the waiting, hungry fire lanes. Reeling slightly, I turn myself about and bring the shield up in instinctive defence, backing into a corner formed by the wall and a protruding buttress. I’m not sure, but I think I heard something snap from some part of Hartzkoff when we collided with the fortification. As long as it wasn’t his neck I’m sure we’ll manage. I glance down as I’m sucking in lungfuls of bitter, sooty air – yup, he still appears to be breathing and, crucially, the briefcase is still dangling from his wrist. The chafing’s going to need some serious balms, I note absently.

Movement alerts me to some chancer trying to bring a gun to bear. His rifle’s too long and unwieldy to swivel round to shoot at me, so he’s withdrawn that and stuck his arm, clutching a pistol, through his firing hole. Before he has a chance to line it up, I grab at him with my free hand, my fist engulfing his wrist and forearm. With a twist, I break his arm, then heave, pulling him bodily into the wall and silencing his shrill scream of pain.

Letting go of the mangled arm, I reach behind me and pull out one of the two melta charges I keep tucked away for occasions like this. I rip the arming strip loose with my teeth and slap the innocuous-looking grey cylinder to the emplacement’s exterior wall, before thumbing the big red button and crabbing round to the far side of the buttress.

I’m barely clear when the charge detonates. There’s a scream of air, flash-burned, counterpointed by the sizzling of a superheated avalanche as an entire section of the wall loses coherency and slides free, becoming little more than a bubbling puddle of molten rockcrete. A roiling wave of overpressure breaks against the buttress and the fine downy hairs over my forearms and back spark and singe.

Quickly, whilst the enemy are still reeling, I swing back around and throw myself forwards through the dripping hole melted into the fortification. Beyond is a smallish room, with a door at the rear. Crates are stacked against both side walls. Of greater immediate concern is the gaggle of hostiles inside. There are four of them on their feet (not counting the half-melted corpse with the badly-broken arm slumped on the floor) and one of them has enough presence of mind to react to my appearance by bringing up his autogun and spraying a clip in my direction. My shield rattles and bucks under the impacts as I power forwards.

He dies first. I barrel into him, bringing the shield up in a brutal swipe which smashes him from his feet and bounces him hard off the ceiling. He hits the floor with a dull crunch! and I finish the job with a stamp of my steel-shod boot. Swinging around, I unhook my maul and mash the activation rune before charging forwards again.

Two of the defenders bar my way whilst the last races for the door. I can’t have him going through and summoning assistance so I make nailing him my absolute priority. Shouldering aside the little guys in the way, I swing the maul in a tight, vicious overhead arc which cracks his flak helmet in half and shatters the skull beneath. He bounces off the door and slides to the ground, left leg twitching spasmodically.

One of the two remaining soldiers is fast enough to bring his sidearm up and open fire. I knew that this was a risk when I went through them but figured it was one that had to be taken. The Emperor’s obviously looking favourably down on me today as both rounds ricochet off the rusting, battered sections of tank track I’ve got welded on to my armoured vest. Before he has a chance to readjust his aim, I’m on top of him. I bring the maul down hard on his gun hand then step back and deliver a side kick into his midriff, all the while keeping my shield up between me and the other guy.

I roar something inarticulate but scary to keep the second soldier rattled whilst I take the opportunity to finish off the first. The sound shakes the cramped confines, louder than the ringing echoes of the gunfire that preceded it. It’s a most gratifying sensation, this abhuman dread. Am I a hypocrite for glorying in this feeling, seeing as I spend so much time bemoaning the fact that me and my kind are universally shunned and abhorred by the little people we fight alongside? Maybe. Whatever, the middle of a fire fight’s probably not the ideal time to ponder this little dichotomy.

A final brutal smash with the maul and I’ve carried the day. I stoop for a second, leaning on my shield, and gulp down massive lungfuls of acrid air. So far, so good.

I lift Hartzkoff up for inspection. Although he’s still hanging limply, I can see his chest rising and falling and no fresh blood seems to be leaking from him. Satisfied he’s still with me, I sling him back over my left shoulder and prepare to move out. Truth be told, I’m not entirely sure where I’m supposed to be moving to. I have less than a passing familiarity with the mechanics of capital ship weapons and so am a little unsure as to the best place to try and deposit the nuke for maximum effect. Do I try and knock out the void shield generator? Maybe the magazine’s a better bet? Or even fire control (wherever that might be)?

When in doubt, keep moving. I yank on the locking handle of the rear door, hauling it open to reveal a narrow, dingy corridor, rockcrete overlaid with plasteel, running off to the left and right of me. It looks like it parallels the outer walls, giving access to the myriad of mini-bunkers that forms the outer ring of the emplacement’s defences. Off to the right I spot a junction, hopefully leading deeper into the complex.so that’s the way I decide to head.

How much worse can it get?



Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in no
Terrifying Doombull





Hefnaheim

Oh that was truly a rather grim read, trench warfare is horrid. Even more so in 40k. The combat was well described and I like how you have portrayed the main characther.
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Hi Trondheim! Glad you liked it, my friend. I'm having fun writing my lead, so I'm pleased you're digging it. Have a great day!

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Aaaand the next part's up!


I lean back against the wall, eyes screwed shut and teeth bared, waiting for the pain to ebb down to a level where it’s manageable. My side feels like it’s on fire, the skin cracked, bubbled and weeping blood and pus from a lucky las-shot that got past my shield. My ears are ringing like a redemptionist’s hand bell and I’m reasonably sure I’ve picked up a bunch of stress fractures along my left radius and ulna.

The last ten minutes escalated somewhat; what began as a minor skirmish ended up as a full-on running battle as more and more of the defenders became alerted to my presence in their midst. Like bees dealing with a wasp invading a hive, they just kept throwing bodies at me in the hope that sheer numbers would drag me down. The narrow confines of the corridor kept me alive, limiting their opportunities to utilise their numerical superiority. Even so, it was a foregone conclusion that I’d be swamped sooner rather than later, so I barricaded myself in an armoured storeroom and used my final melta charge to burn a hole in the floor and drop down a level.

I reckon that’s bought me five minutes. I hope it’s enough.

Spitting a wad of blood-clotted phlegm, I straighten up and take a squint around me. It appears I’ve come through into a network of maintenance runs, narrow metal-shod corridors with walls hidden behind drooping loops of power conduits and hydraulic cabling branching off every way I look. Erratically-spaced emergency lumens provide grudging illumination – I think they’re probably red but it might just be my vision starting to slide. With nothing else to go on, I decide to follow what seems like the thickest set of power lines, certainly the ones with the most hazard runes auto-calligraphed upon them, high up on the wall. Settling Hartzkoff (who’s still unconscious but has begun to turn an alarming mottled shade around the face) back over my shoulder, I reach deep down inside myself and summon up what pitiful reserves of energy I still possess.

I lurch through the red-washed darkness like a whiteshield after his first drink, reeling from wall to wall as I stumble forwards. My breath is raspingly loud, almost drowning out the hammering of my heart as I force one boot in front of the other.

Behind me, off to one side, I hear the first faint clamour of pursuit. With a sigh that turns into a wince, I pick up the pace. I’m having a hard time keeping a clear head, my thoughts dulled and muffled by the fog of pain and utter weariness in which I find myself. It’s as much as I can do to keep following the thick clump of power cables, praying to the God-Emperor Himself that they lead somewhere fragile, operationally-critical and – most importantly – lightly-guarded.

It takes me another good few minutes of pained shambling, both literally and metaphorically stumbling aimlessly around in the dark, before I have my moment of clarity. It’s not a sudden flash of insight, more a nagging that slowly coalesces into something resembling a coherent thought.

The question both asks and answers itself in a sardonic fashion: why so concerned about placing the explosive next to a critical system when the explosive in question IS A GODDAMN NUKE?

As soon as this comes out, I feel a rush of release. I’m simultaneously elated that I’ve come to this simple truth and mortified that it’s taken me this long to realise it. I can only blame the pain, shock and substantial back catalogue of injuries I’m currently sporting. For one of the first times since I attained consciousness, I feel dumb.

I’m inside the belly of the beast; neither the void shield nor the metres of layered rockcrete and plasteel protecting the exterior of the emplacement are worth a damn now. Detonating Hartzkoff’s briefcase anywhere down here will be enough to take the macro-cannon out of commission with some style. No, the trick now is to work out how to pull this off without getting myself blown into my component atoms.

Drawing on my second, or possibly even third wind, I cast my gaze about me. It takes a few minutes, during which time I’m painfully aware of the sounds of my pursuers closing in on me, but eventually I discover a venting shaft running from floor to ceiling. A swipe with my maul smashes open the locked inspection panel and I stick my head through into the shaft. It descends as far as I can make out in the poor light.

Good enough.

I lower Hartzkoff to the floor, sitting him up with his back against the wall, then turn my attention to the nuke. The casing’s taken some dents and cracks along the way but it still looks more or less intact. There’s a simple biometric auspex to get through before I can waken the nuke’s machine spirit and goad it towards a transcendent holy reaction – the Commissar’s thumb print should suffice.

I tug his leather glove off and jam his thumb against the auspex’s reader. There’s a click, a chattering and a whirr and the covering protecting the arming mechanism retracts smoothly back into the casing. The panel beneath is quite simple, consisting of a timing dial and a literal big red button. I guess they want people to be able to use it even under the pressure of an intense life-or-death firefight. Very considerate.

I set the dial for half an hour’s delay, then gingerly tap the big red button. There’s a brief auto-choral of confirmation then the dial begins to wind backwards. So far, so good. All I need to do now is find the key for the wrist cuff, undo the nuke and drop it down the venting shaft.

After a quick, and increasingly anxious, search, I haven’t managed to find the key. What I have found, however, is a big hole ripped in one of the pockets of the Commissar’s lovely long black coat.

This puts me in something of a pickle.

The nuke now is unstoppable. In just over twenty seven minutes, it will explode. The question is … do I abandon Hartzkoff here to go up with it?

I’m still mulling this over when I realise I’ve come to a halt twenty yards away from the unconscious Commissar. I appear to be caught in two minds. Consciously, I’ve already written him off. Unconsciously, however, I’m troubled, ill at ease. I keep thinking of Hartzkoff and his beautiful hat, and how wrong it would be to just leave him to perish when I might be able to save him. And his hat. After all, isn’t that what I’m here for? Isn’t that my role? Wouldn’t that just be the best thing ever? And it is a ferociously beautiful hat, too.

It’s the conditioning, a detached little part of my mind points out to me. I remember the interminable drill sessions back in Basic, I remember quietly scoffing to myself at the obvious crude psych-manipulation going on, the unsophisticated way the whole ‘protect the hat!’ mantra was forced down our throats. I remember thinking to myself that I was way too smart to fall for any of that nonsense.

And yet here I am, vacillating whilst a nuke’s ticking down.

I’m cursing the psych-boys even as I’m grudgingly admiring their technique. As quickly as my battered frame will allow, I turn and head back towards Hartzkoff. My options are limited and I’ve exhausted them all in my head before I’ve gotten back to him.

The cuff itself is too tough for me to break without either time or specialist tools.

The briefcase can’t be messed with for obvious reasons.

The weak spot remaining is the Commissar himself.

I crouch down as best I can and lay my slab shield aside with a groan of relief and pain mixed, as the broken bones in my left arm grate and rub together under the redistribution of weight. Snagging some wiring from a conduit on the wall, I tie a loop round Hartzkoff’s arm just below the elbow. It’ll need to be good and tight if this is to work, so I go in as hard as I can, heedless of the sudden whitening of his skin below the sleeve.

This next bit’s not going to be pleasant. I take a moment, take a breath, and try to elevate my consciousness somewhere above this current monstrousness. Country farmhouse. I can’t believe I have to do this. Orchard. Here goes.

I take a hasty breath, then quickly, before my resolve wavers and my nerve breaks, I bring the Commissar’s arm up, clamp my jaw around his forearm and bite down with all my might.



Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in no
Terrifying Doombull





Hefnaheim

Good grieft! Well that is one crude way to preform Battlefield surgery I guess.
   
Made in no
Terrifying Doombull





Hefnaheim

 Necroagogo wrote:
Hi Trondheim! Glad you liked it, my friend. I'm having fun writing my lead, so I'm pleased you're digging it. Have a great day!



Its a great story and glad to read Your work again, have a great day you too my friend!
   
Made in us
Prescient Cryptek of Eternity





East Coast, USA

I'm thoroughly enjoying this. It makes me want to go buy a unit of Bullgryns and paint them up.

Check out my website. Editorials! Tutorials! Fun Times To Be Had! - kriswallminis.com


https://www.thingiverse.com/KrisWall/about


Completed Trades With: ultraatma 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

 Kriswall wrote:
I'm thoroughly enjoying this. It makes me want to go buy a unit of Bullgryns and paint them up.


Thanks Kriswall! That's how it worked for me too - enjoyed writing the lead so much I went out and bought me some bullgryns! Great, characterful models.

No updates for a few days, I'm afraid. I'll be incommunicado for the weekend.

Will wrap it up next week though ...

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

 Trondheim wrote:
Good grieft! Well that is one crude way to preform Battlefield surgery I guess.


That was really fun to write - hope it came across

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in ca
Junior Officer with Laspistol





London, Ontario

I am also enjoying. Thanks for sharing!
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

 greatbigtree wrote:
I am also enjoying. Thanks for sharing!


My pleasure, greatbigtree - glad you're enjoying it and thanks for the comment

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in no
Terrifying Doombull





Hefnaheim

 Necroagogo wrote:
 Kriswall wrote:
I'm thoroughly enjoying this. It makes me want to go buy a unit of Bullgryns and paint them up.


Thanks Kriswall! That's how it worked for me too - enjoyed writing the lead so much I went out and bought me some bullgryns! Great, characterful models.

No updates for a few days, I'm afraid. I'll be incommunicado for the weekend.

Will wrap it up next week though ...


Wait what? No updates for a few days!!! I smell heresy


But we will await Your return
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





St. Louis, MO

Does Commissar taste like chicken?

Tune into the next installment of this story to find out!
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

 complex57 wrote:
Does Commissar taste like chicken?

Tune into the next installment of this story to find out!


Heretic! Everyone knows that Commissar tastes of fire, zeal and the wrath of the Emperor. With maybe a hint of paprika.

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Sorry for the delay ... next part's up!


I can’t get the taste of copper, leather and meat out of my mouth. I’ve spat, screamed and fought for the last fifteen minutes straight and it’s still all I can taste, all I can focus on.

After biting Hartzkoff’s forearm off and dropping the nuke down the venting shaft, I was set upon by the first pack of my pursuers. I can’t recall much of how that went, as my conscious mind had retreated to the farmhouse by that point, abdicating responsibility and letting the brute out of its cave. I remember the screams – mine alone at first, gradually overlaid by those of my foes. I remember battering everything that crossed before me, heedless of my own safety and scorning of the wounds I was taking. Primal rage and raw belligerence carried the day, and I left behind me a scene awash with blood and bedecked with broken corpses.

More enemies died, charged from the gloom and smashed to the floor. Somewhere in the midst of the savagery, I started to regain control of myself, to elevate myself above the base and the barbarous. My attacks became more selective as I gradually pieced together how badly injured I truly was, and how little I had in reserve. The focus shifted from engagement to evasion and I made for a way out.

The God-Emperor is smiling down on me today. I reach an open lifting platform, crates of shells being passed from a magazine far below us in the depths of the emplacement up to a battery jutting from the wall. I flop onto the platform as it passes me, grabbing a moment to catch my breath. Hartzkoff, quite incredibly, is still alive. The tourniquet’s done a reasonable job of minimising blood loss but he’s so, so weak. Unless I manage to get him some proper medicae attention pretty quick, both he and his lovely hat will be no more.

The thought pains me.

Damn conditioning.

The lift reaches the end of its journey. Two loaders are standing, ready to grab the crates and drag them across to the ever-hungry cannons. My maul’s swinging before they get a chance to react, and they’re sent spinning to bloody ruin, the noise lost in the report of the big guns.

Rolling to my feet, I lurch forwards and plough into the gunners. They go down quickly and unpleasantly. I stick my head out of the firing slot and take a quick recce. We’re about ten feet off the ground and there’s just about enough space for me to squeeze out.

There’s a poison gas alarm mounted on one of the internal walls, so I hit the actuator and grab Hartzkoff before forcing my way out between the hot gun barrels. The warbling alarm cuts through the sounds of firing and, as I’d hoped, the troops stationed as wall gunners and point defence marksmen pull back and button up. It’ll probably only buy me a minute or so but, by the God-Emperor, it’s a minute I intend to make damn good use of.

I slide down the cratered, pitted rockcrete wall and hit the ground with a muddy squelch. I put my head down and pound hard and fast towards whatever cover I can see. Driven by fear and adrenaline, I make it a good forty metres before the jig is up and the firing slots begin to unseal. Rifles push out and I can vaguely hear cries of alarm and surprise as the gunners spot me charging away.

I begin to zigzag as they open up, diving forwards to seek cover amidst the broken, torn-up earth. Once prone on the ground, I half-crawl, half-burrow my way forwards, dragging Hartzkoff by the collar. Not far ahead I can see an abandoned pill-box, split in half by a direct hit of some kind. There’s enough standing to give me some hard cover, so I drag the two of us towards it. The odd spiteful near miss kicks up mud and spatters us.

My vision’s greying at the edges and my chest’s getting tight. It feels like I’ve been hit by a grav-weapon – every limb is leaden, every inch gained a marathon run. I’m starting to fade in and out even as I haul us laboriously into the carcass of the pill-box. We tumble into it and slide into the crater at its base. I’m sure the water’s cold and stinking but I can’t feel a damn thing - I‘m just staring through the massive hole in the roof at the war-torn skies beyond. All I have to do is get through today …

Somewhere not too far away, a timer finally counts down to zero.

The sky flashes white and a crushing wave of overpressure smashes me into oblivion.



Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in ca
Junior Officer with Laspistol





London, Ontario

I'm not really sure what I thought was going to happen... a 30 minute timer probably wasn't enough time to get clear of the blast zone... but still.

My hopefully soft criticism would be that the very last sentence breaks continuity. By the time he's being crushed into oblivion, he wouldn't be able to be able to tell the story, you know? It also feels overly detached.

On the whole, really enjoyed it. If I were asked my opinion, which I haven't been but it's free so I tend to give it away anyhow, would be to rework the last sentence after "The sky flashes white..." You could have a more fulfilling payoff by refreshing the farm theme, or even to have him curl protectively around the Commissar.

Thanks again for sharing.
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

 greatbigtree wrote:
I'm not really sure what I thought was going to happen... a 30 minute timer probably wasn't enough time to get clear of the blast zone... but still.

My hopefully soft criticism would be that the very last sentence breaks continuity. By the time he's being crushed into oblivion, he wouldn't be able to be able to tell the story, you know? It also feels overly detached.

On the whole, really enjoyed it. If I were asked my opinion, which I haven't been but it's free so I tend to give it away anyhow, would be to rework the last sentence after "The sky flashes white..." You could have a more fulfilling payoff by refreshing the farm theme, or even to have him curl protectively around the Commissar.

Thanks again for sharing.


Thanks for sticking with it! I know that last chunk sounded pretty final but there's actually another section left to add (which hopefully will resolve the issues you've raised). Your thoughts are greatly appreciated and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Please let me know if the ending works for you (once I've added it later today).

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

And here's the grand finale! Much love to those of you who've stuck with it and I hope you found it enjoyable. As always, C&C welcome


I’m deep in the middle of one of those nightmares where you’re completely paralysed and unable to move a muscle when I suddenly wake to find myself completely paralysed and unable to move a muscle. Fogged by the disorientating echoes of the lingering dream state, I have absolutely no idea where I am, so I roll my eyes around to try and get a clue or two.

There’s canvas above me and what sounds like straw below me. I can smell a potent mixture of counterseptics, unguents and balms. I realise with a drug-soothed lack of shock that I also appear to be in a rigid full-body cast.

A masked face looms over me, the head cocked to one side as its owner regards me dispassionately. She’s wearing a white carapace helm with a medicae flash painted on the front, with ‘VET’ stencilled above it. An intense light is shone into my eyes, a rubber-gauntleted hand grabs my bottom lip and yanks my mouth open and a foul-tasting tincture is tipped down my throat.

The head moves away, turning to regard somebody hovering out of my fixed sight line.

‘It’s awake, if you want to speak with it’.

I hear a chair creak and boots padding across a metallic floor.

A voice replies, its tone both gruff and flat. ‘Thank you, specialist. You may leave us now’.

Hartzkoff hoves into view. He looks awful, like he’s been run over by a Vanquisher. He grunts with pain as he moves, and I can hear his breath rattling in his chest.

For the longest time, he looks down on me without saying a word. He raises a bionic hand, delicately holding a medal ribbon between metallic thumb and forefinger.

‘I woke up missing a hand but with the Medallion Crimson’. He pauses, lifting the medal to inspect it closely, apparently finding something fascinating in its gaudy intricacy. There’s a long pause before he continues. ‘I’m not entirely sure it’s an equitable trade.’

He transfers the medal to his other hand and pockets it. ‘Apparently, I’m a hero. The destruction of the emplacement blew a hole right through the middle of the enemy defensive line, enabling our advance to roll them up quite handily. A war over thirty years in the waging is almost at an end.

‘And I have absolutely no memories of anything after my transport got hit on the approach.’

He leans in close, studying me carefully as he speaks.

‘Sappers found the two of us close to death in a shattered pill-box. I can’t even conceive of how we could have ended up there. And completing the mission to boot? That’s pretty lucky’.

Hartzkoff produces a data-slate and rests it lightly on the cast over my chest. I’m not sure where he’s going with this but I’m starting to feel a little uneasy. I do my best to mask it, staring up at him with slack-jawed bemusement.

‘But then you’ve always been pretty lucky, haven’t you, Varrk? I pulled your file, took a look through your record’.

Uh-oh.

‘Exactly how many missions have you got under your belt, Varrk? How many times have you defied the odds and made it back safely when most others involved have gone to meet the Emperor? I don’t necessarily believe in luck. But I do believe in statistics’.

Hartzkoff turns the data-slate so that I can see it. There’s a transfer order up on the screen, with my name on it.

‘Following my glorious success, I’ve been promoted. I’m now something new, a … Commissar without Portfolio. Which basically means I get shipped out wherever I’m needed to do what needs to be done. Top brass seem to think that it’s worth the punt on lightning striking twice, apparently.

‘And you’re coming with me. I’ve requisitioned you as my bodyguard, seeing as how you did such an exemplary job so far. More or less’, he adds, curling the fingers of his bionic hand into a fist and gazing at it somewhat ruefully.

‘I’ll leave you to recover’, he says with a wintry approximation of a smile. ‘We have busy times ahead’.

The Commissar without Portfolio turns on his heel and stalks out of the tent, leaving me, as always, alone with my thoughts.
I can’t plan for the future, as I have literally no idea what that future might bring. I just have to keep things a little more manageable.

If I want to survive, I just have to get through today.

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
Made in us
Prescient Cryptek of Eternity





East Coast, USA

I really enjoyed the whole story. Kudos. I love that he accidentally got promoted to bodyguard.

Check out my website. Editorials! Tutorials! Fun Times To Be Had! - kriswallminis.com


https://www.thingiverse.com/KrisWall/about


Completed Trades With: ultraatma 
   
Made in gb
Esteemed Veteran Space Marine




Sheppey, England

Thanks Kriswall! - glad it was worth a read!

Click for a Relictors short story: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412814.page

And the sequels HERE and HERE

Final part's up HERE

 
   
 
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