The Garras War (IG, Orks, Chaos)

[Mr Kibbles]

Hi Guys. I'm reposting a thread here that i think was lost to time. I've been working on it for about 3 months now. Enjoy and please comment/crit.

The Garras War

“In the first year of M42, roughly 2 months after the great Imperial victory at Medusa V, archenemy legions under the command of hated Magister Arrok the Red-handed, still reeling after his defeat at Medusa, capitalised on the demilitarised worlds around the medusa system. An ork Waaggh!, headed by dreaded Blood-Axe Warlord Zagrutt Face-Smasha, who had suffered a similar defeat there, allied himself with Arrok to get his revenge. The xenos and heretic fleets assaulted the outlying Garras System, raping, pillaging in their wake, before finally making it to Garras IV, the system’s capital. Planetary resistance there was fierce and well concentrated, but sadly, the world fell in 2 months.

“Upon hearing the news that the Garras system had fallen, the Imperial High Command dispatched an army group of veteran Guard regiments and Astartes. The army group’s commander, newly promoted Lord General Barrom, vowed to liberate the system for the glory of the Imperium. Barrom’s Campaign would forge many heroes and reputations in the months to come….”

From Great Imperial Crusades and Campaigns.

Chapter 1

I

The Imperial armour rolled eerily unopposed through the bombed-out outskirts of Garrasopolis. Captain Darroks popped the hatch of her Stygies VIII-pattern Command Vanquisher. She ran her fingers through her short-cut black hair and checked her chronometer. It was 06:50 Imperial.

As her driver drove them further in, Darroks could see the streets littered with the dead. A lot of them were rotting corpses of citizens who were butchered in the initial invasion. Fresher bodies littered the street too. Orks and chaos soldiers mostly. There were the Jipponese and the Americ drop trooper casualties too; many looking as though they’d fought to their deaths.
God-Emperor, She thought. These vets are hard-arsed reamers. No wonder they’re so respected throughout the army group.

Vivcia’s musings and the eerie silence were cut short when a high-powered las-shot exploded harmlessly on the cupola of her Russ’s turret.
“S**t!” she yelled into her bead as she grabbed the hatch handles “All troops, sniper danger! Anyone out for air shut your damn lids. I’ll get him. Vixen out.”

The Captain climbed onto the command chair and squished her eyeball on to the storm-bolter’s prismatic sight. It was out of focus. She adjusted it.
With her right hand, she cranked the traverse stick, swinging the turret round to her right. She caught sight of something. A glint. A glint of sunlight shining on metal.

Darroks switched to infra-red. There. An orange-white blob peering up from behind a blue smashed out out-hab window. She needed no more explanation.
She clutched her grimy hands onto the storm-bolter trigger assembly and blazed away, the white muzzle flash almost completely obscuring her view. She saw the white of the tracers streak blindly toward the blob.
It tore apart.

Viv switched off heat-vision and saw the shredded remains of an archenemy cultist trooper. Apparently the wall plaster wasn’t enough to stop bolter rounds after all, as huge holes in the wall were clearly visible.

She felt a hand tug at her fatigue pants and she peered down. It was her driver, Emdon. Darroks had served with him since their regiment’s founding. She placed more trust in him than anyone else under her command.

“Sniper troubles, Cap?” he asked.

“Yup. Must’ve been knocked off course by the wind, because he had a clear shot at me. Hit Vixen’s turret instead”

“Should we get moving ma’am?”

“Yes Sergeant. Tell Benak and Temma and the sponson-scalps. I’m switching to company Command in a sec. Drive safely. Mines up ahead”

Sergeant Emdon chuckled at that last, dry remark.

“Yes ma’am” he replied

With that, Vivicia Darroks flipped her mic and said simply “All taken care of my fellow Australlers. Second Squadron, In the name of Terra's Golden Throne, Advance!”

[Mr Kibbles]

2nd part.

II

Fifty seconds after the first rokkit slammed into the transport’s side, Beric Fades had waved his veterans out the back ramp and into cover. He held his boltgun ready.

Their Chimera’s gunner laid down a withering hail of fire with the turret autocannon. The driver, her job now useless, resorted to using the hull heavy bolter, blazing away at the greenies in the chapel ruins with rather unhealthy enthusiasm.

Many were too slow to get down and were killed by heavy fire, their bodies exploding in showers of green blood and viscera.

Once the squad was in cover, Beric directed his marksman, Welk, to line up his long las on the ork with the launcha.

“Have the bastard in my sight, sir.” Welk confirmed, his eye glued to the scope. “Green bastard’s gonna have his little red beret blown off along with his ugly fa… bloody hell, he’s ducked down… Wait…”

Welk squeezed the trigger.

Bump.

The ork’s cranium exploded.

Its decapitated body fell lifelessly out of the second story.

So did the weapon.

The ramshackle Missile launcher, a spiky rokkit still fixed onto the barrel-end, smashed into the helm of the nob leader. With a dull Thud, he crashed to the floor comically. A pair of orks bent down to inspect their pulped leader.

“Well done trooper,” Fades congratulated, patting him on the shoulder.

But that wouldn’t be the end of it. There was a loud crump. The explosive embedded deep within the nob’s brain had detonated, taking three greenskins with it.

A dozen and a half ork throats yelled barbarous war cries. Unhindered the chimera’s relentless cones of fire, they charged out of cover, enraged by their nob’s death.

“Aww, s**tting great,” trooper Folak whined, charging her plasma gun.

“Their Blood’s up!” someone yelled

“Suppressive fire, people!” Fades ordered, firing his bolter over the rubble barricade.

A moment later Folak’s plasma opened up. Jerrod’s grenade launcher banged and Welk’s long rifle whizzed. Half a dozen lasweapons lashed out at the beasts.

But the orks kept coming, shooting wildly at the risen guardsmen. Folak went down, a lucky round blowing her whiney-little face apart. Shrapnel ignited the power cell, vaporising the trooper that had crouched next to her.

They were done for, and Beric Fades knew it. He drew his bayonet and fixed it to his boltgun.

“Fix bay…” Fades stopped in his tracks.

In the distance he could hear the warble of jet engines and the clink of treads. About a second later, the ork charge erupted into chaos.

Frag missiles rained in like morning dew, blowing greenskins up into the air or shredding them apart in showers of blood. Heavy lasfire stabbed in from the south and heavy bolter fire chattered.

A vulture gunship swung into view, its gun pods flashing. It was painted in a sensor-deceiving black scheme with the words AMERIC 101st AIRBORNE stencilled in white along the tail boom. The gunship hovered, stationary, shredding the remaining greenies apart.

Chimeras in urban camouflage rolled into view. Fades counted about a company’s worth. Perlian infantry in grey flak armour dismounted, lasguns armed.

A senior officer, glittering blue power sword held in hand, waved them forward. His left arm was an augmentic, plated in silver, and he wore light grey officer pants under his camouflaged fatigues. Cropped brown hair poked out from his cap and stubble delineated his jaw line. Fades knew it was Major Lambert.

He jogged over to the Major’s Chimera.

“Fades?” Lambert asked, clipped and strine, the tones of an Australler

“Major,” Fades replied “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t vox back. So we followed you in. These flyboys insisted on coming.” Lambert said, gesturing to the hovering Americ Vultures.

“Could I get you anything, Mr. Fades?” Lambert asked after a pause. “Medicae? Cog-boy?”

“A techpreist to bless our wreck, sir.” Fades replied, gesturing to his immobilised transport “A medicae for its crew, and a new ride.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Major Lambert said, and strode to his command chimera.

[Mr Kibbles]

III

“Die, feijing scum!” yelled Kagashi Minomoto acidly, as he lashed out at the heretic in front of him with his chain-katana.
The teeth sprayed blood and viscera onto his tunic as they bit through the trooper’s armour. He then finished off the man with a Las-bolt in the head.

At 00:45 last night, Kagashi’s regiment, along with the Americ, were inserted into Garrasopolis to take and hold key objectives within the city. The city’s central Administratum building, converted by the enemy into a flak-tower, was one such target.

Minomoto’s platoon, along with a supporting Americ platoon, roped down from their valkyries into a hot LZ, weapons firing as soon as their boot-soles kissed the rockrete. The vultures gutted the anti-aircraft emplacements with their Hellstrikes, while the drop-infantry bloodily clashed with the chaos soldiers below. By 01:13, the roof had been secured.

Then they had to storm the building.

Minomoto’s squad, along with the rest of the platoon, combated the traitors pouring from the lower stories. The medicae and the Vox op stabbed with their bayonets, while Corporal Yamori’s chain-katana whirred. Trooper Nara, his melta useless in this close-quarter brawl, resorted to using his non-reg auto pistol.

Nara sprayed lead at the contacts with his trophy weapon until the clip ran dry.

“Cover me!!” he yelled amidst the noise of combat as he frantically tried to reload.

A Jipponese private next to Nara toppled back, his face a ruin. A lasweapon had been fired at point-blank range, cauterising his face into a grisly lump of flesh.

This, however, had given Nara enough time. He pulled the trigger, messing up the enemy trooper in front of him, no doubt the one that had killed Orikasa a moment ago. Then, he bashed the muzzle into the leering face of another traitorous guardsman.

To Nara’s far right, Corporal Yamori swung her chain-weapon, making a man loose his head. She then tore up a rather unfortunate woman with a flamer, the weapon doing most of the work for her. Suddenly, Yamori caught a glimpse of flashing light in the distance, standing out from the mass of crimson figures.

“Sorcery!” she breathed to herself

The round, munitorium-grade specs she wore cracked in the sorcerous light. An unbound Psyker, his filthy rags flapping to a breeze that wasn’t there, charged forward. His arcane force-staff glowed, warp energy surging from it, striking Yamori’s right arm.

The corporal cried out in pain. Her chain-katana fell from her grasp and she dropped to the floor, cowering in fear.

Oh, sweet emperor, she thought. I’m Feijing dead!

The heathen Psyker’s body, his chest a bloody mess. Yamori looked up. A handsome Americ man in grey fatigues appeared beside her, his bolter smoking.

“Are you Okay, Jippon gal?” He asked in the characteristic twang drawl of an Americ. He grunted as he hauled her up by her good arm.

“Sergeant Bensonn, 101st Americ Airbourne, at your service”

“Corporal Yamori, 89th Jipponese Airborne, sir!” She replied, snapping a quick salute.

“Well, Corporal, lets-,”

“Who’s your friend, Yamori?” a voice from behind asked, cutting Bensonn off.

Yamori and Bensonn turned round, almost in unison. It was Lieutenant Minomoto. His once-immaculate fatigues were now ripped and torn in places. His flak vest was chipped, and knife marks were visible in the armour.

“I’m Sergeant Bensonn, 101st Americ, Sir!” Saluted Bensonn, noticing the lieutenant pins on the man’s collar.

“Okay sergeant, where’s your platoon?”

“Most of it? Up back with that jack**s, yuppy-lieutenant of ours, picking off these SOBs with righteous fury. I’ve got two squads up here with me. I’ll Vox for ’em.”

“Good. Get them ready. Your guys and mine are going to push through to the stairs, guns blazing. Sound like a good plan to-?”

Before Minomoto could finish, there was a loud bang. A grenade exploded a few paces away, and everything went black.

[Mr Kibbles]

Chapter one Part three up, guys.

Chapter 2

I

He could hear again. Gunfire. Distant rattles and cracks. Screams too. His head was swimming. He felt fingers touching his neck. Feeling for a pulse. He groaned.

“Hey,” a voice yelled, too close for comfort. “Your guy’s alive!”

The voice was masculine, but it didn’t sound Americ. It couldn’t be Jipponese. A) It wasn’t high-toned or sing-song at all, and B) The accent had a certain striney-ness to it.

A moment later, his vision returned to him. The blur of grey formed into an image. He was still in the admin building, if the dull grey the walls, which were now strangely lighter than last time, were anything to go by. And as he turned his head painfully around side to side, he could see that the Gothic written on the walls in white read: SECOND STOREY, ROOM B.

What the hell was going on? He could distinctly remember being on the top floor below the roof, trying to establish an Emperor-damned beachhead inside the building. Was he really out for that long? If so, did those common troopers really slog down about 20 more stories, with him as wounded, through enemy fire?

Kagashi’s mind was racing.

Suddenly, Three figures materialised above of him. Two were Jipponese Airborne troopers he recognised readily. They were his adjutant Yamori, and his sergeant, Hideto. A short, tan-skinned man stood in the middle of the group.

The trooper was dressed in camouflaged grey fatigues, his blue-grey flak armour strapped over them. His left pauldron was painted white with a red cross on it. A corpsman. The man was brandishing a syringe filled with a liquid painkiller of some sorts.

“Hold still, sir,” he said, drawing closer.

Kagashi felt the needle stab into his right bicep. It felt cold.

He felt the pain go away. With effort, he hauled himself up off the floor.

“Glad to have you back, sir,” Said Yamori, who looked worse than before. Her right arm was still warp-burned, like before, and her left was badly bruised. She’d lost her chain-katana, and the unslung lascarbine she was holding looked battered and worn.

“Glad to be back, corporal.” Kagashi replied.

“What’s the time?” he asked.

“8:17, lieutenant-sir,” Hideto answered helpfully.

“What happened while I was out?”

“Your plan worked, lieutenant,” Hideto put in helpfully. “The Americ sergeant, Bensonn, took you back to his lieutenant and I led our platoon. We cut through bastard’s flank, while that Americ Officer finally got off his ass and butchered the heretics. I underestimated those boys and girls and their Way.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well,” Yamori added, “we cleared the floor and both of us set up our heavy stuff to cover the stairwell. Then we kept clearing floor after floor and voxing down the autocannon and heavy bolter crews for support when and if we needed it.”

“A lot of casualties?”

“Mostly FNGs. Both groups,” Yamori answered “Your Opposite number got hit too. Bolt round. Anyway, we made it down to the second story and-”

“Who’s my new friend?” Minomoto interrupted, nodding to the young corpsman. He snickered at the joke.

“Trooper Ariott, 3rd Australler Mechanised, sir.” the man explained, saluting.

“Australler, aye?”

“That’s right sir. Elements of my regiment pushed into the city hours ago to support your regiment’s drop last night. A detachment of Australler armour came with us. First, we wiped the floor with those khornates outside in an armour-infantry brawl. Then, well, my fellow soldiers and I moved into the admin building and we linked up with you drop-troopers on the second floor.”

“Well thank the Emperor for IFF strobes.” Kagashi joked, and the trio of troopers laughed badly at his crap joke.

“Quite, sir.” Ariott said after a pause. “My Captain, and that leso-Commie-b**ch tanker want to debrief you As soon as its possible, sir. Follow me, sir, I’ll show you.”

My day just keeps getting better and better, thought Kagashi Minomoto as he followed the Australler medic down the steps. Better and better.




IT DID GET better, as he was to about to discover. They had hot food and cold water. They even had amasec. They may not have had any Jihonshu, but any alcohol was still good in Minomoto’s book.

The Australler Captain, Herrig, was civil enough. He was a balding man in his mid 30s, and had a different complexion to Ariott. Herrig had greeted him. Then he had explained to Kagashi that Ariott was from the western, desert-rife continent of Austral.

“Where’s your Company commander, son?” He asked him after a pause.

“Captain Matsudaira? She, and the majority of the company, are in Manufactorium Alpha 10 blocks down.”

Herrig laughed. Apparently the military planning of the Jipponese aristocracy was a riot to him.

Speak for yourself, you sand-assed bastard, Kagashi thought bitterly. On Medusa, your fellow in-breds bombarded us with artillery fire while we assaulted Nazdregg’s Hulk!

“Lieutenant Minomoto, I presume?” enquired an authority-riddled, feminine voice.

Minomoto turned around. It was a tall, dark-skinned woman in a commissar’s cap and greatcoat. So this was the famous “leso-Commie-b**ch tanker” that that medicae had bitched about to him.

Poor feij, the Lieutenant thought with pity. He must have done something bad to evoke her holy wrath.

“Yes san…?”

The Commissar stuck out a hand. Kagashi shook it gratefully.

“Commissar Heleena Voight, attached to the 5th Australler Armoured, at your service,” she said. Her accent was guttural, like a Cadian’s, but different.

“Well, lieutenant,” Voight said after a pause “We better go find your CO. Get your men prepped. You’re going to have to chaperone the armour. Sergeant Bensonn will do the same, so don’t feel picked on.”

“Dismissed, lieutenant,” Captain Herrig said, after a pause, wrapping up the meeting.

Kagashi then went off to rally his men.

[Mr Kibbles]

Part 2.2 up guys. This bit was alot of fun to write, and i hope you enjoy it.

II

It was frakking cold, even with the heating on. The rain had just started to beat down. They couldn’t see it, but they could hear it patter onto their hulls. They heard their vehicle treads slosh through the shell hole-puddles that dotted the streets.

In their push through the city, 2nd squadron had formed up with the 6th. Unlike that Queen-b**ch Heleena, neither squadrons had found any Jipponese or Americ drop troopers yet, only khaki and grey corpses. Sixth squadron, led by Stevan Dunswick, was regarded little more than a blunt weapon. This was due to Dunswick’s aggressive, gung-ho, armoured-cavalry-charge fighting style.

Well, at least that’s what Darroks thought, anyway. Plus, Dunswick was the son of a rich landowner from the eastern agri-zones, in a mainly eastern-based, city-levied regiment.

But, as she looked at the auspex screen, Darroks realised that this blunt weapon needed to be used to its full extent. The screen was studded with red contact icons. Glyphs for Orks, eight-pointed stars for Chaos. Thirty-eight in all. Vehicles, judging by the way the sights went orange and yellow with light when viewed through infa-red.

When Viv switched off infa-red, she could see the vehicles more clearly. About 23 ork buggies and captured Russes, and 15 Chaos vehicles, five of which were local half-track patterns.

She switched to the regimental channel and said “Stevan, be advised. Multiple contacts ahead.”

“Read ya loud and clear, Vixen,” came the reply. In the background, Darroks could hear him mumbling about how good she’d look out of a uniform.

That was another thing about Dunswick. He was infuriatingly sexist, hitting on his fellow officers of the opposite gender like protocol didn’t even apply to him. Just a handful of the women he made advances on actually found him attractive when he did so. Well, at least when they had a bit too much to drink during transit. How a man like Dunswick became a captain, Darroks would never know. Maybe it was attrition’s fault.

Stupid grox-cockey’s damn tricky, Viv thought. Has to act all proper when the Commissar’s around.

It was true. Whenever he was around Voight, say during a briefing, Dunswick suppressed his urges as best he could, as to avoid a lasbolt in the brain.

Darroks looked back to the Auspex scope. The contacts were ranging closer to the Imperial icons.

A moment later, the Vox in Darroks’s ear pipped. It was lieutenant FeHaine.

“My troop’s engagin’,” he reported in his characteristically effeminate voice. “Heavy fire commin’ my way. Request support, ov…” The link went dead.

Viv prayed to the emperor for FeHaine’s deliverance. He would need it.



ON THE RIGHT flank of the formation, Lieutenant FeHaine swung Ursa’s turret around and blew up a Trukk in a shower of flames. His driver slewed them to a halt. The port sponson gunner laid down a hail of fire, crippling a half-track in doing so.

She whooped in triumph over the vox. This was her first blood, so FeHaine was understandable about her breaking vox discipline.

Heavy auto and stubber-fire glanced off the tanks side-armour. The loader in the turret lobbed another anti-tank shell into the breach, and FeHaine lined up on a Russ.

This one was daubed with eye-burning symbols and painted in, considering how easily this ‘paint’ washed off in the morning rain, human blood.

FeHaine, without thinking, wasted the tank with a shot to the turret-ring. His driver revved the engine, swerving the tank 90 degrees to port, bringing the hull-lascannon to bear.

Taking advantage of the manoeuvre, gunner Serik disabled a battlewagon with the cannon, the discharge steaming the air around its barrel.

The Imperials weren’t getting it their own way, though. Sergeant Gerring’s tank burst like a bolt shell through a mess tin, as she tried to wash her tank’s sponson-flamers onto the exposed crew of a Wartrakk.

Were Emperor-damned done for, FeHaine thought grimly.

The looted Demolisher’s victory was short lived, however. An Augur shell from afar crippled the steering and peppered the ork crew within with shrapnel.

FeHaine poked his head cautiously out of the hatch. He turned his around. Approaching was a command-Conqueror in the Perlian grey-blue-black combo, flagged by 3 MBT Leman Russes. And there was gung-ho Captain Dunswick, poking his head out of the cupola of the Conqueror.

Need some help, Lieutenant? He mouthed slowly, acknowledging that FeHaine’s Vox was down.

FeHaine nodded.

Without a word, Dunswick ducked back into the turret and the tank sped towards the enemy, squadron in tow. The booms of their cannons in the distance were audible even through the din inside FeHaine’s own vehicle.

FeHaine ordered the driver to take five while he drove. He ordered the gunner up into the turret to relieve him of his post.

Through the glass driver panel, FeHaine could see Dunswick’s Conqueror spitting explosive death at the ork and chaos light-vehicles, while his escorts engaged the MBTs. But, it would only be a matter of time before they too were overrun.

From the west, Lieutenant Savin’s squadron joined the fray, her Exterminator spraying the Trukks and Trakks with heavy auto-fire. From his Russ’s south, the distinctive buck-kick of a vanquisher cannon sounded.

That meant only one thing. Captain Darroks had joined the fight.



VIVICIA DARROKS punched a Vanquisher round into an orkish proxy Russ and lashed out ineffectively with the storm-bolter. Emdon bounded Vixen forwards, while Bernad and Harben kept pressing with their HBs.

Sensing trouble, Darroks had ordered Savin’s mob in to support FeHaine’s remnants. Eventually, she herself went in, knowing that they would need everyone to push through. Dunswick’s reserves had also growled in

Looking through her anti-tank cannon’s sight, she could see that they could win this. All the chaos half-tracks were dead, fires dowsed out by the rain, or they were blazing away desperately at the advancing imperial armour.

Many tanks from both sides were totalled, the surviving ork ones uncharacteristically retreating off the highway. The Trukks sped away with them but the wartrakks and buggies stood firm.

The chaos tanks, fewer in number than their orkish allies, heedlessly stayed on the highway, unconcerned of the numbers they were facing.

“They’re reaming insane!” she heard a corporal from Dunswick’s company yell over the vox.

A voice pipped in Darroks’s ear.

“They’re rallying to something.” It was Dunswick. “Probably their commander tank. We’re going in to-”

“Captain, wait,” Darroks cut him off “I’m sending you a squadron.”

“Whatever you say, sweet-lips.” Came the response.

Darroks continued to look through the scope. For all his shortcomings in charm and grace, Dunswick was a pretty competent commander. He’d marshalled his surviving armour into a wedge-formation, engines gunning forwards, weapons firing.

Lightning flashed in the cloudy morning sky.

In the first 2 minutes, his combined firepower had annihilated 3 of the remaining Russes. Battlecannon shells whizzed past imperial tanks in reply, few managing to score a hit. But those that did were bang on target.

Darroks watched in horror through the sights, as Sergeant Talbot’s Russ, one of her own, got hit by an AT shell. The round sheared the turret clean off its ring, killing the loader and gunner instantly.

What she saw next was even more horrifying.

The lead vehicle, it’s turret and hull clustered with daemonic sensoria that would have outraged the Mechanicus, burst like a tin of processed grox meat. It showered the imperial vehicles with blood and dented their bodywork with shrapnel. Malevolent red light pervaded from the wreckage, blinding all eyes that gazed upon it.

A red mass of muscle-tissue emerged out of the Chaotic light show. It was very large and vaguely humanoid, with cloven-hooved feet, and a horned-head that reminded Darroks of a male terran bovine.

The thing had bat-wings and brandished a battle-axe that was etched with symbols that made her eyes hurt. Chains decorated with human skulls fluttered from the helve-end. It howled a blood-curdling roar.

Greater daemon. Greater daemon.

Darroks felt terror in her soul. She frantically uttered prayers to the emperor for deliverance, and heard several others over the vox channels.

She also tried to beseech her tank’s machine-spirit to guide her aim. Over the vox, Dunswick did the same.

Dunswick’s armour fired ineffective las and shell-fire at the beast. That only enraged it more.

The daemon charged the imperial wedge, indiscriminately knocking down imperial tanks and ork buggies down like they were a child’s toys. The increasingly desperate return fire started to take its toll on the daemon.

Love Hound, Dunswick’s Conqueror, fired a guided shell at the daemon’s right pectoral. The shell detonated, obliterating that foul khornate symbol burned into the muscle as a bonus.

The greenskins on their contraptions, believing to be deceived by the khornate tankers, blazed away with reckless abandon at the daemon. Now and again the dull, yet bone-chilling sound of “Waaagghh!” could be heard resounding through the hull of an Imperial vehicle or two.

Love Hound, turret turned aft, sped back to Darroks’s position, subordinates at its heels.

Darroks, in desperation, as the beast charged ever closer, fired her final vanquisher round, shearing the daemon’s left arm off. That was it. The most powerful anti-tank shell in the imperial arsenal, and all it cost a Greater Daemon of Khorne, was an arm.

“We’re done for,” she whispered through the tank’s intercom as she slumped back into the command chair, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Look, ma’am!” yelled her loader Temma, peering through the turret’s right sight. “Air support!”

She was right, as Darroks could see. In the rainy sky, the cruciform shape of a thunderbolt was visible. Two shapes actually, nose-cannons flashing.

Heavy Auto-fire ripped at the daemon’s back and wings. It howled in rage and pain.

Watching this spectacle, Darroks was filled with hope. They could still win this yet.

Suddenly, something happened that changed that. The Bloodthirster started to lift off the ground; it’s shredded wings beating hard.

It was going after the air cover.

[Try Again Bragg]

It could use some polishing, but I am enjoying it a lot. Thanks for posting and keep up the good work!

[Mr Kibbles]

Part 3 up, guys. This one, I'm not so proud of.

III

Commander Haiger bankeded hard to port, narrowly avoiding the Khorne-daemon’s axe-swing. The weapon burned with daemonic fire.

His wingman, Rallon, blasted it with heavy las-fire. The weeks of downing chaos and ork aircraft over the continent’s counties and minor cities had trained him well.

But not well enough for this. Not for a beast that shrugged off lascannon shots like an ork might with smalls arms. Nor for one that had the agility and speed of a Lightning.

Haiger knew Rallon was scared. Hell, even he was scared.

Haiger launched an Ulvite AAM at the Bloodthirster, but the daemon’s wing membrane, and harmlessly detonated out of kill-range.

That just pissed it off.

Daemonic-crimson fire lanced at Haiger’s starboard wing. This forced him to viff further port, blazing his autocannons as he went. He yelled heroically

The rain’s really coming down hard, Haiger thought. Praise the Emperor for all-weather sensoria.

The renegade Auxiliary Nightbills and Skystrikes they’d faced days before didn’t have them. Neither did the ork fightas, lacking even standard auspexes. But the chaos bats did, and they were more than a match for the Navy wings brought in with the Fleet.

Working with the surviving loyalists on the eastern Garras IV-ian continent, Haiger and his fellow aviators struck at the air bases in the outlying pine-forests on the western continent. The ’bolt and Lightning squadrons had escorted the Marauders to their targets, or had flown strike missions themselves to the air bases, when carpet bombing was not an option. Many of the air bases were near civilian communities, and High Command was sure that many were still imperial citizens just hiding under the veil of xenos and chaos tyranny.

But that was then and this was now. The citizens of this planet, although most probably out of fear, had virtually asked the sorcerers of chaos to conjure up foul warp effigies like the one Haiger now raked from right to left. When this was over, they would be dealt with harshly.

“Rallon, if you please?” Haiger voxed sarcastically.

“At once sir,” came the reply.

In his cockpit, surrounded by the many flight-instruments that studded the panel like barnacles on a ship’s hull, Rallon lined up his digital gunsight on the distracted Khornate-spawn. He pressed his finger on the fire-stud.

The Ulvite struck the Daemon’s midriffs.

A red-grey mist hung in the air around the daemon.



HAD HE killed it? Was the Daemon vanquished? These questions raced through Haiger’s head at supersonic speed, as he stared down apprehensively at the battle raging below.

The battle on the ground had changed drastically. Their morale boosted by his fighter detail, the stunned armour survivors had struck back with righteous vigour at the enemy war machines. Many Trukks and buggies were reduced to wrecks in seconds.

The vox-link in his mask pipped.

“This is Captain Darroks,” a feminine voice yelled frantically. “Request air support, over”

“Commander Klaus Haiger, at your service,” he replied cockily. “Air support on the way, miss.”

Haiger swooped His ’bolt down, so low he could see the faces of the tankers, launching his starboard hellstrike at a careening rokkit-buggy. The vehicle blew up in a shower of flaming machine and ork parts. The rain rapidly extinguished the flames.

Then he raked a trukk apart with his autocannons, the canvas troop-compartment cover tearing under the pressure. Half-dead orks tumbled out the back, crawling in pain.

As he began to climb, he saw that the ork light-vehicles were in full retreat.

Haiger activated his vox.

“How’s that for ya, Totty!” he reported to the armour captain arrogantly as he climbed upwards.

“You can clean my cannon anytime.” She replied swoonishly, clearly impressed, as if she had just been asked out on a date with the captain of the high-schola scrumball team.

“Ah, I mean, great, thankyou, sir,” she added as an afterthought, clearing her throat courteously as she did so.

Haiger then realised something. The lighting, which had no doubt been brought on by the Daemon, had stopped.

“Good going Rallon, my boy,” He voxed to his wingman.

“Thankyou, sir,” Came the reply “I guess it just came apart under the pressure. All those cannon shells must’ve done wonders,”

Haiger snickered at that last deadpan sentence.

“Where to now?” the youth asked.

“We follow the armour in. Provide air-support when they ask for it. Got it?”

“Got it, commander,”

Haiger switched channels to converse with that sexy-sounding Australler armour-captain.

This will be fun, he thought erotically. There’ll be no sucking of the captain’s sausage tonight.

Haiger and his wingman followed the ground forces into the inner hab-districts, their burners steaming in the precipitous midday air.


HA, RALLON thought, silent in his cockpit. That pompous fool actually believed my ploy. He thinks Kehd’ Adrrekk is dead!

He was right. It wasn’t dead.

The Daemon now possessed him. He allowed it to, for it promised him glory, more than any servant of the false-emperor ever could! He would serve the blood-god in air-combat, smiting the forces of the carrion-god with an unholy vigour.

For he was Skywarrior Vehd ’Arakk, Killer of Angels.

[Try Again Bragg]

Sorry, Kibbles, I did not like this section very much. You had a lot of needless paragraph-breaks that made it hard to read and I thought that it just did not flow very well. Props to the unique battle though. I've never thought of aerial combat against a bloodthirster before. Also, good twist at the end. Good foreshadowing too. Although I thought this post was a miss, I am definitely looking forward to more.

[Mr Kibbles]

Thankyou, Bragg.

[Mr Kibbles]

IV

The rain still pattered down on their hulls relentlessly. The thunder had stopped, though.

Regimental Sergeant Major Beric Fades sighed as he tried to brillcream his hair in the dimly lit hold of the chimera. He’d dulled his warrant-officer class 1 pins with boot polish to aide in his concealment.

Now he regretted what he had thought about private Folak. She may have pissed him off six ways through Sunday with her incessant whining. “Sir, I don’t want to march 10 kilometres!” “Sir, I don’t wanna operate a plasma-weapon!”

Fades would have got Commissar Gehrt on her **** months ago; if it weren’t for the fact that she was a support-trooper in a squad that was half-strength. Still, he missed her.

Lambert had bunked his squad in with 2nd platoon, and Fades and Jerrod were riding shotgun in the XO vehicle. Sergeant Heriott clambered out of the door leading into crewmembers’ compartment.

Heriott was a tall woman in her late twenties, younger than Fades by almost a decade. She’d served in the Australler PDF when the 3rd had returned from Medusa. She sported rather unfashionable, and not to mention impractical, shoulder-length plats in her black hair.

She cleared her throat.

“Soldiers, get ready to disembark. The Vultures have spotted ork infantry up ahead. About a platoon’s worth, so I’ve been informed, so we’re going in hot.”

The sergeant clutched a lascarbine from the rack and sat down on the cramped seating.

Noticing Fades’ discomfort, Heriott leaned over from her side of the seating.

“What’s wrong, sir?” she asked him, concerned look on her face.

“Nothing, Jenni,” Fades sighed.

“Come on, sir, you can tell me.”

He did. Fades told her everything. About Folak. About how he missed her and at the same time how he had disliked her attitude towards soldiering.

“There, there, sir,” Heriott assured him unnecessarily “With these things its better to forgive and forget. Make a clean slate.”

“How, sergeant?” Beric asked.

“Well, sergeant major, for starters, you could write a personal letter to her family on Austral. If this Folak girl has any, that is.”

“Thankyou, Jenni.”

“Whatever I could do, sir,”

The gunfire was getting louder now, and they heard the wet pings and thumps of bullets and larger-calibre shells hitting the armour-plate in the rain.

Through a side vision block, Fades saw Corporal Haser’s transport to the right spit torrents of heavy las-fire with its multilaser at the orks, who apparently were sheltering in the ruined lumps of rockrete and plasteel littered amongst the street.

Suddenly, the chimera’s hull lurched, and the tracks slew to a halt. Fades tore his eyes away from the block. The boarding ramp lowered, merely confirming Fades’ suspicions.

This will be a tough one, Fades thought, fixing his bayonet to his boltgun while he could.

[Try Again Bragg]

On the way into battle, especially inside a transport where anyone nearby can see/hear things, definitely does not seem the place for a sergeant-major to break down and cry on a woman's shoulder. Sergeant-majors are supposed to be tough as nails, the hardest of the hard. Even if he was torn up inside, nothing should get in the way of his duty. A good sergeant-major would kill himself first so that something weak like "emotion" would not put the job or the men in danger. Let the officers care about the men and be concerned with feelings. The sergeant-major will make sure things get done.

See Sam Elliot's portrayal of Sergeant-Major Plumley in "We were Soldiers" for further reference.


Again, just my opinion. Also, I don't think there is enough back story here for readers to really connect emotionally with the characters.

[Mr Kibbles]

But he's mertosexual man.

[Try Again Bragg]

But he's mertosexual man.

Then he'd make a helluva better Lt. than a Sergeant-Major.

[Mr Kibbles]

Ok, buddy, i've edited the emotional bits u told me to.

[Try Again Bragg]

Hey, don't do anything just because I tell you. I'm only one opinion and if you think your idea is best then tell me to shut up.

Hey, if anyone else is reading this, which you should be because it is good, then please comment. It is very encouraging to an author to know that others are appreciating his work.

[Mr Kibbles]

Hey, if anyone else is reading this, which you should be because it is good, then please comment. It is very encouraging to an author to know that others are appreciating his work.

I have the same problem over in the BL forums.

[Mr Kibbles]

Hello, is anyone there? Part 4.2 will be up soon.

[Try Again Bragg]

I have the same problem over in the BL forums.

It seems like people would be better about commenting over on the BL forums.

Keep the story comin', Kibbles!

[Mr Kibbles]

Yeah, those guys actually comment.

[Mr Kibbles]

Okay bragg, here's the next bit.




“GO, GO, go, maggots!” Yelled Fades as he waved the troopers out the ramp.

Orks. About 8 of them, were charging towards the chimera’s rear, their crude bolters flashing in the rain.

“Cover-fire soldiers, three rounds, rapid!” He ordered.

Those who had made it out with Fades frantically did so, hosing the orks down with las-bolts. Jerrod and the squad grenadier banged with their support weapons. Orks were amputated by frag-rounds, yet they still came on.

A trooper next to Fades went down, his chest a mess of flak armour and intestines thanks to a lucky ork round.

Fades fired his own bolter in retaliation, chanting the Litany of True Striking as he did so. Two more greenskins died, huge chunks of green flesh gouged from their bodies.

But they charged closer.

Sergeant Herriot led the last bunch out, tossing a baked frag grenade as hard as she could into the mob. It detonated, wide.

Fades signalled the order, and the squad ran forth, firing on auto across the rubble-strewn street.

With all his strength, Fades rammed his boltgun’s bayonet into the nearest approaching Ork.

As the confused greenskin tried to wrench the gun from its sternum, Fades fired on single-shot. Black blood splattered onto his fatigues.

“For Canburra, Austral and the Emperor!” He yelled, wrenching his weapon from the corpse.