Started working on a story about a miss-fit squad in the Veltorian 22nd Imperial Guard regiment.
It'll be rather long, I hope, in the end so I've decided to go ahead and post it in here. Who knows it might end up bringing some life back into this much underused section.
A quick synopsis of some sort:
It's about a squad of sappers in the Veltorian 22nd mixed regiment, led by an adopted Enginseer that became a sergeant by circumstance and a energetic sniper that has ties to the inquisition.
I've no idea where I'm going to take this story from here, heck it might be more accurate to say that I've no idea where the story is going to take me.
I'm afraid that English isn't my native language and it shows, painfully, at times. Nonetheless I hope you enjoy the read.
Feel free to leave constructive feedback and thank you for reading,
Spike.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter One: Escape from Manufactorum Sigma
Gunfire rattled over his head, chunks of rockcrete pattered over him as slugs blew holes in the wall behind him, a large explosion somewhere in front of him announced the detonation of his last krak grenade, to his disappointment the assault cannon continued to spray death in his general direction.
He tried using his mechadendrite to fire his lasgun blindly over his makeshift cover but the gun shattered as soon as it left the safety of the wall, a sharp throbbing pain in his head told him his mechadendrite had been damaged as well, though it functioned still.
“This is Enginseer-Sergeant Listig requesting support at Manufactorum Sigma, my patrol is under assault by elements of the chaos cultists, estimating company strength.”
“Alpha Base to Sergeant Listig, all available reinforcements are engaged otherwise, we’ll reroute the Cadian armoured 87[SUP]th[/SUP] ASAP.” A strained voice replied, the young officer clearly pushed to his limits to keep up with the chaos that was the vox net.
Young was about to demand immediate support when another voice interrupted him.
“This is Specialist Shanks in command of team two, engaging.”
A faint whistle shot past Listig’s head and the thundering roar of the Assault Canon died, more faint whispers followed and he could hear the dry thuds of bodies falling lifeless to the ground.
Listig’s augmented hearing noted a faint rustling in to his left and, switching his bionic eye to thermal view, he spotted a few heretics going for a flanking attack on the mysterious team two, using the dust and rubble to conceal themselves. He tapped his combead and whispered in his mic.
“Enemy flanking manoeuvre, 9 O’clock.”
As soon as the words had left his lips the unmistakeable roar of a heavy bolter sprung into life and he saw the bolts pepper the enemy position, clouds of orange spraying from their bodies in his bionic eye as the thermal vision registered their death by the exploding bolts.
Listig sat on the ground and took a deep breath, hanging his battered mechadendrite in front of him to inspect the damage, his augmented eye trained on the two heat signatures now moving stealthily towards him, the echoes of gunfire was audible over the sudden silence as the heavy bolter stopped firing.
A young man with a neatly trimmed beard framing a soft face, a scruffy bit of hair sicking out from under his beret saluted smartly, though Listig’s attention mostly went to the exotic looking rifle slung across the man’s back, It was midnight blue with faint writing in gold visible on the body, the body was made from a black material that seemed to absorb the light shining on it and an advanced long-scope of the same black material made it obvious that this was a sniper rifle of some sort. The standard issue lasgun the man now held in one hand looked out of place.
“Specialist Shanks, Veltorian 22nd, at your service Sir.” The man said.
Listig returned the salute “Enginseer-Sergeant Listig, Derusian 1[SUP]st[/SUP], or what’s left of it. Shouldn’t your team be led by a Corporal?”
Shanks shrugged “Enemy sniper got him while we were scouting ahead, I sort of took over. We were on our way back to base when we heard gunfire, double timed it here to see if we could help.”
“Glad you did, what’s left of my patrol is inside the Manufactorum, trying to keep them out of the main assembly hall.” Listig replied.
Shanks offered Listig his lasgun, a grin on his face. “Lead the way, Sir.”
An enginseer as sergeant, frak I’ve seen it all. Shanks thought as they made their way through the vast halls of the Manufactorum, scorch marks and spend ammo cases marking the trail of the fighting made by the loyalists. So far they haven’t met any stragglers or reinforcements which disturbed him, there was supposed to be a company worth of traitors wreaking havoc, where are they? Suddenly Listig held up his right hand, taking cover as he did, Shanks hadn’t seen or heard anything but the augmented vision of the cogboy sergeant was capable of seeing things he couldn’t.
Listig opened his raised hand, spreading two fingers. Two of them , Shanks raised his sniper.
Before he could fire the wall next to him exploded, showering the entire group in a hail of debris. Heavy weapons fire barked in the distance and he felt a wash of intense heat roar over him. Dazed, Shanks tried to get up but everything was a blur and he kept falling over, unable to keep his balance. Suddenly he felt something tugging the back of his shirt and he was dragged along, his legs flailing uselessly as he tried to push himself up. Somewhere in the distance he heard a voice say his name, repeatedly, but he couldn’t force his mouth to answer. Las shots flew past him, one grazed his cheek and an intense sharp and agonising pain snapped him out of his stupor. Still dizzy he drew his laspistol and started firing back in the general direction of the enemy, which he still couldn’t see, a thick cloud of dust particles and cordite hanging in the air like a blackening mist.
“Keep firing” A voice roared behind him, turning his head Shanks saw Listig using his mechadendrite to drag him along, his robe scorched in places where lasbolts had grazed the sergeant, one shot hit him right in the chest but by good fortune or common sense the cogboy had carapace armour beneath his robe, which absorbed the hit. Focussing on the task at hand, Shanks resumed blazing away with his pistol.
Suddenly Shanks found himself yanked upright, turning around he saw Listig reloading his lasgun while using his mechadendrite to open up a thick blast door behind them.
Still somewhat shaky, he knelt on one knee as he dropped his empty pistol, once again raising his sniper rifle.
It’s a miracle that the boy lives still, surely the Omnissiah watches over him Listig thought, as he finished entering the code on the keypad, a few more seconds and they should be safe, his patrol had fallen back behind this blast door, their last refuge. He wondered how long they would be able to hold out though, that wall was destroyed by a plasma cannon, and nothing in this facility is capable of withstanding that much power. How did those chaos scum even got hold of such weaponry?
He saw Shanks raise his sniper, and the enginseer part of him was excited to see it work from this close, a rare weapon it was!
A barely audible hiss, a slight whisper of displaced air, that was all the sound it made, his augmented hearing was struggling to hear it, to those without would be utterly silent, his bionic eye managed to pick up glimpses of crystallized needles leaving the barrel. Very rare indeed.
As sudden as the attack had started it stopped, it was as if every enemy ran out of ammunition at once. With a sigh of relief Listig led them inside, signalling their arrival over the vox as the door clanked shut behind them.
Now that he wasn’t dodging lasbolts and shooting back for his dear life Shanks was finally survey his surroundings a bit better.
Only now did he notice the sheer size of the hall, it could easily hold his regiment with room to spare, a huge conveyor belt, wide enough to fit a chimera, snaked through the entire hall and metal hulls in various degrees of assembly littered the conveyor. Since the siege had begun the plant had been shut down and a thin film of dust covered everything. Raw material and containers littered the floor, servitors stood still seemingly at random, their biologic parts long dead without sustenance to keep them going. The sharp tang of chemicals battled with the dull scent of dust and stale air and the nauseating scent of decaying meat. All in all there were worse places to be locked in, who knows, they might actually be able to hold the cultists at bay long enough for the reinforcements to arrive.
He saw the enginseer as was welding part of his mechadendrite, it wouldn’t hurt to know him a bit better Shanks reasoned, and made his way to the man.
“Bad luck for you guys eh” Shanks said, a sudden sadness in his eyes, while offering Listig a lho-stick “Finally get yourself a regiment of the Guard to raise in response to the Tyranids, only to find your planet under siege by Khornate lunatics.” He shook his head “Damn shame, how much is left of the 1[SUP]st[/SUP]?”
Listig declined the offered smoke, he preferred to light some incense to calm his nerves. He started burning one, sticking it in a crack in the rockrete floor.
“Barely a company worth, I’d wager a little over two platoons. That was a day ago.” Listig said, absently holding the cogwheel hanging from the chain around his neck with his left hand. A small snort escaped him as he added “I half expect a commissar to show up, take command and get us off planet in a troop ship.”
“And how did you, an enginseer, get command over two squads, let alone the dual rank of Enginseer-Sergeant?” A tone of wonder in Shanks voice as he raised his sniper and sighted on something in the distance before lowering it again and making minute adjustments to the long-scope.
Listig shrugged. “About the same way as you got your squad. We ran out of over eager officers predictably soon, the more able soon followed as massed artillery and bombing runs destroyed pretty much everything. I was seconded to 4[SUP]th[/SUP] platoon during a salvage mission, it turned out to be a trap and in the chaos of it we lost about every officer left, those remained got field promoted higher up and in the end I got command of a squad of scouts.”
Listig paused to ignite another stick of incense. “The brass found my performance good enough to warrant a temporarily promotion. I’ve been training them as sappers now, more use in urban warfare.” Listig slowly got up “Speaking of sappers, I’ll go and see if they planted the charges properly, won’t do us much good if all we manage to do is bring this place down on ourselves.”
Shanks watched the cogboy walk towards a nervous looking soldier, mechadendrite floating lazily behind him and trademark robe flapping in his wake. He hoped that the soldier’s nervousness had nothing to do with the state of the explosives.
He signalled his team to join him as he started to walk through hall.
“A gun emplacement would do well here.” Shanks said as a savage looking man fell in beside him, icy blue eyes looked at him, a frown lined his face and a sloppy beard bounced up and down as the man opened his mouth, a low guttural voice answered.
“Heavy bolter was empty, dented and clogged with cordite. It would only weigh us down.”
“True enough” Shanks conceded.
“Good thing you left it behind, your lard arse is slow enough as it is Bjergsen.” A new voice said, it belonged to a short, slender woman, green eyes partly covered by fiery red hair and her lips locked in a permanent carefree smile. “That scar on your cheek looks mighty brisk on you sir.” She said.
“But of course it does Levi, that’s why I let that cultist hit me.” Shanks replied, humour in his voice.
“Any word from sergeant Toa?” Bjergsen asked, his low rumbling voice bringing them all back to the situation at hand.
Shanks shook a negative. “Nothing since we’ve got split by that Predator tank.”
The following silence said all that could be said.
Looking back to where he had spoken with Listig Shanks saw something that subconsciously troubled him, paying more attention to it he suddenly realised what his instincts had noticed moments before. He activated his comm bead.
“Shanks to Listig, is there air circulation in here?”
“Artificial circulation has ceased after the shutdown, natural airflow has been cut off when we closed the blast door behind us. Oxygen levels should remain adequate for at least twenty four hours, no need to worry.” Listig replied, puzzlement in his voice.
Shanks unslung his sniper rifle, his eyes still on the incense as the smoke trailed faintly to the left.
“We’ve been breached.” He announced over the vox.
It'll be rather long, I hope, in the end so I've decided to go ahead and post it in here. Who knows it might end up bringing some life back into this much underused section.
A quick synopsis of some sort:
It's about a squad of sappers in the Veltorian 22nd mixed regiment, led by an adopted Enginseer that became a sergeant by circumstance and a energetic sniper that has ties to the inquisition.
I've no idea where I'm going to take this story from here, heck it might be more accurate to say that I've no idea where the story is going to take me.
I'm afraid that English isn't my native language and it shows, painfully, at times. Nonetheless I hope you enjoy the read.
Feel free to leave constructive feedback and thank you for reading,
Spike.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter One: Escape from Manufactorum Sigma
Gunfire rattled over his head, chunks of rockcrete pattered over him as slugs blew holes in the wall behind him, a large explosion somewhere in front of him announced the detonation of his last krak grenade, to his disappointment the assault cannon continued to spray death in his general direction.
He tried using his mechadendrite to fire his lasgun blindly over his makeshift cover but the gun shattered as soon as it left the safety of the wall, a sharp throbbing pain in his head told him his mechadendrite had been damaged as well, though it functioned still.
“This is Enginseer-Sergeant Listig requesting support at Manufactorum Sigma, my patrol is under assault by elements of the chaos cultists, estimating company strength.”
“Alpha Base to Sergeant Listig, all available reinforcements are engaged otherwise, we’ll reroute the Cadian armoured 87[SUP]th[/SUP] ASAP.” A strained voice replied, the young officer clearly pushed to his limits to keep up with the chaos that was the vox net.
Young was about to demand immediate support when another voice interrupted him.
“This is Specialist Shanks in command of team two, engaging.”
A faint whistle shot past Listig’s head and the thundering roar of the Assault Canon died, more faint whispers followed and he could hear the dry thuds of bodies falling lifeless to the ground.
Listig’s augmented hearing noted a faint rustling in to his left and, switching his bionic eye to thermal view, he spotted a few heretics going for a flanking attack on the mysterious team two, using the dust and rubble to conceal themselves. He tapped his combead and whispered in his mic.
“Enemy flanking manoeuvre, 9 O’clock.”
As soon as the words had left his lips the unmistakeable roar of a heavy bolter sprung into life and he saw the bolts pepper the enemy position, clouds of orange spraying from their bodies in his bionic eye as the thermal vision registered their death by the exploding bolts.
Listig sat on the ground and took a deep breath, hanging his battered mechadendrite in front of him to inspect the damage, his augmented eye trained on the two heat signatures now moving stealthily towards him, the echoes of gunfire was audible over the sudden silence as the heavy bolter stopped firing.
A young man with a neatly trimmed beard framing a soft face, a scruffy bit of hair sicking out from under his beret saluted smartly, though Listig’s attention mostly went to the exotic looking rifle slung across the man’s back, It was midnight blue with faint writing in gold visible on the body, the body was made from a black material that seemed to absorb the light shining on it and an advanced long-scope of the same black material made it obvious that this was a sniper rifle of some sort. The standard issue lasgun the man now held in one hand looked out of place.
“Specialist Shanks, Veltorian 22nd, at your service Sir.” The man said.
Listig returned the salute “Enginseer-Sergeant Listig, Derusian 1[SUP]st[/SUP], or what’s left of it. Shouldn’t your team be led by a Corporal?”
Shanks shrugged “Enemy sniper got him while we were scouting ahead, I sort of took over. We were on our way back to base when we heard gunfire, double timed it here to see if we could help.”
“Glad you did, what’s left of my patrol is inside the Manufactorum, trying to keep them out of the main assembly hall.” Listig replied.
Shanks offered Listig his lasgun, a grin on his face. “Lead the way, Sir.”
An enginseer as sergeant, frak I’ve seen it all. Shanks thought as they made their way through the vast halls of the Manufactorum, scorch marks and spend ammo cases marking the trail of the fighting made by the loyalists. So far they haven’t met any stragglers or reinforcements which disturbed him, there was supposed to be a company worth of traitors wreaking havoc, where are they? Suddenly Listig held up his right hand, taking cover as he did, Shanks hadn’t seen or heard anything but the augmented vision of the cogboy sergeant was capable of seeing things he couldn’t.
Listig opened his raised hand, spreading two fingers. Two of them , Shanks raised his sniper.
Before he could fire the wall next to him exploded, showering the entire group in a hail of debris. Heavy weapons fire barked in the distance and he felt a wash of intense heat roar over him. Dazed, Shanks tried to get up but everything was a blur and he kept falling over, unable to keep his balance. Suddenly he felt something tugging the back of his shirt and he was dragged along, his legs flailing uselessly as he tried to push himself up. Somewhere in the distance he heard a voice say his name, repeatedly, but he couldn’t force his mouth to answer. Las shots flew past him, one grazed his cheek and an intense sharp and agonising pain snapped him out of his stupor. Still dizzy he drew his laspistol and started firing back in the general direction of the enemy, which he still couldn’t see, a thick cloud of dust particles and cordite hanging in the air like a blackening mist.
“Keep firing” A voice roared behind him, turning his head Shanks saw Listig using his mechadendrite to drag him along, his robe scorched in places where lasbolts had grazed the sergeant, one shot hit him right in the chest but by good fortune or common sense the cogboy had carapace armour beneath his robe, which absorbed the hit. Focussing on the task at hand, Shanks resumed blazing away with his pistol.
Suddenly Shanks found himself yanked upright, turning around he saw Listig reloading his lasgun while using his mechadendrite to open up a thick blast door behind them.
Still somewhat shaky, he knelt on one knee as he dropped his empty pistol, once again raising his sniper rifle.
It’s a miracle that the boy lives still, surely the Omnissiah watches over him Listig thought, as he finished entering the code on the keypad, a few more seconds and they should be safe, his patrol had fallen back behind this blast door, their last refuge. He wondered how long they would be able to hold out though, that wall was destroyed by a plasma cannon, and nothing in this facility is capable of withstanding that much power. How did those chaos scum even got hold of such weaponry?
He saw Shanks raise his sniper, and the enginseer part of him was excited to see it work from this close, a rare weapon it was!
A barely audible hiss, a slight whisper of displaced air, that was all the sound it made, his augmented hearing was struggling to hear it, to those without would be utterly silent, his bionic eye managed to pick up glimpses of crystallized needles leaving the barrel. Very rare indeed.
As sudden as the attack had started it stopped, it was as if every enemy ran out of ammunition at once. With a sigh of relief Listig led them inside, signalling their arrival over the vox as the door clanked shut behind them.
Now that he wasn’t dodging lasbolts and shooting back for his dear life Shanks was finally survey his surroundings a bit better.
Only now did he notice the sheer size of the hall, it could easily hold his regiment with room to spare, a huge conveyor belt, wide enough to fit a chimera, snaked through the entire hall and metal hulls in various degrees of assembly littered the conveyor. Since the siege had begun the plant had been shut down and a thin film of dust covered everything. Raw material and containers littered the floor, servitors stood still seemingly at random, their biologic parts long dead without sustenance to keep them going. The sharp tang of chemicals battled with the dull scent of dust and stale air and the nauseating scent of decaying meat. All in all there were worse places to be locked in, who knows, they might actually be able to hold the cultists at bay long enough for the reinforcements to arrive.
He saw the enginseer as was welding part of his mechadendrite, it wouldn’t hurt to know him a bit better Shanks reasoned, and made his way to the man.
“Bad luck for you guys eh” Shanks said, a sudden sadness in his eyes, while offering Listig a lho-stick “Finally get yourself a regiment of the Guard to raise in response to the Tyranids, only to find your planet under siege by Khornate lunatics.” He shook his head “Damn shame, how much is left of the 1[SUP]st[/SUP]?”
Listig declined the offered smoke, he preferred to light some incense to calm his nerves. He started burning one, sticking it in a crack in the rockrete floor.
“Barely a company worth, I’d wager a little over two platoons. That was a day ago.” Listig said, absently holding the cogwheel hanging from the chain around his neck with his left hand. A small snort escaped him as he added “I half expect a commissar to show up, take command and get us off planet in a troop ship.”
“And how did you, an enginseer, get command over two squads, let alone the dual rank of Enginseer-Sergeant?” A tone of wonder in Shanks voice as he raised his sniper and sighted on something in the distance before lowering it again and making minute adjustments to the long-scope.
Listig shrugged. “About the same way as you got your squad. We ran out of over eager officers predictably soon, the more able soon followed as massed artillery and bombing runs destroyed pretty much everything. I was seconded to 4[SUP]th[/SUP] platoon during a salvage mission, it turned out to be a trap and in the chaos of it we lost about every officer left, those remained got field promoted higher up and in the end I got command of a squad of scouts.”
Listig paused to ignite another stick of incense. “The brass found my performance good enough to warrant a temporarily promotion. I’ve been training them as sappers now, more use in urban warfare.” Listig slowly got up “Speaking of sappers, I’ll go and see if they planted the charges properly, won’t do us much good if all we manage to do is bring this place down on ourselves.”
Shanks watched the cogboy walk towards a nervous looking soldier, mechadendrite floating lazily behind him and trademark robe flapping in his wake. He hoped that the soldier’s nervousness had nothing to do with the state of the explosives.
He signalled his team to join him as he started to walk through hall.
“A gun emplacement would do well here.” Shanks said as a savage looking man fell in beside him, icy blue eyes looked at him, a frown lined his face and a sloppy beard bounced up and down as the man opened his mouth, a low guttural voice answered.
“Heavy bolter was empty, dented and clogged with cordite. It would only weigh us down.”
“True enough” Shanks conceded.
“Good thing you left it behind, your lard arse is slow enough as it is Bjergsen.” A new voice said, it belonged to a short, slender woman, green eyes partly covered by fiery red hair and her lips locked in a permanent carefree smile. “That scar on your cheek looks mighty brisk on you sir.” She said.
“But of course it does Levi, that’s why I let that cultist hit me.” Shanks replied, humour in his voice.
“Any word from sergeant Toa?” Bjergsen asked, his low rumbling voice bringing them all back to the situation at hand.
Shanks shook a negative. “Nothing since we’ve got split by that Predator tank.”
The following silence said all that could be said.
Looking back to where he had spoken with Listig Shanks saw something that subconsciously troubled him, paying more attention to it he suddenly realised what his instincts had noticed moments before. He activated his comm bead.
“Shanks to Listig, is there air circulation in here?”
“Artificial circulation has ceased after the shutdown, natural airflow has been cut off when we closed the blast door behind us. Oxygen levels should remain adequate for at least twenty four hours, no need to worry.” Listig replied, puzzlement in his voice.
Shanks unslung his sniper rifle, his eyes still on the incense as the smoke trailed faintly to the left.
“We’ve been breached.” He announced over the vox.