This story is an unofficial story based, without permission, on the Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 intellectual property owned by Games Workshop Ltd.
"Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy
cause summers here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy
But what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band
cause in sleepy london town
Theres just no place for a street fighting man"
Callus coughed as he stepped through the smoke, waving his hand in front of his face to clear it. The stink of laser rounds and charred bodies filled his nostrils with the sweet perfume of death. The air was filled with the din of battle, the Orks assaulting even as the Governor's troops engaged in what seemed to be a universal withdrawal. The constant hymnals, the speeches whose giver imagined them inspiring, the constant reinforcement of Imperial dogma and assurances of victory that had accompanies this whole war were gone. In a way, even in a city that was being torn apart by the ravages of war, all seemed silent. The weapons discharges, the screams of dying men, the berserker roars of godless Orks, all seemed like background noise, hardly audible.
Then, walking through the low hanging cloud of dust and red mist, Callus saw a form of a man. Heavy boots knocking against the concrete ground, long, gray greatcoat hanging off his shoulders, ornate bolt pistol in one hand, and crackling, blood encrusted power sword in the other.
Callus saluted as Lord-General Julian Montego stepped forward from the fog of war.
***
"So what's the story, General?"
"It would appear that our good friends the Lord-General and his Colonel have turned on us. His men are pulling back, which tells me they are planning to make good some kind of retreat from the world. I can only imagine how he plans to get through the Ork armada in orbit. I assume he has some sort of deal worked out. Emperor-damned scum."
Callus nodded, grim faced. Daniella, Ox, and Omar gathered around him, each of them appearing grim and angered by what was going on.
The world seemed to shake with the blasts of orbital strikes, massive portions of the hive being hurled through the air as the orks pushed through what was left of Imperial lines with ease, confused guardsmen, being attacked on both sides, torn apart like so much tissue paper.
"I, for one, do not intend to allow the good Colonel to leave this planet alive."
A characteristic smirk began to play across Callus' face as the General spoke.
"Well then, you're supposed to be assault troopers, are you not? Let us assault."
***
"Why isn't the shuttle ready yet?" Flaviun barked at the tech-priest.
"W-W-We had such short notice, Colonel, I am sorry. Why does it matter, we will never clear the Or-Ork block-blockade."
"Leave that to me you worthless cretin. GET THE SHUTTLE READY!"
"Yes, Yes, Colonel, at once."
Colonel Marcus Flaviun was rapidly losing his patience. The Orks seemed to push closer to the launch tower with every blast of an orbital strike, and he did not trust Drazgar to have told his men exactly who he was and why he was to be left unharmed. He had ordered his regiment to fall back to inside the main tower, set up defensive positions, and await orders for planetary detachment. He had every intention of leaving them all to die, but he wanted to make sure it took that damned Lord-General as long as possible to make it to the shuttle, leaving the Colonel as wide as possible a departure window.
But of course, these bumbling Adepts of the Machine God had failed to have the shuttle prepped and ready to launch when he arrived. A vein was forming in his forehead. His face was flushed red. In all honesty, he was afraid. Afraid that the Orks, or that the Kazarkanians, would make it to the launch pad before he was well on his way out of orbit. Afraid that he was going to die in this hellhole war zone of a Hive.
***
Platoon Sergeant Karl Metternich was overseeing two of his men drag a large desk over into the hallway, as part of an ad hoc defensive position he was building, when the door opened. He turned to see who was entering when a las-bolt struck him directly between the eyes, tearing most of his brain out of the back of his head.
The Storm Troopers stared, nearly in awe, at Michael Callus, cigarette in his mouth, lasgun raised. How the Kazarkanians had arrived so quickly, none of them knew.
Callus nodded to them;
"The immortal God-Emperor sends his greetings, gentlemen," he said, in a friendly tone, before hurling a frag grenade over the desk and quickly stepping back behind an alcove. The hell guns had just opened fire when the grenade exploded, killing every last one of the blue clad soldiers.
***
The hall was filled with smoke. And quiet. Far too quiet. A boot crunched against shattered glass. Callus look across the hall, to Daniella, taking cover behind the identical outcropping a few feet away from him. Somebody was moving out. They had entered the tower approximately fifteen minutes ago, quickly sweeping through the first three floors. Upon hearing of what Callus' team had gone through, he had assigned them to lead the assault. They were the very tip of the spearhead. The first into every action. The ones who would kill that traitor bastard the Governor and his Colonel lapdog.
Another crunch. One more. A third and a fourth. Moving more quickly know, the enemy point man was getting confident. Big mistake. A dull thud rang out. Ox's grenade launcher. The tiny black ball shot through the smoke before landing somewhere. A blast. Screams of pain and the sounds of tearing flash. One dead point man. Callus dropped to his kneed and came out from the alcove, opening fire as fire was returned. Two more grenades, further into the field of smoke. Two more blasts, five more screams. By the time the debris settled Callus was among the enemy, knife drawn. He made quick work of the few survivors, all of whom were heavily wounded. Rinse and repeat. They had taken each floor in this manner, and were continuing to do so. Outside, the screams of artillery could be heard in the distance, and the blasts of Leman Russ tanks. Most of the Penal Legions and Civilian Armored Corps had taken sides with the Kazarkanians against the Orks, who were now once again in full assault. The Civil Air Patrol had as well, but at range this close they were more or less useless. Callus realized just as well as General Montego that, barring a miracle, there was now no chance for survival. The planet was fallen. Montego had decided to make bringing the Emperor's revenge to those that had betrayed them his final act in this world. Callus figured he might as well go out with him. The good General had carried him through the defense of Ichar IV, the Third War for Armageddon, Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade, and countless other campaigns. He had spent his life fighting under the General's banner in the name of the God-Emperor, he may as well die under it.
***
"The shuttle should be prepared to launch within twenty minutes, Colonel," the Tech-Priest said.
"Not good enough. You have ten," barked Colonel Marcus Flaviun in response.
The Colonel was extremely uncomfortable with the present situation. The Kazarkanians below were taking floors at an alarming rate, his troops crumbling much faster than he had expected to. Maybe it was a mistake to accept the Colonel's plan as readily as he had. Too late now. The Lord-General had surmised his role in all this, he was sure of that. And Orkish victory was now achieved in all but name. He wanted to be off this planet and comfortably in the Empyrean when the greenskins reached the tower, which he did not calculate could reasonably take more than an hour or two from now. He had no desire to delay his departure unnecessarily by fighting upstart Kazarkanians to make good his window. He did not have the luxury of excessive time.
He glanced at the defense monitor across from him. Another level, displayed in green, flashed for a moment and then turned red. Another level lost. There were now only two floors between his own level and the Kazarkanians.
He turned to an adjutant.
"Activate the combat servitors."
***
Private First Class Omar Jackson rose from his position and charged, firing twice. The first round smacked harmlessly into a wall. The second tore through the throat of the storm trooper he had aimed for, killing him instantly. That was when a panel in the roof above him fell to the floor, and, suspended by wires, a corpse severed at the waist fell to hand in front of him. A servitor.
Jackson realized too late that its left arm ended in a wheel of blades. It raised it to the same level of his neck as the blades began to spin in a blinding flash of death, and jerked hard to the right. His head was cleanly severed off, at about the halfway point of his neck, sending a single stream of blood shooting into the air.
Callus stared in shock at Jackson, his attention turning only when a flood panel in front of him slid away, and a huge servitor, arose. It had a mechanical spider like body from the torso down, and a graying Ogryn corpse from the torso up. It's arms had been replaced with dual heavy flamers. Callus had barely dropped to the ground when jets of fiery petrol shot above him. He rolled aside quickly as the flamers turned down to face him and more petrol shot out. Leaping to his feet, he barely dodged, again. Wresting his knife from it's sheath, he stabbed the thing in the back of its neck, tearing as hard as he could through its throat in an attempt to disable it by tearing its head off. It worked, after a fashion. The creature was clearly unable to properly function. It did, however, maintain the pesky habit of firing its heavy flamers in a constant pattern across the floor, quickly lighting the hallway ablaze.
A third servitor, which appeared to be little more than a sea of blades, emerged from a wall only to roll directly into a wall of flame and fall over, slowly melting.
Daniella and Ox managed to dodge their way through the flames to Callus' position and keep ahead of the flames as Callus contacted Montego on his helmet-vox.
"Lord-General, this is Corporal Callus. We have a problem. Combat servitors appear to be emerging from the walls, floors, and ceilings to attack us. Level 78 is also aflame."
"We are quite aware of the servitors Corporal. We are beset as well. As for the hallway, I'll have teams take care of it. No time to talk. Montego out."
Callus head the scream of steel on steel as the General's vox fizzed out into static and then silence.
He turned to look at Ox and Daniella. The fire was raging now, spreading along the walls fast.
"Nowhere, to go but up."
"Up we go," said Ox, hoisting his grenade launcher. Callus shrugged, and made way for the lift at the end of the hall.
***
First Lieutenant Stavros Yagudin was nervous. Sweat ran down his brow, and his hell gun was gripped far too tightly in his hands. He had never intended to be a real soldiers. He had joined the Gubernatorial Guard with a commission because his father had ordered him too, in order to advance his political career later. His command squad, more or less ten of his academy friends, was made up of mostly the same. The Gubernatorial Guard, supposedly the most elite fighting force on the planet, were in actuality mostly made up of young nobles chiefly concerned with their political prospects further down the road. That's not what the Kazarkanians were. Stavros had managed to get through this Emperor forsaken war, if a war was what you could call it, more like a massacre he thought, so far, without seeing action. He knew that was about to change. Soon, those lift doors would open and he would do or die. Yagudin swallowed hard. Time to put up or shut up. The light on the lift reached his floor, and dinged. They had set up the elevators so they could travel no more than a floor at a time. The doors slid open.
Yagudin would do anything to avoid getting shot. He yelled out.
"Stop, in the name of the Governor!"
The las bolt hit him in the chest, melted through his carapace armor in seconds, went through is right lung with ease, and sent him hard on his back. He couldn't breath. He died in a matter of seconds.
***
The red robed Tech-Priest turned.
"Colonel, we are prepared for launch. I recommended you recall your troops now."
"No time, we launch immediately," Flaviun replied with a sigh of relief, beginning to march towards the hanger.
"B-but, Colonel."
"I said we launch immediately, Shaman."
***
Callus rose, hit the ground hard, rolling, and rising quickly. Slamming hard into the trooper in front of him, he drew his knife and stabbed it into the throat between the two sealed off portions constituting the neck and chest of the carapace suit. Rising, Callus picked up the dead trooper's hell gun, what had been the last of them. Daniella picked up another, while Ox hefted the heavy flamer one of them had been wielding.
The lift door opened behind them, and Lord-General Montego stepped out, flanked by adjutants, troops, and servo-skulls.
"Gentlemen," he said, nodding to Callus. Callus nodded in return.
Montego gazed up a long ramp, towards a large iron door.
"The central control room and spire hangar," he said.
"I reckon so, General," replied Daniella.
Montego's power sword ignited. He had discarded his pistol long ago.
"Well then, let's have at it, shall we?"
***
Colonel Marcus Flaviun was just about to pass into the internal hanger when he heard the door slide open behind him. He knew, almost by instinct, who was there. Pivoting, his suspicions were confirmed as he gazed at Lord-General Julian Montego.
"Hello, General."
"Hello, Colonel. Pray tell, where is the Governor? We have a meeting."
"Dead, I'm afraid. Quite tragic."
"Not particularly surprising. Not particularly distressing, either, I must admit."
"Quite. My good General, let's not go through unnecessary pleasantries. I am leaving this planet, now. I am quite aware killing you will be involved in completing this objective, so let's commence."
"Quite."
The General began to charge even as Montego raised his hell pistol.
Hive World Terra