This story is an unofficial story based, without permission, on the Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 intellectual property owned by Games Workshop Ltd.
Brothers on the block knowing
From this point on, it only gets rougher
Sisters at the crib knowing
From this point on, it only gets rougher
Preachers at the Church knowing
From this point on, it only gets rougher
But still we get by
Admiral Salvatore Moscardi was becoming rapidly impatient. Standing on the bridge of his Emperor class battleship, the Sol Invictus, he sighed heavily.
"Hargon sent for aid at least a week ago now, Ensign, and at that time the Orks had already breached the city. We are taking far too long. What is our ETA?"
"We should enter the system within the hour, Admiral."
"Not good enough."
Moscardi had been placed in charge of the naval portion of a massive Crusade that was under organization to retaliate against the incoming Ork Waaagh! He would have under his command twelve battleships, of mixed Emperor and Retribution classes, a force of forty two cruisers and grand cruisers, and seventy frigates. Included in that were twenty divisons of the Imperial Guard, including infantry of both light and heavy, mechanized, armored units, artillery, drop troopers, ogryn auxiliary forces, storm trooper regiments, and various expert ork-fighters. Seven companies of the Adeptus Astartes had pledged themselves to the crusade, among them a company of the Deathwatch under the command of Ordo Xenos Inquisitor and Ork slayer Saeed Al-Deayea. Cardinal Serhiy Shevchenko had been made Ecclesiarchal Legate to the Crusade, and had brought along with him two full convents of the Adepta Sororita. The Crusade was still undergoing preparations and waiting arrivals in the Deluxian sub-sector, but Moscardi, losing his patience, had taken another battleship, the Emperor class Angel of Retribution along with two divisions of Guard drop troopers, the 49th Ellysian and 23rd Trardorian, and set off for Hargon. He intended to smash through the siege and seize the initiative against the green menace.
Moscardi smiled. He would slay many of the Emperor's foes this day.
***
The first shot tore through Montego's right kneecap. The second punched a hole in his abdomen. The third, his left lung. He went down, hard, with an 'oof'.
Flaviun holstered his hell-pistol and turned on his heel, marching for the door. The twelve storm troopers that made up his personal bodyguard raised their hell guns to fire. They were met with a company's worth of lasguns.
Their sergeant dropped his hell gun, and raised his hands in surrender.
He and his men were obliterated in a hail of crimson light.
The plasteel door slammed shut behind Flaviun just as Callus reached it, punching and kicking at the impregnable surface, screaming a litany of curses and obscenities that would leave Abaddon himself as perturbed as an old nun.
This stupid piece of amphetamine parakeet in a blue uniform had cost him his life with his dumb little games of betrayal. Who knows how much longer they could have held out if the Gubernatorial Guard had been present on the line. Long enough for reinforcements to arrive, maybe. Long enough to win. Now they were all dead. It wasn't fair. They were on their way home. They were supposed to go home.
Daniella's hands were on his shoulders. He let out a long, heavy breath of frustration, as she kissed him on the cheek.
Callus turned. Medics had already arrived, placing the Lord-General on a stretcher, and rushing him from the room to administer care to him. A full company of Guardsmen were milling around, suddenly leaderless. As if out of nowhere, they were looking to Callus. Maybe it was simply because he was the closest to the door, and thus standing before them. Maybe it was the look of cold rage in his eyes. But for whatever reason, Corporal Michael Callus realized immediately that he was suddenly expected to be a leader.
***
In orbit above Hargon, Warboss Drazgar smiled, his beady red eyes glowing maliciously, as he watched the Governor's yacht leave orbit and make its way, tentatively, through his fleet of hulks. True to his word, Drazgar had told his boyz not to fire.
Colonel Marcus Flaviun was actually rather pleased with himself, as he reclined in the Governor's fine leather chair, smoking one of his cigars and sipping on a glass of his fine liquor. Besides himself, only the Tech-Priest, two pilots, and a Navigator had made it onto the yacht. He had been forced to leave his men to die so that he could make it to the yacht in time. Oh well, sacrifices did have to be made in war, after all.
***
As Callus exited the main tower of the hive, he found himself at the top of a long road that went rapidly downhill all the way to the wall separating the spire from the upper hive. It was only then that he realized exactly how bad things have become. All along that wall, Guardsmen were fighting tooth and nail with Orks, who were clambering up siege ladders in an attempt to cross the wall. Gunfire was utterly constant, as well as the screams of the dying, both man and greenskin. Of all Hargon, the Imperium of Man now held only the spire of New Gurgenstein.
Callus pulled out a cigarette and lit it, slapping a fresh power cell into his lasgun as he started down the road. A small crowd had gathered around a preacher in his flowering purple robes, golden aquila pendant around his neck. In one hand he held his staff of office, in the other a copy of the Liber Imperator, the Book of the Emperor, the Holy Scripture of the Imperial Cult.
The Preacher was recanting a tale of how the Sons of Guilliman Space Marines chapter, cut off and surrounded by the Eldar on Trasmus VII in 833.M37, had been rescued at the last minute by a legion of angels.
Callus took a drag on his cig as he passed by the preacher.
"Got any angels for us now, holy man?" he asked, never breaking stride.
The preacher opened his mouth, undoubtedly about to admonish Callus as a heretic and a traitor, but a stray shot hit him in the left eye and he went down from the pillar, what was left of his head a bloody mess.
Callus took another drag on his cigarette. He hardly noticed when people around him died anymore.
***
Callus saluted the first man to salute him when he reached the wall. Rank was unimportant at this point, so many were dead. Callus had about a company of Guardsmen at his back, that put him in a position of authority.
"What's the situation?"
"Well sir, to put it succinctly, bad. We are running low on ammunition, and fast. A moment's break in the firing line will allow the Orks to pour over the wall. We can only hope they pull away for the night."
Callus frowned, trying to decide whether or not they would.
"What's their route of assault?"
"They are coming up three main roads. A-394, B-292, and C-134, and assaulting the wall at three main gates, Saint Antonio, Saint Vladimir, and Saint Gregory."
"I see. And what if a strike team where to somehow go into the Ork lines and disrupt these roads. Perhaps destroy them?"
"Well, sir, if that were possible, I, uh... it would certainly delay the assault considerably."
"I think I know how to deal with this. Have any spare demo charges?"
***
Callus booted over the box full of armor piercing rounds, pouring them into the backpacks. Among himself, Ox, Daniella, and Lieutenant Picksten, as the man had identified himself, they had eight backpacks, each filled to the brim with demolition charges, melta bombs, krak and frag grenades, missiles, explosive ammo rounds, and anything else they could find that would go boom. Eight backpacks filled to the brim with all manner of explosives. Callus intended to destroy the roads.
Besides that each of them had picked up a few sticks of dynamite in order to blow the bags.
"Okay," Picksten said, "they're filled. Where to now?"
Callus gazed at him grimly. "The sewers."
At 12:34 PM that day, A-394 caved in on itself, engulfed in explosive fires, sending hundreds, if not thousands of Orks that had filled the street careening for miles into the hive below, before finally meeting their grisly end. At 1:30 pm, the same fate befell B-292.
At 3:30 pm, Callus' strike team reached what, according to Picksten's auspex, was the area of sewer line most likely to destroy C-134 if its support was removed.
Callus slid another power cell into his lasgun. The Orks weren't dumb. When they had reached the last two vulnerable points, there had been teams of Kommandos waiting for them. Callus had brought along Ox, Daniella, Picksten, and two Kazarkanian troopers called 8-Ball and Rat.
Callus slowly trained his rifle around the darkness. He saw nothing.
"Okay, be quick about it."
Ox moved up the line, a bag in each hand. Pressing them against the roof, he quickly used lines of adhesive strip to stick them on, and pulled out the dynamite sticks.
As he lit them, Rat gurgled. Callus whirled, just in time to see the huge Ork behind him finish dragging the long dagger across his throat.
"Throne of Terra! How does something so big move so quickly!?!"
No time to think. Chaos erupted as more Orks burst forth from the water and the shadows. Callus turned to Ox.
"MOVE!"
Ox nodded curtly, quickly lighting the sticks of dynamite and tossing them in the packs, before hefting the flamer he had traded in his stubber for and covering two orks in a wall of flame.
"RETREAT! BACK TO THE SPIRE!" Callus cried, sending a burst of rounds into the darkness and running.
A round from one of the green skins caught 8-ball through the back of the neck, sending him down in a storm of crimson. No time to check if he was alive. No time to do anything but shoot and run.
At 3:35, C-134 exploded in a mass of fire, melta, and shrapnel.
"Go! GO!" Callus cried to Ox, laying down a field of fire as the big man climbed the ladder into the spire.
"Daniella, you next!"
She did as she was told as Callus and Pickston laid down fields of las fire. There was seemingly no end to the Orks, who kept charging out of the shadows in an endless stream.
"Alright, you go up next, I'll come after you," Callus said to Picksten.
The young lieutenant grimly shook his head.
"There won't be enough time for both of us. Go."
"Lieutenant, if you think I'm leaving you -"
"Go."
Callus sighed, and shook his head. Pumping four more rounds into the enemy, he swung his lasgun over his shoulder and climbed the ladder.
One lasgun wasn't enough to do the job. As Callus exited the sewers, the Orks were on Picksten. He barely had time to scream before he was gone.
Callus dropped a frag grenade into the sewer as the green skins began to swarm around the ladder, and slammed the manhole into place. At its blast, their barbaric roars of victory were turned into horrified screams of pain. It was the most satisfying sound Michael Callus had ever heard in his life.
"That ones for Picksten, and Haydn, and Brenner, and Jackson, and all the rest, you stinking green xenos bastards."
Hive World Terra