Here is my very first fanfic story! I hope you like it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40k or Games Workshop but this story is my original idea, along with the characters. All equipment, and all other trademarked items of Games Workshop are not mine.
Death is Fate
Vorn smiled and looked around his mother's kitchen. This kitchen reminded him of when he was a little kid. All of the fun things that he could remember happened in this room. He felt great today, Vorn didn't really know why, but he guessed it was the great grade he had received on his report on the history of the Imperial Guard in school today.
Vorn's father was a Major in the Imperial Guard, so he already knew all about it. Major Wulff. That was his father's name and he was proud to be his son.
Suddenly, when Vorn was deep in these thoughts, he noticed a letter on the table. It looked like someone had opened it. He was very curious, so he picked it up and took a look at it.
Vorn began to read it, "Your son, Vorn Wulff has been called by the Imperium. He's been called to defend it from the many aliens, mutants, and heretics that greatly threaten man-kind. He'll be deemed a hero, a Guardsman. An Imperial Guardsman. If he is to die on the field of battle, defending the great planets of the Emperor, that is even better. It is better to die for the Emperor, than to live for yourself. He will enter Valhalla, heaven of heroes where will stand proudly next to the great warriors and heroes of the Imperium. Vorn is to report to his nearest Imperial Guard recruitment center as soon as he can. If you do not come, you will be unquestionably killed without mercy.
Thank you,
Colonel Tigerius
Garrison Commander of the planet Spartius.
Vorn grimaced at the thought. He had never wanted to serve in the Imperial Guard, but deep down he always knew that this day would arrive. He let out a growl of frustration and he slammed his fist down on the table like a sledgehammer. He noticed a shape out of the corner of his eyes and he turned his head in its direction. Vorn's mother stood there looking at him with teary red eyes. She stood still as a post.
Vorn's eye twitched slightly and he sighed. His mother then quietly said, "So now you know…" Vorn stood there motionless for a few minutes and then nodded. He looked up at his mother to see tears streaming down her cheeks, but still she stood still. The way she stood was almost eerie to Vorn. He let out another sigh and softly replied, "I have to mom."
Vorn pushed down and he could feel his muscles strain. His veins were protruding and he let out a loud grunt. A beat of sweat trickled off of his nose. Then as he painfully lifted his horizontal body up and down, he heard the booming voice of his Drill Sergeant. "Get the heck off the ground Recruit!" Vorn quickly snapped upwards to a vertical position and at full attention. His hands and legs and were covered in warm, sloppy mud.
The Sergeant shoved his snarling, ugly face into Vorn's and screamed, "You are a disgrace to man-kind and the Imperial Guard! You're gonna die with your limbs blown off in a muddy trench, lying in your own blood anyways, why not kill you now! You worthless piece of bloody, crap!" He rambled on with every insult that Vorn could ever imagine. Vorn simply stood at attention with eyes fixed on the strong, dark blue eyes of his Sergeant.
After what seemed like hours of cursing and insults, finally the Sergeant told everyone to sprint around the camp three times. The outer ring of the camp was five miles long. He sprinted the five miles with trouble, and then finished half of the second sprint before passing out.
Vorn's eyes slowly creaked open. His vision was blurry, but it was clear enough for him to see that he was tied up on a flag pole in his underwear. Down below him were all of the recruits of his class, standing at attention, in full dress uniform, saluting him. The bugle began to play reveille.
Vorn was horrified, he eyes darted around and he angrily growled at the men. He saw small smirks form on their otherwise steely faces. One of the recruits in the front row called out in a deep, hollow voice, "Sir, permission to laugh, sir?" The Sergeant replied, "Granted recruit, this is most likely the last time you will ever laugh, so laugh your hardest."
Hundreds of laughs and chuckles came spilling from the crowd. Vorn could feel his face burning up as he hung his head in shame. The laughs echoed in his ears and seemed to be even louder than they really were. It was nearly deafening. Vorn growled once more but it could not be heard over the roar of laughter. The Sergeant walked up to the tall flag pole and said, "Recruit, you were the first to pass out on the sprint, that I noticed." Then he let out a wide grin, revealing all of his missing teeth. "Now you're here!"
Not much longer after that, the Sergeant untied him and made him repeat the sprint in his underwear. Vorn did as he was told with great shame and embarrassment. He snarled in his mind, "This is not how the son of a Major should be treated." He knew he had been the weakest one on that exercise, and he cursed at himself for that.
Vorn pulled back on the trigger and a red laser came bursting from the gun. It his target about where he had aimed, much like all his other shots. He knew that the Wulff family had a natural skill of accuracy. Every shot, the laser came blazing out the barrel and the gun kicked back into his shoulder. The men around him were not doing so well. They were hitting far from the bull's eye and some were outright missing the target. He smiled and realized that this was his way of redeeming himself.
Chink, as he pulled the pin from the practice grenade and hurled it into the window of the cardboard shack. He shoved his body down into the mud until he heard the loud, crack! He looked up to see that the shack had fallen over and there was light grey smoke rising from it. All the practice grenades do is release an intense blast of air all around and then release some grey smoke. He grinned, and then moved up to a crouch position.
He took the rifle off of his shoulder and moved forward through the practice field. He moved quickly from cover to cover while staying crouched. He then poked his head over the boulder that he was using as cover to reveal several human shaped targets in a circle. He raised his rifle and leveled it with them. Then he thrust the trigger backward and sent several blasts of laser towards the targets. He continued to pound on the trigger, quickly knocking down all of the targets. He then lowered his head into cover again.
He heard a loud voice come from behind him say, "Recruit Wulff, you've completed this training exercise with full points. You did very well." Vorn wasn't very good with all the physical work, but he excelled at all of the battle training and tactics.
After four months of insane exercising, drill after drill, battle training, and screaming and curse words, he had finished. He had graduated the training and today was graduation day where his parents would come, he would be promoted to Private, and he would finally get assigned to a unit. Vorn considered this to be a great day, he had proved himself as a true Wulff family son and he had not disgraced himself too much.
Suddenly, the thought that he would have to fight sank in. He would be fighting things larger, more powerful, and more frightening then he could imagine. All of this training would do him no good against what he was going to have to fight, according to the Drill Sergeants. A shiver went sailing down his spine and made him jump slightly. He figured that the Sergeants had simply said this to demoralize and frighten us, but he had a gut feeling that it was actually true.
He sat on the transport ship, gluing his Private stripe onto the shoulder of his uniform with heavy duty fabric glue. After coating the back side in glue and the carefully placing it on his sleeve, he held it down for five minutes. In this time he starred out the window. He watched as the sky turned from light blue, to dark blue, and then eventually black, dotted with white. They had entered space and were being flown to a naval battle cruiser. Vorn had been told that he was assigned to a brand new regiment that had just formed, called the Spartius 32nd Infantry Regiment.
Their regiment had taken the number of the last Spartius 32nd regiment after it was completely decimated while on a campaign to take over Cronus. Cronus was a planet owned by the ancient Necrons that was fought over by nearly every race. The planet was thrown into a state of slaughter, death, and destruction. When the painfully long war was over, no one had prevailed, all sides had decided to remove their troops and didn't return. Now it is a vacant, ghost-like planet, covered in rotting corpses, body parts, blood, gore, and rubble. The Necrons have recently returned to the planet Cronus, and now several regiments of Imperial Guardsmen are being sent to do the task of retaking it for the glorious Emperor, including Vorn's regiment, the 32nd.
About two weeks passed before we finally arrived at the Imperial battleship. In that time I repeatedly read the Guardsmen's manual and recited prayers to the glorious God Emperor. I cleaned my equipment even though it had recently been thoroughly been cleaned and repaired. It was quite boring but I saw it as my last chance to truly live without a constant fear of death.
Death is fate. Those were the words of Captain Anderius on the night before graduation. Those hollow words. Death is fate. They rang in Vorn's head. He didn't want to believe it. He wouldn't let himself believe it, but he did. Deep down in his soul, he knew that no amount of prayer, caution, or dedication to the Emperor would save him from fate…death. All that could save him was luck. Luck was not a common thing. Nor was it real. This rare, non-existent thing was the only thing that separated life from death. It was the sheet of cardboard, used as a wall, to divide life from death. But Vorn knew, death is fate.
The troops transport arrived in the massive, grey, imperial battleship. Vorn left the ship with a vacant look on his face. The same empty, vacant look that he had the whole ride there. He was put into rank formation along with all of the other arriving Imperial Guardsmen. They stood at attention as Admiral Burnlius rambled off a speech to the Guardsmen.
You are all now trained and equipped fighting men of the Imperium. You should be proud to call yourself Imperial Guardsmen. Your job is to defend the soil of the Imperium at all costs and to take all ground owned by heretical forces when ordered, again at all costs. This means that you should at all times be willing to throw your life away, so that the Imperium can complete its objectives. You will happily die in the name of the God Emperor and his glorious Imperium. You will fight fiercely and always take a better opportunity to kill enemies of the Imperium, then a better opportunity to save yourself. You will stand and fire when ordered not caring that you very well may die. You will do it with enthusiasm and you will carry out your orders better than to the best of your abilities. You are expendable, we have batches of you coming in by the hundreds of thousands and about the same number for the amount that die. Forget your desire to live and gain the desire to kill!
The Guardsmen cheered and raised their fists into the air. Vorn blankly starred at the ceiling while the cheers of his fellow soldiers rang deep into his brain. His brain bathed in the speech and the cheers. It was coated in this information and soaked all of it up. Vorn's brain had absorbed this speech and cheering and thoroughly processed it. He simply grinned, knowing that he would die. Death is fate.
Vorn's eyes creaked open to reveal the small, grey room that he had been given on the ship along with three other guardsmen. One was a stout, but muscular and fierce guardsmen named Kirt. The second was a tall somewhat skinny soldier, named Aleksandr, only 18 years old like Vorn. He had dark blond hair and steely blue eyes. The third was a man about 29 years old. He had a shaved head and light brown eyes, and he was fairly tall and slightly more muscular than me. His name was Branik. He really didn't speak much at all though.
Vorn yawned and looked across the tiny room to see Kirt laying sound asleep making snorting noises louder than he'd ever heard. Above him in the bunk was Branik who was sitting up and starring at the ceiling. Above Vorn was Aleks. That's what we called him and he was ok with it. He could here Aleks' bunk creaking.
Vorn climbed out of his bed and threw on a dark brown T-shirt and his olive green cargo pants. Both were standard issue to all Guardsmen. He then got ready and went to the shower halls and got breakfast with his other three fellow guardsmen. They had vacuum sealed packs of low quality processed sausage and, just add water, scrambled eggs. They gave out water to drink. It was all terrible, even the water. He didn't know how you could make water terrible. It filled him up with warm food though. That's all that mattered to him.
About a week had passed. Vorn had talked to Kirt, Aleks, and Branik and gotten to know them. They had all set up a solid friendship. Today was landing day. The day that Vorn knew, was the beginning of his death. Death is fate he said, as he put his helmet on. Death is Fate.
The pod violently shook and Vorn could feel his bones shaking. His muscles strained to keep him in place, even with the tight straps on the chair. A deafening roar popped Vorn's ear drums. They had entered the atmosphere. The shaking intensified and Vorn's brain was shaking along with it. He grunted and looked over at Kirt who looked pale with fear.
Eventually the shaking became nearly unnoticeable and Vorn realized that they would hit the ground in a matter of seconds. As he thought this, the pod suddenly shook greater than any other time during the descent. The pod came to an abrupt stop that violently shook everyone back and forth several times. Vorn could feel the vibrations travel through his bones. Along with the abrupt halt, a tearing sound was heard. There was silence and everything was stationary. Vorn's bones ached badly and he cringed from the pain.
The sergeant jumped up and screamed, "Move, move, lets go! Get your gear ready and get the hell out of this thing!" Vorn paused for a moment looked inquisitively at the Sergeant, and then remembered why he was here.
Vorn unlatched his many seat straps and pulled it's lasrifle from its casing on his back. It was already loaded and he flicked the safety off. He pulled his bullet proof goggles down and attached his air filter to his helmet. This only took about 10 seconds combined. Vorn rushed out right behind the sergeant. Pods were striking the ground in all directions. The ground violently rumbled beneath their feet and a terrible tearing explosion sound could be heard in all directions. Guardsmen began rushing out of the pods and massing up in cover behind a few large piles of grey boulders. Vorn followed and to his surprise they were not taking fire.
All of the Guardsmen had touched the ground and there were no casualties. Many trench lines, bunkers, firing steps, and fox holes had been created and all the heavy weapons deployed. They were to wait for the arrival of an enemy force.
Vorn starred at the pods as their pilots flew them away. They were poorly made things but sturdy enough to slam into the hard earth coming from space. He laid his head down in the mud and closed his eyes. Then he slowly drifted into sleep. Vorn had a very strange dream that night.
Vorn looked around to see that he was laying in the pitch black darkness. He was wearing all of his gear but it was strangely, torn, muddy, and the color was very faded. Then he noticed that both of his legs had been crudely torn off from the knees down. He tried to let a scream but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. He pounded his fists in the mud and tried to scream but still he could make not make any sort of noise. It was dead silent. Vorn just wanted to die, he wanted to be out of there. Suddenly, a piercing roar of what sounded like a high-powered chainsaw tore through his eardrums like a sword.
Vorn let out a scream when he realized that a massive, dirty chainsaw type weapon was protruding from his stomach. The tiny razor sharp blades whirled around as fast as lightning. His organs were being sprayed in all directions and he was already coated in his own sopping wet blood. He watched as his large intestine slowly unraveled and then shot out from his gut. Blood began rushing out from his mouth and he was choking. He couldn't breathe, and he tried to scream one last time as he saw his small intestine come bursting from him along with one of his lungs. Then while lying in a pool of fresh blood and surrounded by his own organs, in pain and agony that I can not describe, he slipped into darkness.
"AHH!" yelled Vorn as he awakened in the muddy trench. Cold sweat trickled down his forehead and his eyes darted left and right. The words, death is fate, rang in his brain. Vorn grabbed his lasgun and looked over the lip off the trench with it ready. He simply saw eerie darkness stretching across a vacant field that covered miles and miles of the land on Cronus. He took a deep breath and looked at his fellow comrades. All of them sound asleep except for Branik. Vorn guessed that Branik was on guard duty. Vorn sighed and laid his head down to continue to sleep until it was his shift on guard duty.
Vorn was awakened by Branik who was shaking his shoulder. Then Branik whispered, "Your turn, buddy." Vorn grumbled and got his feet. It was pretty dark but it seemed like the sun would come soon. He grabbed a spot next to one of the heavy weapons and starred off into the empty, shadowy plane.
As Vorn starred suddenly part of the shadows turned into a dim shade of light orange. Maybe yellow. It flickered on and off and it could be seen all through the shadows. Vorn thought it might be the sun, but then he heard the howling, screeches above. "Everyone wake up and get down!" screamed Vorn as he jumped down into the mud and firmly placed himself there. Vorn clenched his fists and tightly shut his eyelids. He then began to mumble a prayer to the Emperor under his breath.
Lord Emperor, my God. I am not worthy of you or to be alive in your great realm. Grant me the strength of your fist to defend your glorious lands that I am not worthy of. You are my savior, I will answer your call and willing throw my worthless life away, in protection of your great and powerful being that no one can surpass. Grant me the strength of your fist, the courage of your heart, and the wisdom of your mind. I am not worthy, I am expendable, I will die in your name when the time comes. At this time give me the strength to defend your lands. I am not worthy of Valhalla, the warrior's heaven. So I can not peacefully enter your lands of the great warriors of the past. All hail the Emperor. The Emperor protects. It is truly better to die for the Emperor than to live for yourself.