Sometime last year the Black Library had a position open so I thought, given I've basically been swimming in 40K lore since I was about eight years old, that I should give it a shot.
As you shall see below the results were turgid, long-winded and uninteresting. This is unfortunate, and you would have thought that with the sheer amount of short, pulpy action scenes I've read in Codexes and WD's over the years I'd have some knack. But I do not. Oh well.
My application was unsuccessful. Obviously.
(There's probably typos in there that I missed, too. Icing on the cake, brah!)
The Ultramarines had arrived to assist the beleaguered men and women of the Venheim defense force in repelling the Orks that had invaded their world. A small force, they had made a significant impact in pushing back the aliens until, almost overnight, the tide turned. With Orks, this sort of thing happened with depressing regularity. Every inch now had to be fought for tooth and nail, and what momentum the Astartes had brought with them was well and truly blunted.
It had barely been two hours since Varo's Razorback had been declared fit and ready to serve again and had been assigned to a relief convoy headed towards the heart of the sundered capital. Less than an hour following that, the column had come under heavy assault and, diverted by the sudden collapse of a shell-blasted hab-block, Varo and his vehicle had been thoroughly cut off from all other Imperial forces in the city. He didn't slow down for a moment.
The Codex advised against the use of active sensors unless absolutely necessary, on account of them attracting far more attention than it was worth. There were exceptions, and Varo reasoned driving through streets at speed was likely to make themselves just as if not more obvious than using sensors that Orks were unlikely to be looking for anyway. It hardly mattered. The ruins surrounding them were playing merry havoc with the Razorback's auspex, which he had set to scan for first for heat and then for movement. The shattered rockcrete and twisted metal of the bombed-out city bounced the sensor pulses every which way and provided nothing but garbled feedback and useless static.
Through all of this, though, one set of ghost-signals was recurring with such frequency that it caught Varo's attention. They seemed to be coming from somewhere to the right of the vehicle, and though it was impossible to gain anything conclusive from it, it was immediately obvious that they were getting closer. He brought the vehicle to a gentle halt before a narrow portion of the street, engine idling. Out of practise more than conscious thought he armed the turret, deactivating its safety features and switching the attached cogitator-link to IFF mode, letting it start scanning automatically for potential targets.
"What is it brother? Why have we stopped?" the voice of sergeant Pullo – sat with the rest of his combat squad in the rear compartment – crackled in his ear almost immediately. Varo did not know Pullo personally, only by what he had heard from others. Pullo had the reputation of a stolid, reliable marine who took no risks he didn't have to and did everything asked of him without deviation. A codex-issue Sergeant, backbone of the chapter and the men great victories were made of. So far, Varo had seen nothing to show him that this was not the case.
"My auspex isn't much use in this mess, sergeant, but it is giving me the distinct impression that our route is not as clear as we might wish," Varo said, flicking through the Razorback's external cameras. All he saw was more ruins, the burnt husks of civilian vehicles, a few sad and lonely fires guttering here and there themselves out and enough smoke to blot out the sky. What he did not see was Orks. This did not make him feel better.
After a pause the sergeant's voice came through the squad-link again.
"Mine shows nothing," he said.
"Are you showing any ghost signals? False positives?"
Another pause.
"Yes. Does this mean something to you?"
"It causes me to suspect an ambush."
"Are you sure?"
"Sure enough to stop the vehicle," Varo did not relish the prospect of having his vehicle put out of commission again, and while the Codex had numerous ways detailing how best to handle a possible ambush one of those he felt most precient at the moment was the particular one urging caution and insisting it best to flush out and disrupt it before it happened. Varo could almost hear Pullo considering the very same thing.
"Very well. Squad, out."
The side hatches opened up and the squad disembarked, spreading out around the Razorback and scanning the rubble around them as they moved up to begin sweeping the ruins. All seemed still. Varo continued to look over the cameras, one eye on what the turret's scope was showing him. He could see nothing.
"Left side, eighty metres," came a clipped report on the squad vox and Varo switched monitors as the squad repositioned itself. It took him a moment to see what he was meant to be looking for, and then it was obvious. There were Orks in amongst the smashed buildings, and they were closing, but they were doing so slowly and carefully; picking their way forward with care. They had camoflaged themselves and blackened their weaponry. Varo knew what these were. These were Kommandos.
The Orks realized they had been spotted. Varo was still watching when, suddenly, there were Orks everywhere. Dozens and dozens of them, their green skin hidden behind grey whorls of dust and ash, rose almost as one from the rubble and charged. These Orks gave no battlecry, which Varo had not expected, and which was somehow far, far worse. They ran for the the marines in silence, swinging dulled blades and firing from heavy pistols.
The squad fired without a flicker of hesitation, bolters levelling and blowing Orks apart left and right. They made noise now, bellowing in pain and fury as they were torn to shreds as as they had to trample over the remains of their fallen comrades. Whatever discipline they had managed to muster vanished the moment blood spilled.
Taking manual control of the weapon system he brought the twin-linked heavy bolters to bear on the Orks before they could close the distance. The motors in the turret whined as it whipped around, elevation dipping ever so slightly before they opened fire. Fist-sized rounds punched into heavy green bodies, blasting them open like ripe fruit and scything the front rank of the charging mob down in a heartbeat. Those behind didn't slow for a moment. Seconds later those Orks that remained – and there seemed to be far too many still remaining – closed the distance. Bolters were slung and combat blades drawn as the fight became close and desperate.
Disengaging his restraints Varo sprung up and flung open the top hatch, swinging the pintle-mounted storm bolter around and scanning for any targets not yet engaged. The turret would be useless so close. He saw a handful bearing what seemed to be crude anti-tank weapons scuttling along the shattered remains of a warehouse to find a better angle of fire on his vehicle. Varo slammed down on the paddle-triggers and the storm-bolter bucked on its mounting, a stream of rounds slicing across his targets. He blasted the legs out from underneath them and pulped their bodies, sending them down in pieces.
One Ork, still alive even all-but cut in half, fired its weapon and Varo watched as the stubby rokkit - trailing oily black smoke – lazily corkscrewed through the air towards his Razorback. Sergeant Pullo, neatly decapitating one Kommando with a deft swing, turned just in time to catch the rokkit full in the chest. He was punched off his feet and sent a good fifteen feet away, out of sight.
Varo had no time to worry about the sergeant. The Razorback rocked as something heavy clambered onto it. He turned his head in time to an Ork dash over and swing its cleaver down towards him. Pushing up out of the hatch to meet it, he raised his left arm just in time to catch the blow. Warning chimes sounded as his armour was breached. But it held. He gritted his teeth and pushed back against the alien now pushing down onto him.
His free hand flew to his holster and brought up his pistol as the Ork started to bring its whole, considerable weight to bear on him. It was so close that Varo could fit the muzzle and most of the body of his pistol inside its stinking, snarling mouth. He did. He fired.
At such close ranges bolt shells acted differently. They did not build up to their maximum velocity – not having had the time for the rockets to accelerate them – nor did their explosive warheads arm. None of this mattered. The rear of the alien's head exploded out all the same as most of its skull was destroyed by the heavy round punching clean through. Where before it had been pushing on Varo with malice and murderous intent it now only pushed with dead weight and Varo dumped the body off the side of his vehicle.
This proved to be a mistake. The blow he parried was deeper than he had expected and the blade was stuck fast, and the dead Ork was not letting go. It fell from the Razorback and Varo found himself being pulled after it, landing in a heap on top of the corpse. Grunting in irritation he put a boot down and wrenched his arm free.
He heard movement before he saw it, and turned with years of honed instinct. He wasn't fast enough. A machete the size of a turbine-blade cleaved through his arm as if the armour simply wasn't there. Varo let out an involuntary snarl and scrabbled for the blade at his belt. The pain would have killed a mortal on the spot, but for Varo it was barely even a distraction.
The thing moved faster than Varo would have thought possible. Its massive, clawed hand shot out and grabbed him by the helmet, hauling him forward and off balance. He struggled in its grip and hammered a gauntlet uselessly into the thing's ribs. The Nob snarled and smashed him against the Razorback with a hideous crunching sound. Warning runes turned flashed and alerts sounded in his ears as he was hammered against his vehicle over and over again. His vision blurred and his helmet creaked in protest as the creature's iron grip began to crush it.
Pullo appeared from nowhere, a litany of fury spilling from his helmet's vox as he forced the screaming edge of his chainsword down through the meaty shoulder of the Nob. The rokkit was still where it had hit him, protruding from the breastplate, smoking quietly. A dud.
The Nob roared in pain and released Varo, forced down to its knees but reaching up to try and force the weapon out of its body. The sergeant emptied the last shots of his bolt pistol into the back of its head. Its fingers clenched reflexively on the casing of the chainsword but its other arm fell limp and it offered no resistance as Pullo savagely sawed his way down all the way to the middle of the alien's ribcage, where the teeth of the sword finally whined to a halt, unable to go any further.
With a boot to the back and a snarl of effort Pullo wrenched the chainsword free and the mangled carcass of the Nob toppled heavily into the dust where it fell, twitching. Giving the teeth a brief cycle to clear them of debris the sergeant returned the weapon to its place by his hip and reached down to pull Varo back to his feet by his remaining arm.
"Are you still effective?" Pullo asked.
"Yes," Varo said. He could drive with one hand. He stooped and picked up his pistol from where it had fallen. He saw the other marines returning to the vehicle, lowering the hatches and ducking to get back inside. None of the squad had sustained any injuries as serious as his, though from where he was stood Varo could see at least one substantial limp. That would heal soon.
"Are you?" Varo added, motioning towards the rokkit as he holstered his weapon.
"I am. The warhead was slowed by my armour and halted by my sternum. It is not safe to remove it yet. The squad is mission-capable. We are now behind schedule."
"Agreed," Varo said, and both of them returned to the Razorback without another word. Strapping himself back in Varo took a moment to adjust the gain on the auspex, cycled the ammunition feed on the heavy-bolters and then roared off again, leaving a street choked with bodies behind him. There was a long way yet to go.