Warhammer: The Fallen

Now and Forever

3.1415926535897932384626433 or PI as many have called it, this was my very first thought in this world. Kinda dull personally, most would think of food or crying. Me? I thought of numbers, calculations, why the world spun on a 3.68 percent tilt axes; that's just who I am, just how I chose to begin in this world. I could walk without support at two, I could talk fluently at four, and I could build a computer at six… I could kill at age eight. I accidently killed my parents when i was eight, when the black ships arrived to take me away.

The men in black came and my dad tried to fight them with a wooden board, he didn't last long. They brought him down and were trying to drag him away along with my mom, both still fought. I yelled at them to stop… they did, they all did, and they never moved again. I stayed in the house with the unmoving bodies for almost a year. Then horrible men came, and they started killing people. I told them to leave every time they came to my house and they left. I had no idea who or what I was until the nine came for me; they helped me realize what I am and what I will become. I am an alpha plus pskyer and I know how to use my mind, and I will use it to crush anybody or thing who gets in my way.

Chapter one

Commissar Agrin Thale looked around the yard in front of the small house on the outskirts of a massive hive city with a name he couldn't pronounce. The yard wasn't very big it was only a few meters square; but it as well as the neighboring yards, were packed with guardsmen wearing orange uniforms, many of whom were likely conscripts. The guardsmen were instructed to guard the house, but most just sat around outside, cleaning equipment and relaxing, now that the war had moved on from the city. All together there were easily two hundred soldiers in the area, and none of them knew what they were guarding.

As the tall bulky Commissar walked towards the building, many of the soldiers would see him and quietly moved out of the way. He noted that not all of the guards were male a good number of them were also women; mixed units, not unheard of but he was unaware that there was one on the planet, so conscripts then. When he reached the front door the man standing outside stepped to the side and allowed him in without checking is ID, had the reason he was there not needed him to keep who he was private he would have shot the man for being stupid.

The inside of the building was poorly lit, but he could still see that many walls had been intentionally knocked out to make room. In one corner by a computer bank two tech priests were working on something. On the opposite stood a man in a dark emerald green uniform with a intricate silver letter "I" on the shoulder. Flanking the door were two armed men in similar uniforms as the Inquisition officer, and two more guards were standing out of the way near the priests. In the center of the room was a metal cage, with a little girl curled up inside it, with multiple wires attached to her back.

The Inquisitor looked up at him with a questioning expression. "What are y-…" Before he could finish Thale fired his las pistol and shot the man in the head. Turning casually he shot the two stunned guards standing at either side of the door.

Another three shots were fired behind him, he heard three bodies hit the ground. Turning back around gun at the ready he swept the room. While the last standing priest worked on a computer panel next to the cage, a smoking las pistol sitting atop the terminal. After a few minutes the cage opened. Thale dropped the las gun next to one of the corpses and walked over to the open cage. The little girl looked up at him with watery blue eyes half hidden behind dirty dark brown hair. "The Emperor has big things planned for you." Thale said softly reaching a hand towards the terrified child.

…

Conscript Jesse Culm was carefully realigning the lenses in her rifle scope, her long las laying at her feet. She wasn't 'technically' allowed to have it, because it was Imperial property, but she was able to strip it down and hide the parts among her gear and her squad if she had too. In the last fight she was in the lens had been knocked out of alignment making it nearly impossible to shoot with it. She felt someone tap her shoulder, and was handed a small bundle. Four hot shot rounds; as she was a Conscript and wasn't allowed to have the gun her squad frequently kept an eye out for the parts she needed to keep the gun working and firing. She wasn't a great shot, but she was sure she was getting better. It probably helped that she was deaf and couldn't hear the shooting and explosions around her while she was shooting. It also prevented her from hearing the men's cat calls, she wasn't drop dead gorgeous by a long shot, she still saw men looking at her a lot though. There weren't a lot of women in the area so it was expected, she just ignored it.

Her squad and a couple others as well had been stationed in front of a house, nobody knew why but it was better then fighting in one of the Hives. She reassembled the scope and slid it back onto the rifles top rail. As she started to put the power cells into her bag she noticed everybody was turning to look at the house; most of them were grabbing their guns and moveing towards the house. Joul her friend and spotter while she was shooting, ran over to her.

He started to sign to her what was going on, but he only managed to tell her that there was shooting before he collapsed onto the ground. Startled she rolled him over onto his back, he was still alive but unconscious. Another trooper fell down on top of him, looking up she watched as all of her fellow Conscripts dropped like flies around her. Quickly she grabbed her rifle, but as she stood a something was slammed into the back of her head with a bone shattering crack, knocking her to the ground. A shadow moved over her as she blacked out.

When she came to a few moments later, she found herself on her knees in front of the house with her hands cuffed behind her. There were guardsmen, wearing dark grey uniforms with a red pattern she didn't recognize, who were in the middle of moving the unconscious Conscripts to either side of the walkway. Her head felt like it was on fire from the injury. The door to the house opened and the tall Commissar walked out holding the hand of a nine year old, behind them was a Tech priest who was carrying a computer of some kind. The trio walked straight down the path in front of the house towards the young deaf Conscript. they stopped in front of her. The Commissar drew his bolt pistol and raised it to her head. But before he fired the bullet that would end her life, the little girl placed her hand on the big man's arm causing him to pause, his gaze never leaving the teenagers orange eyes.

The little girl was staring at her with unblinking blue eyes. After a moment there was a beep from the computer the priest was carrying everybody in earshot of the device turned to look at it, except for the trio and the deaf girl. Moments after the beep the teenager gasped and doubled over; she felt as if something hit her, winding her. As she tried to gasp for air she started to cough savagely for several minutes, afterwards she remained slouched forward panting as air returned to her body. A red sphere fell to ground and splattered into a small puddle. It was followed closely by another, then another, then another; it took her a few moments to realize it was blood, her blood. She felt trickles of blood coming from her nose and her mouth, her eyes stung as blood began to trickle out of them as well. Looking back up she saw the little girl was still looking at her with unblinking eyes. Many of the soldiers as well as the commissar flinched at the sight of the teens blood streaked face.

Jesse tried to talk but was only able to make her mouth open and close, unable to create any sound from her rarely used vocal cords. With a jolt she felt as if her head had been ripped in half. She tried to scream but her throat stopped working properly. She started to spasm and shake as if she was having a seizure. Her arms suddenly flexed outward snapping the handcuffs holding her in half, ripping her hands and wrists up. Holding her head with her bleeding hands, she continued to shake heavily; until blood started to leak out of her skin and stream down her body.

"What the Hells wrong with her?" Someone shouted.

Looking up again she realized she just heard the soldier speak, it was the first and last thing she would ever hear. The pain suddenly stopped and her eyes rolled up into her head as she slowly collapsed sideways onto the ground into the ever expanding pool of her own blood.

…

(10 years later)

The city was in flames. They were told it was only a small garrison of Chaos forces, but what they weren't told was that an ork fleet as well as Chaos re-enforcements had been on their way. The fight had been one sided at first with the Imperials chasing down the routing enemy forces. The city was almost theirs when ork ships started pouring down from space, and not quite landing but still not crashing… normally, in the middle of the streets and inside the buildings of the Hive city.

When the Chaos forces arrived it caused even more problems. In the end the Imperial forces had fallen back to the landing zones and simply let the two enemies fight each other. In the long run it saved many guard lives, but caused them to lose all the ground they had gained previously. Now the many guard regiments were dug in all around the city fighting off the hordes of enemy troops.

One regiment, the Hiatian 106th light infantry were stationed at a series of landing platforms on the edge of the city. Their job was to protect the platforms so that supplies and re-enforcements could be dropped in. The five platforms were massive and could easily hold five transports at a time. they used to hold many more, but they needed the space for the artillery and support weapons of the Phantom 112th mixed unit that had setup to support the infantry.

Corporal Hal Stul was stationed at platform three with fourth, fifth, and twelfth squads, a total of about twenty-eight soliders. The three squads had been holding the platform for a little over three weeks, and only Hals fourth squad had yet to obtain any casualties since their commanding officer took a las cannon round in the gut.

"Hal I think their coming back for another round." Lany yelled over to him from his perch on top of a toppled over pillar, he was easy to spot from where Hal stood due to his light green Hiatian uniform. Turning to look over the makeshift barricade, Hal watched as a horde of chaos troops were charging towards their position. The fifties were already blasting away to either side of him; mowing down the charging enemy troopers. When the enemy reached the sixty meter mark; the guardsmen opened up with their las guns, cutting down droves of the archenemy. When they reached the twenty meter line, the guardsmen attached their bayonets. At five meters the guards charged.

Stabbing a Chaos trooper through the chest; Hal fired his gun blasting the man off in a shower of blood. He turned and slashed open the neck of another then fired a burst from his las into the mass of bodies. One of the archenemy lunged at him with a wicked sword cutting the bayonet off of Hals rifle. Swinging his rifle like a club he parried another swing from the horrid beings sword, followed up by a low swing with the butt of his rifle, which was blocked by the enemy trooper. He prepared to block another attack when a chain sword ripped through the heritics torso, and was ripped upward tearing the upper body in half and demolishing his head. Behind him was a tall lean commissar, who was wielding two chain swords with a third strapped to his back.

"A great man once said 'Don't take a gun to a sword fight' my friend!" the commissar said with an odd accent. Swinging around he swung the two blades, ripping apart several of the enemy soldiers in a massive curtain of blood. He smiled back at Hal, before quite literally diving into the enemy forces. Hal was amazed to see a commissar, there weren't any on the platform… well living ones that is; the artillery forces had one but he was hit in the back of the head by a 'stray' shot. It took him a moment to realize that another Guard unit had joined the fight. Along side the light green uniforms of the Hiatian light was another unit with tan uniforms and armor, along with brown battle plating. One of the soldiers from the new unit bumped into him, snapping his attention back into focus and he ran into the fray swinging his rifle like a club.

…

The fight had only lasted about seven minutes, and yet thousands of bodies littered the ground in front of the damaged barricades. The Hiatians had suffered thirteen deaths, of the seven members of fifth squad only one still stood, twelfth had six members left of nine, and fourth had six of eleven left. Altogether they had only enough men for one squad, chances were they were going to be moved to support another platform and some other regiment would take over.

"Your men did well corporal."

He turned and quickly saluted when he realized a commissar was standing next to him. The Commissar was a big bulky man who easily reached two meters tall, he also seemed to have a rather stern look about him. He was wearing a majors rank pins on his coat. The big man just waved aside his salute. "At ease, I'm just here to inform you that your unit is being withdrawn to a troop ship in orbit." He glanced over to the side as the much taller commissar with the chain swords stalked by. "Also, I have the miss fortune of informing you that your thirteen men are all that remains of the Hiatian one oh sixth."

That final comment hit him like a bolter round to the chest. "Wh-what?" he stammered hardly able to comprehend it.

"They were ripped apart from what I hear, I would tell you more but I honestly don't know anything else; and I still have to inform the Phantoms as well." The commissar turned and marched away.

"Hal, you know if any of them has a vox, I think mines been hit I can't raise any of the other squads." Vox officer Kale asked approaching the corporal.

"We're the last ones." Hal replied, looking at the ground.

"The last what?" Kale asked.

"We're the last of the one oh six."

"You mean…"

"Yes."

[Troop ship, Versitil]

Hals squad had been returned to the massive troop ship Versitil they arrived in, they were still assigned the same billet as before; the only difference was that they had almost twelve thousand fewer bodies left to crowed the place. Currently the sixteen survivors were going through their fallen comrade's gear taking things to remember them with, or sell depending on the man. There was only one exception though and that was Kalee the regiments' cadet commissar the only commissar they had left, was lying in her cot a few rows down. They found her under a pile of bodies, friend and foe, after clearing platform five. She had at some point during the fighting stabbed a chaos soldier with her knife and the dead man had fallen on top of her, and as the dead fell the weight caused her knifes handle to impale itself in her gut. They were happy to find her alive, and not because she was the only girl in the whole regiment, but because she was nice, which was uncommon when it comes to commissars.

Hal rose up from the bag he just went through and started walking down the line of empty cots; each one had been neatly made, and had the items that belonged to the now dead soldiers placed on top. He had gone down the row for quite a ways when he noticed one of the cots was not vacant. There was a girl with short black hair with a long braid that was tucked inside her grey coat, knelt down by one of the beds going through one of the duffle bags that had been under it.

"Hey who are you?" Hal asked reaching for his knife. The girl stood up and turned around. Looking at her from the front he could see that she was a mess; her hair didn't look clean but still looked like it was brushed recently, she had sweat glistening on her forehead, and she looked exhausted. Even though she looked filthy and unclean she still seemed striking and attractive, with her small rounded face and watery blue eyes. She was also short only standing up to about his shoulders, and Hiatians weren't exactly tall. She was holding a picture in her hands of a Private who had died.

"Oh, s-s-s-sorry, I w-w-w-was distracted." She stuttered, struggling to form words, before Hal could reply her head twitched violently to the side, causing her neck to pop loudly. Rubbing her neck with one hand, wincing she looked up at him. "I came here looking for you, but I got distracted by the neat things your late friends collected."

Hal was startled by her change in tone from having a horrible speech impediment to speaking as clear as anybody it was strange. "Why are you looking for me?" He asked loosening his grip on the knife.

"Because of your lack of a regiment… I thought I could help." She said gesturing around the massive infantry bay. He noticed that the hand she used seemed to have a glowing soft blue white light along the long slender fingers.

"How could you help us with that?"

"You could join mine; we've got an opening for a new squad."

"Your… regiment? How could someone like you have a regiment?" he asked not believing for a second that she could. "And even if you did why should we?"

"Because, I asked nicely." She replied with a childish smile. "Either way why would I lie, what could I possibly gain f-fr-from it?" She twitched violently again her neck popping loudly. Without losing eye contact she pulled up the right sleeve of her coat, revealing a slender pale arm. Hal noticed she had a black fingerless glove on her left hand. Reaching into a pocket she drew out a small syringe and stabbed it into her arm and depressed the plunger; her face seemed to gain more color almost immediately. She blinked, "Well? Are you going to answer me?"

"Fine! Its not like we have anywhere better to go." She injected another shot into her arm. "What the throne is wrong with you?" Hal asked.

"Everything." She replied simply and walked away.

Hals throat felt like a pressure had been lifted, he hadn't realized he had been breathing slowly. He was pondering this as a soldier in a camo cloak walked past him sheathing a long gold blade. It took him a moment to realize there had been a knife to his throat during the entire conversation. How had he not notice that? Looking behind him he saw a data-slate lying on the ground with his name in big bold letters in the center of the screen.

…

The data-slate had told him to go to landing platform G-68 on the massive ship. Hal had his men pack their gear and led them to the massive hanger. He had Halik the squads heavy weapons specialist carry Kalee who was still injured, which made it hard to walk; not to mention the drugs she was on seemed to make her a bit... uncoordinated. The bay was crowded with soldiers and servitors, prepping to send another wave of Guardsmen to the planet. They managed to find the landing platform easily. The ship that was parked there looked as though it had seen better days; it was missing parts, many of which Hal was pretty sure shouldn't missing, also one of the engines was on fire.

"You the new guys?" a thin scrawny man asked as he walked down the boarding ramp, reading a data-slate.

"Yes, we are th-"

"Shut up, get on the ship." The small man said as he turned on his heel and walked back up the ramp, not even looking up from his data-slate.

The blurry eyed, barely conscious commissar cadet giggled, "What he said!" she ordered with a comical drunken slur caused by the drugs running through her system. If it hadn't been for the fact that she was technically highest ranked officer among them; all of them would have burst out laughing.

The sixteen guardsmen marched on board the old crumbling ship. The interior was only slightly better, they could see recently added plates simply welded into place; though Hal couldn't help but notice the new viewer screen at the end of the troop bay. As the squad strapped in, Halik helping the young Kalee with her restraints, another four soldiers walked up the ramp; only pausing to take in the other troopers already on board. One of them walked over to Hal, obviously noticing the lack of a ranking officer in the group.

"I'm sergeant Calm, no pun intended, of the fifteenth Zephres medium infantry… or what's left of them at least." He said soberly looking back at the three troopers strapping in behind them. "I take it you are short an officer?"

"Yeah, he died at the battle for Mighton bridge, shortly after we landed. I'm Corporal Sturn of the one oh six Hiatian light infantry." Hal replied, stretching out his hand.

"Shame, war hero's with no one to boast about it with." The sergeant stated sourly, clasping Hals outstretched hand. "I take it, you were asked to join some regiment you haven't heard of before?"

The way he said it told Hal this man already knew the answer; so he just shrugged.

"Hey strap in assholes! I want to be out of here in five!" The scrawny man yelled from the front.

The two men sat down on the nearest vacant benches and strapped in. Hall was just buckling the last strap into place when the old shuttle lifted off, ramp closing behind them. He noted that no one had gone back to make sure everybody was properly strapped in. The view screen at the end of the ship had activated; all it showed was the interior of the massive hanger, as the shuttle moved towards the exit.

"Is this thing even capable of space travel?" someone asked.

"I would think so." Stav replied from next to the drugged up commissar, who had fallen asleep and was resting her head on his shoulder. He looked uncomfortable about the situation. "I mean they had to have gotten here somehow, right?" he asked.

"What's wrong with her?" Calm asked gesturing to the Kalee.

"She was wounded. The doctors patched her up and ditched her on us; with a bunch drugs and a manual on how to use them, in a language we don't know. So we just gave her what looked appropriate; and I think it was too much, because she's been in la-la land ever since." Halik replied.

"Oh, so…"

"Hey guys look at that!" Hiln interrupted looking at the big screen. The shuttle had left the hanger moments before; and was approaching one of the largest ships any of them had ever seen in their short miserable lives. It was the only thing they could see in the view screen; it looked like it could hold a small hive city inside of it. The behemoth was too massive to even begin to described in any amount of detail.

They were headed for a bright slit in the side of the behemoth. After several minutes it was the only thing they could see. It looked like a hanger of sorts but it was much, much, bigger then what normally passed for a hanger. It looked like a frigate could land inside. The pict feed shut off as they began to enter the massive ship.

"Who could possibly have a ship that size?" someone asked.

"Well I hear there's a group who live on massive planet sized ships. I think they were the Imperial Fist Space Marines" one of the Zephrian's replied.

"I doubt that they are the Imperial Fist, Calium." Calm replied.