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Alaric's Last Chance
A Deeprok Twelfth Novel by Jakob A. Zaborowski
Cover art by Matheus Graft
Click, click, click, went the heels of Alaric's boots as he walked down the hallway, the sound of the thick rubber soles bouncing off the thick bulkhead's of the Defiant Adjutant, one of the Empire's many naval ships. He wasn't familiar with the navy, he was a Guardsman, a ground pounder, but he had been a prisoner on the ship for a month now as it traveled through the warp and this was the first time he had been summoned since his trial, so he had grown use to the echoes that bounced around with each step.
"Innocent," the commissar had told him, obviously displeased, and it was made apparent to him why soon after. General Hettler Pyote, war hero, a man with so many medals that Alaric couldn't even count them, had personally stepped in on his behalf. All Alaric had known of the man was that he had served with his long gone father, years prior, and he assumed the man had felt pity. That just made Alaric angry, he hated pity, and he hated being locked up on the ship for so long. He wished they'd just shoot him and get him over with, he refused to go back to the penal regiments after the last incident.
The two Armsmen on duty, standing on either side of the door with their lasguns, saluted smartly as he passed. Alaric ignored them, not bothering to return their salutes. He didn't expect to even be a colonel for long. What punishment would they give him? Dropped down to a regular Guardsmen? Sent to a penal regiment? He may have been proclaimed innocent, and Alaric may have covered his ass as best as he could, but there was only so much that one could do when he was under trial for heresy. And only so much one could do when it wasn't even their first trial.
Thinking of it all had already given him a slamming headache, not helped by the awful lighting of the ship, and when he passed through the door and into the command-center, the buzzing of a flickering holomap warmed its way into his head and only worsened it. Forcing himself through the pain, he snapped to attention for the assorted officers, highest of which was General Pyote, and snapped a smart salute.
"Good afternoon, sir," he said. He wasn't sure if it was afternoon, he spent most of his time sleeping or drinking whatever he could win off gambling with his guards, but afternoon was always a safe bet.
If the general noticed his poor mood then he gave no sign, and the man casually saluted back, his fingers lightly touching his brow as he told Alaric to go to ease. A moment later, the man breached protocol and stepped forward, gripping Alaric's hand in one of his huge fists. The naval and Guard officer's he saw gathered looked bothered by the broken etiquette, probably aghast such a decorated general was shaking the hand of a suspected traitor, and that helped Alaric's mood improve.
"Colonel Attelus, it is good to see you. I assume you're prepared to leave the ship."
"Yes sir, though, I haven't been briefed on… er… why, exactly, I'm leaving the ship. I was just told to pack my things and wear my uniform."
"And did you pack your things, colonel?"
"You're looking at them, sir."
Pyote smiled at the joke, and one or two of the officer's chuckled nervously.
"Kiss asses," Alaric thought to himself, forcing a neutral expression.
"Colonel, we've decided that you're too good of an officer to release," Pyote started.
Alaric forced an eyebrow down when he realized it slowly started sliding up. He had done three major things in the Guard so far: Graduate from an academy, completely fuck up his first battle and almost lose an entire Imperial Guard regiment to his own stupidity, and then he was given command of a Penal regiment, which managed to mostly convert to chaos while he was still in charge and try to assassinate him. Too good was stretching it. Any other officer would have been hanging by now.
"You're too kind, sir," Alaric answered, trying not to betray his feelings. He could see the looks of disgust on most of the assorted officials. And was that a bit of pity? For what?
"We are currently orbiting the planet of Deeprok. It was colonized a few hundred years ago, and it's been a shipping hub ever since. Most operations are kept small here for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being it's a rather barren desert world, but most of the warp-lanes pass through here. It's the centerpiece of Imperial control in the area."
Pyote stepped aside as he spoke, letting Alaric approach the holomap which displayed everything Pyote told him. First a view of the planet rotating slowly, with its three moons, then a map of the world itself. He wondered what was wrong with the projection until it clicked in his head, the planet didn't have an ocean. It was quite literally almost all desert.
"It's… all desert?" he asked, curious how it was ever suitable for life.
"There's some jungle around the equator where the natives had emerged from. They've since been assimilated back into Imperial society."
"Natives…?"
A short naval officer piped up at that one, the General nodding to him as he spoke.
"Deeprok had a lost population of Humans for thousands of years. They refer to themselves as the Da'jin Halashen. Though most people call them the Nomads. They are now functioning members of society, and their beliefs have been brought back into the Imperial fold."
Alaric didn't really care. At all. About any Dijin Halashing or desert worlds, but he simply nodded along as if he was doing his best to memorize it all.
"The planet has produced ten Imperial Guard regiments so far-" Pyote started again, "-Most of them are light infantry regiments. The planet is marked by massive formations of cliffs and mountains, highly vertical terrain. The Nomads are excellent hunters, and their skills have worn off on the colonists… Urbaners, as they call them. Deeprok has some very fine marksmen and they're quite adept in adverse terrain."
"Sounds like a rough sort."
"It's a rough planet. Even after we civilized it, they've had a series of race wars between the Nomads and Urbaners. Things have only started settling down in the last decade or two." The General harrumphed as a picture of screaming crowds and burning cars filled the holomap briefly. "Waste of potential, it's about time they got themselves together…"
The General sighed and looked back at Alaric. "The planet has several PDF regiments, a home militia that trains citizens, mostly Nomads, in proper military tactics and lasgun use and a rather large constabulary. They need most of this to fight off the local fauna, and the harsh terrain keeps the population concentrated in a few cities. We keep recruitment light here due to the population difficulty, but we've just raised two regiments for the needs of the campaign. The Deeprok 11th and 12th."
"The needs of the campaign? Aren't we winning, sir?"
"I'll get to that, Attelus," the General said with a sigh, shaking his head sadly. His face hardened suddenly and he stared at Alaric for an uncomfortably long moment, as if judging him.
"Attelus," he started, "The Deeprok 12th needs a leader. There's been some… issues on the planet, mostly with the relations between the social groups, and most of our candidates for the position are incompetent or suspect in some hate crime or another. They have a strong corps of field officers but nobody with the no-how to run a regiment, it's simply been too long since Deeprok has raised a regiment."
"And… I'm getting the 12th?"
"That is correct. While the 11th will go to a local leader, Colonel Fazar Naveed, you'll be given the 12th… It's highly unorthodox, a colonel being from a foreign planet. Hell, it's even rarer that a colonel will have led three different regiments from foreign planes in his lifetime, but this is an odd universe. Terra, you're the only one I've been able to find besides a Colonel-Commissar!"
"Sir… leading another regiment…"
"I know, Attelus," the General said, and looking at him, Alaric realized that the General knew full-well the extent of his failures. His actions may have been motivated by some pity, but it wouldn't have been done unless absolutely necessary. Which begged the question…
"Sir, why is me leading the 12th so urgent? Surely it'd be more orthodox to find a less… seasoned… commander, for the regiment."
The General nodded slowly and snapped his fingers, and one of the officer's clicked a button on the holomap. Suddenly, it zoomed out and played a recording, the time showing six hours prior.
Alaric stepped closer to the table and watched. It showed the entire system, several lines going out to show the most stable warp-lanes that the Imperials had been using, and just as he had been told, the majority seemed to run through the Deeprok system.
And then there was a flicker, and a series of red dots suddenly appeared on one of the lanes, moving rapidly towards Deeprok. The blood immediately drained from his face as he realized the implications of what he was seeing.
"Judging by the colonel's face, it seems he has put two and two together," Pyote said, shaking his head slowly. "The Arch Enemy did it, colonel. They ambushed Battlefleet Aska, and managed to wipe it out in a single engagement. The Imperial Magnificence and Triumphant are the only ships to have escaped. Aska was our second largest fleet in the area, next to the crusading battlefleet, and was the only one in a position to guard Deeprok."
Alaric's jaw dropped, the colonel taking a sharp breath through his mouth as he tried to process what he was being told. Any force capable of doing that was going to wipe out the planet without even stopping. The General took a glass of water from the edge of the map and raised it to his lips, sipping slowly, the scars across his face stretching as he did so. Alaric just stared at the red dots.
"It wasn't the crusading fleet," said the officer from before, "Which means the crusade still continues, thank the Emperor. We can recover from this, but they're on a direct path to invade Deeprok. On the bright side, the fleet split up to attack several planets in the area at once, you'll only be fighting a few thousand men… at most, five hundred thousand. At most."
Alaric mouthed the words slowly. "Five hundred thousand," he whispered to himself, "Five hundred thousand."
Pyote recognized the look on his face and stepped back in immediately, glaring at the officer as he did so.
"I apologize, Lieutenant Valos tends to overestimate our enemy. It's doubtful they'll feel the need to spare that many men for Deeprok."
One of the other men piped up next, some tall Guard officer with a mustache that reminded Alaric of smeared shit.
"Oh I am sure the colonel will be fine. A quick look at his record shows he has plenty of experience with the forces of heresy, one way or-"
"Colonel Aberfree! I suggest you close your mouth and stop instigating Colonel Attelus or I will have you leading this damn regiment."
There was silence after that, and Aberfree pretended to look admonished. For Alaric, however, that just made everything click. This, was his punishment. They only had a few thousand men against a legion. He was sentenced to die by last stand. One last hurrah attempting to save a worthless ball of sand before he was torn apart by heretics. He was being given this command as a way to be rid of.
They didn't expect him to survive.
Part of Alaric took the challenge. The old Alaric, the one that had ordered a charge onto an Ork position because he saw it in one of the old Ciaphais Cain vids. That part of Alaric wanted to fight and fight until he died, for glory and for his own honor, to show them all he could, and to save this planet and her people like he knew was right.
And then the real Alaric, the one who had seen far too much to believe those vids were real, the one who had lost too much to think any of it was worth it. He was resigned. They should have truly just shot him; this was just a prolonged sentence. He mind as well just let it happen.
That part of Alaric won out as the General droned on with his briefing. He felt the defeat already. It would be his final one.
But then he still had the niggle in the back of his mind. Maybe it was just his headache, but a voice told him, "Fog them all!" It shouted and screamed in his head. It demanded he fight until he lived or died. It didn't do it for glory, or because of a damn vid, or to spite them, it did it because Allaric refused to let himself go calmly into the void to disappear. He would go in screaming; he would be dragged out kicking. He would kill as many heretics as he could when he died, just so he knew that he tried.
His mind was still raging when he heard the General ask if he had any questions. He blinked suddenly, glancing around the room, only just realizing he was still in the middle of a briefing. One part of his mind told him to ask to leave, the other told him to ask when he could go. He forced himself to calm.
"Sir, I'll have 3,000 men between me and the 11th. That won't hold off that many heretics."
"It will be… harrowing… but these heretics aren't…" the General paused and shuddered as he spoke, "These aren't the corrupted Astarte." The men in the room made a variety of prayers and gestures, Alaric himself forcing himself not to remember the first and hopefully last time he had seen them. When they had slaughtered half his penal regiment and converted the rest to their twisted beliefs.
"So what are they?"
"Regular fanatics, by our estimation. They'll try and swarm you with numbers and inferior weaponry, but you should have superiority in equipment, discipline and position."
"Should, sir?"
"Judging by the standard for heretics in the area, yes. It may be untrue, of course, but we have little reason to believe they'll bring in anything special for Deeprok, and we know for a fact the ships don't transport the… fallen Space Marines."
"Even then, we can't spread two regiments across the entire planet. Even with PDF support. Not against those numbers."
Lieutenant Valos nodded and stepped in again.
"We were ordered to evacuate the planet immediately, and were given around six days to do so. You'll have the honor of leading the main evacuation force here, in assistance with the PDF."
"A million people in less than a week? It'll take that long to evacuate just the capital, in the best circumstances."
The General's face darkened suddenly and he could feel the sudden, crushing sadness that filled the room. He had a feeling this had been argued again and again, and each time they had come to the same conclusion.
"It won't be a complete evacuation, Colonel." They stared at each other for a moment before the General continued. "The Guardsmen will not gather people from the countryside, and we will only be evacuating from a few key points. Anyone who isn't on a ship on day six will be left behind, whether they're in their homes or on the landing pad. We don't have enough ships to risk an engagement, and you'll need to stay on the ground and try to hold until reinforcements can arrive."
"Leave… leave all those people? To the heretics? To die?"
The General was clearly troubled, as was everybody else in the room. Even Captain Aberfree seemed intent on staring at the shine on his boots. After a moment, the General nodded to himself.
"The Emperor protects."
Without hesitating, every man in the room repeated the words. Even Alaric, who could only barely mumble them.
"The Emperor protects.
Alaric stared at those who sat across from him in the tight confines of the shuttle. Some he had known since his first campaigns, some were new.
Around him were Imperial Guardsmen from the General's guard, there to escort him to the ground and then assist in the evacuation effort. They wouldn't be following him to the 12th.
Who would be following him was the other three. Dormont, Tauron, Kali. His standard bearer, his Commissar, and his Vox Operator, respectively.
Dormont was… a special case. The man was legitimately insane by Alaric's standards, and had been his standard bearer in the Horones 96th. The penal regiment he had led. The man was unhinged to a T, mumbling to himself one moment, laughing at some unseen joke the next, but his commitment to the Emperor was unflinching. He was almost covered in tattoos to the Emperor's glory, and he was one of the few who refused the temptations of heresy during the Battle of Horones.
That isn't to say he belonged there. Alaric had no legitimate idea how he had gotten into the 12th. Just like he didn't know where he was from either. To that end, his file claimed it was from some backwater station called Elcador, Dormont claimed to be from a manufactorum named Rhinefort, and Tauron claimed he had reason to believe the man was born on Holy Terra itself. Alaric was starting to believe it was part of one big joke against him.
Then there was Tauron. His Commissar.
Alaric hated Tauron.
Normally he'd admit it was just the uniform and claim he was probably an alright man, if uptight and a prick like most Commissars, but he legitimately despite Tauron. The man was assigned to him on Horones and had personally executed several dozen heretics in the span of a few hours during the battle. Even before they had started really converting. He found the man's methods disturbing and wasteful, and the man found Alaric to be weak and his leniency to be bordering on heresy. They both hated one another, and Alaric had the creeping suspicion the man had been sent to spy on him, specifically.
And then there was Kali. A veritable light shining in the darkness of what was his awful, awful life. She had been with him on Calarran, with the 4th Calarran, his first regiment. She kept her blonde hair in a tight bun and was cute as a button, and he had started to see her almost as a little sister. Maybe that was because she was also one of the only survivors from the disaster he had brought on that planet, and he had personally requested she follow him to Horones and his new regiment, which she volunteered to do. Both of them had become friends on Calarran, and had remained so since. She was a natural pick for his command staff.
"Lisal's bored," Dormont said with a disturbing, gap-toothed smile. The man rubbed his hands up and down the flagpole he had always carried. Lisal, as he called 'her'. The things he had done with that pole were unspeakable, Alaric having personally witnessed the man charging heretic machine gun nests and diving in, killing multiple men by using it like a spear. The man had cheered the entire time he had done so, and Alaric guessed it was the cleanest thing he did with the damned flag. Alaric would have suspected the man of the taint if he didn't have so many tattoos and Imperial paraphernalia that he'd make most priest's blush.
"Uh, Colonel, sir, there's a… uh… problem…" came a crackle over the ship's loudspeaker from the cockpit, the pilot's nervous voice breaking over the sounds of the engine. Alaric clicked a button and spoke, some annoyance dropping into his voice. Why was there always a problem?
"What is it?" he demanded, leaning into the seat.
"I uh- sir, the landing zone is, er… obstructed. There's people swarming the parade field. I'm moving us to a, uh, secondary landing site… Terra, there's civilians everywhere."
Dormont's nasally little rat voice came over the vox next.
"Why don't we just land? I'm sure this thing won't be stopped by some cushions. Sure as sure."
Every man and woman in the bay slowly looked over and stared at the man. Tauron opening his mouth to say something as Dormont snickered. Before anyone could speak on it, however, the pilot announced they were landing, the vehicle suddenly shaking as it lowered itself to the landing pad. A small plaza off the main boulevard he remembered from his briefing.
Slowly, he stood, and groaned to himself as his legs ached from the ride. After a quick stretch, he slowly turned around to face the doors, the Guardsmen forming two rows to trot out when they opened. He puffed out his chest, thought of he wanted to look like, and was out into Deeprok almost as soon as the doors slid open for them.
And by the Emperor, there were a lot of people.
Author's Note:
Thanks for reading chapter one of Alaric's Last Chance! The first chapter was written in August 2013!, that's two years before I joined the Marines, three years from when I'm writing this! So much has happened!
I've updated this story, conveniently, on about the three year anniversary of its inception for the first time in a year. To celebrate, I've commisioned a cover by the awesome Matheus Graft, renamed the story to reflect my plans for this to be one novel of several, and have redesigned and refined a lot of it. To finally reflect three years of my progress as a writer, I've complete rewritten the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it!
If you think it's awful then I'm afraid you won't like the rest. If you liked it and want to see where it goes, then I urge you to read on. The next chapters might be a bit rocky, as they were written over the space of three years, were often poorly planned, and without a proper concept for what I wanted this story to be in my mind until the later chapters. The most current chapter as of me writing this is 16, and the only one's written in 2016 so far are 15 and 16. If you notice a drop in quality after this chapter, I assure you it'll slowly rise in quality as you go on, and if you like Alaric as a character or are interested in his adventure, all of the chapters should continue to hold your interest. It's a bit of a ride :)
Thank you so much for reading, yet again, and thank you so much to everyone who has given me kind words and encouragement, helped me along the way, or been there for me while I wrote this and while I focused on other things. A quick shoutout to the fanfiction writer's Anonymous ONI Agent and Colin (I couldn't find your account! Sorry!), and Minuteman1942 (couldn't find you either!) who were my first few fanfiction buddies and the only people I really keep in contact with consistently from way back when I first started. Thanks for putting up with me, guys!
(Remove spaces and parentheses!)
The cover can be found in full HD massive quality here: i .imgur . co m (/) WTXNnxg. jpg
And the blank version can be found here: i .imgur . co m (/) Wju1oms. jpg
Matheus Graft can be found at his blog, here: menterart . tumblr . co m