Disclaimer, the Shadow Front, Caltani 83rd Special Projects division, the Tallarn Majestic Hotel, the military rank of Specialist-Captain, Mr. Sorrow, any precisely named weapons (TAC Desert hunter ect.) and any characters are my own creations and are not endorsed or authorized by Games Workshop.
Note: people live far longer on 40k, due to the advanced medical technologies developed in the roughly 38,000 years separating the present day from the 40k universe.
Glossary
Cogitator: a computer, more or less the same as today's computers.
Dataslate: a handheld electronic data-storage device, similar to a PDA.
Hab Block: an apartment building.
HRT: Hostage Rescue Team. (Real world term)
Stub pistol: basically a modern conventional handgun, either a revolver or a semi-auto.
Autopistol: basically a modern machine pistol or SMG, although able to be fired one handed by well-trained users, unlike today's, which must be fired with two hands. Used as sidearms by some officers and defense minded civilians.
Autogun: basically a modern assault rifle.
Personal Transport: essentially a modern car.
Chaos: demons and the forces of hell; one of the Imperium's primary enemies.
Administratum: the Imperium's beuracracy.
Inquisition: the Imperial organization tasked with detaining psykers and stamping out dangerous cults, studying and eliminating dangerous alien races, and eradicating demonic infestation.
Armory: weapons used and their real-world inspirations.
TAC Desert Hunter: based loosely on the Desert Eagle.
Kazo KM13: based off of the AK 47.
Darkgrove Arms AMP: based on the HK UMP45 sub machinegun.
SKH (Spezialkräfte Herstellung) MP21: based on the HK MP7.
Lachrymosa Arms Slipknot 300: no real world equivalent, but based on concepts realized by the Neostead 2000 shotgun.
Irony
"Ahhh, the Tallarn Majestic Hotel siege," thought Elia Al-Hamir reminiscently as he scanned the old sitrep dataslate. He was going through his office and had come across it in a filing cabinet. His office was small and cramped, with filing cabinets along the walls and a small desk with a cogitator perched amid ever growing piles of papers. Elia had finally decided to clean it out. He was an older man now, 200 years old and married with grandchildren, but he remembered the op like it was yesterday.
Flashback: 170 years earlier.
So, practicing again, buddy," said the armorer as he passed a weapon out of the small slot in the bulletproof window of the firing range armory to Elia.
"Yep" he replied, "Gonna see if I can beat last week's high score."
"Good luck," replied the armorer.
Elia nodded and walked over to the firing line. He called up five moving targets, two more than last week. He then proceeded to load his weapon, a TAC Sandstorm 20.
The TAC Sandstorm 20 was a locally made copy of Kazamov Kazo's model of 313, M41; otherwise known as the Kazo KM13. It was one of the simplest and most reliable auto weapons around. You could literally take one off of an assembly line, slap a magazine in it, take it to war, and fight for weeks without having to clean it. It would fire whether it was covered in mud or filled with sand, essential when fighting in a desert environment such as Tallarn.
Tallarn was a desert wasteland. It had not always been this way. During the Horus Heresy, ten thousand years previously, when Warmaster Horus, a top military leader to the Emperor, was swayed by the empty promises of Chaos and launched a campaign that decimated the Imperium, the planet had been virus bombed, killing all plant and animal life and sending the human population underground. Now, all cities were either domed, in deep canyons, or underground in huge caverns. Underground transitways crisscrossed under the desert and linked the cities together.
Elia slapped a magazine home with a click and racked the bolt with a loud Cla-Chack. He then sighted the weapon downrange and reached for the target activation switch.
"Elia!" called a voice he knew all too well. It was the voice of his commanding officer, Specialist-Captain Jamal Al Rahid. The man looked grim. Well, he always looked grim. But this time he looked grimmer than usual. "Elia," he said again, "We have a…a situation," he said uncertainly. "About twenty minutes ago, an unknown terrorist group stormed the Tallarn Majestic Hotel. We don't know what they want, as they haven't issued demands, but they have taken hostages. One of them is…is Milah," he finished.
"Milah!" Elia said, astounded. Milah Ali-Selah was Elia's niece. She was very interested in technology, especially the mechanical side of firearms. It was Milah who had dared him to beat his weekly record here at the range. "They have Milah! Let's go. Let's roll!" he said fiercely, starting toward the exit.
"Hold on, Corporal," Jamal said warningly. "You're 83rd, you have to get clearance from the local authorities to interfere in local matters."
He was right. Elia belonged to an elite Imperial Guard taskforce known as the Caltani 83rd Special Projects Division, which was a covert fighting force that conducted surveillance and covert operations. Nevertheless, they needed clearance to act within the jurisdiction of local planetary authorities. Elia sighed. He would need to ask the local guard liaison officer for clearance to go in and rescue Milah and the rest of the hostages. He kept thinking of how he would plead his case to the liaison officer as they drove in Al Rahid's personal transport to the law enforcement headquarters, passing through underground tunnels lit with glow tubes, and past hab blocks and businesses all crammed into the city's massive cavern network. Naturally, local law enforcement would want to handle this themselves. It was a pride thing. The Tallarn Majestic Hotel was a local landmark and they surely would want to be the ones to handle it. The liaison officer's response was exactly what he had expected.
"No, I can't allow it," replied the officer sternly, a dark skinned woman with long black hair, whose name was Ali. "Out of the question. Besides, we already have a Shadow Front operative leading it."
Elia scowled, the Shadow Front was an Administratum funded paramilitary spying agency. They undertook many kinds of dangerous and classified missions, similar to the Caltani 83rd. But generally, theirs were more covert and less bound by military doctrine then the 83rd's operations were. The two organizations worked closely together, so closely that some operatives were members of both organizations, Shadow Front and 83rd, simultaneously. Despite this, he was still angry that his position had, in his view, been usurped, even by an organization that he regularly worked with.
It took Elia twenty minutes of tongue-tied arguing to convince Ali to let him take part in the op. He found that he always felt extremely self-conscious when he was around her. He was always wondering how his hair looked, or if he had something in his teeth. Eventually, he convinced her to allow him to accompany the law enforcement squad into the building. Smiling in triumph, he accompanied the squad in an armored truck through the winding caverns towards the hotel.
They eventually pulled up a few blocks from the building and clambered out to hear the briefing. Elia was surprised to see a tall man in a long dark trench coat and what looked like welding goggles standing near the briefing board. He was lean and muscular, with short hair and a tall forehead. What Elia had thought were welding goggles were actually Shadow Front issue light filtering goggles, useful for combating the effects of flashbangs and tear gas.
Elia knew him, his name was Matthias Gould, otherwise known by his nickname of "Mr. Sorrow" and he was with the Shadow Front.
Uniquely, he was also a psyker: an individual possessing psychic powers. Psykers were heavily monitored and policed by the Imperium because an untrained psyker could be an incredibly dangerous threat, prone to demonic infestation. Mr. Sorrow, on the other hand, was incredibly talented. He was one of the only, possibly the only, legal unmonitored psyker who was not a part of the Inquisition. He was a living legend. What was he doing here?
"Alright, listen up," he said, in a slow voice of almost eerie calm, "I will be giving the briefing this morning. I will only be giving it once so you'd better listen good," he said, "We have about twenty guys holed up in the hotel, armed with AMPs and TAC Desert Hunters. It has been confirmed that they have taken hostages. Your mission," he tapped a map of the hotel pinned to the briefing board, "will be to rescue these hostages. We haven't determined exactly how dangerous or aggressive these terrorists are yet. They're probably just amateurs. But nevertheless, be on your guard. I've seen way too many operations fail because the soldiers underestimated their enemy," he said warningly.
He continued, "Team one will move in from the front, Elia, you'll be leading this team. Team two will enter from the roof via the fire escapes. You will move through and clear the building, every floor, and every room."
He then went through the layout of the building and told the teams what to expect.
"Search everywhere. We need this building absolutely clear. I don't want to be shot in the back when I inspect the area later by some scumbag hiding in a broom closet you failed to check. Am I clear? Okay, move out," he finished.
The officers dispersed and the operation began. Mr. Sorrow approached Elia.
"Good luck in there, Elia," he said as he approached, "I know they have your niece."
"Thanks Matt," Elia said, "Sorry I sidelined you on this op."
"Oh, I might play more of a role then you might think," he said, "Well, once again, good luck."
"Allow me to indulge in a moment of utter cheesiness, if I may," Elia said. He racked the bolt of his Darkgrove AMP, issued, along with a Desert Hunter, because they could then take ammo from downed hostiles. Elia put on an exaggerated serious expression, "This time, it's personal," he said in a mock grave voice. Elia had always used humor to lighten the mood before a mission. It was one of the reasons that he had been so popular among the various fireteams he had worked with in the past.
Mr. Sorrow laughed, "Good luck," he said simply, before walking off.
Elia took the rest of his weapons from the weapon locker. Team One proceeded down the street to the outskirts of the hotel. They managed to reach the front of the building without incident. When they entered the front doors, however, they began to take incoming fire. The team dove for cover. Nevertheless, three of Elia's eight-man team was cut down in a withering hail of automatic weapons fire. The squad immediately returned fore, sending a blazing hail of .45 caliber rounds toward the three terrorists who were entrenched behind the reception desk.
"Covering fire!" Elia yelled to his team.
When his squad had suppressed the terrorists behind the desk, Elia sprinted toward one of the many pillars lining the entranceway. He ran from pillar to pillar, trying to get as close to the enemy position as he could. He was trying to- too late. They saw him and opened fire, causing Elia to duck behind the pillar as bullets tore into it. Elia knew they would never win like this. He pulled a grenade from his belt and pulled the pin. He threw the grenade with all his strength toward the reception desk. It landed and exploded in a cloud of dust and shrapnel, tearing into the terrorists and the surrounding environment. The shooting stopped.
When the threats were eliminated, the team regrouped and proceeded to clear the first floor, and, with the exception of one hostile in the restaurant, they were met with little resistance. The next five floors were a blur. They cleared floor after floor, room after room, most empty, some containing gun toting and fanatical terrorists. Eventually, they reached the sixth floor and met up with Team Two. The hostages were being held in a sixth floor suite. Heat signature detectors had confirmed their location beforehand. They moved to the suite door, getting into position to breach the door. At Elia's command, they breached the door and entered the room.
Almost instantaneously, Elia's hostage rescue training kicked in. Move quickly, get out of the "fatal funnel," the area backlit by the door, and move into the target room to points of dominance, which allow the whole room to be covered. Neutralize any hostiles. Detain and secure hostages for extraction.
There were four terrorists guarding the hostages. As the team entered, they turned their guns on the advancing HRT. Gunfire crackled like fireworks. One of Elia's team members took a hit in the shoulder and all four terrorists dropped to the ground. As the smoke cleared, Elia could see that none of the hostages had been harmed in the brief exchange of gunfire.
The team secured the rest of the room, checked the identification of the hostages, and waited for the order to extract. Milah jumped up the moment she was freed and threw her arms around Elia.
"Uncle Elia, you saved me. Thank you," she said, still doing her best to crush Elia's ribs.
"Anytime, kid. Let's go now. We'll take you outta here."
They proceeded to evacuate the hostages from the building. As they were walking down the hall, Elia heard a noise down the side hall.
"Go on ahead. I'll check it out," he told his team. He then proceeded down the side corridor. Suddenly, a crushing blow hit him on the side of the head, sending him sprawling to the floor. A man was standing over him. He was tall and muscular. His face was heavily scarred and he was wearing combat trousers and a tactical vest. He reached down and pulled Elia up by his collar.
"You!" he roared, "You ruined everything! Months of planning, up in smoke because of you!" He punched Elia in the stomach, causing him to double up in pain. The man ignored this and kicked him again and again. Elia collapsed onto the carpeted floor. The man pulled Elia up once again, unholstered Elia's sidearm and jammed it into the side of his skull.
"I guess this is the end for you. Awww, your niece will be so sad," he mockingly sobbed. "Prepare for eternity, where you spend it is not my business." He jammed the weapon into Elia's head. A shot rang out… and the weapon flew from the terrorist's hand.
"Mr. Handelson," a voice rang out from down the hallway.
It was Mr. Sorrow. He was holding a revolver, with which he had obviously saved Elia. Yes, it was he, but Elia had never seen him like this before. He was walking down the long hallway towards them, but something was wrong. The air around him was flickering and distorting, like a heat haze. Time seemed to stutter and slow down as he passed, like an old pict-show recording being run on a worn out player. For a split second, Elia thought he could feel the light touch of fingertips on the side of his head, but it was probably his imagination, or was it. He wondered how Mr. Sorrow perceived this scene. Could he see into their minds? Could he see into Elia's mind and see how terrified he was of both men at the moment. As he came closer, Elia could feel the psychic energy radiating off of him like a mist.
"Ahh, Mr. Handelson, welcome. You're just in time to let my friend go and come with me to report to the Inquisition." He said calmly, "I hear they have teams looking for you on every planet in this subsector."
The truth hit Elia in a dizzying moment of lucidity. This man was Gregor Handelson, the notorious career criminal. He was known as a butcher and was wanted by the Inquisition for, among other things, murder of an inquisitor. What was he doing orchestrating a simple hostage taking?
"Did you actually think that I would just come with you?" the man laughed. "You must be losing your edge, Gould." He drew a hidden backup gun and headlocked Elia, using him as a human shield.
Mr. Sorrow shrugged, "Worth a shot."
He then holstered the revolver and pulled a short, bulky looking weapon from under his dark leather duster. Elia recognized it, being the weapon buff that he was, as a Lachrymosa Arms Slipknot 300 assault shotgun.
"Do you know what this is?" Mr. Sorrow began, "This is a Lachrymosa Arms Model 300 Slipknot combat shotgun. It is unique in that it has not one, but two magazines. One mounted along the top," he tapped the top of the gleaming weapon, "and one on the bottom. The bottom one is loaded with regular shotgun slugs, which would kill you instantly if necessary. Now the top one, on the other hand, is loaded with a less lethal shocker round, which would knock you out and quite possibly spare you from the eternal agony that awaits you in the fires of hell," he raised the weapon. "It's your choice. Up," he flicked the selector switch, " or down." He flicked it again.
"You are losing your edge, Gould," the terrorist spat. Elia felt something eerie and unnatural radiate from the terrorist, who still had him in a tight headlock. He felt whatever it was whoosh past his head. Mr. Sorrow staggered slightly, and then laughed.
"Is that it? Is that all you've got. So this is the way you want to play it, then?" he said. "Okay, let me try mine."
The hallway suddenly became very cold, as though someone had opened a window on a chilly night. Eerie, murky yellow light spread out across the hallway like a storm haze. Tracers of bright white-blue energy snaked through the air like long fingers, not quite electrical, but something else, as though the threads holding the fabric of reality together were being stretched and contorted. Several of the wall tiles cracked, as though exposed to exceedingly low temperatures. All of the cuts and scrapes on Elia's face and arms spontaneously reopened.
The terrorist suddenly let go of Elia and fell to the floor, gasping. Mr. Sorrow walked over to him. The man tried to get up, but fell back down. Mr. Sorrow gazed down at him, bemused.
"Why, Mr. Handelson? Why? Why do it? Why get up? Why fight? Why keep trying? You, a lowly unsanctioned psyker, a common criminal, against me. You can't even give a non-psyker a nosebleed. I'm Inquisition trained. You've got no chance. It would be better if you just gave up right now. They might go easy on you. I doubt it. But, stranger things have happened."
"I wasted that Inquisition frakker no sweat. And I'll take down you!"
"Language, Mr. Handelson. I hope you weren't talking that way around Elia's niece," he raised his shotgun and shot Handelson between the eyes with a shocker round. The man convulsed and lay still. Mr. Sorrow bent down and cuffed the man for good measure.
"Thanks," Elia gasped. It was all he could seem to get out.
"No problem. Sorry if that was a little rough on you," he said, bipolaring his way to friendly. "Sorry about your gun. Here," he reached into his jacket and pulled out an autopistol, which he tossed to Elia. Shadow Front operatives had an almost supernatural knack for concealing weapons, due to special holsters and weapon "print" hiding pockets in their coats. Elia recognized the auto as an SKH MP21, which he took as a sign that he was getting back to normal. "What was he doing here?" he asked, pointing at the unconscious man.
"It all started about six months ago. The Shadow Front, working on a contract from the inquisition, tracked Mr. Handelson here to this subsector. We were to locate him and inform the Inquisition. At the time, we didn't know he was a psyker. He killed the inquisitor they sent after him and he's been on the run ever since. The inquisitor was a friend of mine and I took over the investigation under authorization by the Inquisition. We finally tracked him here, about two months ago. He somehow figured out we were on to him and staged this hostage taking to cover his escape. He figured we would be so busy with the hostage crisis that we wouldn't notice him slip out the back door. He got cocky. He underestimated us. That trick might have worked on local law enforcement, but not on us, not the Shadow Front. I had thought he had gotten away before the operation began. I had mobilized a search team to find him and was going to check this building to make sure he wasn't hiding somewhere. Then I heard him attacking you. And now we've got him," he finished triumphantly. "Let's go."
He picked up the man and slung him over his shoulder. And, careful to bang him into every doorframe on the way out, rejoined the HRT team outside the building. He saw Milah and the other hostages being looked over by medics. Yes, it was finally over. They were finally going home.
End flashback
For years afterward, Milah always liked to hear the story of Elia and Mr. Sorrow's battle with the rogue psyker, and they were more than happy to retell it. Elia especially, although he didn't tell her how close he had come to death. She grew up, married and went into the gunsmithing business. He married as well, to Ali, no less, and stayed with the 83rd, eventually becoming a well respected senior officer.
Eventually, Elia finished organizing his office. As he was going through an old equipment locker he came across his badly damaged Desert Hunter from that op. He was allowed to keep it, as it was irreparable. It had a deep dent in the slide and a long crack down the frame from where Mr. Sorrow's bullet had struck it. "Funny," he thought, "That one single event can completely redirect the coarse of your life. I was a millimeter from death. If Mr. Sorrow hadn't come, I would be a corpse right now, instead of reminiscing about the past in this tiny office. Mr. Sorrow, what a nickname. Ironic, isn't it?" he laughed out loud. Yes, very ironic indeed.
The End
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What do you think? I thought the ending was a little quick. I might rewrite it. I wrote this for a school assignment and had to get it in. Also, the romance fell flat. It was just there to satisfy the criteria for the assignment.
The Shadow Front and Caltani 83rd Special Projects Division (and Mr. Sorrow) will appear quite frequently in my stories. If you want to use them, or any of the weapons or anything else of my own creation, ask me, and I will be more then happy to let you. Just give me credit, though.
If you hadn't guessed, Shadow Front operatives have uniforms similar to the Delaques from Necromunda.
For fun, here are the actors that inspired the characters.
Elia Al-Hamir: Oded Fehr
Milah Ali-Selah: Keke Palmer
Jamal Al Rahid: Lawrence Fishburne
Ali: Jada Pinkett-Smith
Mr. Sorrow: Hugo Weaving
Gregor Handelson: no one in particular
Read and review PLZ. Reviews make me happy.