Retribution
Assassination
"Targets in sight. Load Inferno rounds. Attach silencer. Now pick your shots carefully; we don't want to go alerting the enemy of our position, now do we?" Deathworld Sniper Silas said rhetorically to himself as he lay on his stomach, peering through his optical sight at the camped Ork army. Silas had been lying here on this hilltop, under a brush of red ash so as not to be seen, for twelve hours now, waiting for the sun to set. Orbital reconnaissance had shown an advancing Ork army that had set up camp in a valley roughly 6000km north in a valley, making their way slowly through a large valley towards the main Imperial Command Camp here on Cannel. The Ork force had attempted to attack the Camp two weeks ago, and the camp was still waiting for reinforcements after they repelled the Ork force. The Imperial Tacticians in the camp had decided they would not be able to hold out if they were to be attacked again, so Silas had been tasked with the assassination of the Ork Warboss to slow down the Ork's advance to buy time so that reinforcements could arrive.
Silas snapped back to reality, and sighed at his wandering mind at this crucial moment of his mission. He sighed and wiped the condensation off of his custom-built optic sight, and looked back through it. The rain had been falling hard for two hours, and only recently stopped, although this didn't bother Silas much, nothing really did, except when it got in the way of his sight and his mission. When the sun went down, the fires in the ring would be lit, as well as around all the other buildings in the camp. He shifted his custom sniper rifle on the fold-out bipod to get a view of the rear of the Ork camp.
The sun was beginning to set behind the hills on the other side of the valley, which cast a blood red glow over the floor of the valley. Fitting, Silas thought as the glare from the sun shone in his sight, causing him to wince. He pulled back and adjusted the filter on his sight, and readjusted himself after the sudden shift in movement. Silas scanned the area, paying attention to every little detail.
The camp was massive; it stretched back up the valley for 500km, and spanned the width of the enormous valley. Clearly, this mission was crucial if the Imperial forces were to achieve a victory here on Cannel. Slap bang in the middle of the camp was a massive ring with tiered seats all around, in which every night; vicious battles took place between willing Orks. How they could fight each other at a time like this was unreal, barbaric, and just plain stupid. Reports had shown that they had just been sitting here for close to three weeks, not even bothering to move. Silas laughed lightly at how easy this mission had been to set up, and even better was that he would be promoted to Veteran status after the completion of this mission. It was all too easy for Silas.
Just then, the sun disappeared from sight, leaving the valley in darkness, but not for long. Soon after the sun went down, the Orks ignited the fires all around the camp, and the first ring battle had just begun, which was introduced by a roar from the bloodthirsty crowd. Silas panned his vision over the arena circle, and watched in amazement as ten, seven foot tall, inhumanly-muscled beasts ripped each other apart with an assortment of clubs, maces, and one even wielded a large metal ball on a chain. Silas scanned the crowd of the ring to try and spot the Warboss; he knew what he looked like. A computerised image had been created using accounts of survivors from the first attack who had seen the Warboss, and Silas had the only picture with him. He tore himself from his scope and looked at the picture again.
The Warboss had a large metal jaw-plate that jutted out in front of his top lip, and a scar that ran diagonally across his face. Silas had only requested a recreation of the Warboss' face, he wouldn't need anything else. One shot to the head would be enough to kill the Warboss. He took one last glance at the picture and looked back through his sight. He scanned the crowd for the Warboss' face, and eventually found it at the top of the tiered seating area. The Warboss was surely enough menacing. He was ten feet tall and surrounded by a group of even bigger Orks. He lightly pressed his finger against the trigger of his weapon, and then fired. He didn't even feel the barely noticeable recoil on the gun as the soft buttpad of the weapon hit his shoulder.
The bullet sped out of the extra-long barrel, silent, invisible to the naked eye, and extremely deadly. His right eye was fixed to his sight as he watched the Inferno round as it tore into the skull of the Warboss. At first, no one had noticed the slow trickle of blood seeping from between the Warboss' eyes, but soon, the oxy-phosphor gel ignited with the excess of air enclosing it, and the Warboss' head exploded into a swirling mass of flames. Not even a scream had escaped the Warboss' lips, it had been so fast. The whole fighting stopped as the confused Orks sat silently, staring at each other, and at the Warboss' headless carcass. As Silas had expected, the whole arena burst into fighting.
The Orks, enraged at the death of their Warboss, and because they didn't know it was an Imperial force that had killed their leader, began suspecting each other, and attacked everyone in sight viciously with their fists. Soon, the camp erupted in a mass of green bodies, flailing at each other wildly. Silas watched in pleasure as the fire-poles were toppled over, lighting the tents and ground all over the camp. Silas pulled the release trigger on the side of his weapon, and a small, barely audible click resounded from his weapon as it ejected the spent cartridge, and stripped a fresh cartridge from the 5 round Inferno magazine loaded into the gun. Silas was only supposed to halt the advance of the Ork army, but at this stage, the war would be over within the hour.
Silas got to his knees slowly so as not to be seen, though he highly doubted any Ork could see him from 2000 metres away. He folded away the bipod on the sniper rifle and detached the silencer, placing it perfectly into a pouch on the side of his tight-fitting, thermal-absorbent Cameoline trousers. He took out the magazine from the gun and placed it into a compartment on his Cameoline belt. Silas didn't bother with the cheap, weak flak armour, nor did he bother with any armour, in fact. He found armour to be a liability when doing covert missions, and Silas was always on covert missions, or at least far away from the main fighting anyway. He much preferred tight Cameoline tops and trousers, so loose bits of clothing wouldn't be caught and ripped by anything like branches, and he also had a layer of thermal-absorbent material incorporated into his clothes, to disguise his thermal signature. The Cameoline material would hide him in almost every possible condition, which Silas saw as a necessity.
Silas watched the fire and fighting as it tore apart the remaining Orks here on Cannel. He took his eye away from his scope and tapped the transmitter of the micro vox-link around his head, "This is Silas; the mission is a success, repeat; the mission is a success," Silas said, awaiting a reply.
"Silas? Thank god you're alive" It was a familiar voice, Tanith. Silas had known Tanith since he had first joined the Imperial Guard at age 15. She had been a simple trooper in the squad he had first been placed in. Over time, a relationship had developed, and as she began to show talent as a technological genius, and Silas was singled out as a sniper, they had not been able to see each other in quite some time. However, one mission a few years back, Silas was assigned Tanith as a Tactical Supporter, and has now been Silas' personal Tactical Supporter since. "What's the deal? Tell me what's going on" Tanith asked, calmly.
"Well, the Ork Warboss is dead, took an inferno round through the skull, then it burst into flames," Silas joked slightly, and heard a slight snicker coming from Tanith, he continued "And then the whole camp just started fighting, I can't see any possible way that these Orks are gonna live to see tomorrow, never mind attack the main HQ. These Ork's are the only remaining resistance left on this world, aren't they?"
"Uhhh...gimme a sec," Tanith said, followed by the sounds of clicking and fingers tapping keys on a control panel, "Looks like it; I can send you the Orbital photos if you want?" Tanith queried.
"That won't be necessary," Silas said, just before he squeezed the trigger of his sniper rifle, and a Hellfire round shot out of the barrel, speeding towards a group of fighting Orks. The hellfire lodged itself in one of the Orks' chests, and then exploded, sending thousands of needles impregnated with mutagenic acid into the Orks around him. Silas let out a sigh of joy at the spectacle, and Tanith broke over his vox-link again "Enjoying yourself are we? Anyway, would you mind snapping a couple pics of the battlefield for me? I'm about to file the report to command and I can't get any orbital reconnaissance photos, the fire down there is screwing with the Lightning aircraft night vision cameras."
"Sure thing, babe, on their way," Silas replied coolly. He liked to tease her by calling her babe; it was obvious she liked him. The feeling was mutual.
Silas continued firing at the remaining Ork stragglers, who were roaming about the camp, looking for others to fight. "Silas, I've just got word back from command, they say they're gonna..." Tanith paused, reading the newly received message, "They're gonna bomb that whole valley! You need to get out of there, they've declared a 4000 metre red zone, and you're 2000 metres inside that zone, they're starting in five minutes. I've just been denied permission to evac you via Valkyrie, looks like you'll just have to run it off."
By the time Tanith had finished talking, Silas had already collected what little equipment he had, and had already started running. He had set his watch for a five minute alarm, although if he didn't make it out the red zone, he wouldn't need it.
Author's Note: Well, this is my first fan-fic, I came up with the idea of a deathworld veteran sniper off the top of my head, and I intent to stick with this story for a while. However, I tend to change my mind about a lot of things, so this story might be put on hold and a new story could be started, I don't really know. Also, please, please, please reveiw, I have to know if I should continue, or whether I should have a beta-reader.
Also, the first part of the next chapter should be up very soon.