authors note: This story was edited by The strange ant
disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40,000 or any of its characters, terms, etc. All of this belongs to the games workshop.
The war of colonel Straven
Chapter 1
It was winter on the planet of Souliss but it was anything but cold. The intense heat of battle warmed up this forsaken crater filled piece of earth. Overseeing the mess of bodies and scrap that littered the soil was the stalwart colonel Straven of the 415th Cadian . He observed the field of battle though his binoculars angered by what he saw out there. The colonel was a very tall man, standing at to most, an intimidating height He stood very straight and his men never caught him slouching.
His face was heavily scarred although luckily for him his eyes were still intact. The colonel was quite a slim man.
"Damn it" the Colonel whispered to himself. "This whole god forsaken battles going to hell"
In the distance the colonel could hear round after round of artillery shell going off .
"If I didn't know any better I would say we have already arrived there and worst all of all were not even at the bottom" said the Colonel to the Standard Bearer, shooting him a small but clearly faked grin.
The standard bearer let out a small laugh, though it sounded hollow.
"Just because I'm your Colonel doesn't mean you have to laugh, I'm not like some of the psychopathic ones that will shoot you for nothing"
"Yes, but in times like this all you've got left is your sense of humour"
Straven nodded in agreement.
"Well I'm going to check about on the status of these 'reinforcements'" Straven said, his voice laced with enough sarcasm to kill a man at twenty paces.
The standard bearer saluted the colonel as he descended down into the HQ trench.
As the colonel entered their wreck of a HQ the troops stood to attention. The HQ was a small trench with a small roof. It housed about 20 people and had awful conditions but with the ork attack there was no time to set up a usable HQ. Over in the corner was Vox operator Rivnik with his head in his hands.
"At ease" Straven said lightly, his voice carrying a calm that it was nearly impossible to tell that he was in panic.
"Vox operator, please give me something good that doesn't make me want to charge in to the ork wall of fire."
"Well you better get your sword ready because i can't do that, Sir. We aren't getting reinforcements any time soon if we even get reinforcements. Unless they count as reinforcements when were dead." Said Vox operator Rivnik
"Well that's just great, just perfect." Straven said, somehow even more sarcastically than before.
"What's the plan, general?" said one of the guards, sounding distraught, but hopeful due to there commander.
The colonel was at a complete loss at what to do. Nearly everyone one was dead and what remained were more wounded soldiers than warriors.
"Well..." the colonel started saying before he was interrupted by one of the guardsmen
"Sir, the Orks are preparing to rush our lines!"
"OK then, that settles it , Sergeant start evacuating all the wounded. Get them out of here from here and please try and do before we all die."
"Yes sir"
"Vox Operator, tell everyone to pull back to this position, on the double"
"Yes sir"
"Everyone else get armed and ready to defend this point." Straven shouted.
"But sir, we cannot win." Said one of the Guardsmen. When Straven looked around at all the faces in the room, it appeared this was the general consensus.
"Soldier, today we classify winning as getting all the wounded people out alive, clear?"
He walked forward, standing at the front of the room and turning to face the tent as a whole. He eyed the men up. They looked unhappy, unsure.
"Today gentlemen, we stand and we fight. Now, it would be better if we lived. But if it gives the wounded the time they need to escape then, well, we'll just have to take as many of those bastards down with us as we can. And we will kill even more and when we run out of ammo then, we will club them to death!." Shouted Colonel Straven. "For the Emperor"
"For the Emperor!" shouted the rest of the HQ.
