Everything was dark in the stormraven as it soared down towards the surface of the planet. Its engines hummed gently, and a dim red glow was all that illuminated the interior of the craft. Yariel glanced around at his squad. Despite the lack of light, his Occulobe made seeing in this dim room child's play. Nobody spoke as they flew down to their destination. He wanted to pace about the room to occupy the time, but he was strapped into a harness and could not. Instead, he checked his gun, making sure the bolter was in good condition, despite having done so twice before they boarded the stormraven. The rifle was in perfect condition, just like ten minutes ago. It was fully loaded and ready to fire, just like ten minutes ago. He took a deep breath, gritting his teeth as the craft hit a patch of turbulence, shaking violently for a moment. After what seemed like an eternity, the stormraven landed. The harness locking Yariel to the wall released, and he took a tentative step to the ramp as it lowered. The rest of his squad also moved for the ramp, ten armed space marines filing out of the stormraven. Yariel was the last out, leaving shortly after Crau. He looked around at the night sky, taking in the sights before looking at Ivan as the sergeant spoke.
"Alright, brothers. Here we are. Our job is to search the area. The Orks were last seen headed for the mountains, we need to find out how far they've gotten since yesterday." Ivan said. "Fan out, split into groups of two. Keren, with me. Keep vox activity to a minimum. Only use it if you've discovered the enemy's location, or if they discover you. Yariel, Orion, head west for the gorge. Crau, Ajax, north to the cliffs. Nero, Yuriv, head for the valley. Kara, Lucen, I want you heading down the mountain and searching around the foot. Keren and I will travel east."
After this, the squad split up, Yariel and Orion started moving west, walking in silence with only the buzzing of insects and the crunching of their boots on gravel interrupting the still night air. After ten minutes, the going became tough as they had to wend their way through uneven ground, climbing up boulders and ledges as they headed for the gorge. They slung their guns across their shoulders after the first ledge, and hadn't bothered to ready them afterwards.
"If I have to climb another fucking ledge..." Orion grunted as he hauled himself up the rock-face. Yariel followed him, grunting with exertion as he climbed. When he was at the top, he glanced at his friend.
"What? If you have to climb another ledge, what?" Yariel asked, grinning.
"Don't fucking start, Yariel. Just move." Orion growled, setting off at a brisk pace. Yariel followed, chuckling but not saying anything. They walked on in silence until they came to a cliff. Yariel looked down the cliff. It was not a long drop into the gorge.
"Here we-" Yariel began. Orion covered Yariel's mouth with his left hand, placing the index finger of his right hand over his lips. He pointed down into the gorge. Yariel looked as he heard grunting from inside the gorge. Where Orion was pointing, three large beasts stood, green-skinned, taller than any man with a squat frame and short, stubby legs. Long green arms bulging with muscles hung down from their sides, hands ending in long fingers, talon-like nails extending from the ends of those fingers. Their heads jutted forward out of their chests, a green lump of muscle and bone with small, beady yellow eyes staring out of their sockets, flat noses with rings through them and cruel tusks sticking out of their severe under-bite. One carried a rifle, one carried a pistol and a short, primitive sword. The third carried two axes.
"Oi, Grotbasha!" The one with the rifle said. The beast wielding two axes grunted, glaring at the one who spoke and bashing him about the head with the haft of his axe.
"Wot?" Grotbasha demanded, bashing the blades of his axes together for emphasis.
"Ya eva wonder why we'ze 'ere?" The first one asked, unperturbed by the recent blow to the head.
"Well, dat'z cos da boss sed we'ze needz ta be 'ere." Grotbasha responded, spitting.
"Nah, I'z don't mean 'ere 'ere. I'z ment why iz we 'ere, like, dat fancy word dem 'umiez use... Existin' woz it, Bluddgit?" The first one asked.
"Ah, shut it, ya muck-sucka!" Bluddgit, the one with the pistol and sword, barked. The first one shrugged.
"Dat word. Why iz we 'ere?" He said. Grotbasha pondered this for a moment, eventually snarling in rage when he could not think of a response.
"'Coz da boss sed we'ze should be!" Grotbasha snarled.
"No, I'z mean-" The first one began.
"I'Z DON'T GIVE A FLAMIN' SQUIG'S ASS! WE IZ 'ERE BECOZ DA BOSS SED WE SHOULD BE 'ERE! AND E'Z DA BOSS 'COZ 'E'Z DA BIGGEST!" Grotbasha bellowed, bashing the first Ork about the head with the haft of his axe a second time. The first ork stumbled backwards and fell onto his behind, blinking.
"Well, dat's just rude, dat is..." The first ork said. Yariel glanced at Orion.
"A true philosophical genius." Yariel muttered, unholstering his bolter and taking aim. Orion pushed the gun away before Yariel could pull the trigger.
"No. If there are any more of them around, then they'll hear us. We need to get an idea of our surroundings." Orion said. Yariel frowned, wondering how he had not thought of this.
"Good point. You see if you can find away around them to search the area. I'll stay here and keep an eye out." Yariel said. Orion nodded.
"Vox Ivan, let him know we've found some Orks." Orion told him. Yariel nodded and Orion began picking his way down a nearby rock-face. Yariel eyed the Orks as they got into a debate. The topic of this debate seemed to be on more existential matters, but with even more blows to the head. He sighed as he activated his vox-caster.
"Brother-sergeant," He said. "Orion and I have found greenskins. There are three of them in the gorge." He waited a moment.
"Copy that." Came the voice of Ivan. "Do not engage, wait until you have more info."
"By your word, sergeant." Yariel said. There was no response. He did not think on this and turned his attention to the Orks. They had stopped arguing. Yariel should have hoped so, since the one with the shoota had an axe embedded in his skull. Grotbasha was urinating on a rock and Bluddgit was yanking teeth out of the dead Ork's mouth, giggling helplessly each time he removed a tooth and stuffed it into his pockets. After a few moments, Grotbasha finished his business and turned around, stretching his long arms and belching. As he belched, his gaze drifted to Yariel, and his beady eyes widened.
"Oi, git!" Grotbasha yelled, beating Bluddgit about the head as he pulled another tooth. Bluddgit snarled.
"Wot!" The ork demanded.
"It's an 'umie!" Grotbasha declared, pointing at Yariel. Before Bluddgit could follow the gaze of Grotbasha, Yariel had fired off two shots in rapid succession. A round ripped through the skull of Grotbasha and detonated, ripping apart the head of the large beast, sending blood and bone and brains and viscera flying as the second round was plunged into the chest cavity of Bluddgit, tearing much of his innards to shreds. However, this did not stop Bluddgit, who grunted as thick red gore sprayed from the gaping hole in his chest.
"WAAAGH!" Bluddgit roared, coughing blood. He raised his pistol but never fired, three bolter rounds ripping into his arm, gut and skull and detonating. The ravaged corpse hit the ground with a thud, thick crimson fluid spreading in a puddle around him. Yariel lowered his rifle as his vox-caster crackled.
"Yariel, what did you do?" Orion demanded.
"One of them saw me. I shot them." Yariel responded. "Have you found any other Orks?"
"No, but there could be some around. It's a big place. You were careless." Orion said.
"Oh, shut the fuck up." Yariel snapped. "I had no choice."
"I don't care. Let's go back to the stormraven, now that every greenskin within earshot of a bolter knows we're here." Orion said. Yariel scowled but chose not to respond. He turned and began heading back the way they had come. It was a long trip, but eventually he reached the stormraven, Orion not far behind him.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" Orion snapped when he reached the craft. "Did you even try to conceal yourself?" He demanded. Yariel opened his mouth to respond, but no words came. He scowled. Finally, words came.
"No, I did not, because there was no place to go that did not offer me a view of them so that I could make sure they weren't off to fucking kill you." Yariel growled.
"Oh, don't make this about me, you-" Orion began, but before he could finish, their vox-casters crackled. The sounds of gunfire, distorted by the vox, were accompanied by the distant sounds of the same guns firing.
"We've made contact!" Came the voice of Crau. "We've found their whole army! Ajax, get down!" The vox cut off, all that told them that Crau and Ajax were still breathing was the distant sound of gunfire. Yariel and Orion readied their guns.
"Let's go and help." Yariel said. Orion shook his head. "No, we can't leave the transport unguarded. If the Orks have made it this far, we can't give them a chance to destroy our only way out. Let the rest of the squad help them." Yariel did not respond. He knew Orion was right. Though the thought of it pained him, he knew that he had to leave Crau, his childhood friend, to his own devices and hope that the rest of the squad was near enough to help him come out of it unscathed. And so they waited, hoping the gunfire never stopped, for if it did, the worst had happened. Eventually, the gunfire did die down. They tried voxing the rest of the squad, but there was no response. They waited in stony silence, bolters ready. Finally, footsteps became audible, heavy boots crunching gravel. The noise came from behind and Yariel turned. There stood Crau, Ivan, Keren and Nero. Crau was sporting several wounds and although they had been closed by his Larraman's Organ gene-seed implant, he still looked in a sorry state. Ivan was covered in Ork blood and carried in his arms the body of Yuriv, a large hole in the side of the dead Astartes' head. Nero and Keren both held the body of Ajax, Nero holding him by the legs and Keren by the arms. Ajax was riddle with bullet-holes and it was impossible to say which of them had killed him.
"Kara and Lucen are dead." Ivan spat. "We saw them get cut to pieces, but we couldn't reach them. Quickly, on the stormraven. We managed to shake them off, but it's only a matter of time before we're found." He said. None of them questioned this order. They filed into the craft, Yariel and Orion standing guard as the other scout marines entered before they boarded it themselves. The ramp closed behind them and the transport lifted off once they were in harnesses. It soared into the sky, coming under fire almost immediately. However, the Orks did not have any dedicated anti-air guns and so any shots that managed to hit had a negligible effect, barely being felt by those inside. Soon, they were back in orbit aboard the Hopeless Redoubt.
"Brothers!" Captain Octavian of the Power Marines 2nd Company yelled. The 2nd company beat their fists against their chests once. Yariel looked down on this beside Ivan from a balcony above the hall where the 2nd company was assembled.
"The Orks are at the mountains. The refugees do not stand a chance of escaping them at the rate they are advancing across the continent. Our allies, the Salamanders, had hoped to escort them to the capital before they met the Orks in battle, but it is too late. They have begun fortifying. The Orks have already started to advance once more and we must reach the ground before they can overwhelm the Salamanders. Let us not delay any further. To the drop pods! For the Emperor!" Octavian declared.
"And They Shall Know No Fear!" The 2nd company chanted as one. They began filing out of the hall, and Yariel turned to Ivan.
"What will we be doing in the battle?" Yariel asked. Ivan looked at him.
"Our job will be to raid the flanks of the Ork force. We'll be on bikes. You remember how to ride one?" Ivan said. Yariel scowled.
"Yes. Of course I do." He said.
"Good. Be sure to get a shotgun from the armoury before we head down. You'll find it a hell of a lot more useful than a bolter when you're moving at a hundred miles an hour and can't aim." Ivan said. "We should be getting help from the 2nd company's assault marines and possibly the Salamanders assault marines as well, if Captain Mir'san is kind enough to provide. Now go on, get ready."
"As you say, brother." Yariel said, turning and walking away. He made for the armoury and soon reached the location. Inside the armoury, a handful of space marines lingered, oiling their weapons and tending to the machine spirits of their guns. Yariel nodded as he passed an Astartes of the 2nd company and was greeted by a cold stare through blood red lenses in an expressionless helmet. He reached a wall where several weapons hung and removed a shotgun from it. The gun seemed in order, well-oiled and looked after. After a brief inspection, he slung the gun over his shoulder and left the armoury, ignoring the marines of the 2nd company. He then headed for the hangar. As he made his way there, the Hopeless Redoubt rumbled briefly as drop pods were launched. After what seemed like an eternity of walking, he reached the hangar. There, two thunderhawk gunships sat, one's ramp down and the other with its ramp up. Ivan and the rest of the squad stood there waiting.
"Come on, then. The bikes are in this one." Ivan said, pointing at the thunderhawk with its ramp down. He then looked away from Yariel and walked up the ramp of the transport. Yariel and the rest of the squad followed. There were thirty safety harnesses in this ship and in between them, half a dozen Astartes Scout Bikes were magnetically locked to the floor. Once the squad was strapped into the harnesses, the ramp closed. There was a brief delay and then the craft hummed to life. It took off and they were away, soaring down through the atmosphere to the planet's surface. After a brief trip, the craft shook violently as if it had just been hit by something, but immediately after it continued flying as normal. Faintly, Yariel could make out the sound of explosions, muffled and distorted by distance and the hull of the thunderhawk.
"Calm down, not to worry." Ivan called. "We're just being shot at, everything is fine." After this, he chuckled. "I'm surprised they hit us in the first try, to be honest. Orks are shit marksmen." Nobody responded to him, and he grumbled silently, something about a lack of appreciation. A short while later, the craft shuddered violently as it landed. Yariel quickly removed his safety harness and ran over to the nearest bike. Attached to the front was a grenade launcher. Yariel hopped on, disabling the mag-lock as the rest of the squad mounted up. After a minute, the ramp began to slowly lower. When it was all the way down, with blinding light streaming through and the noise of battle raging all around them, Yariel hit the accelerator. He shot out of the thunderhawk and into the chaos of battle.
As he zoomed across the dirt, the sounds of gunfire and explosions were all around him. Ahead, a writhing mass of green bodies surged on at a distant barricade. Yariel could make out several green-clad Astartes atop the barricade, many carrying large-caliber machine guns that spat death and destruction at a constant rate, cutting down dozens of Orks every second. These were the Devastators of the Salamanders 2nd company, wielding heavy bolters in lieu of their preferred multi-meltas. Within the mass of Orks, Yariel could see the black-armoured warriors of the Power Marines second company, fighting back the green tide with bolter and chainsword, gun and blade as the bodies piled up around them. Soon, Yariel was within range and squeezed the trigger attached to the handles of his bike, sending a frag grenade into an Ork as the beast struck the head from the shoulders of a Power Marine tactical marine. The grenade detonated and where the greenskinned brute had been a moment before, there was only a fine red mist and an eviscerated corpse. Yariel took one hand off the handles to unsling his shotgun and as he rapidly turned the bike around, he fired blindly, sending a spray of pellets into a passing Ork boy as he turned and rode back the way he had come. As he rode away, the rest of his squad passed by and unleashed their own deadly payloads before turning and riding after Yariel at breakneck pace, soon catching up with him. A dozen meters away, Crau whooped triumphantly while covered in gore. Overhead, twenty space marines soared, jump packs screaming, pistols firing, chainswords revving as they smashed into the Ork horde. A handful of shots went after the squad, but they all went wide. After riding for a few hundred meters, Ivan yelled to turn and so turn they did, zooming back towards the Orks for a second attack.
As they rode this time, they rode in a spearhead formation, Ivan at the head. Yariel saw the battle raging ahead and in the distance, a handful of dark green rhino transports trundled steadily along the dirt towards the Orks, two Salamanders space marines firing out the top hatches of the metal box. Yariel had little time to take anything else in as soon he was within range of the Orks and this time, as he squeezed the trigger on the grenade launcher and send a spray of pellets to accompany the grenade, the Orks were shooting back. A bullet bounced off his pauldron and a second grazed the armoured front wheel. He turned around and rode away with the squad a second time. When they were a significant distance away, Ivan called for them to stop briefly to reload. They all placed new cartridges in their shotguns and the grenade launchers reloaded themselves and with that, they were away again for a third pass. The third pass went in much the same way as the first two, as did the fourth and fifth.
It was the sixth pass that was different. As they rode for the enemy, the rhinos of the Salamander came to a stop as they were swamped with scores of Ork Boyz and from its doors, squads of space marines were disgorged, spitting death from their bolters as men with flamers unleashed a torrent of prometheum from their weapons, roasting dozens of greenskins alive. Many more were cut down by bolters, being torn to ribbons as Salamander and Power Marine tactical squads fired relentlessly and the devastators on the barricade continued their barrage. Assault marines from the salamanders had joined the fray and now nearly forty assault marines were hacking through the Orks, using their chainswords to turn many a foe to bloody ribbons, sending chunky gore everywhere while their black armour of the Power Marines and the green armour of the Salamanders became stained with red.
As the scout squad came in for their sixth pass on the Orks, an Ork with a large gun turned his attention to them and squeezed the trigger, waving the gun around madly while cackling and screaming warcries. This would normally not mean anything, except a stray bullet found the skull of Nero. Yariel looked in horror as a hole appeared in the forehead of his battle-brother and the hole erupted with blood and brain. Nero was sent flying from his bike as it crashed into an assault marine and exploded, killing the assault marine and the Ork he was in the process of gutting. Yariel roared in anger as he fired at the Orks, firing grenade after grenade as he plowed through the Orks, running down several and blowing many more apart. After a minute, an Ork stopped his bike by driving his axe into the front wheel as he was run over and Yariel was thrown from it, crashing into another Ork. He was not deterred, ramming the barrel of his shotgun down the Ork's throat and pulling the trigger as the beast swung its axe madly. Yariel reloaded his gun and cleaned the blood from it before continuing on his rampage, mowing down another two Orks with a single shot and sending another into the back of an Ork. Then, he turned to see a large, crude club rapidly approaching his face and then everything went dark.
