Disclaimer: All Warhammer property mentioned in this short story, actual and intellectual, belongs to Games Workshop and their associated affiliates, all rights reserved, you try anything and they'll sue you etc…
The Stars
The city was in ruins. Grey skeletons of huge sky rises were burnt or still burning, illuminating the perpetually night sky. Red and blue tracer fire was zigzagging through the decaying streets in the three-way battle below, and up into the air. It was a spectrum of bright colours, punching holes in whatever they hit.
Things like Jove's Valkyrie drop ship.
It screamed down from the black yonder, and with a phalanx of other drop ships, steadily swinging left to avoid a particularly high sky scraper. The engines of the drop ships left long lingering smoke trails, punctuated with holes left by energy weapons trying to get a bead on the wing of high-flying Imperial Navy aircraft.
Jove yanked his control stick sideways and pulled the ship into a long barrel roll to avoid a large blue ion beam, which missed the craft by mere inches. Jove levelled out his cumbersome aircraft, ordering his gunner sitting in front of him to target the piece of Tau armour that tried to atomize them. Blue ion beams and tracer fire sporadically blasted through the cockpit in curved patterns, and continued right down into the small bay at the back. The stormtroopers were desperately trying to avoid the fire, franticly trying to un-buckle their safety harnesses. The Valkyrie bobbed side to side to avoid most of the incoming fire, which threw the men around the rear compartment.
"Sergeant, get your glory boys back in their drakking seats!" Jove cried from the pilots' seat.
"Men, sit the hell down, Emperor curse you!" The sergeant yelled from his seat closest to the cockpit. His troopers tried to obey, but the blast shocks and continual manoeuvring of the drop ship was keeping them from regaining their balance. The ships gunner finished targeting, hit a couple of red buttons next to his view finder, and let loose a salvo of Hellstrike missiles. They veered down into the storm of battle, a couple accidentally hitting the supporting pillars on a twelve storey building. It slowly collapsed into the street below, bellowing dust clouds for blocks around it.
The other missiles went straight into the Tau Devilfish that had tried to destroy the Valkyrie a minute ago. Fire and metal plumed from the hover tank, and it lazily crashed into the road, on top of a couple of nearby Fire Warriors. Jove gave out a whoop.
"Nice hit Wescard! Now let's see if we can clear the courtyard a little before we drop off these toy soldiers…" Wescard nodded in a casual fashion, and switched his view finder control to the forward facing multi-laser. The delta formation of drop ships now descended rapidly into the city.
The courtyard came into view, once a large flat garden-like section of the city, now nothing more than dust and blood. There was a fountain of the God-Emperor in the centre, now with half of Him blasted off, with four paths leading off to the edges of the square garden. The empty areas were once populated with various types of trees and shrubbery, but all that was left now was jagged tree stumps and debris. This was the most hotly contended section of the city, being in the hands of one side one day, another side the next. Today, it was in nobody's hands… yet.
Armageddon Steel Legion troopers were garrisoned in the buildings to the south and east, while the Tau held the north, and were contending with the Eldar for west side, who were refusing to fall back without a fight.
Wescard's multi-lasers whistled, and the red streaks obliterated the ground floor of a north side building. A tech-servo's shop, he suspected, where Tau snipers were trying to target the drop ships pilots. Before all of them were incinerated by Wescard's lasers, one got a hit on the cockpit of an Imperial drop ship. It started turning left, eventually into an uncontrollable spin, and veered vertically onto its side. When in crashed into an east housing block, Jove could swear he heard the combined screams of the drop ship's living cargo and the soldiers in the building over the roar of his own engines. That is, until the bolters on the sides of his ship starting blasting, unleashing a storm of yellow tracers into the enemy held buildings.
His Valkyrie touched down behind the south side of the short battered stone wall surrounding the grey gardens. The rear ramp descended, and the storm troopers he was carrying almost fell out of the ship in a mixture of anger and fear… fear that the drop ship might explode any second. Hellguns opened up on a group of charging Kroot, and dropped a half dozen before they scattered and took cover. The other Valkyrie's dropped their troopers onto the tops of flat buildings or into the courtyard itself, the latter taking serious fire from the other two armies in the vicinity. Jove watched the sergeant climb out of his drop ship.
"Seeya soon flyboy, don't have too much fun in the safety of your bird!" The segeant yelled sarcastically through his mask. Jove smiled. He swivelled around and yanked the control stick up, simultaneously hitting the button to close the rear doors. With bolters still firing, the Valkyrie zipped up and forwards into the sky, leaving the continuing battle far below. It lifted into the heavens, grey and black clouds giving way to the clear star-pocked night sky above.
"Any more orders from the 11th?" Jove asked Wescard.
"Negative, looks like we're heading home…" was the response. Jove nodded, even though no-one was looking. Sighing, he spun his beloved craft 180 degrees and engaged the twin burners.
After getting no more than a kilometre away from the courtyard battle, Wescard suddenly burst into life.
"Jove, enemy Nightwing on our six! It's locking on! How did it sneak up on us like that?" Jove checked the auspex. An Eldar Nightwing was on the Valkyrie's tail, and warning lights inside the drop ship wailed. White lancer fire was whipping around the cockpit, as Jove desperately launched counter-measures and executed evasive manoeuvres.
The drop ship ducked and bobbed through the towering plumes of smoke and the toxic man-made industrial clouds of the planet. Nothing they did could shake off the enemy's lock. They were fighting the inevitable. A missile streaked from the Nightwing towards the Valkyrie.
"They've fired, they've fired! Eject, protocol 18b!" Jove shouted. He yanked at his seat lever. Nothing happened.
"Throne, ejector's not working!" Wescard turned and starred at him in disbelief. "Sir?"
"I'm sorry…" Said Jove.
The missile swerved into the right engine and exploded, igniting the fuel line, causing a chain reaction leading to a massive concussive blast in the tanks. Red and purple flame engulfed the ship, and a small halo of debris and fire circled away from the Valkyrie before it exploded wholly.
On the ground, no-one noticed yet another amber sphere of destruction in the night sky, another star…
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The lit-up LZ was full of dazzling uniforms of men in full parade dress. There were hundreds of them lined up in squares with guns on their shoulders, eyes forward at the small vox platform. Huge lumbering ground-to-starship landing craft were lined up behind the vox-platform, ramps extended in an inviting way, floodlights illuminating the entire grounds. The General, a medium-built man with a broad waist and many shiny medals, stepped up onto the platform from the dark shadows behind the stage. He was accompanied by his personnel retinue of advisors and tacticians, as well as all the surviving company leaders.
He marched to the speaker podium and cleared his throat. His voice boomed and shook the very bones of the Imperial soldiers, amplified by the vox-speakers.
"Congratualtions, Imperial Guard 11th Steel Legion! With your blood and selfless sacrifice, the planet of Umbridge is still in the hands of the God-Emperor and the Empire of Humanity. In the year M40.709, after five months of intense fighting in the major cities, the despicable Tau and treacherous Eldar have been banished from this great Imperial planet. The men and women of this planet can return to their homes, and rebuild their lives to become useful and productive members of Imperial society. Their many thanks reach out to you. Now, there a few of you out there who have earned the Honorifica Imperialis over the period of this conflict. Your great heroism and tactical courage made it possible for the planet to be liberated, and without you this victory could not have been. Could the following step forward please: Lieutenant Yiter of 3rd Platoon 2nd Company, Lieutenant Hmerra of 1st Platoon 5th Company, and Sergeant Jica of 7th Squad 2nd Platoon 1st Company?"
One by one, each stepped up onto the platform to the podium. They accepted the medal, and shook the Generals' hand before pinning the award onto their breasts. The General talked to the audience about how each one earned their medal, their tales of daring bravery in combat. The final one was Sergeant Jica.
"Ah, Sergeant Jica of the Stormtroopers 2nd Platoon, in charge of 7th Squad. He and his squad were dropped into the capital during the last month of hostility. The landed in the Doctropolis courtyard, where the fighting was heaviest, and even after the chain of command was cut through faulty frequencies, he lead his team to an amazing flanking manoeuvre, clearing each building in turn. He swept the whole sector of enemies, and even though he was just a sergeant, he rallied the remnants of the platoon and led a glorious push to the Basilica Administratum, eventually liberating it almost single-handedly. This man fought two deadly enemies simultaneously, and performed his duty to the God-Emperor with utmost decorum and courage, even after he learned of his father going missing. Anyway… congratulations again, Lieutenant Jica of 2nd Platoon, 1st Company!"
Jica could hardly believe it. Not only had he received a most honourable medal, but also a promotion to lead an entire platoon! He thanked the General, and stepped back into the line of the two other medal winners, pinning the metal award to his lapel. He stood at attention while the General whittled on about the victory, and the bravery of the entire division. Jica looked up at the stars.
He wished the General hadn't mentioned his father. The thought of him still missing was painful enough. There were still people looking for him, his gunner, and various other soldiers in the 11th still MIA. Command had said that before the drop ship had been destroyed, it had sent information that protocol 18b had been activated, to eject from the craft. Jica knew his father was fine, just trying to find a rescue team to help him back to base. He believed that everything was fine. He starred at the night sky. It seemed so very peaceful now after the war, grey clouds still covering most of the stratosphere. A few stars beamed through them though.
Jica knew that his father, Jove, could see them too, from wherever he was.