Journal entry of Brother Lavidean Atar, Ultramarines 6th company
In the past two weeks of fighting since our retreat from the kill zone I have been given an honorary rank equivalent to senior non commissioned officer. Under the watch of Lieutenant Vadith I am now leading a platoon of heavy infantry with vehicle support. Against my suggestions, Iron Men are still part of our forces and make a noticeable contribution when employed.
As we are fast becoming an elite volunteer only unit, rotation of troops has begun to increase. At the daily sermon before deployment nearly the entire platoon is present now. It is still too early for many of them to fully understand the words but given time these men and women will be Space Marines.
Lieutenant Vadith stood at the head of the unit's newly built assembly hall. Everyone that was part of the relatively new unit was present. She made a hand gesture to one of the petty officers who closed the building's main doors cutting off the sound of huge construction machinery outside.
"I'll keep this short. Our regular day's deployment is still in one hour as scheduled. Over the next two days however there are going to be some changes." She motioned for Lavidean to come to the front.
"Our unit is being bumped up to a full company of four platoons. Unfortunately production of new armour for our heavy infantry is still slow so we only have enough to fully outfit first platoon. The remainder will use light power armour. The Commanders are making the use of gauntlet shields mandatory when equipping the light armour so get used to it."
Some of the troops present shifted uncomfortably but made no outward objections.
Vadith continued. "As a full company commander I have been promoted to Captain and Brother Atar, if he chooses to accept it, is being given the official title of Company Chaplain."
All eyes went to Lavidean, clad in the simplistic robes he wore when not in combat. He cleared his throat, buying time to think. The saying 'He who seizes the moment, he is the right man.' came to mind.
"I accept."
'Ere we go 'ere we go 'ere we go
'ere we go 'ere we go throo da cos-mos
'ere we go 'ere we go 'ere we go
Don't know where til we get dere
The sensor officer aboard Sinite noticed a blip on sensors giving her a break from the monotonous groundside monitoring that had taken up most of her life since arriving in system. "Sir, I'm detecting Warp contacts incoming…" he eyes went wide as she realised how close they were. "Sir they're already coming out of warp!"
Parek spun his chair around to face front. "What have we got Lieutenant? Should we be going to battle alert?"
"Multiple Ork Roks coming out of Warp, just outside the orbit of the planet's small moon."
"All ships, all hands battle stations! Bring shields to maximum." Parek looked in the sensor officer's direction. "How many?"
"Twelve. Most of them are the size of small asteroids, but we've got a couple that look like scrapped human battleships."
"How did we not pick them up on long range sensors?"
"We haven't been using active sensors so that the surrounding Ork worlds wouldn't pick us up. They must have been using passive sensors as well, if they even have any sensors."
"Detecting communication between the Ork fleet and the surface."
"Can we jam it?"
"Negative. They're using a Maser powerful enough to melt through hull plate... there are counter signals from the planet's surface."
"Find that ground side location."
"Got it." replied Sinite.
"Do we have their transmissions decoded?"
"Yes sir. Communications read as follows: 'Where's our teeth and shinies?'
'Blown up by them humies, we is having a War down here.'"
"Oy! Yous down dere! Wez da raiders! Werez ours teef an shinies at!"
"Dey all gots blown up by dem humie gits! Wez iz 'avin a WAAAAAGGHH DOWN 'ERE!"
"WOT!? I'm da biggest boss in dese ere speks a space an nobody's avin a WAAGGH wit'out me! I aint leavin all da foightin to a bunch a squig 'erders! We'ze is comin down."
"Boss! dem humies got ships in o'bit."
"Den we'z gonna wrek em too! Get all da boyz!"
"Everywun boss?"
"EVVRREEEWWUUUUUNNN! WAAAAAGGHH!"
Note from the author: Sorry one was so short. This was the last that I'd had written back in 2008, though I had notes for things happening involving the newly arrived warboss, the Eldar, Dark Age engineers and infiltrators.
An epilogue for the infiltration of Torin Serat had an explorator fleet arriving at this planet years or decades later and finding it abandoned, devoid of all life.
