De Gothia

[john1981uk]

Hi guys,

 

For my DIY Chapter, I have several characters and have written a few short stories about each one. This one is based on De Gothia, who at the moment is a Sergeant. At the moment is is 11 pages, A4 long, so I'll post in shorter segments if anyone is interested!

 

Cheers!

 

john

 

The black asteroid spun slowly on its axis as it drifted through space leaving a trail of dust as it went on its course. The asteroid which had collected the broken hulls of several unfortunate ships was flying on a course for the upper atmosphere of Baja Six, a protectorate planet of the Adeptus Astartes, the Pellias Templars. The drifting rock, measures several miles across, was silently snuffed from existence just as it had killed the ships scattered across its surface as a ship emerged from the Warp several kilometres in front of it. The energy from the opening portal, bright red contrails of light snaked out and smashed into the rock, latching on to the wrecked hulls, almost in search of any living souls. It didn’t find any. In frustration, the entities in the wispy contrails ripped the asteroid apart.

 

From the Warp opening, the prow of the Pellias Templar’s Gladius Class Frigate Dorn’s Courage emerged. Its red and dark yellow hull emerging until the Cathedral like body of the ship followed through. The contrails of the Warp lashed against the Gellar shields as the daemons and other chaos entities tried to get to the sacred souls onboard. The area around the ship glowed a sickly blood red flowing through with diseased looking browns and blacks as the sick light shone through after the ship.

 

As the stern of the ship exited the Warp, the daemons howled in frustration as the opening quickly closed returning space back to darkness. The ship turned to port, heading towards Baja Six. Fragments of the black asteroid glanced harmlessly off the thick hull.

Sergeant De Gothia pressed his face against the optical iris. A bright blue laser scanned his eyes and the blast door leading onto the bridge slid open releasing incense and the quiet sound of voices and humming of machines. He stepped through and looked around for the Commander of the Watch. The bridge opened up in front of him like a cavern with servo skulls on wings flitting across the bridge.

Off to his left and right against the bulkhead walls were the sensor and weapons pits. The helm was at the very front of the bridge under a multitude of view screens and blast shields. In the very centre, the Commander of the Watch sat at his control booth just below the empty Captain’s chair, his hands playing over the dials and touch screen controls in front of him. As De Gothia approached, he looked back above the doors, at the Navigators chamber. Prayers and litanies covered the bulkheads. The armoured doors had frosted over as the Navigator had been at work, guiding the ship through the Warp.

The Commander of the Watch turned at the sound of the closing doors and armoured footsteps. When he saw De Gothia, he swung off his seat and clasped his fist against his chest, bowing slightly.

“Sergeant” he said.

“Commander Holf, what do you have for me?” De Gothia said as he towered over the human. Holf wasn’t a small man by any means, but the Templar was still taller than any of the Men at Arms onboard the vessel. Holf, like all the ship’s crew were free men from the Templar’s home world, Pellias. Wearing the standard design of Imperial Naval Officers Uniform but coloured in a deep red, half of the design of the Pellias Templar’s, Holf turned about and sat back down at his console.

“Listen to this broadcast. It came from one of the smaller desert continents on Baja Six. Roughly around the equator of the planet.” He said as his fingers played over the consoles screen.

 

A garbled message played over the bridge sound system. The sounds of gunfire and high pitched screams flooded the background of the message.

“...under attack....again, we are under...hundreds of them... tiles.... need help.”

Holf looked up studying De Gothia’s tanned and chiselled face hidden under a neatly trimmed beard “that’s all we have.”

“When did we receive this?” the Templar asked scanning over the consoles text version of the distress call.

“About fifteen minutes ago. I’ve been in touch with the nearest PDF base; they have some assets within twenty hours flight time. But by the sounds of it, whoever sent the message was pretty desperate. Sounds like they’re getting chopped up pretty bad. By what, we don’t know.”

“Okay, have my squad readied. We deploy by drop pod. Have two platoons of the ships Men at Arms deploy by thunderhawk once they are ready” De Gothia said turning and walking for the door.

“Will do, the gunships should arrive thirty minutes after you. They’re just refuelling and rearming now” Holf said turning back to his console, the bridge doors hissing shut behind him.

[john1981uk]

Aziz leapt back, the razor sharp black claws missing his face by an inch. His thrust forwards with his knife using all his strength to penetrate the tough scaled hide of his attacker. He leaned in heavily and the knife broke through the dark green scales and into the reptile’s throat. Its tongue lashed out, striking him just above his eye splitting the skin. He ignored the pain and toppled the beast over onto its back with a sharp kick to its knee. It tried to slash him again but he batted away its short stubby arm. Aziz quickly stabbed it several more times in the chest before collapsing of exhaustion onto its body. Panting hard, he looked around at the street filled with his town folk fighting for their lives against these reptile daemons that had come out of the night to kill them all.

 

His friends fought back with anything that they could find. Old lasguns, shotguns, ceremonial spears, lances and daggers. He heard a screeching sound to his left and saw a reptile back lit by a burning building running towards him. It stood taller than him carried on a pair of short stumpy legs. Its stretched body supported a short neck, topped by a lizard’s head. A pair of small arms ended with a pair of razor sharp claws that he had seen the town’s peoples’ lives. A long tail swished behind it as it came closer. Aziz ripped his knife from the creature he had just killed and rose to meet the new comer. He saw its beady little yellow eyes flashing red and orange in the fire light all around them, he smelt the foul breathe, fresh blood and meat stuck in its teeth. Meat, he knew would have been from his town folk. Maybe even his own friends, hopefully none of his family.

 

It leapt as it neared him, claws reaching out, jaws snapping at his face. Aziz dropped to the ground and rolled forwards, lashing upwards with his blade. The once razor sharp blade sliced into the reptiles belly cutting deep. It screamed as it passed over, before striking down with its tail, cutting into Aziz’s back. Blood poured as he cried out in pain. He looked back over his shoulder. The beast was on the ground trying to get up, its insides pouring out onto the sun baked road. It screeched out in pain and was answered by several more from nearby. Aziz turned round and looked ahead of him. Four more reptiles were closing in, slinking along the ground, bellies touching the sand. Their tongues flickered in the air, tasting his blood in the breeze that swept through the town. Aziz felt his blood running down his back, he felt his bowls begin to empty and his arms grow heavy but he was determined to try and take more of these devils with him before he passed over to the Emperor’s side.

 

Suddenly, the sound of the battle was drowned out by a powerful screaming noise, of heavy engines roaring at full thrust. The buildings and stalls nearby began shaking, the fighting momentarily stopped as reptile and man followed the direction of the sound up into the sky. Aziz looked up as well, though keeping an eye on the reptiles close to him. He saw a yellow ball of light coming from the blackness of the night sky. The light got brighter and brighter, almost painful to look at. The sound shook his diaphragm. He clasped his hands over his ears as the sound reached a pitch high enough to cause him physical pain. He looked at the reptiles. They were suffering worse than he. Of this he was glad. They rolled on the ground screaming, though he couldn’t hear. Suddenly, without warning, there was a massive explosion of sand, body parts and bits of masonry as the ball of light hit the ground. A metallic object, almost like a tear drop of red and yellow sat in a small crater in front of him, silently. Steam hissed from the top of the object, and then it exploded.

[Ufthak]

Looking good, dude, I like your style of writing ;) Keep it up!