Battlefield Inspection

[SnakeoilSage]

The forward pillbox exploded into a shower of ash-green stone common to the Forge moon of Nexas, raining down on the Imperial Guard. The Orks didn't wait for the debris to settle before hurling themselves through the smoke, a guttural roar booming from their fanged maws. Their patchwork metal armor was slathered with the rust red and iron gray of a Warhawk, pirate Orks that had been plaguing the Bulwark Stars as far back as anyone could remember.

 

Corporal Demara swore under her breath and reached for her belt. "Bayonettes!" She shouted.

 

Her men's faces turned pale, but their training ensured that they were fixing the blades to their lasguns before the order had even registered in their conscious thoughts. Wars were won with discipline, Demara knew, not bravery. The currency of courage was a little too expensive for the honest Guardsman to afford, but discipline didn't cost a corporal anything more than a charged laspistol.

 

Demara actually smiled as she and her men rushed out of cover. The Orks spotted them and the whole mob - ten or maybe twelve - shifted towards them. The Orks had crude pistols, but they were more interested in firing into the air just for the noise of the things. By far their more dangerous weapon was a hefty axe, little more than a slab of solid metal hewn into a roughly wedge-like blade. It didn't even have to be sharp - in an Ork's hand it could cleave a man in half with one swing.

 

And we're about to run up and try to stab them with knives, Demara thought.

 

Too late to recognize now. They hit the Orks and it all came apart. With a few swift chops most of her men were suddenly dead. Limbs flew aside and flak jackets shredded like paper to hew through ribcages and soft tissues. Demara managed to duck low on her run and jammed the blade of her lasgun into her attacker's open mouth. The Ork growled and gargled, trying to chomp down on her weapon despite the three or four inches of blade jammed into its upper palette. She cringed and pulled the trigger, releasing a few rapid flashes of laserfire into its face. The beam scorched and peeled green skin and sank into its beady eye, boiling it away in an instant. The Ork fell forward with its own momentum, taking her lasgun with it. The rifle hit the ground and the bayonette sank straight through the Ork's head and out the back of its skull.

 

Demara managed a quiet, wordless prayer of thanks to the Emperor and cursed her own rotten luck for losing her rifle. Another Ork, heedless of its own kin, rushed at Demara, swinging its axe wildly, its blade hacking chunks of stone masonry from the hardened trench around them.

 

"Ugly beast!" She snapped. She drew her laspistol and fired, unloading three close-range bursts into the Ork's chest that failed to do anything but scorch the sloppy paint job. The Ork brought its axe down in an arc, and a heartbeat later Demara was staring in shocked horror at her own right arm ending at the elbow. Crimson stained the dull green cloth of her uniform.

 

"Fiddly humies!" The Ork growled in a broken, primitive Low Gothic.

 

Demara dropped to her knees, her one good hand squeezing over her torn limb and shuddering at the alien sensation of its new, diminished form. Despite the shock, she felt no pain. Instead, she wondered how or why an Ork would ever want to learn or speak the Imperial tongue.

 

The weak light of Nexas' sun poked through the thick smoke of battle and made the blood on the Ork's axe glimmer, drawing Demara's blurring vision. She focused on it, watching it move slowly through the air as if it were trying to drag itself through clay.

 

A white blur reached out, almost lazily, and caught the axe at the shaft. The white was a hand clad in a heavy gauntlet. Demara found herself staring at a Space Marine, his blue-gray armor highlighted at the shoulders, hands, and aquilla with pure snow white that reminded her of a Cadian winter.

 

The Ork looked startled to have his violence halted. He roared at the Space Marine, who casually pushed a bolt pistol - a weapon that weighed more than her lasgun - and fired. The bolt sank into the Ork's skull and then exploded, sending a tiny cloud of gore out of the exit wound and its ears, and popped out an eyeball. It fell, lifeless, and the Space Marine turned to the rest of the Orks.

 

Demara could see more Space Marines now. Five in all, they stood nearly eight feet tall and were wrapped in head to foot with the Emperor's finest armor, polished to a parade-quality sheen. Instead of bayonettes they wielded chainswords, their jagged teeth roaring for xenos blood. Armor that would resist lasgun fire cracked and shattered as bolter rounds punched into their bodies and exploded from the inside out, shredding even the Ork's robust bodies.

 

Star Shields, Demara recalled. Emperor, they are your angels...

 

The Orks feell back with cries of alarm, their hope for a good clean slaughter ruined by the sudden arrival of the armored foes that, for the moment, too much for them to handle. Demara knew they'd seek out more of their own kind, regroup. Orks were always bravest when they were big or numerous.

 

A shadow fell over Demara and she looked up at another Star Shield, this one clad in shining black armor with a damascus-styled, skull-shaped helm, black but with swirling maze-like patterns of blue. He carries a scepter capped with a twin-headed eagle and turned his gaze over her and her men.

 

Demara tried to stand, "My lord-"

 

The Chaplain placed his enormous hand on her shoulder. He could easily crush any bone in her body but his grip was only as firm as a skilled surgeon. "You are wounded. Name and rank."

 

She blinked, confused, but was glad for her training when she answered; "Demara, Corporal. Four-Hundred and Fifth Cadian."

 

The Chaplain drew devices from his belt pouches, medical equipment that was a little beyond Demara's knowledge. "You are a long way from home, Corporal."

 

His voice, even through the vox speakers of his helmet reminded Demara of a servitor and it made her shiver. "I go where the Emperor wills, my lord."

 

"Wisely said." The Chaplain tore away the cloth covering her ruined right arm and strapped the bloody stump into what looked like a jar full of blue fluid. He strapped the jar tightly to her arm "Do not move your limb. Ensure the wound remains submerged. Your medics will see you fitted for a prosthetic."

 

Demara was amazed at how much better she suddenly felt. Some kind of painkiller in the liquid? It chilled her flesh like liquid ice. She frowned at he thought of her arm ending in a cold metallic hand. "My men."

 

"Two survived," The Chaplain stated. He stood to see to them, kneeling over red-haired Private Dunal who was speaking to his own missing left leg. Beyond him, Private Nash was holding his own innards in. Both looked pale but they were focused on the Space Marines, who had moved on over the ruined pillbox to the open fighting beyond.

 

"Corporal," Nash said, grimacing through every word, "Have you ever seen a more glorious sight? Space Marines! My grandfather told me about them!"

 

Demara managed to get to her feet. A quick look around and she spotted her right hand, still gripping her laspistol, but its firing lens had shattered from the impact. Scowling, Demara plucked up her hand, shook off the laspitol and, trying hard not to feel ghoulish she pulled the wedding band off her finger with her teeth.

 

"We're not done yet," Demara said, "We still have a war to win."

 

She plucked up one of the discarded lasguns and checked its charge and lens. "My lord, what is the battle plan?"

 

The Chaplain was applying some kind of foam to Private Nash's guts. "The forward lines are-"

 

An Ork roar - louder than any Demara had ever heard - boomed over the trench and a Space Marine came crashing down beside Private Dunal. The Marines' armor had been torn apart like a meat pie, and Demara could see flexing heavy muscle bleeding within the gaps.

 

"Down!" The Chaplain shouted. He dropped his medical equipment and strode forward, his fingers flexing over his scepter, which began to crackle with disruptive energy.

 

Heavy footfalls preceeded the Ork Boss who came up over the pillbox. Clad in heavy machinery he dwarfed any Ork Demara had seen that day. His left arm ended in a robotic claw made of hooked blades. A Space Marine helmet was held in the claw and the Ork grinned, taking a moment to crush the helmet into a jagged lump before tossing it at the Chaplain's feet.

 

"Zis all the fight you got?!" The Boss shouted, "I's just gettin' warmed up! WAAAGH!"

 

A dozen Orks... no, two dozen hurled themselves over the pillbox, their voices rising up to match their master's. "WAAAGH!"

 

The Chaplain did not falter. He planted his feet to shield both the fallen Space Marine and Private Dunal and began swinging his scepter left and right. Where the weapon struck Ork armor and flesh exploded. "The Emperor says, to hate the enemy, to give in to rage, is to honor the enemy. To accept them as a threat. Deny the foe, and you rob him of his greatest prize: purpose."

 

Demara realized the Chaplain was preaching, reading from some holy book she had never heard before. Whatever it was, the Chaplain refused to fall back as the Orks pressed in. Axes clattered against the Chaplain's armor, and bodies pressed in on him from almost every angle, but he did not move away from those lying wounded at his feet.

 

"For the Emperor!" Demara shouted. She wedged the lasgun's but under her armpit for balance and opened fire on the Orks, scattering shots over the crowd. There were plenty to hit, but she couldn't tell if any Orks were being felled. All she knew is that where the Chaplain swung, Orks died.

 

The Boss watched the fight from on high for a moment, then shook his head in an almost ape-like show of frustration, "Aw, y'lousy buncha gitz couldn't bleed a gretchin! Y'want something dun right, y'get da BOSS! WAAAGH!"

 

Bellowing, the Boss charged into battle, firing his twin-barreled machinegun. Demara dove for cover as bullets spattered across the stones. The smaller Orks were scattered or simply trampled under the Boss' heavy boots as he rose his mechanical claw to rip the life from the Chaplain.

 

The claw swung down and with a thunderous crack halted against the shaft of the Chaplain's scepter. Energy forked across both weapons as the two gods of war met in battle. The Ork Boss spat and cursed and snarled, drool spackled the expressionless skull-helm, but the Chaplain was more solid than the stone around him.

 

"Space Marine!" The Boss roared. He jammed his machinegun against the Chaplain's chest and opened fire. Bullet pounded the ceramite plate, punching dents the size of Demara's fist into the armor.

 

"I deny my enemy!" The Chaplain shouted, his voice carrying over the spang of bullets, "I deny-!"

 

A bullet caught the Chaplain's helmet and knocked his head aside. In the same moment the Ork tore the scepter away from him and kicked his exposed midsection, sending the Chaplain backward to hit the floor on his stomach, missing a terrified Private Dunal by a hair's breadth.

 

The Boss inspected the scepter in his claw. "Fiddly!" He grunted. He tossed it aside, striking an onlooking Ork with it, shattering his skull with the weapons' matter-disrupting blow. "No humie can stomp Facestompa!"

 

"Bigger Orks than you have said the same, Greenskin."

 

Demara used her lasgun as a crutch to pull herself up and see the newcomer. He was a Star Shield clad in a Chimera's worth of armor, all polished blue-gray plates and shining gold adornments. A weapon bigger than Demara could carry was mounted on his forearm and a great hammer marked with symbols of wolves and stars was held in his gauntleted fist. At his side strode two Space Marines carrying heavy bolters as if they weighed no more than a lasgun.

 

The Boss roared, "Humies! I'll stomp yer faces! WAAAGH!"

 

The towering Star Shield gestureed and the Marines with heavy bolters opened fire, gunning down orks all around the Boss. The Boss returned fire with his machinegun, flattening bullets against the Star Shield's armor. He rose his arm and fired a grenade from his forearm-mounted gun.

 

The bright blue shell shattered in mid-air and with an angry hiss ice-blue mist filled the air, swirling around a gang of Orks. The Orks inhaled the stuff and their eyes widened in horror. Their flesh began to frost over and crack, and as Demara watched their bodies froze almost solid. Heavy bolter rounds ripped thorugh their bodies, shattering them like they were nothing but statues of glass.

 

"WAAAGH!" The Boss snarled. He charged through the mist, trying to fire a machine gun that had become caked with ice. The mechanical claw swung like a massive bludgeon, and the giant Space Marine swatted at it with his hammer. The explosive force of a Leman Russ cannon struck the Boss, shattering the frozen claw into pieces. The Boss stumbled, fell on the Space Marine, and tried to jab the remains of his weapon into the exposed Star Shield's face.

 

With a grunt of effort, the genetically enhanced human, adorned in the strongest armor the Emperor could provide, squeezed his gauntleted fists over the Ork's ruined claw and crushed it. Blood and machine oils oozeed from between the Space Marine's fingers and the Boss let out a shout of surprise as his entire bulk was lifted off the ground and hurled through the air, crashing onto the piles of frozen flesh that had once been his Ork mob.

 

The Space Marine stomped around the Chaplain and fallen men, hefting his hammer over one armor-plated shoulder. "This ends now."

 

The Boss roared defiance as the hammer came up, then down.

 

Demara winced, but there was no thunderous boom, no earth-shattering rumble. The Ork was just... crushed. The hammer sank through metal-plated Ork skull and armored chest and didn't stop until it had shattered the stone beyond the Greenskin, leaving a neat crater where once had been the Ork's head and torso.

 

The Chaplain managed to push up to his knees. "My lord Shieldbane, I have dishonored myself. The Greenskin took my weapon."

 

The enormous Marine, Shieldbane, glanced at the fallen scepter, "First tend to our wounded, and then to the dead. Then rechristen your scepter appropriately."

 

"Aye, lord." The Chaplain said. He went about his work, retrieving medical instruments from his satchels.

 

Demara took a moment to breathe, sliding down to sit with her lasgun cradled on her lap. It took her a moment to realize Shieldbane was staring at her. Emperor's might, he was a giant. Even the other Space Marines had to look up at him.

 

"Do you need a hand, Corporal?" Shieldbane asked.

 

"N-no, my lord," Demara said, "I just... wait..." She caught the slightest hint of amusement on his face. Was he... making a joke? She didn't know what was more startling; losing her arm or having a Space Marine, an important Space Marine from the look of him, joke about it.

 

She swallowed, "I, will survive," She said, "The Emperor assured I was born with a spare. We owe you our lives."

 

The humor vanished from his face, "You owe only the Emperor. We are merely his instruments."

 

Demara bowed, "Yes, m'lord."

 

One of the Marines with a heavy bolter leaned to his side. "Lord, the Orks are regrouping. Alpha Sector. A Warboss is with them."

 

Sheildbane nodded, "I suspected as much. Summon Thunderhawks, I want 7th Assault forces in position to cut off any attempting to reach the Warboss. Tell Captain Drake he'll have the Warboss' choppa if I don't get to him first. Corporal Demara, this battle is not yet over."

[Angelwinged]

Written fine but two things. 1 she should be shot for telling her men to assault orks in hand to hand. 2, like many 40k fan fics, theres no real story, just all action. We are all guilty of it though.

[SnakeoilSage]

Well you can't really built a plot on 1000-ish words.

 

And I didn't describe the scene very well; they're fighting in a hard trench (basically a ditch dug into the earth and lined with stone walls), with maybe 20 feet of space between the Imperial Guard squad and the pillbox (an automated turret). It's one of those situations where the Orks are leaping into the trench and there's no way to form appropriate firing lines. It was actually a pretty common occurence in WWI when the enemy managed to reach your trench.

 

Now if she'd called for a charge with plenty of distance between them, yeah, she'd be shot for breaking the firing line.