The last battle

[Welf1984]

My first try at a WH40K fanfiction. It's a bit unpolished, but if I don't post it now I will never post it.

 

 

The light of dawn fell on the fields near the capital city of the world of Caedus III. A mere cycle ago men and women would have left their houses and farmsteads to begin their day's work. Streets would sound with the chatter and noise of daily work and leisure, roads would fill with trucks and tractors for the factories and fields of this fertile region. No more. No one was left to. The men and women, the young and the elderly, all gone. No mortals would ever warm their faces in the beams of this world's sun, would ever listen to its birds sing or drink from its streams.

 

Twenty millennia of settlement had come to an end when a space hulk emerged from the warp, vomiting out Waaagh Dedkilla on the unsuspecting world. The hordes of orks took city after city until only the capital stood. Billions had perished and the few survivors prayed every day and every hour to the Emperor, sacrificing the few livestock and children they had left for his favour.

 

And when all seemed lost, his Angels of Death came from the sky. They swore holy oaths to destroy the enemies of the Emperor. Hope returned and people danced on the streets. But soon they learned the Space Marines did not swear to protect the land or its people.

 

Now the cities were broken husks, the towns and villages razed to the ground, the fields radiated, the rivers poisoned, the forests burned, the mines stripped. Caedus was a dead world, with only cockroaches left to pick the bones.

 

And still they fought. Not much was left of the Waargh. But warlord Dedkilla did not care for how many orks and gretchin he lost, only how many battles he fought and how many he would still fight when his armies replenished.

 

And not much was left of the Astartes. They would mourn their fallen brothers. But after the battle. And they would honour them with righteous slaughter across the stars.

 

One last time the armies met. They knew this. They celebrated this.

 

The space marine's commander, Captain-Sherif Aban of Kufah IV, had the ability to remember every human's face and name that he had met this campaign. But he never would do. But he thought every day of mekboy Wenchcrunch and how he killed him on the plains of Blue Rose, annihilaing most of the waagh's heavy vehicles. He thought of weirdboy Shokkrulz and how his sorcery ravaged his men, until The High Learned Mumin Guyushi stopped him at the price of his life. His hearts beat faster when he thought of the aerial fights with warboss Sharpaxe until both their fleets were spent. But not until he had crushed the ork's newly built flying fortress into the mountain tops of the northern continent, and the warboss with it.

 

Sometimes the humans of this world showed up in the memories of warlord Dedkilla. He vaguely remembered the adeptus who gave him access to the star charts that helped him plan his next moves before he fed him to his squigs; the location of two worlds with feral orks to replenish his numbers and an industrial world to rebuild his fleet. He could recollect the absolute horror in the drivers face of when he ripped apart the leading tank of this world's first organized attempt to stop his forces. One of very few. He remembered the little people he hunted in the southern jungles when they cleared that continent of survivors. The last days of relaxation before the Astartes appeared and gave him real excitement. He cherished the memories of the day they breached his fortress and he had to cross his axe with five heavily armoured marines and their leader in black. He could have died that day. But he was Dedkilla, and no one could defeat him.

 

Both forces assembled across the remains of a promethium refinery. The flames had almost died down, but a few were still nurtured by some unknown reservoir. There was no strategic or tactical acumen to this, but almost by agreement both sides wanted this last battle to be as brutal and direct as possible. No more hide and seek, no more hit an run, no more subterfuge. Clad in their brightest and proudest colours they lined up across each other. The warlord's buggy decorated with the remains of mortal men, ageless astartes and cocky warbosses. The commander's razorback presenting the skulls of ork warbosses, cowards and abhumans.

 

The warlord smiled silently for a moment. He would crush the last opposition and move on to war the galaxy forever. And if not, he was the only one left that could control the energy generator in their fortress. In a few hours this continent would be nothing but molten rock. Then Dedkilla's face grimaced and he roared so loud a nearby wall fell over. The orks attacked.

 

The commander prayed. They would reap victory for their chapter and honour their fallen. And to cover all possibilities he transmitted a set of commands to their now empty ship in orbit to fire their last cyclonic torpedoes on the continent. Then Aban activated the vox and ordered the attack.

[Brother Lunkhead]

Great first draft..... I think you should develop this further

[Brother-Sergeant Valorum]

I like it! Keep it coming-I’ll be interested to see more.

[Welf1984]

Great first draft..... I think you should develop this further

 

Thanks! Do you have any suggestions what I can do better, or where I can get feedback? I'd like to improve my writing.

 

I like it! Keep it coming-I’ll be interested to see more.

 

I'm glad you liked it! I already have an idea for a story within this campaign. I need to change the chapter this is about, the story fits rather an Dark Angel successor. In hindsight, that other chapter around Captain-Sherif and the various titles feels a bit shoehorned in.