C. Goto - Dawn of War

Anger and confusion curdled together in Brom’s head. The Blood Ravens had treated him like a lackey, and they had cast a slur on the honour of the Tartarans. He was a colonel of the Emperor’s Imperial Guard, and should be treated as such. And it wasn’t as if the Blood Ravens were beyond reproach themselves: mighty though they may be in battle, inside those giant suits of power amour there was the heart and soul of a man. They could make mistakes too, just like the Tartarans. And they had. He knew that they had.

Brom was hissing and muttering to himself as his anger seethed inside him. A voice called out from behind the barricade.

“Colonel Brom? Is everything alright, sir?” It was Ckrius, again, probably carrying another cup of recaff and grinning inanely.

“Fine, trooper,” said Brom dismissively, suddenly aware that he had been mumbling and spitting with quiet rage. “Fine.”

“You need any more recaff, colonel?” asked the trooper hopefully.

Brom laughed. He knew it. “No, thank you Trooper Ckrius. I’m fine.”

As Ckrius climbed back down the barricade to rejoin his friends, Brom shook his head again. Where had all that anger come from? He threw his lho-stick to the ground and stamped it out with his boot. The Space Marines were a blessing from the Emperor himself. They were the finest warriors in the Imperium, selected from the most able hopefuls from thousands of different worlds and then cultivated for decades. Their honour and judgement was beyond reproach. Who was he to question them? And Captain Angelos was right-the Tartarans had collapsed, some troopers had turned in fear. Without the Blood Ravens, the spaceport would have fallen. Perhaps Angelos had been right to assign them construction duty while the Blood Ravens hunted the orks.

In the shadowy depths of the forest, the Blood Ravens were deployed in an arc around the perimeter of a compound. The old buildings around the pumping station were decrepit and barely stable, but they still seemed to be in use. Certainly they would not provide any significant cover for the mob of orks that lumbered and snorted their way between them.

The makeshift ork camp was a jumble of debris and filth. The green-skins had pulled down a couple of the old buildings and were using the wooden frames for their fires. Some of them bore deep flesh wounds on their limbs, but they still jostled and pushed each other about, trying to find their place in the food chain around the roasting meat. They snorted and snarled, spitting phlegm onto the ground as saliva ran between their jagged teeth.

In the centre of the compound was the largest of the mob, one of the so-called “nobz.” Gabriel was watching it carefully as it smashed its fist into the smaller greenskins that fussed around it. They cowered under the blows but then set about their business with renewed vigour, as though the violence were itself a kind of language between the savage creatures. The nob was inspecting the pumping station with a small team of mekboyz, who prodded and poked at the end of a pipeline with their clumsy tools.

“Corallis. Where do those pipes go?” asked Gabriel in a barely audible whisper.

“They carry the water supply into Magna Bonum, captain,” answered the sergeant, realising at once how important this pumping station was to the people of Tartarus.

Gabriel nodded, clicking open a vox-channel to the rest of the squad. “Focus on the largest of the creatures first-if we break their strongest warriors, then the others will flee. We can mop up the stragglers later.”

After a brief pause, the forest erupted into a blaze of bolter fire as the Blood Ravens opened up from their positions around the perimeter of the compound. The fire flashed into the centre of the offensive arc, defining a lethal killing zone in which the orks were instantly cut down. The Blood Ravens loosed another hail of fire, and then Gabriel was on his feet and charging into the chaotic mess of the ork camp, his chainsword whirring with serrated death.

The surviving orks scattered around the compound, diving for their weapons and colliding with each other with horrendous thumps. In the disarray, Gabriel hacked into the nearest knot of fumbling greenskins, thrusting his spluttering blade through bone and flesh, while his bolt pistol coughed shells from his other hand. In the heart of the mob, he could see the nob screaming commands at its bodyguard, sending the surrounding orks into a frenzy. The giant beast itself had tugged on a gleaming power claw, which still dripped with blood, and had drawn a huge gun into its other hand.

Gabriel ducked a viciously curving cleaver, using his own momentum to cut down with his chainsword, taking the legs off the offending greenskin next to him. Firing a rattle of bolter shells into a couple of shoota boyz that were fumbling with their guns in front of him, the Blood Ravens captain strode forward towards the nob. This kill was going to be his.

On the other side of the camp, Isador was a blaze of blue energy. He brought his force staff sweeping round in great crescents, smashing its power into gaggles of orks that shrieked and sizzled under the tirade. From his left hand pulsed javelins of blue lightning, which chased after the fleeing greenskins and incinerated them as they tried to dive for cover.

All around the compound, the Blood Ravens were laying into the broken camp of orks, capitalising on the confusion of the greenskins as the creatures struggled to mount a defence. Sergeant Corallis had lost his boltgun and was wrestling one of the beasts with his hands, pitting his power armour against the bunched musculature and the barbed teeth of the ork. In one smooth movement, Corallis rolled backwards onto the ground, carrying the greenskin with him and flipping it over his shoulder. As he rolled back up onto his feet, he snatched up a fallen cleaver from the dirt and smashed it down into the skull of the stunned ork before it could regain its feet. The cleaver dug deeply into the thick skull and the ork’s eyes bulged in surprise before the handle snapped clean away and the creature fell onto its face in the mud.

Meanwhile, Gabriel was striding through the camp towards the ork leader, dispatching the smaller orks with almost casual abandon as they charged at him with axes and clubs. Nothing would draw him off course now. The ork boss could see him coming, and it was blasting out rounds from its crude gun, cackling into the air with insanity burning in its tiny red eyes. The shots bounced off Gabriel’s armour, denting it and scratching away the brilliant red paintwork. One or two of the slugs buried themselves in the joints between the armoured plates, punching into his flesh and sending shafts of pain darting through his limbs. But the Space Marine’s augmented nervous system quickly shut down the pain receptors and his enhanced blood clotted the wounds almost as soon as they were made.

He cleared the last few strides with a running leap, throwing himself through the air towards the huge ork with his chainsword spluttering greenskin blood in an ichorous arc. The creature met Gabriel’s attack with a swipe from its power claw, dragging a clutch of deep gashes across the captain’s chest plate and throwing him aside, his bolt pistol falling into the dirt.

Gabriel hit the ground in a roll, flipping back up onto his feet and spinning his chainsword with a flourish. In an instant he was upon the ork again, his blade flashing and coughing in a relentless tirade of hacks and swipes. But the greenskin was just as fast, parrying the Blood Raven’s weapon with flicks of his power claw and countering with a series of vicious kicks and scratches.

In the depths of his mind, Gabriel could hear the silver choir flooding his soul with light once again, and he pressed his attack with righteous desperation, throwing all of his strength into each strike. The ork seemed to be lapsing into slow-motion, and Gabriel blocked its attacks with increasing ease.