985.M41: The Emperor's boot
Psychic training area
*ZZAP!*
A bolt of lightning struck forwards, just missing the target by a few centimeters. On the other end, Jarod groaned as the backlash electrocuted his hand.
Alaric sighed, "You must envision what you want to happen, every detail, and only then do you draw upon the warp." he instructed.
Jarod nodded, shaking his head as he tried again. Instead of the lightning this time, he imagined a fireball, a glowing, white-hot fireball. Then he started to draw energy from the warp, the fireball slowly shaping in his hand. When it reached full size, he chucked it forward, coming short of the target by half a meter, but the ensuing explosion destroyed it nonetheless.
Jarod thrust his arms up in victory, "Yes! Classic D&D fireball!"
Alaric sat there, almost stunned at what he witnessed. Jarod had been trying to summon lightning for the better part of an hour, but when he tried using fire, he had far more success. It was mildly surprising that he was unable to use one of the more basic psychic abilities. In the background, Calivar laughed alongside several cheering guardsmen of the braver variety.
Alaric looked into the warp once again and pondered the strength of his new liege. His psychic ability was strong enough that he should have no problem summoning even the more complex abilities. What confused him most, however, was just how bright Jarod's soul was within the warp.
Most humans were simply just blips in the warp, a candle in a dark room. Most psykers were more akin to a bright lantern. Jarod, by contrast, was like a constant orb of painfully bright light, almost akin to the Astronomican. He shook his head, returning his mind to the materium.
Michael sat on the sidelines, seemingly deep in thought. He had been the only one of the humans on the ship besides the Rogue Trader and Jarod to be unafraid of the traitor marine and himself. The Trader had explained his motives in that he fully expected Jarod to take full responsibility, and that he had dealt with Chaos worshipers before.
Michael, on the other hand, seemed almost uninterested in the marines. Not that he didn't turn and look when either of them came down the hall, but he didn't stare as long as the others did.
It was curious, but it wasn't something that Alaric felt worth questioning. What surprised him was when Michael approached him after one of Jarod's training sessions with him.
"Captain Michael, what do you need?" Alaric asked.
"I have a question: You said you are part of the Astral Winds space marine chapter, and I have to ask… are they, loyalists or traitors?" He asked in a careful tone.
Alaric nodded, "It is little wonder you would ask. For your information they are loyalists. I like to think of myself of a loyalist as well, and I was… surprised how easily you accepted Calivar after he attacked your men." He explained.
"Well, as far as Calivar goes he's… way too calm to be an actual Chaos Marine. I don't know where you found him and his buddy, but I'd guess he more or so followed him around rather than falling to Chaos completely. All things considered, he might actually be able to rejoin the Imperium." He explained, "And as far as you go, your armor fits the deathwatch motif, which makes me think you never actually turned traitor."
Alaric laughed, his voice sounding almost like a truck engine through his helmet grill, "You seem to be more aware than your companions. I suppose I should expect that from one of Trader Jarod's closer companions." He admitted.
Michael huffed, "Yeah well, I would probably be killed by the Inquisition if they were aware of just how much I knew." He said rolling his eyes.
Alaric's head swiveled towards Michael's direction. He had just openly claimed that the Inquisition would probably be gunning for his head if they knew he existed. He was either very smart or very stupid.
"What do you mean by that?" Alaric asked warily.
"You mean besides my extensive knowledge of Chaos, Hrud, Orks, Squats,-" He continued to name off dozens of things that were supposed to be secret information. Several things that Alaric didn't even know existed. A few things he knew for a fact would have gotten him killed by anyone of significant power in the Imperium, and enough heresy in word form to make a greater daemon blush.
Alaric was sufficiently confused, confuzzled, and immediately worried. He had no idea just how outclassed the Imperium was. He knew it was a sinking ship, which was why he was even working with the people around him at all, but with what Michael described it was almost enough to make Alaric pray to the Emperor. Actually, it was enough.
"-And I'm not even going to go into Human-Eldar interbreeding. That's a debated enough subject as it is." he finished, confusing the space marine even further.
"I…" Alaric found himself speechless, much to his own surprise. He was more curious how Michael came upon all of the information and wondered how much of it came from his sealed psyker abilities, "How do you know so much?"
Michael sighed, "That my friend, is something that unless I have the all clear from the Emperor himself, I cannot tell you." He explained, "Then again you might find out sooner but I don't know. Depends if we can get the text-to-speech device anywhere near Terra."
Once again, Alaric was very lost.
[-----]
"I have an idea!" Jarod exclaimed as he walked into Roberts office. The man raised an eyebrow, curious as to what his new heir's idea was.
"And what would your idea be? You've already managed to get two space marines onto the ship -- which is no small feat mind you -- and you have also discovered your own latent psyker abilities. What more do you wish to do?" He asked with a grin.
Jarod smiled, "My partner, you know him, Michael has been criticizing our lack of shock troops among the regiments. He and I have therefore produced plans for a team of shock troopers, and would like you to look them over." He explained.
Robert's grin only widened. This was exactly the reason he had selected Jarod to be his heir.
The two of them went over the schematics, working out the kinks and planning out the first mission. That was when they got the distress signal.
[-----]
985.M41: planet Carkas
Eldar firebase
Elirom blasted another Ork with a bolt of psychic lightning, tiny giblets falling to the ground. All around him, Aspect warriors slashed, sliced, shot, and blew up the horde of oncoming Orks. He had received a vision, one that told him that this specific planet was incredibly important. Just how important it was he wasn't sure.
Regardless, he had managed to get enough crew and warriors to accomplish his mission.
"Get that distress beacon up and running!" he heard the Howling Banshee Exarch order. Turning to look he saw her decapitating another Ork and kicking its head into the oncoming mass.
He chuckled slightly, before returning to his own combat.
The Orks continued to come, dying in droves to the superior Aeldari, but the Orks had their enemies outnumbered. For every Ork that fell, another dozen took its place. Days they kept this up, cycling out the worn and tired warriors for rested and refreshed ones.
It seemed to be working. Until the Orks managed to break their ranks one night and the reserves had to come out and assist. Now everyone was tired and barely alive. Their main form of transportation had been destroyed a good long while ago, and now they were waiting for some miracle.
The longer the battle went on, the more that Elirom began to recognize parts of it. An Ork being killed by a shuriken pistol, a Trukk being blown up by a grav-tank, and the two Ork ships flying above them. His eyes widened when he realized what was happening.
"Aeldari! Do not lose hope!" He said as he blew an Orks head off, "Reinforcements will arrive soon!"
The Eldar around him cheered, and he prayed to Isha that not too many of them would be killed.
Looking upwards, he spotted a few human-made dropships above the Ork ships. He was confused at first, wondering why they were so high. Until he saw the little dots that dropped out of the backs of the transports.
It was obvious to anyone that understood shock and awe tactics. Those dots were shock troops, and they were dropping feet first into hell.
[-----]
Michael felt the wind against his face and the whistle of gunfire around him. He was a bit sad when they had gotten the distress call before they could incorporate drop pods, but their secondary idea felt like a good option as well.
Parachutes. And by extension, Paratroopers.
The backpack he wore carried three different chutes that could be disconnected after they were deployed, allowing the pack multiple uses. He personally had no idea where Jarod had found the parts to make the contraptions, but he wasn't one to complain.
Himself and thirty other guardsmen had been equipped with the parachutes and were now dropping into hostile territory. Jarod and Captain Robert were well aware that the ones we were rescuing were Eldar, but Jarod in particular though having them on our side in the future would be helpful.
The plan was simple.
Step one: Michael and his team would disable the Ork ships before heading down to the ground to support the Eldar.
Step two: Jarod and the space marines would head down to wherever the warboss was and kill him.
Step three: Negotiate peacefully with the Eldar once the battle was over.
Michael himself hoped that the Eldar didn't take their assistance as a sign of hostility.
"Get ready boys, First Ork barge coming up in 700 meters. Prepare to deploy chutes at 100 meters." Michael ordered over his vox bead.
All of his men gave a sign of acknowledgment. Looking towards the first Ork barge, he spotted a wide-open docking bay. A few Fighta's flew out of it, diving down to assault the Eldar down below. He decided that the docking bay would be the boarding point and relayed the information. As soon as they reached 100 meters above the docking bay, everyone deployed the first chute.
The modern design of the chutes allowed for a great deal of directional control and meant that all of the troops managed to land inside the bay. Lasfire erupted from the guardsmen even before they landed. Orks roared in challenge, charging forward against the landing men.
Michael decoupled his parachute, which flew forward and managed to wrap itself around an Ork, blinding it. Michael took advantage of this and shot a short burst of lasbolts into the Orks chest, killing it. Around him, the guardsmen did the same, firing into the oncoming Orks and working to push forward.
One guardsman, unfortunately, found himself to close to an Ork, which grabbed him and tore him in half. The rest of the Guardsmen responded by laying fire into the larger than average Ork, killing it quickly.
When the Orks stopped coming, Michael called for a head count, "How many did we lose?" He asked.
A sergeant walked up to him, "Corporals Cliff, Samson, and Rike were killed as soon as they landed. An Ork heavy gun managed to hit them before we could take it out. Lieutenant Dannir got too close to one of the bigger ones." he explained.
Michael nodded solemnly, "Collect their tags and let's keep moving, we need to find the engine and blow it to hell." he ordered.
Michael was used to death at this point, after the four months, he had been in the Imperial guard since he had gotten to the forty-first millennium. It was kind of hard not to get used to casualties, and as much as he hated losing men, he knew it was often unavoidable. He just had to keep reminding himself that it wasn't his fault.
The kept moving through the ship's corridors, blasting through the Orks that got in their way. Eventually, they reached a room towards the back of the ship that held the things engine.
"Alright, arm the det-packs and let's get moving! We still have one more to take out." He ordered.
The men followed his instructions, setting up the explosives around the engine and linking them to a single detonator, which they gave to Michael. When he examined them, he noted with a smile that there were enough explosives there to blow a space marine to pieces.
"Alright let's go! One more ship to go!" He ordered as him and the rest of the group began moving back to the docking bay. Once everyone reached it, they began jumping out, with Michael being the last one out.
Once he cleared the barge, he pressed the trigger on the detonator and turned to watch the back half of the ship go up in flames. Smiling to himself, he looked for a decent spot to land on the second ship. He frowned when there were no convenient open docking bays, but decided they would improvise.
"Alright, we don't have any openings like the last one. Instead, land on the roof," he ordered.
"Sir! How are we supposed to get into it?" One of the guardsmen asked.
"We'll handle that once were on the ship, don't worry."
The group soon landed on the roof of the second Ork barge, ready to do whatever Michael ordered them to. Michael ordered a few det-packs to be put on the hull towards the back of the ship in roughly the same area where the engine was on the last ship.
When the explosives went off, the hole that was left opened up into what actually looked like the ship's bridge. The only reason that anyone was able to figure this was the odd-looking Ork sitting in a captains chair, yelling at several gretchins hitting random buttons on a bunch of machines.
Michael and his squad lined up above the bridge and opened fire, raining lasbolts into the dozens of Orks. One of the Orks managed to let off a round from its shoota, which clipped Michael's shoulder pad, knocking him back a step and tearing the piece of armor off.
In response, he targeted the Ork that shot him and blew it's head off.
In less than a minute, they had emptied the bridge of all greenskins. "Alright, I'm gonna climb down, Harper, Jacques, with me. The rest of you make sure the Ork's don't find their way up here." Michael ordered before he and his men lowered themselves into the Ork ship.
Michael scanned the ship's controls, all of it being nonsensical and seemingly random. There were a few buttons or levers that it was obvious what they did, but those were far and few between. The floor was covered in burnt green-skin corpses, along with enough blood to paint the floor of the bridge.
Moving to the captain's chair, that being the big chair in the center of the room with the biggest Ork sitting in it, he looked at the control panel sticking out of the armrest. There was a big red button, which likely did one of two things, neither of which would be good for the Orks.
Before he could test his theory, the door to the bridge opened, and an Ork wearing long yellow robes stood in the doorway. No one moved for a split-second before the Ork cried out a 'WAAAAAGH!' and charged into the room, the lasfire from Michael and his men following a split-second later.
The Ork collapsed to the ground, with small round objects falling out of its robes as it did so. Michael barely managed to call out a warning, before the explosives went off and knocked the three humans to the ground. Shrapnel lodged itself inside the walls and floor, as well as the armor of the three men.
Fortunately, their armor protected them. For the most part. Michael cried out in pain as a piece of shrapnel lodged itself inside his unarmored shoulder, small enough that it wasn't fatal, but still, big enough to cause significant damage.
Michael fell to the ground, clutching his bleeding wound with the shrapnel still lodged inside. As soon as they were able to recover from the blast, the two unharmed guardsmen rushed to their commander's side.
"FRAK THAT HURTS!" Michael cursed, having picked up on the local slang long ago.
One of the guardsmen, Jacques, tried to take the visible piece of shrapnel out of Michael's shoulder before he held up a hand, stopping him, "Leave it in! I'll only bleed out if you take the stupid thing out of me!" he ordered. Jacques nodded hesitantly before he reached into his pack and pulled out a field medkit, wrapping Michael's shoulder in gauze and trying to stop the bleeding.
The bleeding slowed quickly, enough so that Michael felt the need to move forward. Tears in his eyes, he ordered his men to get out of the bridge. They followed his orders, climbing out the hole in the roof. Michael grunted in pain as he shouldered his lasgun, moving towards the captain's chair again. This time, he spared no thought of hitting the red button and rushing to leave the ship.
The ship shook violently, its engines running full blast towards a mountain. When Michael reached the edge of the hole, he and his men ran to the edge of the ship, jumping off of it and activating their final chutes to land on the ground to assist the Eldar. Though no one actually witnessed it, the Ork ship kept moving forward, before slamming into the mountain at full throttle, collapsing its structure and killing thousands of the Orks inside.
When Michael observed the slaughter below him, he tried to rationalize his thoughts, despite the pain in his shoulder, only worsened by the parachute. The Eldar were struggling against the Orks, many of them falling to the greenskins Choppa's and shoota's.
"Alright everyone, our orders are to kill the Orks, NOT to kill the Eldar. I might suggest we focus on the mutual enemy, and hash out the backstabbing later." Michael ordered over the vox. He got several complaints and grumbles, mostly about not trusting the pointy-eared pricks, but he ignored them for the most part.
The space elves would be able to help revive Guilliman, not to mention being the only quasi-allies the Imperium had, for all that was worth.
Readying his weapon while still in the air, he and his team did an improvised strafing run on the Orks, raining down lasfire as they flew by. Some gunfire managed to damage one of the guardsmen's parachutes, causing him to fall to his death amongst the Orks. Another guardsman misjudged his altitude, and an Ork lept into the air and grabbed onto him, dragging him down as he was torn apart by the Orks.
Michael cursed under his breath, adjusting his parachutes angle so that he would land amongst the Eldar lines, the rest of his team following his lead. He managed to land somewhat gracefully, disconnecting his chute and rushing to assist the Eldar that stood on the front lines.
He and his men soon found themselves standing side-by-side with the Eldar, killing the greenskins in droves. While Michael was sure the Xenos would never admit it, they probably would have been completely wiped out had it not been for him and his team. Slowly, they managed to push the Orks back, killing some of the bigger ones and breaking their morale.
Soon, the Orks were in full-blown retreat, many guardsmen and Aspect Warriors continuing to kill as many as they could. Michael smiled at the taste of victory before he frowned at the feeling of a blade against his throat.
[-----]
Calivar was not what someone would consider sane. However, he actually seemed a good bit better than Jarod when it came to what they were doing now.
Calivar was a worshipper of Khorne… or was at least, his loyalties nowaday's seemed skewed at best if the iconography of both the Emperor and Khorn present on his armor were anything to go by. He was still an Astartes however, he should have been the one to charge headfirst into a fight with an Ork warboss, not the newly discovered psyker who had a primitive understanding of his powers at best!
Alaric groaned as he raced after the Rogue Trader heir, Calivar following close behind.
Alaric cut down greenskin after greenskin, his power sword humming with electrical energy. Calivar was much the same, his bolter barking as he cut down the numerous Orks charging towards them.
Jarod meanwhile focused on using his powers to blast away his enemies with dozens of fireballs. The orbs of fire flew through the air, exploding on impact and turning their targets into bits of charred meat. Jarod laughed as he continued to move forward. He felt invincible, none of the Orks got close to him, and those that tried were blown apart.
The feeling was a dangerous one though, and one that Jarod was all too aware of. He cautioned himself, never taking any unnecessary risks, and using liberal amounts of psychically conjured fire. Ahead of him, he saw the Warboss ordering around the Nobz, sending them towards him and the space marines.
It was a futile effort, as Jarod an the Warboss soon found themselves face to face. The dreadnaught sized Ork roared in challenge, and Jarod flung a fireball into its gaping mouth. The Warboss coughed as the explosive went off in his mouth. He grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be a particularly large squig, and threw it towards Jarod.
Jarod ducked out of the way, and the squig found itself slamming into Calivar, sending the two flying backward. Alaric took the opportunity to charge forwards, driving his sword into the Orks side. Unfortunately for Alaric, the Ork wasn't much more than annoyed at the big metal Humie that tried to shank 'im.
Jarod meanwhile was charging up a rather large fireball, the biggest one he'd ever made. The ones from before had been about the size of a basketball. This one was about the size of a small car, as Jarod hefted it above his head.
As Alaric was knocked away by the Warboss, he looked up from the rubble he had landed in to see Jarod chuck the massive warp-generated piece of destruction forwards. It truly was a sight that any manly man would shed a tear at.
The orb of fire impacted the Ork's center of mass, knocking it back before the orb exploded in a flash of orange fire, blowing the front half of the Ork out of existence and sending the rest to become fertilizer for whoever wanted to grow a garden nearby. Any nearby Orks were treated with the same hospitality, being turned into mulch as well.
It was a miracle that Jarod was just out of the blasts lethal area, only having the air knocked out of his lungs as he fell flat on his back. Alaric might not have had the distance advantage that Jarod did, but the piece of rock and/or Ork bits that stood between him and the Warboss was enough to save him from the explosion.
When the mist settled, Alaric saw the remaining Orks fleeing from the blast area, many of them shouting about, "The weird Humie' wit da big bomb tingy!"
Jarod had gotten up from his position on the ground, and seemed content to chuck fireballs at the retreating Orks before he appeared to get bored and decided to walk towards the fallen marine.
"So… that was a thing. And where's Calivar?"
Alaric sighed.