This story is an unofficial story based, without permission, on the Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 intellectual property owned by Games Workshop Ltd.
"Driving down the highway, and I've got no lights
Dreaming about my future, but it's fading away in the night
What do you want out of life, when you don't play by the rules
I've got no expectations and I fully expect to lose.
'Cause I was born to ramble, yea, I was made to roll
Livin' my stinkin' life to yesterday's
Rock and Roll."
Even as the earth rumbled with the blasts of orbital strikes, it was a rarely peaceful night in the under-Hive of New Gurgenstein. Penal legionnaires had arrived a short time ago to herd the citizenry into bomb shelters, and not even the gangers were wandering the streets. There was nothing around, save for the New Gurgenstein Armored Corps and Penal Legionnaire troopers on patrol. It was quiet down here. The rumbling from the main hive far above was dim, distant, and only intermittent. The steps of black combat boots could be heard distinctly on the cement as soldiers went on patrol. There was no indicator of the chaos that beset the main hive far above.
That's when the iron door that covered the garage of Precinct 27 came busting down with a screaming roar, and an armored troop carrier truck came squealing out, making a sharp right down, nearly slamming into the stores on the other side of the streets. Rubber burning, engine squealing, the truck peeled off down the road at ungodly speeds.
Instinctively, the surrounding penal troopers raised their lasguns and sprayed.
Inside the truck, Michael Callus whirled the wheel in his hand, sending the truck careening around, trying to avoid hitting the men who were just doing their job.
"THIS MIGHT GET A LITTLE ROUGH!"
"GET ROUGH?" yelled back Daniella, sitting in the passenger's seat.
In the back, Brenner, Jackson and Ox were sitting, or at least were making a sporting attempt at sitting, as the truck careened and pitched itself along the road, swerving around corners and knocking over street lamps and signs. Chaos enveloped the truck, troops firing at it from all around, las bolts bouncing off of it's thick steel armor.
"OX, IT WOULD BE NICE IF WE COULD SHOOT BACK!"
"YEA, YEA, I'M ON IT MIKEY!"
The hatch atop the truck popped as Ox came out, wielding the heavy bolter that was attached to the underside of the roof. Turning to face the troops firing on the truck, he fired a few rounds in the air, not looking to kill anybody, but trying to scare them off. Deliberately aiming high, he starting pouring rounds into walls and windows, but not men.
The ploy worked, troopers diving to and fro to avoid the fire, as the truck screeched off and away.
***
Far above, in the main hive, all was chaos. Massive balls of bright green energy had long since decimated the wall, and a random mix of Kazarkanians, Penal Legionnaires, and civilian volunteers were running around in what so far appeared to be a vain attempt to hold off the Ork assault. The Governor's guard had still not deigned to show up, but the hive's Commissariat was out in full force, screaming orders to the men and pouring rounds into the enemy. The streets were filled with the running, mixing blood of Orks and men. The only anchor upon which the Imperial forces could lock themselves were the navy blue tanks of the New Gurgenstein Armored Corps. At their head, poking out of the top of a Leman Russ battle tank, was General James Miller, commander of the city's armored forces, viewing the lines with his long range binoculars and speaking to the other commanders over the vox. General Friedman was in his command Chimera and headed to take control of the Penal Legion at the front, while Lord-General Montego and Admiral Chadwick had gone to find a place to re-locate central command to. Montego was sending Colonel Hawk, commander of his first regiment and overall second in command of the division, to the front in Friedman's Chimera.
The battle was complete bedlam, and presently the Orks were having a grand old time, doing what they did best, and tearing through Guard ranks in close combat. However, the new arrival of the tanks and Commissars to the line of battle was starting to change that, pushing back the greenskins and providing a range of firepower that was long enough for the infantry to draw up battle lines. Finally, Imperial forces were beginning to counter the Ork assault with a sustained field of fire. Unfortunately, at present there seemed to be nothing that could be done about the constant rain of death that was coming from orbit. Missiles were firing up from the city, and while they would enter orbit and certainly do some heavy damage to the orbital ork presence, they could not do nearly enough to offset a group of vessels that large.
Miller grimaced and barked out orders for his gunner to unload a battle cannon shell into a mob of Ork "boyz" charging up a hill. The blast massacred them in a satisfying cloud of ichor and gore.
Missiles and high caliber rounds began to pierce the Ork lines in rapid succession. The Civil Air Patrol had finally decided to pay them the courtesy of showing up, Miller noted with a mix of relief and displeasure at how long it had taken Jaina's pilots to deploy themselves into the field. Now, if maybe they could just get that bastard Colonel Flaviun to send his oh so precious Storm Troopers into the breach, they could really start pushing back this green menace.
A massive blast sent Miller's tank careening into a wall and he was sent flying from his post. The last thing he felt before everything went black was his skull slamming into a brick wall.
***
"We may...have a slight problem..."
"You think?" replied Daniella.
"It's a distinct possibility," Callus shot back.
Their armored vehicle was currently sitting still. The Penal Legionnaires had, for the moment at least, given up their pursuit. From the sounds coming from above, Callus assumed they would soon be recalled to repel the attackers. Spread out in front of their truck, for what seemed like at least a half of mile, standing perfectly still, perfectly silently, were a mass of very hungry, very unfriendly looking plague zombies.
"Hey, Ox?"
"Yea, Mikey?"
Callus began to rev the engine, sending the tires spinning in place and smoke rising.
"Right about now is good."
The heavy bolter pintle-mounted above opened fire, tearing through the soft flesh of the zombies in great bloody gobs, and Callus slammed his foot on the accelerator sending the armored truck careening through them at full speed.
The creatures were screeching and screaming now, clawing at the sides of the truck, their teeth gnashing into steel they had no chance of breaking through, leaping at the hood only to be slammed by a truck going nearly a hundred miles an hour and getting thrown away. Or simply getting torn under the tires and shredded. Ox was holding the heavy bolter down on full auto, clearing a bloody swathe through the screeching, hungry beasts as Callus attempted to get the car through their ranks and towards the ramp that would lead them into the main Hive, and back towards Imperial lines.
***
The ground shook as the door on the back of the chimera dropped open and Colonel Arthur Hawk strode out, drawing his chainsword and bolt pistol as he did. An Ork running past him never got very far, Hawk's sword ripping down into his back and coming out his lower abdomen. Spurting blood, the greenskin fell to the ground with a death scream as Hawk strode over him, stepping on the back of its neck and being rewarded with a satisfying crunch of bone snapping. He could see that Imperial forces were showing considerable improvement from the total rout he had seen over the cameras before leaving for the line. Raising his sword and pumping a few rounds into a nearby greenskin, Hawk called out;
"Kazarkanians! Penal legionnaires! Civic volunteers! Guardsmen, to me!"
A cheer went up among the Kazarkanians as they saw one of their greatest leaders, the beloved Colonel Hawk, was among them, slaying the orks alongside them.
***
Ox fired off a shotgun blast before sealing the hatch and leaping down inside the car. The truck was covered in the living dead now, zombies leaping alongside it, the vast majority of them being killed but a few managing to grab onto the sides as the car careened two and fro. Callus was deliberately smashing it onto walls in order to knock off plague zombies. Ox had continued to fire for a long time, but once the creatures began to crawl on the roof, he was forced back down into the truck. The car was covered in streams of dull red blood and bits of gray, rotten flesh, and the stink of burnt rubber and heavy bolter discharges filled the air. Callus pulled the wheel hard, just barely making a left and knocking over a bench, smashing into a store front window, and sending undead bodies flying.
***
Colonel Hawk grimaced, the bolt pistol kicking hard in his hand, rounds flying towards the xenos enemy. His arm was tired, struggling to drag his chainsword through the tight, massive musculature of Ork bodies. The green tide seemed constant, the beasts roaring, their piggish, green eyes glaring with an bestial intensity. The orks were nothing like the silly and stupid fools often presented by Imperial propaganda. No, they were hulking, horrifying beasts that stank of death and blood. Their teeth with razor sharp and threatening, their arms as big as a man's torso, and their eyes...oh, Emperor, their eyes. They were like something out of a horror vid, full of lust for killing and a complete lack of compassion for life. They were everything that mankind was not. Man was civilized, they were barbaric. Man was intelligent, they were dumb animals. Man sought peace, they sought constant war and death. Man had religion, and the Emperor, the Orks worshipped crude totems of their imagined God.
Hawk took a small bit of pleasure the next time a bolter round from his gun blew an ork skull into tiny, fleshy, chunks.
Hive World Terra