Another year had passed and another planet had been freed from the clutches of Nurgel. She was just about to write her report to Grand Inquisitor Miller about her action on Tau Ceti Beta III, when she felt the presence of her god and master behind her.
As fast as she could, Beryl stood up from her LazyBoy, turned toward the source of the feeling, and fell to her knees before the ghostly image of a magnificent snake. “My Lord Tzeentch, I have just finished doing your bidding on the world below and was about to set forth to the forge world Tau Ceti Alpha IV. How may I be of service?“
The snake looked at her for a moment before he answered, “I am well aware of your deeds in the Tau Ceti sector. Unfortunately, you will not be able to go to Tau Ceti Alpha IV for some time yet. You are to go to a world called Darwinius by the Empire of Man. A daemon of mine felt something frightening aboard a vessel heading there. I need you to investigate this occurrence as quickly as possible and either bring whatever the daemon felt under my control or destroy it.”
“Master, may I ask, where is this planet you speak of located?”
“It is located in the Beagle sector on the eastern fringe of the empire.”
“Master I would take me at least several months of travel through the warp to reach this planet. By the time I have arrived, whatever frightened the daemon might have left the planet.”
“That might be a problem because speed might be of the essence in this mission. You will be granted the knowledge to reach Darwinius from here in something less than three weeks. Don’t fail me Beryl.” With these last words the image vanished and Beryl fell to the floor with a severe headache that brought her the knowledge of a warp gate not far from her current location that would bring her to a system in the wild space 5 light-years from Darwinius. She called her follower Jadeite over the intercom and ordered him to set course for the warp gate.
As she sat back down on her LazyBoy, she mused about the fact that Jadeite looked much the same as he did all those years ago on Terra. Metallia had been an old but minor warp entity. After Beryl’s defeat at the Terran North Pole, Beryl and Metallia had merged into one being and drifted aimlessly through the warp.
A little more than seventy years ago Tzeentch had approached her and had offered her the chance to be reincarnated into a human body once more. She had gladly accepted.
After that, she knew no more, until she awoke twenty years later in the body and with the memories of a promising young inquisitor. Since this day she had worked for her master’s cause, which mainly consisted of destroying the followers of Nurgel and placing followers of Tzeentch in positions of power.
During that time she somehow found the reincarnations of her old generals. With a little bit of help from Tzeentch, she had reawoken all of their old lives’ memories and took them back into her service.
First lieutenant Ami Mizuno layed on her bunk bed and sighed. Life sucked.
The 5th had been the veteran unit on Argos, repelling Ork raiders on Argos usually with ridiculous ease. The planetary governor of Murphy’s world heard about their exploits and requested them to deal with the growing numbers of Ork raids on his world. They did as well as they did on Argos until one day a fucking space hulk entered the system.
It was just a small one, but those cowards from the Imperial Navy left the system after a short fight to regroup somewhere else and left the ground forces of Murphy’s world to deal with the problem on their own. Therefore, Murphy’s world had been invaded after a short but heavy bombardment.
At the beginning of the invasion, the numbers were ten to one against the imperial forces. Six months later the odds were the same but they had managed to cut the Ork invasion force down to half its original strength.
Unfortunately, various supplies like ammo and fuel were all but used up. In addition the Imperials held only the capital of Murphy’s world at this time.
At this point the navy returned with a huge cruiser fleet and a battleship, intending on avenging the 5th and the citizens of Murphy’s world by razing the world to the ground. Fortunately this mission was aborted when the fleet commander heard that the imperial forces were still fighting. Unfortunately, the fleet did not carry ground troops to reinforce Murphy’s world, but at least they were able to resupply the ground forces.
After that, the fleet commander told them that he would wait three months with the Exterminatus to see if the ground forces were able to deal with the remaining Orks on the planet. He even offered to conduct air strikes and orbital bombardments to help the ground forces. The fighting that followed had been murderous. Two and a half months later the last remaining Ork on the planet had been hunted down and killed.
At this point the 5th Argos had only five percent of its nominal fighting strength. If you counted the seriously wounded, the regiment was down to ten percent of its strength. So they were sent to the peaceful world of Darwinius to rest and rebuild.
Barely two weeks after they had arrived on the planet, civil unrest broke out. Two weeks later it escalated into a full-blown planetary civil war. It was bad enough that the native imperial forces splitted up exactly in the middle with half of them for the empire and half of them against the planetary governor.
As if that wasn’t enough suddenly these fucking Eldar decided to come by for a chat and dropped troops on Darwinius Secundus. Yes, life truly sucked. On top of that, she had had these strange dreams, which more often than not disrupted her precious sleep. The only bright point in this was that currently the Eldar were the problem of the rebels, who currently held the second continent of Darwinius.
Ami’s life up to this point had not been easy. She had been orphaned during an Ork raid on her village when she was ten imperial standard years old. When imperial forces responded to that raid, they found the village razed and only managed to dig a lone survivor out of the ruins – her.
The commander of the 5th had adopted her as a mascot of sorts and she learnt the military craft from then on. She was able to use a scanner with greater efficiency and sneaked around better than any other person she knew. She was an excellent sharpshooter. When she turned 16, she officially joined the 5th as a scout. Two years and several medals for bravery under fire later, she led a scout squad. During the action on Murphy’s world, she was field-promoted to First Lieutenant and put in charge of the scout platoon of the first battalion, as the commander of the scouts had fallen in battle.
She was still in command of the platoon, but currently she had no subordinates, because she was again the lone survivor. As she pondered the unfairness of life, a private she remembered having seen before knocked on her door and told her that Commander Safiiru wanted to see her as soon as possible.
She stood up from her bunk bed, checked her uniform, and went to the commanders office. She knocked at the door, entered the office, and stood at attention. “First Lieutenant Mizuno reporting as ordered.”
“At ease Lieutenant” said Commander Safiiru as he looked up from his desk, smiling. “We just received a message that an imperial transport with a company of Adeptus Soritas aboard has broken through the blockade of our friends upstairs. Unfortunately, the transport was hit by ground fire and was forced to land rather abruptly. Since then, we have lost contact with the transport. We tracked it to an area on the west coast of Secundus 100 miles south of Charles Haven. You are to take a Nighthawk Transport and locate the downed ship. As soon as you are there, I want a status report. A pair of doctors and a squad of engineers with a light recovery tank will be placed under your command. Your troops are already en route to Hangar 12. So, get your equipment and get going Lieutenant. And good luck.”
With a crisp salute, Ami left the office and ran back to her quarters, where she changed her standard BDU for her armour, grabbed her backpack and her long-las-rifle. In less than ten minutes she stood at the entrance of Hanger 12 as the light recovery tank was loaded aboard the Nighthawk. Five minutes later, the Nighthawk was in the air and speeding away in a northeastern direction at a low attitude with a loud sonic boom.
As Ami was pressed deep in her seat by the acceleration, “Yup,” she said to herself in a low voice, “life truly and absolutely sucks.”
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(Posted Sat, 03 Dec 2005 22:43)
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