The Ramides Cluster Crusade, Book 1
Well, here’s the collected first three parts of my latest, and – dare I say it – greatest literary piece. Set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, created and controlled by Games Workshop. Dealing with (at the moment) a regiment of Imperial Guard involved in a Crusade against the Tau Empire. Got some big plans for this one, but as anyone that’s been reading the parts as I’ve written them will tell you, I’m a slooooooow worker!
Well, enjoy, and constructive criticism is always welcome.
The Ramides Cluster Crusade
Book I: Arcadian 3rd Infantry
+++ MERGHAST +++
+++ GALACTIC WEST OF RAMIDES CLUSTER +++
Laronis Plains, south of Ceredes
A gentle, warm evening wind blew through the long grasses that stretched for miles across the plains, making them sway as if caressed by some invisible hand. The soft hissing of the wind passing through the grass hid the quiet sounds of the evening as the sun slid slowly below the horizon. Overhead, small birds flitted to and fro across the amber sky, their shrill cries swallowed by distance and the gentle sighing of the wind through the grass.
Rifleman Kenrik spared the carefree birds no more than a glance as he crept quietly through the chest high grasses. Hunched over to keep below the top of the tall fronds, Las-gun in hand, and clad in the red and brown of the Arcadian 3rd Infantry, he was accompanied by the other guardsmen of Sergeant Rossin’s squad. The Sergeant himself was a handful of metres ahead of Kenrik, his head swivelling as he searched the failing daylight with his glowing bionic eye. Kenrik knew from experience that soon the Sergeant would cover that glowing green eye with a patch he carried with him to prevent it giving away their position in the approaching dark. But until then it could see better and further than anyone else in the platoon, possibly the whole regiment. If anyone would spot the enemy hiding in these grasses, it would be the Sergeant.
As if the thought had been a command, the Sergeant held out a closed fist as his whispered voice came through the earpiece’s of the squads communicators “Movement ahead, fifty metres. Fire team one and two hold here for my signal. Three and four, with me” The Sergeant moved away to the right, taking six of the twelve man squad with him. In moments, despite the red of their armour and fatigues, the two fire teams were swallowed from sight by the dense grass.
Kenrik settled down into a crouch, and checked his rifle. There were a few bits of dead grass and seed-pods cluttering the breech which he cleared before checking the power pak readout. Full charge. He looked around as someone settled in beside him, the smell of promethium telling him who it was before his eyes fell on his fellow trooper. Even with the pilot light of his flamer out, Rifleman Jheryn still smelled of burning Flamer fuel, and the tone of his skin made him look slightly cooked, like he’d spent too long using the weapon.
“Hey Kenrik, you ever seen these things?” whispered Jheryn, shifting a spare fuel canister around his belt. Kenrik shook his head.
“Saw some bodies up at Ceredes, but they were pretty mangled” He grinned “Looked even uglier than you though.”
Jehryn grunted at the friendly jibe “I heard from some of the PDF that they eat their enemies. You believe that?”
Kenrik gave Jehryn what he hoped was an incredulous look. He’d heard the same thing, and he did believe it. But Jehryn could be a little skittish about things like that, and Kenrik didn’t want to get a promethium-bath because his squadmate got nervous and started spraying burning flamer fuel around. “You’ll believe anything” he whispered back, looking around, trying uselessly to peer through the fronds of grass in the direction Sergeant Rossin had indicated. Somewhere ahead of him was a pack of carnivorous aliens, with a taste for human flesh…. Kenrik muttered a prayer of protection to the Emperor, and checked his rifle again.
Sergeant Rossin silently willed his booted feet not to make any noise each time he set one down among the softly hissing grass stalks. This close to the enemy he could hear their primitive communications, sounding like a series of clicks and whistles to him. They were ahead of him again, after he’d led half his squad around in a flanking manoeuvre, and he could see their forms thanks to the infra-red of his replacement eye. Seven of them as far as he could see, seemingly resting. Not surprising, after being harried across the plains by the Arcadians for two weeks. Any moment now, he’d give the attack signal. He silently thumbed his safety off, and opened his mouth…
Ahead, one of the glowing red shapes stood from where it squatted, it’s head raised, and let out a sharp, ululating cry, like some angry bird. The others joined it, rising and raising their own voices. Then they turned towards the Sergeant. More voices joined the chorus of bird-like calls, as the ground to Rossin’s right exploded upwards, revealing the enemy hidden in shallow dugouts around him.
“Oh frag…” he muttered, before opening fire with his las-gun.
The quiet of the evening was ripped apart by the shrill cries of the enemy, followed shortly by the staccato crack of las-rounds. Kenrik leapt to his feet, followed by Jehryn and the rest of the small squad. Before anyone could speak, the Sergeants voice rang in their ears.
“It’s an ambush! The fraggin’ bastards set a trap!” he snarled over the din of weapons fire, shouts, and screams.
Kenrik clicked off his safety, and set his rifle to full auto. Next to him, Jehryn ignited the pilot light on his flamer with a small handheld burner. Kenrik looked around him, waiting for orders, but none came, just the sounds of gunfire from what he assumed was Rossins position. It was clear they couldn’t just wait here to be found by the enemy.
“Frag this! We’re supposed to be hunting them!” He said “We advance as before. Jehryn, be careful with that flamer, please?” He moved forward at a trot, gripping his rifle as the sounds of battle drew closer. Every second he expected to feel alien jaws closing about his neck, or the impact of the killing round, any second now…
He stumbled as he broke from the tall grass into a beaten-flat clearing, about ten metres across. To his right, the remaining grass trembled as if blown by insane winds, and the sounds of combat filled the air. But ahead of him, emerging from the wall of grass opposite came the enemy, their bladed rifles held in long, wiry arms, vicious beaks open in anticipation of man-flesh.
With a whoosh, Jehryn loosed a gout of white-hot flame into the onrushing enemy, and the heat of that stream of fire as much as anything else brought Kenrik to his senses. He squeezed his trigger, loosing a stream of orange bolts into the attackers. The others joined him, their own fire stabbing across the clearing, felling the still-burning aliens.
In moments it was done. The attacking aliens were reduced to melted flesh and bone, or lay dead on the scorched earth as around them the grasses burned, ignited by the splash of hellfire from the Flamer. One of the Arcadians was down too, Rifleman Vars, his neck and chest torn open by enemy firing.
Seeing that Vars was dead, Kenrik wasted no time. ‘Mourn the dead after you’ve saved the living’ Was one of Commissar Koreol’s favourite sayings, and it was particularly fitting to this moment. The Sergeant and his troops were still fighting. Kenrik headed into the much sparser grass, much of it snapped or beaten down, searching for a target. He thumbed his selector back to single shot, not wanting to cut down a squadmate in a hail of fire.
The grass ahead of him parted as an alien rocketed through it, barrelling into Kenrik. They both went down, the guardsman squeezing again and again on his trigger, feeling his attacker spasm with each las-round he pumped into him. With a heave, he rolled the alien off of him, and scrabbled to his feet. Sergeant Rossin emerged from the same area as the dead alien, looking from Kenrik to the smoking, bleeding body on the floor, and a grin spread across his face.
“Sorry ‘bout that Rifleman. Didn’t realise anyone was so close” said the sergeant, the grin growing. Kenrik frowned, confusion getting the best of him. Then the sergeant rolled the alien over with a booted foot, and Kenrik could see the bayonet buried in the back of it’s skull. Kinross bent over and wrenched it free before smiling over at Kenrik “Good shooting, all the same”.
Kinross voxed in to base, reporting the engagement, and left the dead Kroot where they lay.
Governors Palace, outskirts of Ceredes.
Elements of the Tau Expansion Force had reached out to the Ramides Cluster in the early part of M318.6, seeking to claim the relatively unguarded planets in the area in the name of their ‘Greater Good’. Initially the planets fell with little resistance, the local PDF’s and sparse Imperial Guard garrison’s either destroyed or in some cases surrendering to the technologically advanced alien invaders and their savage allies. For several years the Tau enjoyed unchallenged dominion of the Cluster, as Imperial naval forces surrounding the Cluster set up picket forces, seeking to contain the alien’s expansion, but lacking sufficient force to strike against them.
The Imperial war machine, though slow to react, had marshalled forces to retake the Cluster. Whilst not on the grand scale of a crusade such as that to re-take the Sabbat Worlds, it was still a noteworthy gathering of force. No less than twelve regiments of Imperial Guard were mustered, including armoured and support elements, and two regiments of armour. Two chapters of Adeptus Astartes had pledged companies as part of the counter-attack, their smaller numbers more than counter-balanced by their superior abilities and equipment.
The Arcadian 3rd had been one of the last to join the push against the Xenos usurpers, it’s transport fleet joining the tail-end of the almighty armada conveying the multitudinous men and machines across the void. Barely had they joined this vast flotilla, than they were directed to Marghen to mop-up the remnants of the Tau forces there. The planet lay within a days Warp-voyage from the picket ships of the Imperial defence line, and as such had been among the first to fall. It had been relatively lightly held by the enemy, with only vanguard elements of their armies’ planetside, awaiting the arrival of the main force. The Imperials had hit them hard, smashing aside their newly built defences and settlements, many still swarming with construction drones. In less than twenty-four hours, the Tau presence on Marghen had been broken, and the survivors scattered out into the vast plains, and dense mountain-ranges.
Unwilling to lose the momentum the attack had gained in its initial days, Lord-General Bellus ordered his forces onward. The newly-arrived Arcadian 3rd made planetfall as the last elements of the attacking force were preparing to load their troop transports, the vast, ugly ships standing with belly ramps open, swallowing up rank after rank of Guardsmen.
General Stefen Grove watched the last of the troopships lift off, it’s huge thrusters baking the scorched surface of Ceredes’ main landing fields, some ten kilometres away, the rays of the sinking sun bathing the drab ship in orange and gold. That one had brought down the remains of a Guard regiment that was being posted here as a garrison, to bolster the Planetary Defence Force. Most of the original PDF was dead – killed in the fighting with the Xenos, or executed by the newly arrived Commissars for surrendering to them – but those elements that had been fighting a guerrilla war against the alien occupiers had returned to their barracks and defences to find themselves greatly under-manned. And so the Guard brought in the remnants of a decimated unit to bolster them, making two useless forces one useful force.
With a grunt, the scarred General turned from the large window that afforded him the view of the rapidly dwindling troop ship. The Guard, by the will of the divine Emperor had done the same with him and the 3rd. He resisted the urge to run a hand along the ridged scar that obliterated his right eye, and blighted his face almost to its chin, a scar earned with the Arcadian 25th Armoured. He’d only been a Major when the 25th had reached the end of it’s useful life, fighting the Great Enemy, but earning that scar, and leading the tattered dregs of the once-proud regiment out of that war zone victorious had also earned him the rank of General, and command.
That command had consisted of an untried Infantry company and had seemed an insult, inflicted upon him by a bitter high command, looking for a scapegoat for such a painful victory, but unable to find one. An armour commander, commanding a lot of foot-slogging rabble? Hah! He should’ve thrown the command, the rank, and the glories back in their faces! But he didn’t. He’d tried as best he could with what he had. What he’d mostly had were apologies and excuses. The 3rd was destined to be an armoured company, but someone higher-up in the echelons of command had pulled strings and had the tanks redirected elsewhere. With a full regiment of men mustered and midway through Fundamental and Preparatory, the Guard decided not to waste time. And so a newly promoted armour General and an armoured company with no armour became an unhappy Infantry regiment.
Grove took a glass of some local alcohol proffered by a young woman bearing a tray and clad in the livery of Marghens’ ruling house. She looked nervous and tired, a combination Grove had seen replicated time and again since his arrival here. Always on the faces of the Marghenites. The natives of this planet had been under Xenos rule for nigh on four years after the initial assaults. They’d been tired and nervous then. Now the Imperium had returned to their little world, and there had been more fighting to restore the planet to the Emperors possession. And now they were back in the glorious light of the Emperors rule… and they would shine in that light whether they liked it or not. Already Inquisitors from the Ordo Xenos were scouring the surviving population for deviances and heresies, even as the Commissars of the Imperial Guard seemed to be executing citizens indiscriminately. The entire populace was tired and nervous.
Looking around, Grove spotted the newly appointed Imperial Governor of Marghen heading towards him. He silently cursed himself for not paying attention. He’d been avoiding the Governor all afternoon, which had required some very careful manoeuvring around the palace corridors, and then around the Grand Hall in which Grove now found himself. But it appeared his stationary time at the window had allowed the Governor to find him, and he was now closing in for the kill. Grove considered trying to slip away, but the crowd of planetary dignitaries and Guard officers was far from dense, and seemed to have opened up around him. If he walked away now, he’d just seem downright rude, and the Governor didn’t need that right now. Plastering a smile on his face, Grove turned to face the onslaught.
“General, I am so pleased you could make it this evening” Said the governor in his nasal, slightly annoying voice. Governor Dercy LeVert wore an over-decorated Marghen Defence Force Generals dress uniform, though Grove knew for a fact that he’d never made it past the rank of Corporal “I trust the Nectar is to your liking?”
Grove was lost for a moment, wondering what on Terra the man was talking about, until he saw LeVert casting furtive glances at the glass in his hand “Ah, yes, the Nectar. It’s wonderful Governor. I must see about requisitioning some before we leave” he lied. He’d only tasted the Nectar of the Fert plant twice, once for each of its varieties. One was bitter enough to strip the paint from Baneblades hull, and the other was sweet enough to rot the teeth of an Ogryn. Grove hated the stuff. He also hated playing politico with local dignitaries, but such were the burdens of command.
“Wonderful!” replied the Governor with over-enthusiasm. “I shall speak to my staff and have some sent to your billet this evening!” Grove merely nodded, and murmured his thanks.
Levert wasn’t a bad man, but he – like most of the planet – didn’t really know what to do. His family had been one of a string of lesser noble families, generally seen filling the halls at high society balls and banquets. Then the Tau came, and the High Houses, including the ruling House on Marghest at the time, had been all but wiped out in the fighting. They enjoyed the fruits of their position, and had fought hard to keep them. Under the aliens, some of the lesser noble Houses had had their chance at ruling – under the leadership of Tau Ethereals, of course – but that had come to an abrupt end with the Imperial reclamation. Those that had ruled under the Tau had been summarily executed by the zealous Commissariat. Grove had seen the courtyard in the city where hundreds of the capitals dignitaries had been lined up and shot by firing squads. The same had happened all over the planet.
All very commendable, but it did leave rather a large gap in the planets hierarchy. Now House LeVert had been elevated to Noble House Levert, and the oldest surviving male of that house had been elevated to the position of Planetary Governor. Chosen solely because Dercy LeVert had entered the MDF, and was the highest ranking member of the Houses in the armed forces. Hardly the greatest reason to choose someone to rule a planet. Although Grove knew for a fact that a large number of Commissars were being dispatched to this planet, and one had already been assigned as Levert’s ‘aide’. No prizes for guessing who would really be running Marghest.
The conversation dragged on for interminable minutes, with LeVert tying his best to appear the very image of a planetary Governer, and Grove fighting to keep a smile on his face and appear at least vaguely interested in what the smaller man was saying. Furtively, Grove was looking for someone on whom he could dump the dull Governor, but it seemed everyone else in the Hall was as tired of him as he was. They all avoided the General’s eyes, and a clear space longer than a mans arm had opened around the two of them. Even the Governors small entourage had abandoned him.
Grove spied the regimental Commissar – a short, pale man who managed to somehow loom over the tallest Guardsman – lurking by one of the buffet tables, a large glass of Nectar held in one gloved hand, but the Commissar offered no rescue. He merely smiled grimly and turned away. It was a measure of how dull the conversation was that Grove would have been willing to make small-talk with the disliked Commissar, just to palm-off Levert. Commissar Deckard Koreol was disliked by the men, and distrusted by the officers of the 3rd. He’d been with the regiment since it’s founding on the green fields of Arcadia, and had succeeded in fragging-off everyone, without exception.
The short man, clad in his peaked cap, black Commissariat dress uniform and leather gloves, leaned forward to speak to his second, and the comparison between the two could not have been more marked. Commissar Rien Dortun was the sort of Commissar you saw depicted as the hero in pict-vids. He was tall, well built, with tanned skin and dark hair. His face seemed made to smile, and women swooned over him. He was the opposite to Koreol, and despite making the rest of the men look like underfed Ratlings, he was popular with them. Dortun made a move towards Grove and the Governor, but stopped at the touch of Koreols hand on his arm. Oh yes, the senior Commissar wanted to see Grove suffer. Fragging politico, thought Grove bitterly, taking a swig from his own glass of Nectar. He immediately realised what he’d done, and almost choked on the bitter liquid, coughing as he swallowed it, interrupting the Governor in mid sentence.
“General, whatever is the matter?!” Levert looked startled, and had taken a half-step back from Grove. He wondered how the little man had ever survived in the MDF “Are you alright?”.
Recovering himself, Grove nodded, wiping at his mouth. That stuff is bloody awful! “Appologies Governor. It went down the wrong hole”. Levert looked warily at him for a moment more, then resumed whatever it was he’d been saying before. Grove snuck a look over at Koreol. The bastard was grinning.
