Veltrax Primus – Hive Helior Defensive Perimeter
Private Jerrik Thane | 24th Veltrax Hive Pdf regiment
The world was ending.
At least, it felt that way.
We'd been holding the line here at the southern gate for six days straight, and every hour it seemed like another wave of green muscle came charging at us, screaming their cursed "WAAAGH!".
And they never stopped.
The orks didn't care about our lasguns. They didn't care about our trenches, our walls, our artillery. We could cut down a thousand and there'd be ten thousand more. I'd seen whole squads flattened beneath roaring warbikes, squads ripped apart by giant green monsters twice a man's height swinging cleavers bigger than my torso. The ground never stopped shaking from the sheer number of them — the thud of their boots, the pounding of their crude walkers, the growl of their ramshackle tanks.
Every day, we lost more ground. Every day, the Waaagh! grew louder.
Tonight was supposed to be the end. Command told us the orks had breached three sectors north of us, and their Gargants — God-Emperor help us — had been sighted lumbering toward the hive spire. Hive Helior wouldn't last another dawn.
So when the sirens wailed and the skies lit up, I thought that was it.
I thought we were finally dead.
But then I heard it — a deep, mechanical roar that cut through even the orks' deafening WAAAGH!
I looked up.
A massive black Thunderhawk gunship tore through the storm clouds above us with countless other thunderhawks following it, their engines screaming like a choir of angry machine-spirits and their heavy weapons coming to life as they tore through hordes of orks. Its hull was inscribed with glowing runes of the Cult Mechanicus, its wings bearing the red cog-tooth of Mars. Spotlights cut through the smoke and ash as it descended, lascannons and heavy bolters barking to clear a landing zone just behind our lines.
The orks stopped for a moment. Staring. Snarling. Even they seemed unsure what was happening.
And then came the sound of marching.
Not men. Not guardsmen.
The air crackled with static as figures that look more machine than man began to emerge from the Thunderhawks' belly — hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Cybernetic soldiers in deep red cloaks, their weapons gleaming with arcs of power. The first ranks raised galvanic rifles as one, their lenses glowing crimson, and unleashed precise volleys into the approaching orks. Whole swathes of greenskins dropped, riddled with holes or vaporized outright.
And then he came.
A towering figure in the sacred crimson of Mars, his robes edged with gold and black. His form was more machine than man — cables writhed around him like serpents, servo-arms rose over his shoulders, each tipped with strange tools and weapons, most notably a huge power axe he wield. His face was hidden behind a polished brass mask, twin blue lenses glowing coldly as he surveyed the field. Incense burners hissed and chimed as he stepped onto the ground.
His voice boomed from amplifiers, cutting across the battlefield even louder than the Waaagh!:
"You filthy green skins, you have defiled this world long enough. The Machine God does not tolerate such vile creatures. And today I shall cleanse you from this galaxy in the name of the great Omnissiah."
"FOR THE OMNISSIAH! "
The orks bellowed and charged anyway, howling and firing their crude weapons wildly into the lines. But the Skitarii didn't flinch. They advanced in synchronized step, their arc rifles sizzling and cutting through waves of green flesh. Vanguard squads cut down the few that got close, their rad-saturated blades tearing through ork flesh like paper.
And then the Tech-Priest advanced.
He barely seemed to notice the orks trying to reach him. His servo-arms lashed out like striking snakes, snapping necks and cutting through armor. When a massive Nob roared and swung a slab of sharpened metal at him, he simply swinged his huge axe as it tore the giant nob in half.
Above us, the Thunderhawks circled, its cannons tearing into the orks' tanks and walkers with surgical precision.
And when the first of the Gargants finally crested the horizon, countless light and fire descend through the sky like the Emperor's judgment. Many Gargants were instantly melted away by the sheer volume of fire power and the surviving ones were quickly destroy by the thunderhawks that hover the sky.
We… we cheered.
For the first time in days, the orks weren't advancing.
For the first time in days, we weren't falling back. For the first time, we were not the one getting beat up.
I didn't even know his name. Not really.
But as the orks faltered as the mechanicus forces pushed them back step by step, I found myself cheering together with the others around me and we were already calling him:
" The Emperor's Chosen "