Post by Commissar on Oct 4, 2007 0:58:03 GMT -5
Safron V: Total War.
Political Officer #774 of the Commissariat of Safron V:
Daybreak over the city planet saw thousands of imperial vehicles massed behind the large walls seperating them from the undead.
But something was different about them now.
When they had once congregated in small packs, running through the city, hunting, they had now moved directly through to the wall itself.
Millions, maybe billions of them gathered there, all of them scratching and clawing at the wall, their moans haunting the dreams of children, women and men.
The guardsmen on the top of the wall would just watch them as thousands more arrived to swell the growing hordes.
Every few kilometers there were gates.
They were known to the men as the gates to hell, as soon as you set foot outside of them, you were as good as dead.
A few months earlier a detatchment of inquisition forces arrived, to inspect this infection our planet faced.
They hadnt counted on anything like this.
At first they planned to completely destroy the planet with a massive orbital strike.
Then they realised that most of the planets population was still clean, they had been moved up north, where it was safe.
Then they planned to move everybody from the planet and send us all somewhere safe.
They got involved in the fighting for a little while, then pulled out, giving us orders to..."crush the infection".
They had left to fend off a chaos fleet in some backwater sector of the imperium.
So, we were on our own, and we have been ever since.
With the lack of housing, up here, refugees from the south have been living in business offices, anywhere, the governor had set up settlements everywhere.
We all had to pull together.
Chimera APCs had been put to use as mobile homes for the military, although we still had the hundreds of barracks around the city, erm, what was left of it, there still wasnt much room.
Columns of chimerae formed, they looked like a residential street.
Every sortie we made outside to the dead hell of the quarantine zone was a nightmare, we would go out, grab some supplies, rescue some surviving squads trapped behind the lines.
Constant reports sent in from the start of this thing, all the time, it was a steady stream of urgent messages.
There was so many field promotions being dealt out the military roster became a contorted mess of Colonels, sargents, majors, all sorts of ranks and units, either missing, dead or...other.
I was passing through the comm. bunker, basically just a modified gorgon transport stuffed with vox equipment and one hell of a communications system.
When a siren blared through the entire city, a massive warning.
The infection had spread beyond the wall.
The sh*t had hit the fan and everybody panicked,the report came from the eastern wall, I scrambled over to the nearest video reciever and found the observation camera closest to the breach.
Camera # 00983, I opened the screen, some dumb bastard had opened a sewer grate, letting a few of those twists out into the street.
I could see them moving, running through in their twisted fashion of movement, more like a contorted gimp trying to get through a minefield.
Finally somebody with brains opened fire, mowing them down, spraying blood along the streets.
Locals panicked and ran, securing the adamantium bars on their windows and doors, running to any secure place they could find.
There are barricades below as well, to keep the dead from advancing any farther than the first manholes.
Idiot plan.
The men atop the walls on their sabre defence platforms spun the their quad stubbers back towards the horde.
Everybody calmed down, the guardsman who had opened it was cowering in a corner between two buildings, an officer walked up to him and shot him as he screamed that the infection would spread, no matter what we do.
I shut off the monitor and walked out of the gorgon.
At the end of the base, next to the wall a large stockpile of explosives lay, earthshaker rounds, battlecannon rounds, all sorts of shells standing next to eachother, with many others in wooden crates stamped with the imperial aquila.
Thats when I saw it.
A frantic mad man, a conscript, screaming frantic gibberish and waving his laspistol.
"Somebody stop that man!" I shouted, reaching for my autopistol.
Others did the same, las and autoshots chased him down the street.
Then I remembered the shells...
"Hold your fire damn it!" I shouted over the gunfire as a few shots from an autorifle hit the shells...
There was a flash of white.
I ran for cover, hiding in one of the gun pits with my hands over my head, I could feel the ground shaking beneath me.
Sandbags shook and fell over.
I looked over the dugout, chimerae flew through the air, exploding as they fell.
Men were torn apart in the explosion, large tanks of gasoline had gone off in the explosion as well.
I was fortunate to have left the gorgon when I did, a flipped APC had landed on top of it, killing most inside, medics rushed about through the smoke and flames.
I think most had forgotten about the infected...
The wall was smashed apart, shredded apart , twisted adamantium lay frayed on the edges.
The crater that remained from the explosion left the dead burried in scorched dirt and schrapnel.
I rushed over to the gorgon, the vox casters and comm. equipment blared.
I picked up a bloodied head set and reported what had happened, they told me reinforcements were on their way.
Then a twisted form appeared at the doorway, followed by a few more.
I drew my pistol, realising they were infected, I blasted him in the head, dropping him, then his friends.
Dozens of them were coming in from the breach, soon there would be thousands of them...
I grabbed an autocarbine, holstered my pistol and followed a few squads of men up the street.
A squadron of centaurs passed by us, their engines roaring, first response vehicles.
They stopped, forming a firing line, as the smoke cleared and the infected became visible they opened fire, killing dozens of them as they moved up from the crater.
The Sirens rang through the streets, designated rally points were set up in the city if there was a situation in which the infection broke free.
Grenadier squads seemed to come from nowhere.
They lined up, readied guns, prepared for the wave of infected that was sure to come.
Meanwhile, at the gun posts along the wall they recieved orders to fire.
As infected all around the planet moved towards the massive breach in the wall the stubbers rang, cutting down hundreds of them as they ran towards their objective...
Amongst the wreckage of the explosion wounded guardsmen had taken up their rifles and opened fire on the infected until they were finally devoured or until they succumbed to their wounds.
Large medical vans pulled up, medics pilling in the wounded and leaving the dead in their place to rot...or worse...
I was running for my life, I had been there when the infection first broke out...
I can remember it so clearly...
Nearly at the rank of Commissar, I we had been sent to the front, my entire squad had been killed, in the panic, not by infected, but by renegades, insane soldiers of fortune, they had become kings of their own little slice of hell.
They shot at us from the roof tops as all of us, the bulk of the military headed backwards, in full retreat from the spreading infection to the safe zones.
Those bastards, they killed so many of us...
I suppose that was why I joined the death squads...
To be continued.
my bolt pistol and my sword and I am gonna get some KFC! YEEHAW!