Editing Trip Into Hell (Warhammer High) (section)

===Into the Underground===
The sound of Orks filtered through the streets, hounding the rag-tag bunch of CDA volunteers as they followed Flynn through the winding streets. Julius had the feeling that Flynn had no idea where they were going, but he trusted that the Tanith native would see them through. He knew the famed reputation of the Tanith, and besides he had no other choice in the matter.

“Ah, here we are.” Flynn had stopped near a deserted alleyway, with a sewer entrance at one end. What did he mean, they were there?

“Here, follow me.” Flynn lifted up the manhole cover, and slid into it. Was he serious, would they hide in the sewers? The Orks would be into them like a shot, and he knew common protocol was to blow them if the outer city fell so the Orks couldn’t outflank the walls.

“You’re first offworlder.” Scvott pushed Julius towards Flynn and the sewer. Julius scowled, but he followed Flynn down into the abyss, lit only by the faint light of Flynn’s Lamp-Pack.
Halfway down the ladder, Flynn simply disappeared. Julius blinked, and blinked again before a hand popped out of the wall.

“In here.” Flynn whispered as he came closer. It was a passageway concealed beside the ladder, almost impossible to notice unless you actually knew it was there. Julius swung himself into the passage, waved at Dyllion who was next in line behind him to follow, and then followed Flynn down the passage. He had to crawl, but it fortunately wasn’t too cramped. For what seemed an age he crawled along, Flynn’s lamp-pack lighting the way.
Julius saw light at the end of the tunnel, a small amount of it. He emerged into an open space the size of a rugby field. There were lights in the ceiling, and a large board showing a faded map of the city on one wall, though on closer inspection that map had to be several centuries old, the Port Huron there was barely recognisable as the city above them. A steel door at the other end of the room led out.

“What is this?” Summer asked once all of them were inside.

“When the Xenos Overlords ruled Seadelant, the human resistance build dozens of underground bunkers where they would live and rest under the very noses of the Overlords. Most of them lie forgotten, but not this one. This one I found while exploring a year or so ago, and I’ve more or less turned it into my man cave, more or less.” He laughed as his own lame joke. “There’s still a lot of stuff in here left over from the resistance movement, so we can make the most of it. This is the planning room, where the resistance would have planned their attacks. Follow me.”

The Bunker complex proved to a lot more, well, complex than Julius had expected. There were separate rooms for resistance fighters to sleep, nearly 30 of them all up, a command room dominated by a metal table, and even a garage which Flynn had filled with tools, parts and the disassembled chassis of a Hovercar. The stores room still had a fair number of cans of food, which Flynn predicted would last them several weeks or more. The armoury was the biggest surprise, with two locally made heavy stubbers and several ammo drums, as well as several PDF issue lasguns and a Lasgun powerpack recharger. Scvott summed it all up.

“We’re stuck behind enemy lines, and there’s no way we can reach the safety of the inner walls now. The PDF will have blocked off the sewer access points as well, keep the Orks out. But at least we have all this, food, water, weapons and a place to sleep. We can safely stay here until the relief force arrives.”

A couple of hours later once they had all settled in and he had finished offloading his gear into his room and exploring the base, Julius knocked on the door of Summer’s room a few over from his own. He had said to himself that if he survived the breach, he would apologise to her for comparing her to a madman like Keiter, and now he was fulfilling that promise.
She opened the door to him, and let him in. all of the rooms were quite small, and yet her one was very tidy. The cot was made, the shelves set with neat piles of musty old books that must have dated back decades, and the large scented candle from before resting on an empty ammo crate. Julius felt slightly uncomfortable, and resolved to get straight to the point.

“Look Summer, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently, with all that is going on. We could have died so many times out there, and it makes you think.” 

“I’m so sorry about what I’ve said earlier, about comparing you to Keiter. I tarred all Emperor Worshippers with the same brush. Now I can see now you’re nothing like him, and I feel like a fool. Can you forgive me?”
Summer patted her bed, and Julius sat down on it. “The Emperor protects, Oll. He protected me during that battle, he protects me now. And he protects you, though why I can’t tell.”

“I don’t know if I need his protection, and he has many more problems on his plate than worrying about me.” A memory of his anger when he had confronted Isis and himself over the Petitioner’s City incident crossed his mind, and he shuddered. Summer didn’t seem to notice, and she continued.

“You’re lucky, in a way. You’ve never had that void inside your soul, that feeling that there must be something more to life than all this.” She gestured at his Catheric Crux. “Before, I had it all. I wanted for nothing, and yet I never felt more alone, more lost. And then I found the truth, found the Emperor. Of course when my parents found out, they disowned me. Not in public mind you, too focused on their public image to have it stained by the revelation that their daughter was a follower of the Lectio Divinitatus. No, the quietly cut me off and said that I had been sent away, when in reality they had simply turfed me out. No matter where I go, I can’t practice my faith openly. I feel like I’m persecuted for it.”

“You ARE persecuted for it. Imperial law has the Lectio Divinitatus as illegal, and all who follow its teachings.”

Summer simply looked at Julius and replied. “You should be in the same boat as me. Honestly, I find it almost hypocritical that you Catherics escape persecution, whereas we don’t. We both believe in religion, ergo we are both opposed to the Imperial Truth, and we are both breaking the Imperial creed. The only difference is my god is alive and well on Terra, I could actually see him. Have you seen your god Oll?” There was no hostility in her voice; no sense that she was ridiculing his faith; it was simply a question, nothing more.

Julius thought for a moment, and began, slowly at first, but soon he spoke with earnest 
fervour. “No, no I have not. But sometimes I feel Him. He’s been there for me for as long as I can remember, and though I may neglect Him sometimes, He’s never neglected me. My friends all find it strange that I believe, but I don’t let that get to me. I have faith that He’s there, that He has a plan for me, and that when my time comes He will welcome me with open arms.”

Summer smiled at him, a smile full of warmth. “I feel the same way about the Emperor. We’re not that different, are we? We both have faith in a higher power, and we both know others don’t like our beliefs.”

“Yeah, we are. We are.” Julius could say no more, there was nothing else he could say. He politely took his leave, returned to his room, and sat down hard on his cot. Summer was so far removed from Keiter; Julius could hardly believe they held the same beliefs. She didn’t act holier than thou, she didn’t use her beliefs as an excuse the way Keiter did, she didn’t consider herself better than other people because of her faith, and what to Julius was the most important of all, she didn’t ridicule his own faith, she accepted it. And she didn’t accept it with that air of distaste he had come to expect from his days at Imperator High. Even Isis found his beliefs unusual. She’d never accepted them as gracefully as Summer did; it had taken time for her to come to terms with his faith. He’d never had to think about his faith this way before, as the only other person who could be compared to him in that regard was Faith Aurelian, and she hadn’t been a shining example for faith, no pun intended. 
For the first time since he arrived on Seadelant, he took out his Crux, knelt down at the foot of his cot, and began to pray.



“So that’s it?”

“It would seem so my lord. Thanks to your efforts, we got over ninety percent of the PDF and eighty-seven percent of the Army out before the Orks broke in. Even in defeat you still saved the day.”

Ahriman didn’t feel like he had saved anything. The outer city was now infested with Orks, occupied by the foe. The inner walls were heavily garrisoned by the Army and PDF, and the repositioned artillery had just begun to throw shells into the occupied sections to deny the Orks cover and kill as many of them as possible, but the inner walls were also shorter and less steep, making it possible for the Orks to climb them with grappling claws. The task of defending what was left of the city had just got a whole lot harder. 

Ahriman stood in Huron’s square, where the artillery was setting up and beginning to fire once again, and weary soldiers were trying to catch some rest. The aide had presented him with the complete casualty report from the Ork breakthrough, and though the news sounded good, nearly two thousand troopers had been killed in the defence of the breach, and during the desperate rearguard action as they fell back to the inner wall gate. Most of the Tanith troopers had elected to stay behind when he had given the retreat order, and buy some more time with their lives. For so many years he’d heard about the reputation of the new Tanith regiments, but only now was he truly appreciating it. If only there had been some regiments of them during the Crusade, maybe it wouldn’t have dragged on for so long. He’d already approved the list for posthumous medals, and it was getting longer by the day.
Nearby, Commissar Lord Günter cursed loudly as several medics treated him. His arm had nearly been cut off when he had gone one on one with a Meganob, the Ork equivalent of a Terminator. Amazingly despite his injury he had bested the Meganob, felling it with a Plasma Pistol shot to the head, although the blow had cut all the way to the bone, and Günter wouldn’t be fighting fit for a week or more. He hoped Tanith morale wouldn’t suffer because of it.

“Heads up my lord, the Graf approaches.”
Graf Trakeria was heading towards him, escorted by a pair of bodyguards with Hellguns. He could see the anger smouldering in her aura, though whether that was directed against the Orks, or him, he couldn’t tell. Either way it didn’t bode well. Trakeria came up to him, nodded very briefly, not very convincingly, before coming straight to the point.
“Well my lord, thanks to you the loss of the outer city wasn’t a complete catastrophe. We salvaged something from that mess.” Emphasis on the We, she obviously didn’t like the direction his command was taking and wanted to remind him that she nominally commanded the cities defence alone. “The Governor isn’t happy though. Your artillery is now reducing her city to rubble, the city you pledged to protect.”

“And the Orks are pillaging it as well. You don’t think I know? My sight was blinded, and this was the result.” There was bitterness in Ahriman’s voice, after the glorious chaos of the battle he felt empty inside and the full weight of his failure. In battle he was the master of his destiny, outside of it he felt his failures keenly. He should have seen that Rok coming, seen it long before it did its damage. But once again his sight had failed him, as it had been failing him ever since that vision, what seemed like years ago. Since then he had exchanged his teacher’s uniform for his crimson armour, fought the dark side of Terra with the Night Haunter, saved two brave but foolish teens from certain death, and left Terra in disgrace as a result of all that. The greatest astartes psyker ever, disgraced before the Emperor Himself. How the mighty have fallen.

Trakeria pressed home her advantage. “Lord Ahriman, are you sure you’re up for leading the defence now? You’ve done all you can, and done a damn good job of it. You hit the landing force hard, and were a great help in destroying the towers. But it seems your powers are no longer working as well as you wanted; given you let that Rok slip past your sight. It might be time you gave command back to me. I’d be glad to keep you on in an advisory role, but I’m human, and from what I hear I understand the stresses of command better than you seem to do.”

“If I hand over the defence to you, the city will fall in less than a week.” Trakeria stared at him, open mouthed at his snub, but he wasn’t finished. “You have no experience of real battle; you’ve spent this whole time commanding from that bunker, not facing death alongside the men and women. I respect your authority, and have consulted you before every decision I have made, but I alone have seen all the Greenskins are capable of, and I know what they’re likely to do now that they hold the outer city. What do you know of war, beyond the books you’ve read?”

She took a step back, then another one, her mouth opening and closing but no words coming out. Ahriman was sick and tired of people questioning him because they thought they knew better, and this woman was only the latest in a long line stretching back many years. She had to face the hard truth, they were on a knife edge, and one false move would see the fall of the city, and the planet with it.

“We’re in for a long siege now, and as before our only hope is holding until relief arrives. I can ensure we hold, but only if you let me have freedom of action. I will keep you informed as before, but you won’t try to meddle. Is that quite understood?”

“Yes my lord.” Trakeria visibly deflated, and she turned and slunk back towards the PDF building, her guards following. Ahriman had enough on his hands already, without political intrigue to add to the burden. He didn’t want to have to watch his back as well as his front, one enemy was enough. If he damn well survived this, he would head out somewhere where no-one could disturb his meditation. Angelus sounded good at this time of year.

“What was that all about?” Günter asked, his injured arm now in a sling.

“Just the Graf needing a few reminders.”

“Oh? That bad eh?” Günter looked uncomfortable in bandages, and Ahriman could see him grimace every time he moved his arm. “Technically a Commissar is a Political rank, but I have never been one for politics, too much mess and confusion. Give me a foe I can face, a weapon in my hand and I’m as happy as a Grox in the mud.”

“The same here. We never had to worry much about politics during the Crusade. Everything was so much simpler back then.” Ahriman turned to go, and then stopped as a thought entered his mind.

“By the by, those CDA troopers who were helping us at the breach. Do we know if they made it?”

“I can check my lord, but it doesn’t seem likely. I never saw them after you gave the retreat order, and they would have been mentioned in the reports.”

“That’s ok. It was only a thought.” Another five lives sacrificed to the Green Menace. He didn’t know why, but there was something about those five civilian volunteers which had interested him. The woman in particular, she had run past a bevy of angry Meganobz to resupply him with shells for his Bolt Pistol, and he had even seen her take out a Trukk full of Orks with a frag grenade while supplying ammunition to the Belladon troops. Back then as the war raged around him he felt like there was something deeper to these mad civilians, something which might tie in to the fate of this world, another string of fate gently tugging at him, reminding him of futures to come. Now that too was gone, and all he had left were those endless, nagging doubts.