Editing Trip Into Hell (Warhammer High) (section)

===Time's Ticking===
Julius rose slowly from slumber, like some great sea beast slowly coming up for air. Despite all his fears the previous night, his sleep was long, deep, and untroubled. No Daemons had tried to steal his soul. It took him a few seconds to remember where he was, and notice who he was pressed tightly up against. She was still sleeping soundly, her chest rising and falling rhythmically beneath his arms. As he watched, he abruptly felt a certain part of him was touching her. Gently he inched his hips away from her, hoping the motion wouldn’t wake her.
The door banged open to reveal Dyllion, startling Summer awake. He peered over the two of them. “Bloody hell, I wish you two would be more discreet. Scvott has called a meeting in the command room. We’ll give you a few minutes to get dressed.”
Summer turned to Julius, who had turned bright red. “Let them think what they want. You know and I know that it was completely innocent. Nothing happened. This time.”

Julius looked down at himself and almost smiled, but held it back. They dressed in silence and went to join the others.
Scvott was waiting for them, a pile of sheets of paper and a few pens at his side.

“Everyone, late tonight we go to capture that mole and try and get warning of the ‘Daemon’ or whatever the hell it is to the inner city. If we can’t capture it, we destroy it. Dyllion and Flynn have already packed the remaining explosives, so we can blow that thing to hell and gone. Now I have asked all of you here for one important reason.”

“This is a one-way mission. We’re not coming back. We either succeed in getting this warning out, or we die.” His bald statement hit them all hard. Flynn’s cheeky attitude disappeared, Dyllion murmured a curse under his lips, and Summer whispered a prayer to the Emperor only Julius could hear. He himself searched for an emotion, but found only emptiness. Scvott waited for them all to settle down, before continuing.

“If we do die, I want us to leave something behind, so that in the future the people who find this place will know what happened to us and will know that we gave our lives to combat the Ork menace and our sacrifice. That’s why I brought these along.” Gesturing to the pens and paper. “I want each of you to write a last letter, something that if this place is ever found will tell our loved ones what we did.” He didn’t mention that by the time any letters would be found, thousands of years may have passed and their loved ones would be long dead. He didn’t need to mention it. There was now a weight on top of all of them, the knowledge that this may be their last mission, and that in less than a day they could all be dead. 
Silently he handed out the pens and sheets of paper, and silently they took them.

“Where did you come up with this idea?” Julius asked Scvott as the others filed out.

“My Great-Granddad was Terran, a Tanker in the Zanzibari Hort. Before every mission, he had his men write a last letter in case they didn’t make it. For some reason it made facing death a lot easier, at least that was what my granddad told me. The old sod could have been lying, of course, but I have to try it. This must suck, the prospect of dying such a long way from home on an alien planet.”

“I was trying not to think about it, but thanks anyway.” Scvott smiled almost painfully as he left.
Nearly an hour later, Julius was sitting in his room, papers resting on a writing slate on his lap. He had tried several times to compose a letter to his father, but he couldn’t think of what he would say. What could he say, he was dead and he wished him his love? It all seemed too banal.

There was a light rapping on his door, and he didn’t need to look up to know who it was.
Summer came in and sat down beside him. He didn’t try to hide the empty sheets of paper, had he actually written anything he would have hidden them to conceal his true identity.

“You haven’t got anything done?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what to write, the usual stuff is too banal, doesn’t cover what I’ve gone through here. I’ve seen my first death, made my first kill, seen a Daemon in the flesh, and given up my most sacred gift to someone who though isn’t my official girlfriend, has come to mean a lot to me. How can I explain any of that to anyone, least of all in writing?”
She smiled at his statement. “I mean a lot to you now?”

“Summer, why are you asking that? You’re the one who has got me through this whole thing, and I can’t imagine how I would have survived without you to guide me and keep me sane.”
She took his hand, and he squeezed it. She then abruptly asked a question.

“What about your girlfriend? The one back on Calth? Why don’t you try writing to her?”
Julius hadn’t thought of that, and he turned it over in his mind, finally giving her an answer.

“Honestly, though I still may have strong feelings for her, I don’t know if she shares those anymore. I thought she did, right up until my recent mistake.”

“Oh? Why?”

Julius couldn’t reveal much, but he could give the gist of the problem. “I pulled a stunt, the one where I messed up badly, and I ended up under house arrest because of it. She could have spoken for me, could have pleaded my case, but she did not. In the end my father had to make that plea, and convince someone else to intervene on my behalf.” He sounded bitter again, bitter at her this time. The last time he had seen Isis was when they had parted after the Emperor’s reprimand. She hadn’t looked at him as they’d slunk off, and he hadn’t seen or heard from her since. Not once during his house arrest, his short lived trial or on his trip from Terra to Seadelant had she even tried to make the effort to contact him, and he resented that. He knew a tiny part of him had rejoiced after he’d slept with Summer because of that, still rejoiced because of that. He wasn’t proud of that at all, but he knew why he felt that way.

“For all I know, it’s over between us. I won’t know for certain until I get home, if I even get home at all. That’s the flip side. I feel I’ve betrayed her, but I don’t even know if we’re still together or not, if I should feel like I’ve betrayed her. Everything ended so quickly, we all split apart and headed our separate ways in such a short space of time. I don’t want to die not knowing if or how it ended.”

She gave him a wistful look. “Oll, you always seem to seek advice from me, so here’s what I’d do. I’d just write that letter to her. Write it from the heart; leave out no details, spare no expense. Regardless of whether you’re still a couple or not, you owe it to her, to the time you spent together to tell her about me, the Daemon, this place in general. If you survive you can tell her all this to her face, but she should know regardless.”

“What about you? Are you going to write a letter?”

“Yes, but I hold out no hope for it ever being read. My parents disowned me, remember? I’m already dead to them, what difference will a letter make? They won’t tell my brother, they’ll just burn It.” she got up and headed for the door. As she left, she turned to Julius.
“Good luck with that letter Oll, I hope no-one ever has to read it.”

When she was gone, he took up the pen and paper, stared at it for a few seconds as he marshalled his thoughts and started writing in a neat hand: ‘Isis, if you’re reading this then I’m dead, killed in action on Seadelant. Regardless of how we parted, there are a few things I need you to know…’




“This is it everyone, saddle up!”

With Scvott’s command, they all readied for their final mission, checking weapons and shouldering packs of explosives and other materials. It was now nearly midnight, the crumbled ruins of the outer city were shrouded in darkness, the perfect cover for the band of civilians turned guerrilla fighters out to send a warning. Julius rubbed his eyes as he followed Flynn out of the bunker. He had tried to catch some sleep earlier, but it wouldn’t come. He just lay awake, thinking of everything that had happened to him in the twenty-nine days since the Hulk had come down. His life would never be the same again, of that he could be sure. He would return to Terra a vastly different person from the one who had fled the throneworld over two months ago. Would anyone see the change?

For this mission, they had broken out the recovered sets of PDF issue flak armour they had salvaged on an earlier mission. The armour was bulky, not suited to ambushes where speed and manoeuvrability was the key, but for what was effectively a head on assault at the Mole, it would provide greater protection that their unarmoured CDA issue bodygloves. Julius and Summer had helped each other strap on their Flak Armour, though Julius had found it harder to get it on her than vice versa. All of the armour vests were made for men, and squeezing her into it proved difficult, to say the least. Fortunately he’d kept his cool this time; he had no desire to repeat what had happened that morning.

As they filed out for what would most likely be the last time, Julius took one last look back at the place which for better and for worse, had been home for the last twenty-four days. What had happened here would stay with him for all of his days. He only hoped he would live long enough for those days to last longer than the next few hours, and that the letters stashed under his pillow would never have to be discovered.
In the month since he had arrived on Seadelant, the planet’s primary moon had gone through a full cycle, from new to full and now back to new. The lack of moonlight was a setback, but it was also an advantage. Orks couldn’t see any better than humans in the dark, and the cover it provided would let them get as close as possible before they strike. They emerged into the inky blackness, and following Flynn, set off into the city.

Normally they would try to keep away from the parts of the city the Orks had taken as their own, but this time they would have to go into the heart of darkness. 
The moment they transitioned from the ruined parts of the outer city to the Ork occupied parts was like stepping into another world, a darker and more brutal world. The buildings were covered in orky glyphs and graffiti, and barely a block in they found several dead Orks, killed by their own kind in some fight. Orks were just as likely to kill each other as they were to kill Humans or Eldar.
Now they were truly in the danger zone, and had to keep their eyes ever open for movement, and listen for the slightest sound. One false move and every Ork in the outer city would be gunning for them, all five million or so. Julius carefully reached down and unbuttoned his holster, so he could quickly draw his pistol in the event that something goes wrong. For several blocks there was nothing, and Julius began to breathe a little easier.

Flynn abruptly halted. “Ork patrol.” he whispered harshly, and they swiftly took cover, pressing themselves up against the crumbled masonry of the nearby buildings.
Julius saw the faint outlines of the three Orks as they made their way up the street, grunting to one another in their almost incomprehensible tongue. As they passed where he was hiding he hoped the Orks couldn’t hear the sound of his heart, hammering away in his chest. Finally the Orks disappeared into the gloom, and they set off again.
Soon the number of Ork patrols increased, and time and time again they were forced to seek shelter and hide from the enemy. Soon they could make no more than a crawl, until Flynn had enough and took them into a side street.
“We’ll need to go through the buildings here; the streets are no longer safe. Some of them will be occupied by the Orks, so we will have to take it slowly, check every building and every room before we move through it. It may take more time, but better that then getting caught in the open.”

Scvott nodded in agreement, and they all followed him into one of the ruined buildings. As Julius went in, Summer flashed him a tired but encouraging smile, which he tried to return but it came out a grimace. At least they weren’t dead yet.
For several blocks they picked their way through the wrecked and looted buildings which once were peoples Habs and workplaces. Most of them would have to be torn down and rebuilt once the war was done, if the Imperial forces won. Julius didn’t want to think about what would happen if the reverse came true.
The first time they stumbled over an Ork occupied building, Julius’s heart leapt into his mouth as he saw the hulking form of an Ork sitting outside. The Ork sentry was dozing, but if it woke up it would clearly see them and raise the alarm. They crept away and managed to find another route, but the whole time Julius hardly dared to breathe. He didn’t want to be the one who made the fatal misstep and doomed them all. 

After what seemed many hours, but was most likely only one or two they reached the edge of the park, and carefully ducked into an abandoned Hab. Fortunately it was missing its roof, and thus no Orks were using it as shelter.
The Hab overlooked the park where the mole was concealed, and despite the lack of moonlight the few dying campfires gave them a good view. Before the war it had been a place where parents had brought their children to play and frolic, but now the green was interspaced with a few scattered craters, and crude Ork tents were everywhere.
The Mole could be faintly seen, a shape half hidden behind several piles of scrap which used to be swings and other playground equipment, along with ground cars and assorted detritus. By his best guess, it was nearly two hundred yards away. Two hundred yards he would have to run, two hundred yards he would have to fight through. Two hundred yards which could well be his last.

“What do we do?” he whispered to Summer, who as usual was beside him. The two were almost inseparable now, and Julius couldn’t imagine doing this without her.

“And now, we wait.”



Several hours later, Summer tapped Julius on the shoulder, startling him into awareness. “This is it.” her words spurred him into action. He checked the charge on his Hellpistol, and set it to maximum. At that power, it could stab straight through Marine Battleplate. The simple Ork body armour would be no match at all.

They had waited long enough. They couldn’t sneak all the way through the Ork camp, they would have to do the impossible, and fight their way to the Mole. Fortunately most of the Orks were fast asleep, but that wouldn’t last, and they would be drawn like moths to a flame the moment they started shooting.

Flynn would start it off, using his preternatural stealth abilities to get as close as possible to the Mole, setting some bombs as he went. Once he had got as far as he could, he would detonate the bombs, and that would be the signal. Then they would all make for the Mole, weapons blazing. They would get to it, and either scramble aboard and start it off, or else set the explosives and blow it sky high. Julius rather hoped for the first option, as the other option held no means of escape and would end with his death. He wasn’t concerned about death, as a Catheric he knew that he would receive his reward for his years of service, but he had rather hoped to defer that date for a while.
Then the first bomb went off, the harsh bang ringing in his ears and startling him into awareness. Seconds later the next bomb went off, and the next, and the next. Flynn was doing a hell of a job. Nearby Scvott launched himself out, hollering and firing his Lasgun from the hip. 

Seconds later Dyllion joined him with his uquibitious Heavy Stubber, pausing to fire long bursts into the Ork camp. By now the Orks were stirring, hundreds grabbing weapons and seeking out the intruders.

Beside him, Summer flung herself out of the Hab and started towards the Mole. The firelight lit up her hair with a red glow, and Julius watched as she vanished into the fray.

He wanted to follow, but at the last second he found himself frozen. Was this it; was this how he wanted to meet his end? Surrounded by Orks, far from home on a planet where Daemons lurked? Were these his final moments alive?

Inside his head he heard a voice, speaking in his father’s voice, urging him forward. Up, up, up and at them! Heeding that voice, he threw himself at the foe, weapons at the ready.