Editing Trip Into Hell (Warhammer High) (section)

===The Sky is Falling===
The Sky was falling. Explosions painted the sky, burning wrecks plummeted to their destruction, and streaking blasts of anti-aircraft fire stitched bright traceries across the heavens. Ahriman felt them all moments before they happened, felt the air part as Roks plummeted through the atmosphere, felt the heat as Plasma Missiles flew up towards the descending Roks, felt the crunch as Defence Laser beams smashed those Roks into pebbles. He was in the command centre, or more accurately his body was in the command centre, wearing an archaic helmet he’d cobbled together using materials from the Astropathic Guild, allowing him to share his precognitional abilities with the Astropaths he’d had stationed at each Defence Laser battery and the Plasma Missile silo command centre, as well as sending small snippets to individual Pilots and AA gunners should the need arise. He’s practiced with them all for several hours yesterday, and while the experience hadn’t been entirely pleasant, it was now paying off. His spirit, his body of light, his ‘mistflesh’ as the Wolves called it was flitting across the battlespace, seemingly everywhere and nowhere at the same time. As he stood there facing the invasion, jerking images of the future blazed in his mind. Those images he used, bending and changing them to his benefit. Once, this had been simple enough to do, but now he was ever mindful of the Primordial Annihilator, one aspect of which had mastered the manipulation of the future thousands of years before man had even contemplated there being such a thing as the future. Now he had to be careful, keeping feather-light touch, and ever mindful for any sudden shifts in the currents of the future, which could suggest external influence. But his main focus was manipulating the strands of fate to his, and the planets advantage. This close to the present, such sudden changes would be easy to find, and it was a simple matter for the Master of the Corvidae to pluck them from the aether. Every time he did, he sent a pulse of warning to the Astropaths, who in turn sent it to the gun crews, who used this priceless information to ensure every shot counted. Under his guidance, not a single Defence Laser beam, Plasma Missile or AA flak burst was wasted, every shot bringing a target down. That alone couldn’t stop the invasion, but it thinned the ranks of the enemy nicely and ensured no Roks went through the shield and flanked the city walls, upsetting his complex defence plan. 

Ahriman saw a flickering image of a Dakkajet shell punch through the belly of a Thunderbolt Fighter, and sent a pulse of warning into the matrix. 
No sooner had his warning been sent than Thunderbolt banked sharply. Mere seconds later, a stream of shells tore empty air and exploded harmlessly above it, and the Thunderbolt responded with its chattering Autocannons, sending the Dakkajet down in flames.

The last few hours had been hectic, ever since he had felt the shift in the aetheric currents which betrayed the Roks and Landa’s leaving the Hulk, bound for the planet’s surface. Everything had to be in place, everything had to be right. Many people had cursed his name, but better that then them getting killed. He had always been a bit of a perfectionist, something which had not made him popular with many of his students, but in war that perfection achieved Victory. Fulgrim and his warriors may endlessly quest for perfection, but the Thousand Sons embodied it.

This was something entirely new for him. There were occasions during the Crusade where Astartes took command of Imperial Army forces, usually during long campaigns far from support, but never had an Astartes taken command of the defence forces of an entire planet. He knew there would be an inquiry and a reckoning, but he could deal with that when it happened. As his Space Wolf friend Ohthere Wyrdmake once told him ‘burn those bridges when you come to them’. He’d heard from Wyrdmake just a few days previously, he’d been making preparations for when the Lady Freya returned to Fenris as part of that little trip she was going on with some of the other Daughters. Unbidden, the old saying, ‘There are no wolves on Fenris’ entered into his mind, and his body snorted, alarming the Vox operators clustered around him. 

His heightened sensitivity to the immediate future gave him an unmatched situational awareness. He could see every aircraft and every Rok in the clear blue skies, and feel the fears of the PDF Troopers and the Guard manning the walls and watching the unfolding spectacle. When the ancients talked about omnipotent gods, they had no idea how right they were. He flew with the lone squadron of Thunderbolts stationed planetside as they busily played cat and mouse with the heavy Ork Landas, knocking down as many as possible while keeping the Ork Fightas and Dakkajets at bay.  He stood with the PDF troopers as they stared up at the sky, or mentally prepared themselves for the upcoming battle. He skimmed over the shield as shells from orbit and shards of Rok clanged and bounced off of it. What on the outside seemed like total chaos, to him was a graceful ballet, every piece of the defence moving in harmony. It was a dance of potential futures, an endlessly shifting current of the possible and the real, blending, separating and combining in a tempest of time. It was as close as Ahriman ever felt to total perfection.



War is hell. A saying as old as war itself. Julius had read that saying many thousands of times, in many thousands of ancient works. But one thing you never read, that the ancients never said was that war was beautiful, even if that beauty was dark, harsh and inhuman, repulsive and yet attractive at the same time. These thoughts passed through Julius’s mind as he watched the fireworks blaze far above him. Shells, debris and other flotsam and jetsam of battle smacked and bounced off Port Huron’s voids, the endless flickers and flashes of energy emanating from them lighting up the sky like a stormy aurora. The contrails of Imperial and Ork aircraft formed vivid patterns high above the city as they duelled in the autumn sky. He couldn’t see much more, where the Orks were landing or what they were doing was a mystery to him, and being honest he didn’t much want to know. He had his duty, keep the troops supplied, and that would be what he would do, when the time came. There was nothing for them to do now until the bullets started flying, and so he sat there, watching the world ripping itself apart. Around him his section similarly stared open mouthed at the sky like awestruck babes, mirroring his own expression. He’d lived on Terra, seen the Emperor Himself, had tea with the Primarchs and gone on trips with all their daughters, and yet this sight, this sight which could herald his own death still filled him with awe.

“This is shit I’ll tell my Grandchildren about.” Dyllion murmured as a Rok was vaporised by a direct hit far above them.

“Yeah, if you live long enough to have grandchildren.” Julius added. He’d swiftly warmed to his squadmates, and they to him. They’d spent the night swapping stories around a Promethium burner, as the shields continued to bear the brunt of the enemy’s inaccurate planetary bombardment. Flynn was Tanith born and bred, his father a Nalwood trader who had set up shop here to take advantage of traffic on the Void Walks and the Terra-Ultramar road. He also proved to be a genius with machines, spending a lot of time tinkering with the C-80s engine trying to remove the speed governors, someone who on a different world would have been swiftly indoctrinated into the Mechanicum and trained as a Tech-Priest. He and Farah would get on like a house on fire, were they ever to meet.

Scvott was a pilot cadet in the Seadelant PDF, who hoped to join the Imperial Navy and see the Galaxy. He had aspirations for command, though his commanding antics did little to impress Julius, he wanted to be firm but kind and couldn’t quite manage either.

From what little they could wheedle out of him, Dyllion was the son of a dockworker at the spaceport. He spoke little, cursed often and had seemingly no respect for Scvott as a leader, but behind the colourful insults was a strangely reassuring presence, and of all of them he was the strongest physically.

Summer though, she spoke little and didn’t speak about her past. She always seemed slightly distant, but as the only woman among them Julius could hardly fault her for that. In fact, he kind of knew how she felt, for so much of his life he’d been the minority, outnumbered by the Imperial Daughters, who he’d been brought up with. In fact, this was the first time he’d been with a bunch of peers who were not the sons of nobility or the upper classes, these people were more like Jake than anyone he’d met before. He idly wondered what Jake’s reaction would be when he told him about this.

He noticed with interest the camera crew standing on the wall nearby, filming the spectacle for the planetary news services. They finished and headed down the wall and towards where they were lounging. Noticing the CDA bands on their arms, they detoured over towards them.
“Excuse me, we’re with the Seadelant Broadcasting Corporation, the SBC, and we’re looking for people to interview. Keep up morale and all that.”

They exchanged a few questions with an enthusiastic Scvott and more down to earth Flynn, while Summer politely declined and Dyllion’s comment was not fit for broadcast. As they turned to Julius, Scvott mentioned to them that he wasn’t from Seadelant, he was an offworlder.

“Oh, you are? Who are you then, and where are you from son?”

“Parsson. Oll Parsson Ser, from Calth in the Thousand Worlds.”

“Ultramar? What’s an Ultramar boy doing here on Seadelant?”

Before his mind could fully process the question and connect with his fictional back-story, he said “I was on my home from a trip to Terra.”

There were audible gasps from his squadmates. He’d clean forgot he’d deliberately not made mention of Terra at all, only that he was a native of the Thousand Worlds, and he’d been visiting relatives elsewhere. Now he was up for it.

“So, you were on Terra when that awful shooting incident happened to the Lady Morticia. Is that comparable to what’s happening now?”

Julius winced. That was the one think he had been hoping to avoid.

“They are two very different things Ser. The assassination attempt on the lady Morticia was a tragedy for the entire Imperium, and she could easily have died. This though, if the worst comes to the worst many thousands, maybe millions could die. Does her life count for more than those lives, is her importance greater than all those who are willing to lay down their lives to defend our Imperium?” Julius didn’t quite know where that came from, but he spoke it with such passion that he saw the film crew were moved.

“I’m not trying to lessen her ordeal, or make it sound frivolous, I’m not. But that is a rather stupid question to ask right here, right now. The Daughters are important, but they’re not here now standing shoulder to shoulder with the brave men and women who are about to face the Greenskins on the battlements yonder. Leave them out of it, and focus on the men and women who count those who will die for your world. I’m an offworlder who volunteered to stand with this planet’s native sons and daughters in the defence of their world, your world, and I honestly couldn’t be more proud.”

All of this poured out of Julius without him quite realising what he was saying. All his frustration at the last few months poured out.

“Thank you very much for that, Oll. Your story will be an inspiration all over Seadelant.” And with that, the film crew departed, somewhat hastily as a shell landed against the shield close by. 

When they were gone, Julius found his squadmates clustered around him, demanding answers. “You’ve been to Terra? Why didn’t you tell any of us?” Summer demanded.
“I didn’t think it was important. I know I’ve caused a stir already, I didn’t want make a bigger one.”

“Well you failed on that count, Oll. Your face is going to be plastered all over the SBC now, the brave offworlder standing in defence of our world alongside its native sons. Good propaganda, very stirring.” Flynn dodged Julius’s throw, laughing.

“You’re an offworlder too Flynn.” He retorted.

“Yeah, well I’ve been living here for nearly five years. Whereas you were just passing through.”

“So, you’ve seen Terra? What was it like?” Summer added.

Julius had to think of that one for a while. “A mixed bag. Some parts, like Startseite and the Merican hives were nice, but there’s still poverty, even on the very doorstep of the Emperor’s Palace, and the atmosphere is still heavily polluted despite the years of Geo-Engineering. It’s not the perfect place everyone thinks it to be, in fact I’d rather live here than on Terra any day.”

“And Calth? What’s that like?”

Julius smiled vaguely, while trying to remember from the Holos what Calth was actually like. “A lot like here. Your world reminds me of Calth, the clean air and bright sky, which is one reason I’m glad I’m able to help you protect it. I can imagine what it would be like if Calth came under attack, and was ravaged by some enemy set on slaughter and despoilment. I’d rather die than see that day, for either of our worlds. Now come on, we’ve had our time in the spotlight, didn’t Flynn have that joke about the Eldar…”