the breeze.
“You’re right, Leden,” Hallan said, the excitement in his voice drawing the attention of the rest
of the company as dozens of eyes turned to look toward the flag. “It’s our own lines, all right. If you
look closely you can see the outlines of camouflaged bunkers and firing emplacements. That’s
where we should be headed.”
“But it’s got to be seven or eight hundred metres away at least, Hals,” Vorrans protested. “With
nothing between us and that flag but open ground. We’ll never make it.”
“We don’t have any choice, Vors,” Hallan said. Then, seeing the eyes of every other Guardsman
in the company were on him, he turned to them, his voice raised loud enough to be heard among the
din of gunfire. “Listen to me, all of you. I know you’re scared. Zell knows, I am too. But if we stay
here we are as good as dead. Our only chance is to make for that flag!”
For a moment there was no response as the Guardsmen cast frightened eyes from the now
burning lander to the wide expanse of open ground before them. Each man weighing an unwelcome
decision: to stay and risk an undetermined death sometime in the future, or to run and risk an
immediate death in the present. Then, suddenly, a shell landed on their side of the lander no more
than five metres from where they were standing and the decision was made for them.
They ran.
Breathless, terror dogging his every step, Larn ran with them. He ran, as from behind them there
came a remorseless tide of gunfire as the unseen enemy tried to shoot them down. He saw men die
screaming all around him, red gore spraying from chests and arms and heads as the bullets struck
them. He saw men killed by falling shells, bodies torn apart by blast and shrapnel, heads and limbs
dismembered in an instant. All the time he kept his eyes glued on the flag - his would-be refuge —
in the distance before him. His every breath a silent prayer in the hope of salvation. His every step
one closer to making that salvation a reality.
As he ran, he saw friends and comrades die. He saw Hallan fall first, his right eye exploding
from its socket to make way for the bullet passing though it, his mouth open in a cry of
encouragement to his fellow Guardsmen that would never be finished. Then Vorrans, his torso
ruptured and mutilated as a dozen pieces of shrapnel exploded through his chest. Other men fell:
some he had known by name, others he had known only by sight. All of them killed as, just as
breathless and desperate as he was, they ran for the flag. Until at last, with most of his comrades
dead already and the flag still a hundred metres away, Larn realised he would never make it.
“Here! Over here! Quickly, this way! Over here!”
Suddenly, hearing shouting voices nearby Larn turned to see a group of Guardsmen in greyblack
camouflage appear as if from nowhere to beckon him towards them. Changing direction to
head for them, he saw they had emerged from a firing trench and raced towards it with enemy
bullets chewing up the ground around him. Until at last, reaching the trench, he leapt inside to
safety.
Trying to catch his breath as he lay at the bottom of the trench, looking about him Larn saw five
Guardsmen standing around him in the confines of the trench: all clad in the same uniform of greyblack
patterned greatcoats, mufflers and fur-shrouded helmets. At first they ignored him, their eyes
turned to scan the killing fields he had just escaped from. Then, one of the Guardsmen turned to
look down towards him with a grimace and finally spoke.
31
“This is Vidmir in trench three, sergeant,” the Guardsmen said, pressing a stud at his collar as
Larn realised he was speaking down a comm-link. “We have one survivor. I think a few more made
it to the other trenches. But most of those poor dumb bastards are dead out there in no-man’s land.
Over.”
“I can see movement on the ork side,” one of the other Guardsmen said, standing looking over
the trench parapet. “All this killing must have got their blood up. They’re getting ready for an
attack.” Then, while Larn was still wondering if he had really heard the word “ork”, he saw the man
turn away from the parapet to look towards him.
“Assuming that uniform you’re wearing is not just for show, new fish, you might want to stand
up and get your lasgun ready. There’s going to be shooting.”
Pulling himself to his feet, Larn unslung his lasgun, stepping forward as the other Guardsmen
moved sideways to make space for him on the trench’s firing step. Then, as he checked his lasgun
and made ready to put it to his shoulder, he saw something that caused him to wonder if his first
combat drop might have gone even more badly wrong than he could have thought. As, from the
corner of his eye, he spotted a bullet-riddled wooden sign erected behind and slightly to one side of
the trench. A sign whose ironic greeting gave him pause to wonder if he really was where he
thought he was at all.
A sign that said:
Welcome to Broucheroc.
32
CHAPTER SIX
12:09 hours Central Broucheroc Time
Questions of Interstellar Geography and Other Revelations — A Bad Day in Hell — The Waaagh!
— A Baptism of Fire — Hand-To-Hand against the Enemy — An Opinion as to the Best Method of
Killing a Gretchin
“They’re getting ready to move all right,” the Guardsman said next to him, spitting a wad of greasy
phlegm over the trench parapet. “They’ll hit us hard this time, and in numbers. It’s the blood that
does it, you see. Our blood, I mean. Human blood. The sight and smell of it always makes ’em more
willing and eager for a fight. Though, Emperor knows, your average ork is usually pretty eager to
begin with.”
His name was Repzik: Larn could see the faded letters of the name stencilled on the tunic of the
man’s uniform under his greatcoat. Standing beside him on the firing step, Larn followed the
direction of his eyes to look into the landscape he now knew as no-man’s land.
No matter how intently he stared across the bleak fields of frozen mud before them he could see
no movement, nor for that matter any other sign of the enemy. Ahead, no-man’s land seemed as flat,
featureless and devoid of life as it had when he had emerged from the lander to his first view of it
barely ten minutes ago. The only difference now was the addition of the burning shell of the lander
itself and with it the bodies of his company strewn haphazard and bloody across the frozen
landscape. Abruptly, as he looked out at the remains of men he had known as friends and comrades,
Larn felt the beginnings of tears stinging wetly at the corners of his eyes.
Jenks is dead, he thought. And Hallan, Vorrans, Lieutenant Winters, even Sergeant Ferres. I
don’t see Leden. Perhaps he is still alive somewhere. But nearly every man I came here with from
Jumael is lying dead out there in no-man’s land. All of them slaughtered within minutes of landing,
without even having fired a shot.
“It’s a pity about your comrades,” Repzik said, his voice almost kindly as Larn clenched his eyes
to try and stop the other men in the trench from seeing his tears. “But they’re dead and you ain’t.
What you need to start thinking about now is how you’re going to stop yourself from joining them.
The orks are coming, new fish. If you want to live you’re going to have to keep yourself hard and
tight.”
“Orks?” Larn said, trying to concentrate his mind on the practical in an effort to lay his grief
aside. “You said ‘orks’? I didn’t know there were any orks on Seltura VII?”
“Could be that’s true,” Repzik said, as beside him one of the other Guardsmen looked to the sky
in silent exasperation. “Fact is, you’d have to ask somebody who’s actually been there. Here in
Broucheroc though we generally have more orks than we know what to do with.”
“Wait,” asked Larn, confused, “are you telling me this planet isn’t Seltura VII?”
“Well, I wasn’t specifically commenting on it, new fish,” Repzik said. “But since you ask, you’d
be right enough. This place isn’t Seltura VII — wherever in hell that is.”
Stunned, for a moment Larn wondered if he had somehow misunderstood the man’s meaning.
Then, he looked out again at the treeless landscape and was struck by all the troubling
inconsistencies between what he had been told to expect on Seltura VII and the stark brutal realities
of the world he saw before him. They had made the drop three weeks early. There were no forests. It
was winter rather than summer. The war here was against orks, not PDF rebels. A catalogue of facts
33
that, with a dawning horror born of slow realisation, pushed him inexorably toward a sudden and
shocking conclusion.
Holy Throne, he thought. They sent us to the wrong planet!
“I shouldn’t be here,” he said aloud.
“It’s funny how everyone tends to think that when they’re waiting for an attack to begin,” said
Repzik. “I wouldn’t worry about it, new fish. Once the orks get here you’ll soon find yourself
feeling right at home.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Larn said. “There has been a terrible mistake. My company was
supposed to be going to the Seltura system. To a world called Seltura VII, to put down a mutiny
among the local PDF. Something must have gone wrong because I’m on the wrong planet.”
“So? What is that to me?” Repzik said, his eyes as he looked at Larn seemed little warmer than
the landscape around them. “You are on the wrong planet. You are in the wrong system. Not to
mention probably the wrong war. Get used to it, new fish. If that is the worst thing that happens to
you today, you will have been lucky.”
“But you don’t understand—”
“No. It is you who does not understand, new fish. This is Broucheroc. We are surrounded by ten
million orks. And right now some of those orks — maybe only a few thousand or so, if we are lucky
— are getting ready to attack us. They don’t care what planet you think you should be on. They
don’t care that you think you’re in the wrong place, that you’re wet behind the ears, or that you’re
probably not even old enough to shave. All they care about is killing you. So if you know what is
good for you, new fish, you will put all this crap aside and start worrying about killing them
instead.”
Shocked at the man’s outburst Larn said nothing, his reply dying on his tongue as he saw Repzik
turn away from him to gaze darkly into no-man’s land once more. As though by some sixth sense
the other Guardsmen in the trench had already done the same, all of them staring hard into no-man’s
land as though watching something happening out there of which Larn was entirely unaware. No
matter how hard Larn tried, he could see nothing. Nothing except grey-black mud and desolation.
Frustrated, wary of asking the others what they were looking at for fear of drawing another
angry outburst, Larn turned to glance around him. Behind him, hidden from his sight when he had
first landed by a gentle sloping of the ground, was a series of firing trenches and foxholes. All of
them led down towards sandbag emplacements that covered the entrances to a number of
underground dugouts set among the shattered husks of buildings at the outskirts of the city. Now his
eyes had become accustomed to the relentless grey of the landscape, Larn could see other firing
trenches around and to the side of their trench — their parapets cunningly camouflaged to look no
different from the countless chunks of crumbling half-buried plascrete and other detritus that lay
scattered across this wasteland. From time to time a Guardsman would suddenly emerge from one of
the trenches to run half-crouched, zigzagging from one piece of cover to the next until he reached
the safety of either another trench or the entrance to one of the dugouts. Behind them, in the
distance, the main body of the city stood brooding across the horizon as though watching their lives
and labours with disdain. A city of ruined and battle-scarred buildings set against a grey and
uncaring sky.
This is Broucheroc, Larn reminded himself. That is what they said the city was called.
“There,” one of the Guardsmen said beside him. “I see green. The bastards are moving.”
Turning to gaze once more into no-man’s land with the others, for a moment Larn found himself
vainly struggling to see anything among the wearying grey of the world about them. Then, suddenly,
at ground level, perhaps a kilometre away, he saw a brief glimpse of green flesh as its owner stood
upright for a split second before abruptly disappearing once more.
“I see it,” Larn said, the words jumping breathless from him, unbidden. “Holy Emperor! Is that
an ork?”
34
“Hhh. I only wish orks were as small as that, new fish,” Repzik said, spitting over the parapet
into no-man’s land again. “That’s a gretch. A gretchin. Keep looking and you should be able to see
some more.”
He was right. Ahead, Larn saw the creature stand upright once more. This time it stood where it
was unmoving, its green flesh plainly visible against the contrast of the grey backdrop of the
landscape behind it. Then, after a moment, Larn saw another dozen creatures appear beside it, all of
them standing still and motionless as though trying to smell something on the wind. Each of them
perhaps a metre tall at most, their stunted green bodies appearing curiously hunched and misshapen
inside their rough grey garments. Watching them, Larn felt himself recoil in instinctive horror at his
first sight of an alien species. Until, before he even knew what he was doing, his finger was on the
trigger of las-gun at his shoulder as he sighted in on the Xenos.
“Don’t bother, new fish,” Repzik said, laying a hand across his barrel. “Even if you did manage
to hit one of the gretch at this range, you would be wasting your ammo. Save it “til later. Save it for
the orks.”
“I don’t like it,” one of the other Guardsmen said. “If the orks are sending their gretch out like
that it means they’re planning on hitting us with a frontal assault. Another one. What is that now?
Something like the third one today?”
“Third time is right, Kell,” the Guardsman called Vidmir said, his face grim as he pressed a
finger to his ear to listen to something on his comm bead. “You’ll have to remember to remonstrate
with the orks about their lack of originality when they get here. From the reports I’m hearing over
the tactical net, you should soon be getting the opportunity to do so.”
“What is it?” the other Guardsman — Kell — asked, while the rest of the men in the trench
