Warzone: Borhelia - a mini-campaign on the planet Boreliah in the Esenie system!
-Inquisitor Ripley, this is Sergeant Vorstj of the Strelkovy Brigade, please respond!
Inquisitor Ellen Ripley frowned. The Strelkovy Brigade? The last time she heard about the Strelkovy, they had been all but wiped out and their commander-in-chief… what was his name… Ripley searched her memory and it came up with the name Suvarov… had been killed and the brigade had disintegrated. Or so she thought. Intriguing. Indeed.
-This is Inquisitor Ellen Ripley. Sergeant Vorstj, state your business. And please explain why you are addressing me now. I thought your brigade had ceased to exist.
-Inquisitor, please forgive me. I will explain, but first I have to inform you that there has been a development near Ludh…
-Go on, Sergeant!
-Right! As you know chaos forces is probing the country and that there are rumours that they are searching for something… important… dangerous.... Well, a couple of hours ago, I and my… ehm… new unit… ran into a detachment of traitor marines. The worst kind… the plague kind… And I got the feeling that we were… in the way, so to speak…
-How do you mean, Vorstj… in the way… Ripley felt a tension rising inside her. Could it be that Entragian was on to something? Tell me! Now!
-Well, they attacked us head-on. We were advancing towards Ludh for… ehm… recuperation and they came from nowhere and it was almost as they saw us like… uhm… some lowly Foolian spiders or something like that. Like annoying insects that had to be wiped away. It seemed that they had set their sights on something beyond us. Inquisitor, I don’t know how to fully explain…
-You don’t have to, Vorstj… Leave that to me! This is most intriguing ad I will consider what to do next… But, Sergeant Vorstj… Give me a more detailed report now. I need to know more!
- Right! Uhm… as I said, we were moving eastwards, towards Ludh. The Strelkovy brigade… or, rather, what was left of us have been dug in around the Harkeen village in order to rest and recruit. The Harkeen village is not a nice place and we are not welcome there after some… well, yeah… incidents. There has also been strange things going on for a while, where all the higher ranked officers suddenly have disappeared…
-Disappeared? How do you mean, Sergeant? Ripley became more and more interested in this Strelkovy business.
-Well, it started with Colonel Suvarov after the battle of Karditsa. As you might remember, the colonel ran into a large formation of Entragian’s Deathguard and probably died at their hands. But, his body was never found and when the brigade retreated from Karditsa we thought old Suv was dead. But… Some days later, the dreams started.
-The dreams?! Ripley felt a chill down her spine as she was beginning to understand what had happened to the colonel.
-Yeah, dreams… or I should say nightmares? Yeah! But the funny thing, if you could call it funny, was that only the commanding officers had the dreams. None of us NCO:s or the private’s. And it must have been hellish dreams, as the officers screamed in agony. And then they screamed about Suv… oh… the colonel, I mean… and then they took their lives, Inquisitor! All of them!! They killed themselves!
-By the Emperor’s golden throne! That is disturbing, indeed! I presume that the vile powers of the plague god was at work… But… Go on, sergeant, tell me more of the battle. Inquisitor Ripley started to fell uneasy. Had Lord Entragian found it? Or its whereabouts?
-Yes, Inquisitor. Well, as I said the Deathguard attacked over the whole front, backed up by their vile artillery. We took several casualties from that and as their infantry pressed on we halted and returned fire. By the Emperor, it was a sight! We downed lots of traitor marines and our artillery was hitting hard from afar. To our right reports came of a large concentration of walking dead that was rapidly movin forward, aided by a strange figure with lots of bells ringing. It was like thw walking corpses was invigorated by it and it took an insane amount of firepower to bring all of them down… but we did it! And the centre of the battlefield, we exchanged fire with traitor marines, where both sides ook casualties. But, Inquisitor, we wore them down too! I have never seen such courage and accuracy. It was like we couldn’t miss!
We had more problems to our left though, as heavy infantry teleported down from above, probably from a airship or something, and they tore into our left flank with ease. We lost many good men there! And one of our SP guns were ripped apart by the Deathguard. But we held, Inquisitor! We held our position and we punished the traitors hard! They retreated after taking heavy losses and now we have dug in, should they return. We have scouts out looking for them, but I think the traitors are spent… for now. But, Inquisitor Ripley… we could use some reinforcements and ammo. I’m not sure why… but I fear the traitors will come again… They were hell-bent for breaking through and since there are rumours of dangerous things, I feel that there might be something around here. It is a strange feeling in the air, also… And Orks have been spotted not that far away from here. Inquisitor will you send us aid?
-I sure will, sergeant Vorstj! Hold your position and let no one pass. No one! Aid will come as soon as possible. Just ping me your exact co-ordinates! Thank s for the report! You might have changed the war on Esenie by your effort! Over and out!
Ripley turned off the vox and leaned backwards and thought to herself... It must be the Liber Magii they were after. Thank the Emperor for sergeant Vorstj and his rag-tag force. True heroes! She reached for the vox-mic once again and made the call for Inquisitor Eisenhorn…
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Written by Tony (2024)