Writing a Black Templars marine story Thread - 40k (Sci-fi and Fantasy) Writers Workshop

Hi

I'm thinking of having a go at writing a Black Templar novel. I've written a wee extract that would be in the book. My rough idea for the plot so far is Orks turn up and go after a poor wee planet. The Black templars show up, but a third adversary and some betrayal sneaks in as the pot develops. The planned title is Deathless night.

Chapter 1 - Invaders.

Governor Militant, a position of power and ultimate authority on a planetary or system scale. Such authority given by the Imperium allows rule with an Iron fist,
crushing threats from within and the xeno. This authority flows from him on earth, the Emperor of mankind, the keeper and guardian of humanity. On the
planet of Icharus 5, Governer Militant Capius Ferus stared at the map in front of him. The map was a 3-D holo image showing the capital city of Ferus, a city named after his Grandfather decades before, the first Governer Miliant of Icharus. The city was at one stage a proud site. The city held residential sections, factories, a star port and a small temple forge of the blessed Mechanicus. In short the city had been shaping to be a fine capitol of artisans, merchants and tech priests loyal to the Emperor, ready to send materials out to other systems for the benefit of mankind.

In its early years of settlement the colonists had suffered hardship when some citizens had attempted to split from the Imperium. The final conflict between those still loyal and those who had betrayed their oaths to settle the stars for the Imperium of man happened at the capital Capius was looking at now. All those decades ago it had been his Grandfather Jonah Ferus a captain of the then city guard who had held the city against the rebels then gone on to kill every one of those who had rebelled as well as the families of those individuals who had supported the rebels. Jonah had even personally overseen and participated in the firing squad executions. This brutal act had given the Ferus family name a fearsome reputation as being uncompromising and ruthlessly efficient. Consequently when the dust cleared and the loyalist government was re established Jonah was named Governor Militant, and the city in which the final conflict occurred; Barus was renamed to Ferus. The threedimensional map of the city wobbled in and out of focus, the projection device
in a bad state of repair. Through the years, the city had grown, its bearing reflecting the growing prosperity. The city was still young; its buildings of
modest size and fresh appearance.

The map now showed a different city, the tall buildings had been brought down and no part of the city existed without collapsed structures littering across the landscape. Civil disruptions had been few and far between in the rule of Ferus family, but when they happened, the damage was usually contained at most one or two districts of desperate people. The district would burn, Capius like his father and Grandfather before him unrelenting in their authority.
Now was different, the damage to the city was not that of a massive civil disruption or a natural unexpected disaster. This was the work of something without pity or remorse, creatures utterly inhuman. This was the work of the xeno and that xeno was the ork. The invasion of Icharus began with brutality and unusually for orks deception. Icharus had little in the way of orbital defences, holding only a few satellites in geo - synchronus above the cities starport.

Well Icharus used to have the defense satellites until two weeks ago. A ship arrived unannounced and unexpected. To the long range sensors of the defence platforms the ship appeared to be an Imperial galaxy class troopship. Vomiting out from the Warp and into real space the ship arrived in orbit. Travelling at full burn the troopship charged toward the defence platforms. Tech adepts on board the platforms hesitated, the ship appeared to be of imperial design, a galaxy troopship designed to carry whole Imperial Regiments vehicles and all. Yet the ship had arrived unannounced and was charging towards them, with no attempt to communicate its intention.

As the distance rapidly closed a more detailed picture of the craft was gained and all pretence of an imperial craft was lost. What had once been a vessel to carry the armies of the Emperor now sported a massive leering skull face in place of the standard imperial prow design. On its flanks further modifications
had been made. On board the defence platforms adepts were caught in bewilderment and disgust at the corruption of the vessel. What followed was the most direct and brutal form of communication. In each socket of the leering skull lance batteries were placed. Each eye stabbed out with ravening spikes of energy. The first and largest platform, the primus died instantly, the lance hits penetrating armour to strike the platforms core, causing its detonation. On the surviving four platforms void shields were raised and weapons were turned on the murderous vessel.

The four platforms were minors of the primus platform destroyed a moment before. Each platform holding bombardment weapons; with no lance batteries or missile system. Working together the platforms opened fire on the transport, tech adepts coordinating their fire to bombard the shields of the transport desperate to find weakness and destroy the vessel before it could turn its lance batteries towards them. Lance batteries mounted on the vessels broadside sections flared into life to stab out at the remaining platforms. One died immediately, destroyed as the prime was destroyed. The remaining platforms fired desperately, but the troop ships shield held, allowing its lance batteries to fire again destroying another platform. At this point only two platforms remained and the tech priests of both made their final decision.

Orbital platforms contained few if any drive systems, but they did have orbital thrusters to maintain their geo synchronous position. This was now used by both stations to rapidly manoeuvre into a collision with the transport. One was unable to get close to the traitorous transport before its lance batteries fired, stripping the platforms shield and ripping through its hull causing it to break apart. The second station succeeded in its impact, the tech priest aboard diverting all his generators to shields and thrusters. The logic of the Tech priest told him that weapons at this point were no longer a concern, including life support and the generators could be pushed above their nominal output.

Crashing into the transport, the platform impacted the rear section of the transport smashing into its external engine section. The platform went into and along the starboard engines before detonating, the inevitable conclusion of overcooked generators breached by damage. The impact overwhelmed the void
shields of the vessel unable to resist the impact and detonation, destroying the starboard engines section completely and damaging the port side. The effect was not to destroy the transport; as such a goal could not be accomplished by the platform alone. Instead the impact was intended to and did cripple the engines of the transport. The result was immediate, further damage to systems tied into the engines made the transport subject to the gravitational pull of Icharus five. Inevitably the vessel was pulled toward the surface.

The reaction to this turn of events showed why the Ork is seen as one of the most terrifying dangerous xenos, not just because of their incredible strength or innate instinct for combat but because of how an Ork reacts to a situation which in ordinary humans would cause despair. Pitching forward the leering skull aimed itself towards the surface of Icharus 5, and the ships remaining thrusters placed the ship in a controlled descent (although this term is given with great generosity).

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If anyone reading this isn't that familiar with the 40k units I'd appreciate knowing if its readable. I've read a lot of 40k so the above text is okay to follow for me but I'm not sure how it would for anyone who isn't familiar. Would this extract put a new reader off or would they like it?

It's readable and easy to understand, though your should go into detail about the Orks more as you have little or no sentences describing their brutal and warmongering nature, so a new reader might have issues knowing what they are about. What you could do is something like a prologue and just describe the orks and their galaxy wide reputation, something like this:
The Orks, popularly dubbed greenskins, even though their skin is a dark green and is usually leathery, have a reputation for being bloodthirsty and brutal and horrendously stupid. There are so many Orks in the galaxy that if they were to unite, they could destroy every planet in the Imperium, and the Imperium is the Government which rules as human worlds that are loyal to the Emperor. The Emperor is the Imperium's god, the idol they worship and pray to. The Orks are brutal and bloodthirsty, where most sentient races have a sense of peace and friendliness in their instincts, the Ork's only instinct is to wage war, be it on other races or upon themselves. The Orks are split into thousands upon thousands of factions called clans, for example, some clans names are this; Skull Smashaz, Yella Snakez, Stone Breakaz and many more.
Where other races have well maintained vehicles, armor and weapons, the Orks do not possess the brainpower to create their own, so whenever they win a battle or campaign, they loot the weapons and armor, and cannibalize the vehicles to have more "Orkiness." These vehicles are just ramshackle, rusty hulks that the Orks have attached as many guns as they can onto. There have been reports that Ork's vehicles have fallen apart when they have fired their weapons.