Gaunt's Ghosts (with Ponies!)

by Venter

First Contact

"Fething Tyranids." Major Elim Rawne grunted, sharpening his chainsword on the transport deck of the Valkyrie troop transport ferrying them in from orbit. "Fething planet is locked off from the Imperium for half a millenia by a warp storm, and the first report we get on it is fething Tyranids." He looked around the transport at his particular detachment. Nearest to him was Commisar Hark. His right arm was an augmetic, replacing an original lost to hard fighting in an earlier campaign. Hark had a strong face, worthy of his title. He wasn't an original member of the Tanith first and only, but he had proven his mettle on countless actions with them since.

To Hark's right was trooper Caffran, a Tanith native and possibly the best shot with a rocket in the regiment. Caffran was one of the few soldiers Rawne considered a friend; one of the few whom he, the man who trusted nobody, could trust. Caff also seemed to represent some kind of rekindled hope for the Tanith. He had taken up with one of the troopers who joined the regiment on Vervunhive, and the two of them had adopted a son, saved from the carnage of Vervunhive when the hive world was torn apart by war.

Continuing down the line was trooper "Try Again" Bragg, an enormous bear of a man who was nearly the size of a space marine. Bragg earned his nickname by being a notoriously poor shot; still, his sheer size and physical power made him able to heft heavy weapons with ease, and was invaluable in melee combat. Bragg also had a reputation as a distiller, recreating the native liquor of Tanith 'Sacra' for the rest of the regiment.

Beside Bragg was trooper "mad" Larkin, cleaning the barrel of his hot-shot longlas. Larkin was easily the best marksman in the regiment, and in Rawne's opinion possibly in the entire Imperial Guard. Larkin and Bragg had the sort of friendship which could only be tempered by the fires of war, a bond unbreakable by ceramite. It was Larkin who had coined the regiment's nickname - “Gaunt's Ghosts”.

In addition to these five were six other troopers. Some were native-born of Tanith, others had folded into the regiment from Verghast or Vervunhive. All together they were just a single squad of the Tanith first and only, an ill-fated elite regiment of the Imperial Guard serving under the command of Colonel-Commisar Ibram Gaunt. The planet Tanith itself was no more; the same day that the regiment had been founded, a splinter chaos fleet razed the planet. Gaunt got the regiment off world rather than letting them die with their world. Rawne had still never forgiven him for it.

“We don't know that it's 'nids, Rawne.” Caffran said. “Inquisition saw some some kind of shadow on the warp, and the Ordo Xenos decided it wasn't worth it to wait around for whatever was causing it to show themselves.”

“Fething Inquisition.” Rawne added. “Rumors of a Tyranid presence and all they send is three guard regiments. They tell us we're here as scouts, but I don't think the hive fleet is going to accept that explanation.” Harkin gave Rawne a pointed look. Most commissars would execute a trooper for such an insult to the holy inquisition, but a combination of respect for Major Rawne and a knowledge of where Rawne's distaste for the inquisition came from stayed his hand.

Various runes began to illuminate in the transport cabin, low gothic messages letting them know that drop time was approaching. “Alright boys, listen up. In case any of you slept through the briefing, we're approaching the capital city of an unknown xenos race. This world was once Imperial, but a warp storm has kept the Emperor's light from it's surface for more than five thousand years. Gaunt and his team will be dropping a quarter mile West of us, and meeting up with us at the capital gates.” Rawne spoke with the surity of a veteran officer.

“What about Mkoll and the scouts?” Asked Bragg. If brevity was the soul of wit, then Bragg was as witty as they come.

“The scouts are looking into a potential fallback point. A forest to our Southeast; the trees may not be Nalwood, but Tanith can fething well still fight in the woods.”

“I don't like it.” Larkin spoke quietly. “Give me a forest against Chaos any day; but if Tyranids are here... I don't want to fight an animal where I can't get a clean shot at it.” He clutched his longlas, lovingly stroking the custom nalwood stock.

“Shut it Larks. Anyway, our task is to make contact with the xenos and investigate the rumors of Tyranid presence. Xenos-filth though they may be, we aren't to attack the locals. If the 'nids are here, we'll need every ounce of help we can get. Not to mention the Ordos Xenos probably wants to look at the new race's prospects for auxiliary support in the guard. That said, if they attack you, light them up. Lasguns hot; we drop in thirty.” Rawne concluded his briefing, and the transport bay went silent.

They could see Canterlot through the windows, it's towers and minarets quite foreign to eyes accustomed to gothic architecture. None of them spoke a word, the silence unbroken until the transport bay door began to open. It was the sort of silence that always preceded a potential combat situation, quiet as the graves they might be in by the night's end. They slid down wires from the Valkyrie, hitting the groudn with camo cloaks flowing around them. The camo cloak was one of the Tanith's signature pieces of equipment, together with long straight silver warknives. To the west they could just make out the faint glow of the other Valkyrie's engines, their output muted in an effort to remain concealed.

The squad made it within a hundred yards of the Canterlot gates before they burst open, three dozen royal guard spilling out clad in armor and carrying an assortment of swords and spears. The few unicorns in their midst bore their weapons magically; the rest held them in their mouths. The unicorns took point – having magical carrying capacity left their mouths free to talk.

“I'm not sure what you're doing skulking about the front gates at this hour, creatures, but I suggest you turn back.” The lead unicorn said. His armor was particularly ornate, the front portion of the breastplate bearing the sun and moon crest symbolizing Celestia and Luna.

“Better idea. How about you drop your little bits of scrap metal there and take us to your leaders without a fuss?” Rawne responded. He had a confident grin that masked several points of confusion. Firstly, these creatures apparently spoke near flawless low Gothic, despite having been cut off from the empire for five millenia. Secondly, they appeared to be talking horses, some of whom were psychically active.

“Last I checked, we've got you outnumbered and out-armed. We're 24 to your 11, and we've got swords and spears – you've got knives and funny looking sticks.” The lead unicorn shot back, his voice conveying confidence to match Rawnes.

“Larks – why don't you show him what our funny sticks can do?” Rawne said with a devilish grin as he looked to the master sniper. Larkin shouldered his longlas and let out his breath. A sharp crack rang out as a bright crimson beam tore the night's darkness apart. It went straight through the head of the lead unicorn's spear, out the other end, and ended up burning a hole halfway through the right eye of a Starswirl the Bearded statue. “Now, I'll say it again.” Rawne turned back to the guards. “Put. Down. Your. Weapons.” One by one the guards began to disarm, until only the lead unicorn was left clutching his mangled spear with a field of magic.

“Celestia forgive my guards if they won't stand up to you, but I swore a oath to protect.” The unicorn said, hooves digging into the ground.

“A noble gesture.” A new voice rang out, intimately familiar to the Tanith. Rawne's upper liip curled a bit in a snarling expression; the rest of the squad, however, felt their courage and confidence soar. The voice's owner, Ibram Gaunt, stepped forward. “But a wasted one. We aren't here to fight you, and I promise we will not harm your queen as long as we aren't attacked first.”

“Princess.” The unicorn corrected him, but begrudgingly let his spear fall to the ground. There was something about Gaunt's voice that he trusted. Rawne had an obvious malicious streak which made him come off less than trustworthy; Gaunt, on the other hand, had an air of nobility about him. He had long sharp cheekbones befitting his surname, and wore a black Commissar's cap together with a Tanith issue camo-cloak.

“Smart move. We aren't your enemy today. I am Colonel Commisar Ibram Gaunt, of the God Emperor's Imperial Guard.” Gaunt gave the unicorn a courteous nod, presuming that a handshake would be meaningless to a creature without hands.

“Long Spear.” The unicorn returned the nod. “Second in command of the Canterlot royal guard.” It took Gaunt several seconds to figure out that Long Spear was the pony's name, and not some sort of bizarre codephrase.

Behind Gaunt nine more guardsmen and an odd robed civilian were falling in with Rawne's team, for a total of 22. Brin Milo, the youngest of the Tanith and Gaunt's personal adjutant was among them. “By the throne, it's a talking horse. And a psyker to boot.” Milo said, staring slackjawed.

Agun Soric, another member of Gaunt's company corrected him. “Not a Psyker.” Soric had a very effective sense when it came to psionic matters; more than once, Gaunt had suspected him of being a psyker himself. That said, he valued Soric as a guardsman far to much to voice such thoughts, particularly with the black ships of the Inquisition in orbit. Psykers were not permitted to exist freely among the Imperial Guard; if an Inquisitor decided that Soric had the gift, he would be taken for the painful process of sanctioning.

Long Spear led the group past the front gates and through the streets of Canterlot. The Tanith caught glimpses of large colorful eyes peering out at them from beneath windowshades, vanishing the moment any of them tried to make eye contact. Long Spear looked at Gaunt curiously, the royal palace now looming before them. “You said you weren't our enemy today... what about tomorrow then?” The unicorn asked.

Gaunt looked back and up at the black plated Valkyrie, already flying back up to dock with the ships in orbit. He could vaguely make out the stylized =][= symbol of the Inquisition on it's side.

“That remains to be seen.”

Comments

[McCrowley]

Gaunt??? MOAR. Please.

[Sabban]

Continue.

[Ivory Crash]

As a Tyranid player, I approve of this fic.

However, as I have a personal distaste of anything Pony+Gore, I choose not to read this. Instead I give you my blessing and a thumbs up.

[Venter]

1923674 Thanks ^_^. I tried to keep the gore exceptionally light, but I'm still new enough that I'm not sure how far one can go without putting up the tag, so I put it up to err on the side of caution. Still, I totally get being leery of such things :-p.

[Silbern]

Gaunt's Ghosts? You have a LOT to live up to with a title like that. I've put it in Read Later for until later today.

[Venter]

1924372

To be utterly clear: I am not fit to lick Dan Abnett's boots. I picked the Tanith because they are the small slice of 40k lore that I am most intimately familiar with :-p.

[FastShadow78]

Magic of Friendship? In a Warhammer 40k?
...
What are you doing? STAHP. THE ONLY EMOTION THAT CAN PASS IN WARHAMMER SERIES IS FEAR AND BARELY CONTAINED RAGE.

[Venter]

1924956

Read the actual Gaunt's Ghost's series! It doesn't have the magic of friendship, but it has all kinds of emotions beyond fear and rage. Mainly sadness. (Protip: roughly 50% of the named characters in the series have died. There have been about 77 named characters.)

[FastShadow78]

1924966
Erghghb
Fine.

[FastShadow78]

Well it seems alright. So far anyway. Are those character's fictional or are they in one of the games?

[Venter]

1925025

You mean the Ghosts? They're all characters from the Abnett series. It's 13 novels long now :-p. Gaunt used to be a special character in the tabletop last edition, and a fair few of them were special characters a couple editions ago.

[Silbern]

Well that is the most believable scenario I see happening without too much flashlight laser fights going on. The first contact is about as politically unstable as it can get without war breaking out.

Not sure how Rawne is going to react in the future to this society and culture but it shall be interesting. Short but necessary chapter. Keep up the good work so far Venter.

[Venter]

1925119

Thank you so much! :-)

Re: The 8 foot tall creatures; they were genestealers. I was going for a genestealer cult; basically, the genestealers infect a member of another species. It gives the host a psychic connection to the brood patriarch, and alters their reproductive system such that their eventual offspring will be progressively more and more genestealer-y. It's common for genestealers to establish such a cult on a planet before the main hive fleet shows up.

Re: Point 3, you'll have to wait and see ;-).

Re: Point 4... this is the hard one. While the imperium is extremely fanatical as a whole, they do have reasonable elements. Where the =][= gets involved, it varies tremendously based on the individual Inquisitor - they have a tremendous amount of autonomy usually. And despite the amount of anti-xenos sentiment in the Imperium, they do work with aliens, sometimes incorporating them into the Guard (albeit almost always as an inferior race) - see Ogryns and Ratlings. What this has in store for the ponies, only time can tell.

[Inquisipony Stallius]

Gaunt's Ghosts? I'm wary, because Abnett is my favorite author ever. I was screaming into a pillow every time you brought back a real ghost, because Dan made me care so much about them, and it's still emotional to think about. So you're writing on a knife's edge.

Fortunately, your brief snippets here managed to stay pretty well in character. Bravo, but remain vigilant; the better the writer you're trying to imitate, the more critical that writer's fans will naturally be. I'll try to go easy on you. The first chapter was pretty good. The Tyranid carnage was vivid and the Princess bits felt believable. The writing is also pretty good; no significant problems and it reads well. So keep that up.

One confusion I did have was: How do the Ghosts know anything about Tyranids? They've never fought them before, never even been mentioned appearing in the Sabbat Worlds. Orks appear in a flashback, the Eldar show up that one time, and a single Dark Eldar causes some trouble. And the loxatl, of course. But no 'nids. So how are they talking about them like "oh hey, look, fething Tyranids again?"

1926999
See... here's the thing; Ratlings and Ogryns aren't xenos, they're mutants known as "abhumans." Abhumans have mutations that deviate from Humanity's perfect form, but they're stable, so they're considered "safer" than filthy Chaos mutation. That's why they're allowed in the Imperium and the Guard. And true, individual Inquisitors have the leeway to treat with vile xenos as they see fit, but it's pretty deep into Radical territory to even consider xenos as more than pawns to be expended at the earliest opportunity. The average faithful citizen has been indoctrinated since birth that if it's not human, it makes the EMPRAH cry. The Ghosts were pretty liberal with the Eldar that one time, so the "common enemy" card can work, but level of "let's get on with it," premeditated collaboration I'm seeing is a stretch.

And don't call it a "stylized =][= symbol." That's internet shorthand, and shouldn't appear in "literature" (and I use the term lightly). Call it an "I" please.

Thought for the Day: Consort not with the heretic, the bestial, nor the Dark Powers. All seek to usurp Ponykind's right supremacy.

Ave Imperatrix Celestialis

[Verlax]

1926999

This review is brought to you on behalf of the group: Authors Helping Authors

Name of Story: Gaunt's Ghost ( With Ponies! )

Grammar score out of 10 (1 is grammar that needs to be worked upon as basic principles such as capitalization and spelling is an issue, and 10 is impeccable): 2

Pros :
# Finally Dan Abnett's work get some love from brony community.
# Lines between Ghosts seems quite good.
# Some descriptions were marvelous.

Cons :
# Sorry bro, but you got A LOT of mistakes. And Harkin? The buck? Who is he?
# Some mistakes with a lore. First of all :
- Rawne with Chainsword? Wat? Actually, this wouldn't be that bad, but Rawne is known to be EXPERT with his long silver knife ( he killed a few Orks with knife throwing and save even Gaunt's life with it in "Ghostmaker" ).
- There are no dates and even in what Segmentum it takes part. Gaunt's Ghost were fighting on the far side of Segmentum Pacificus, and there aren't any Tyranids, so again, lore struck.
# Action is too fast! Seriously, it's really chaotic, even for experienced Warhammer 40.000 fan.
# I will write it second time, because it's really important. This story is so chaotic. For example, during the dialogue between Rawne and Royal Guard, you made this :

...ad a confident grin that masked several points of confusion. Firstly, these creatures apparently spoke near flawless low Gothic, despite having been cut off from the empire for five millenia.

This is serious world-building, and you made it really bad, by just saying it in the face without any explanation and some serious describing.

Notes Section :

Well... Get some Editors or such, because ( sorry, I will be cruel ) this story is quite bad. This story needs some serious stuff to be made. Despite this, I will give you a Favourite, because it has a potential, but now this is in a great need of some corrections.

Enjoy your review! Please help me out by looking at my story this story: Equestria First and Only

By the way, you made a Gaunt fic just a two days later than me . Good luck in writing.

Stay Awesome

Verlax

[Calephias]

1930535
Actually the Imperium has a number of client species, like the Jokaero. A species that is useful and poses no threat might be brought under Imperial control rather than exterminated.

[Inquisipony Stallius]

1932830
Eh... yeah, I suppose. I'd characterize the Jokaero issue more as "well, these xenos just sit around all day and tinker, so as long as we keep bringing them stuff we want tinkered on, we'll use them." I'd say they're more akin to a kind of tech-slave race, except if an Inquisitor really tried to detain one, I would imagine the Jokaero would be able to just tinker themselves a way out. And they would by no means be allowed out of the presence of the Inquisitor, which is a far cry from the "integration into the Guard" that's being hinted at with our beloved ponies. So yes, sometimes intelligent xenos are harnessed for the benefit of Mankind instead of purged. But it is rare, and kept very quiet, because the very notion is heresy for anyone but an Inquisitor.

[sneef]

'right, group fun time go EDIT TWO ADVERTISING AAAHG: This review is brought to you on behalf of the group: Authors Helping Authors

So, I see this has already been done, but that's okay because I've not read Gaunt's Ghosts (or indeed any Dan Abnett work for quite a while) and a fresh perspective is thusly my excuse. Huzzah. Anyway,

(Edit grammar score: Grammar score out of 10 (1 is grammar that needs to be worked upon as basic principles such as capitalization and spelling is an issue, and 10 is impeccable): uh seven; spotted some errors and oh dear sweet celestia the end of chapter two is an eyesore; Also, space it out a little bit more. Maybe it's me, but you start your pargraphs on the next line
like this; don't do that.

Do this.)

Pros: Good dialogue. The style of dialogue is handled especially well, what with the ponies, and the interactions; the only gripe I have with the dialogue is 'apes'. It's stated absolutely nowhere that Equestria has apes, so therefore, it's thin ice mentioning them. Personally I prefer to think that there are no apes on Equestria because contrast, so it's just preference. The dialogue is quite good, though.

Another Pro: Situation... Explaining. I can't call it world building, because I'll get to that, but I really like the fact that you explain Equestria's relationship with the Warp and the implications thusly (I.E. eternal night = oh dear god warp forever). It's all handled quite nicely.

Cons: First of all, the pace. The events that took place in the two chapters you posted could have been five, or six chapters. Not cool. What really needs to be understood is that you can fit so much more into an event than just 'x happened, ponies die' and there's so much more leading up to an event. What fanfiction is all about is to sit there and ask 'what if' and then try and tell others what, in fact, if. What I'm not getting from the story is what if! A little bit of it, sure, but there's a bunch of things to be explored and it's just not being explored. Which, actually, leads me to my second argument.

Second Con: World Building, learn it. Uninstall the game. No, wait.

Seriously, though, you need to do world building. There's not enough of it. And I'm not saying that you need more chapters to be thorough, I'm saying that you need more world building. Now. In your first and second chapter. Like I said before your, y'know, explaining of things is good, you're just not explaining things!

Thanks for the read,
- Revolver.

(lol the only story i have)

[Rakaziel]

Well written, and I am curious how you explain the ponie's magic when it is not psi. Necron-tech based infectious nano robots that lie dormant for generations if need be until they find sufficient brains to upgrade, perhaps?

[Sabban]

Tell me you're still alive.

[shadowblitz13]

wait,isn't everything a suicide mission for the imperium's heroes?and don't they always win?

[Sabban]

*pokes author with a sollex-aegis energy blade*

[BronyAirman2552]

I want this to continue. Please.

[Violagameboy]

8910163
Me too