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Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/03/30 02:27:43


Post by: Gogsnik


My eyes flutter open and a wave of dizziness washes over me, my vision greying out. Not a good sign and I have not experienced such sensations for many decades. It also tells me that my helmet is gone and my first instinct is to check for head trauma. Lifting my right arm flexes my torso and a hard pain lances through my stomach. There is a length of jagged metal protruding from my abdomen and I realise that it is pinning me to my seat.

I am still in my harness and I carefully hit the release so as not to jar myself and aggravate my wounds. I put my left hand on the protruding metal and then pull myself forwards in one quick, smooth movement. I feel dizzy again and a tinnitus whine fills me ears. Despite myself, I vomit, and it takes me several long moments to recover. I need my helmet so that I can use my armour's diagnostics to assess my injuries and this is what causes me to check my surroundings for the first time.

The Thunderhawk's troop bay is empty and the only light is a faint grey wash coming in through the two massive rents through the fuselage. It is only now that I become aware of the howl of air and juddering of the deck beneath my feet. The deck is inclined almost ten degrees and as the light builds and fades I can tell that the gunship is yawing and spinning slightly, one way and then the other.

I orient myself first, finding the wall mounted vox and then straitening as much as I can but the metal through my stomach has pinned my armour, forcing me into a stoop. I crab walk across the shivering deck and lean against a stanchion. I press the send button and call for a situation report but there is only a set response from the servitor autopilot. This tells me several things: Grevon, the pilot, is either dead or gone; the Thunderhawk has sustained some kind of critical damage beyond the obvious rents in the fuselage and this is why the servitor cannot hold the gunship steady; it tells me that I need to get out quickly before we slam into the ground.

Carefully, I move to the rear stowage section and back myself up against an emergency grav-chute. I feel it latch onto my backpack and I reach around with my right hand to clip an umbilical into a port on my back. There is a sort of, scratch, in my mind, as my central nervous system makes sense of what my armour is telling me; that the grav-chute is connected and ready. Without my helmet I am reduced to these feelings and sensations.

I still cannot see my own helmet and more than likely it is gone, sucked out by the slipstream when the Thunderhawk was damaged. I push against a small compartment door and look up into the black lenses of old Makorro's MKV helmet. It is hard not to see the battered helm, with its reinforcing studs and slanted lenses and not hear Makorro's gruff voice or the rough humour that made him such a good Brother to have at your back. I miss him, and, stooped over like an old man with a dull throb in my bowels and nothing but the gloomy, grey light from outside to see by, I suddenly feel all of my two hundred and twenty nine years. As I lock Mokorro's helmet down into place and watch the display flicker on and sync with my armour's systems I glance about the abandoned troop bay and wonder where my Brothers are.

I sniff, and then sniff again, catching a faint odour of rine sap. It makes me smile, remembering the small wooden Aquilla that Mokorro used to wear, some trinket he picked up after the Mol Campaign; did a girl give it to him, some kind of holy woman? I have almost perfect recall but that small detail alludes me. I realise how much time I am wasting on these reminiscences and call up the diagnostic, checking my injuries; subdural clots, concussion, skull fracture, perforated bowel, penetration of the retroperitoneum and stage one hypovolemic shock. Not good then.

I need to leave but not yet. I take two canisters of expanding bio-foam from a rack to my left. I shake them both in one hand watching the two liquid compounds inside mix. I pull the shrapnel half way out, pushing the nozzle of the bio-foam canister in through the hole in the back of my armour and as far into my abdomen as it will go and then activate it, drawing it back out as foam fills my wound. I do the same in the front after pulling the metal all the way out. I can stand again and feel pain balms flood my system as my armour responds to my emergency treatment.

I limp over to the rent in the fuselage and grip hold, pushing myself out into the rushing air. The wing is to my left and the heavy bolter cradle is gone and the turbine isn't working. I cannot see the ground through the cloud cover and have no way to know how close I am but it has been seven minutes since I regained consciousness so the ground must be close by now.

Any normal man would not throw himself blindly from a falling gunship after pulling three feet of ceramite composite armour shrapnel from his guts. Any normal man would be in a coma with half his skull smashed and bleeding out from a catastrophic injury. Any normal man would be dead by now. But I am not a normal man. I am Carleeson of the Prophets of Hatred. I am a Space Marine.





**********




Not the best title perhaps but I was never very good at them. Something I've had floating around my head for months and I just got the urge to finally type it out.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/03/30 19:59:59


Post by: Ustis


Extremely detailed, an interesting read.
Just out of curiosity, is this just a short story or the beginning of a longer one? If the former is so, you should really consider extending this I think it would be well worth the read.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/03/30 21:25:41


Post by: Necroagogo


Great intro - I'd be very interested to see the broader picture here!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/03/31 03:33:01


Post by: Gogsnik


As I am about to leap, a shadow passes through the clouds opposite me, a flickering smudge that circles around to my right and then vanishes. I run the tip of my thumb along the ragged edge of the rent, the Thunderhawk's skin sliced through and mercury bright. Railgun. I know now what has crippled the old war machine and the shadow in the clouds takes on a more sinister connotation. My Brothers are all gone but did any of them survive? Why is the old war bird still being dogged?

I step out into the air and spread my arms and legs, slowing my rate of descent and I watch the Thunderhawk tumble away beneath me. She was not a glamorous beast, she had no mighty deeds carved on her prow, no one sang of the furious battles she had been engaged in. She was Cage, not a glorious name, but she served the Chapter before even my grandfather's grandfather was born and whilst my own life has lasted almost as long as those generations of men it is still a long time by any reckoning. Even if I live my span again I will still not have battled in the Emperor's name for as long as Cage, I will not have visited as many battlefields, nor slain as many foes. As I watch the gunship's cruciform silhouette diminish beneath me, alone and abandoned, mutilated by alien weapons, a small, hard knot of anger tightens in my chest.

It is not right that something that has existed for so long should end like this. I think of Makorro's helmet, waiting in that little compartment for me to retrieve it and wonder how many other ancient items of wargear have just died with Cage. Makorro's helmet, MKV, Heresy Armour, forged on Mars when the Emperor still walked amongst men, and I know that it has been worn by countless other Brothers in that time, that the fuzzy, green tinged display with its jagged script and the one dead pixel in the bottom left field has glimpsed enemies and battlefields that exist only in myth now, when the current enemy were only plains dwelling savages confined to a single world. They probably looked at the stars in the night sky and imagined that they were the only beings in the universe whilst Man made the greatest Empire the galaxy has ever seen.

I watch as Cage disappears from sight and it is as if my whole world has fallen with her. I am going to kill these aliens. They will not get to congratulate each other on destroying an Adeptus Astartes Thunderhawk Gunship. They will not get to pat each other on the back and boast of how their advanced technologies bested the clumsy Gue'la war machine. They will not get to agree with each other that it proves the superiority of their Tau'va. I lift my head and slowly scan from left to right, hunting for the shadow in the clouds. Makorro's helmet helps me, and it is as if I am back on the firing range as a twelve year old initiate, with Makorro's voice whispering in my ear, his giant paw on my scrawny shoulder, guiding my aim, teaching me to shoot for the first time. He knew the angle and speed of every target, knew exactly where I needed to point my rifle so that every shot hit its mark. Thanks to his effortless instruction I could not miss and I cannot truly say of what practical value his tuition was, or weather the success I had that first day was down to my natural talent or his long experience but you cannot know what it is like to have one of the Emperor's own Angels right at your back, you cannot know what it means to have a Space Marine educate you on the basic techniques that you will use in over two centuries of war.

The reticule is a square that floats around in my field of vision almost at random but it finds the shadow for me and locks on. I pull my arms and legs back, angling my body so that I speed towards the enemy aircraft. In the seconds I have, I imagine simply using my armoured body to smash strait through the alien machine, it would be pleasing in its brutal simplicity. I decide against that; it is not enough to destroy my enemies, they must know that they have been destroyed, they must know that they cannot strike at the Adeptus Astartes and live, no matter how grievous the wound is they have dealt.

The shadow resolves as a Tau Hammerhead gunship. Even now I must acknowledge that it is fortunate that it is not one of the larger Tau flyers, although in truth one of them might have been responsible for what happened to Cage and the Hammerhead is only here to check over the corpse. It makes no matter, the two Tau pilots awoke this morning, put on their uniforms, ate their meals, discussed the actions they would need to perform this day and never knew it would be their last. Even now they are ignorant that death is only seconds away. I will enlighten them.

I slow myself as best I can but even so I slam into the curved hull of the Tau machine with enough force to rock it sideways. I get enough grip to put one boot under me and then magnetise myself to the hull. I bend down and fix my only two krak grenades to the hinge of the circular access ramp in the side and lean back. I do not hear the detonation but long years of experience see me leaning back in instinctively, my right hand digging into the smoking hole where the hinge was and yanking the ramp back up the wrong way, tearing it loose. I demagnetise my boot as I swing into the cramped crew space. Hammerhead's do not carry passengers, their interiors given over to power generation for the weapon systems. For a Tau it would be cramped, but for me there is almost no room to move at all. Fury and determination see me wriggle like a fish down the narrow gangway and then kick myself a space in which to move, crushing alien machinery beneath my armoured soles. All of my standard weapons are mag-clamped to my armour but I want to use my hands for this. I want to feel Tau bones snap beneath my fingers because the loss I feel at Cage's destruction demands this visceral reaction.

Three good punches and the door that seals off the cockpit is warped enough for me to rip it out. I come in on my side, howling like a madman and the look of complete fear on the pilot's flat, blue face sends a thrill through me. One on one no Tau is a match for me, even unarmoured, my resilience and strength are far beyond what a Tau can compete with. It would be like a grown man beating a small child but the knowledge that I so completely outclass my opponent physically gives me a sense of power that I do not want to deny in this moment. I display some of that prowess in smashing my way into the cabin, buckling the strange, smooth alien material of the Hammerhead like wet cardboard. The Tau are screaming at each other, one is out of his seat and fumbling with a pistol while the other frantically works at the Hammerheads controls. I do not care if the alien is reporting my attack and I do not care that the other one is shooting me. Eight blue pulses of energy thump into my chest and two go over my head and then the Tau is pulling the trigger on an empty weapon. I grab the pistol and the Tau's hand in my own gauntlet and crush them. The Tau roars in pain but to his credit tries to fight. I turn full on to the other Tau and bring his wounded comrade around with me. We look into each other's eyes as I reach with my right hand and crush the skull of the first Tau.

His eyes are dark brown and I do not know if that is a usual colour for a Tau's eyes or not. They glisten with a limpid quality that tells me this Tau has eaten well, and been healthy and active all of his life, unlike so many human troops who come from worlds where malnutrition and disease are constant. It gives the Tau a professional military air but I also despise him for his coddled existence. In his eyes I see a veil come down, it is the look one gets when death is inevitable and imminent. It is the look of one who is defeated and it is what I wanted to see.

"What is your name Tau?" The alien's face creases with confusion as I speak his language.

"Kor'vre Sa'Cea Y'eldi Mi'el." Caste and Rank, birthworld and an honourific that means he is a skilled pilot. It makes sense if this is the Tau responsible for Cage's destruction.

"Mi'el?"

"One who laughs."

"You are not laughing now Vre'Mi'el." The Tau shakes his head slightly, his eyes never leaving mine, even though they are hidden behind Mokorro's helmet lenses.

"I am Brother Carleeson of the Prophets of Hatred Chapter of Space Marines. Did you shoot down the Thunderhawk Gunship Vre'Mi'el?" He nods. "What happened to the Space Marines aboard?" He says nothing. No matter. He has braced himself into the corner, both hands spread across consoles that are clear and smooth, their controls projected rather than physical keys and buttons. He is terrified but it no-longer makes me feel powerful, the sudden rush of moments ago swallowed by black hatred. I know enough about this Tau that I can respect him, just as his own people respect him, but I also abhor him and it is a feeling of such pure antipathy that I think it must be almost like love. I do not know what love is but I know this other emotion. The orks say 'grod', their word for best friend or favourite enemy, and I wonder if this is how they feel when they look at me.

Kor'vre Sa'Cea Y'eldi Mi'el scrabbles away like an animal in a crate when I reach for him and he says no over and over. I kill him swiftly. I take his head and strap it to my belt, the Tau's long topknot coming in handy for this. It is no gruesome trophy but an item of strategic value but that will come once I reach the surface, not now. I throw myself back out into the cloudy sky and engage the grav-chute almost immediately. Less than a minute passes before I see ground. It is a city in flames and I am heading strait into a devastated civilian housing area. The house below me is demolished but in the rear garden, a muddy patch of torn up turf and flower beds, stands a completely unscathed glasshouse and it is beside this I come to rest. I take one last look into the limp features of Vre'Mi'el before a peel off his skull cap and stuff his brain in my mouth.





**********




Thank you both for the replies. I am not sure just how long this will be but I think it has some legs in it so I guess we'll find out.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/03/31 13:44:50


Post by: Ustis


Again not bad. Perfect? definitely not. Entertaining? yes.
At times it seemed you had somewhat of a grudge on tau players for example when you said "They will not get to pat each other on the back and boast of how their advanced technologies bested the clumsy Gue'la war machine. They will not get to agree with each other that it proves the superiority of their Tau'va". No offence meant, just a bit of a backround vibe I was feeling; I'm not exactly a lover of the tau myself.

However it was a solid effort imho and intriguing, I look forward to more


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/01 00:31:51


Post by: Gogsnik


The omophagea is an organ unique to Space Marines which is often under-utilised and overlooked by many of my cousin Chapters. This is especially true when using it as I am now, to absorb the memories of an alien. Many would consider the moral threat too much, and whilst I do not discount the threat posed by the propaganda of the Tau Empire to cozen the credulous and the gullible, to infer that some sickness of the soul could be transmitted by eating the flesh of Vre'Mi'el is laughable. Some would consider the act simply too repugnant and they are fools. I am one of the Emperor's Angels of Death, there is no act too gruesome, no deed too vile that I will not attempt it in order to execute my holy duties as one of His servants and to safeguard the future of humankind.

I have the vague awareness of dropping onto my backside as the omophagea begins to work, as I send myself into the trance state which will allow me to make as many of Vre'Mi'el's memories my own. At first there are only colours and odd strangulated sounds but quickly enough I see Vre'Mi'el's life play before me like a vidreel. I drift through his memories like a dreamer but as the omophagea parses his memories in more detail his thoughts, his feelings, become mine.

I lay awake in a simple cot bed in the dark, the sounds of dozens of others sleeping, around me. I peek out from under my sheet to see if those closest to me are asleep and hope that they cannot here me crying. I am older, running with my friend Tai'ell but the Earth Caste boy's smaller legs cannot keep up with my long strides. I stand with Tai'ell as we are reprimanded and I feel my face burn hot with shame and I feel the tears threatening to come again. They drag Tai'ell away and I know I will never see him again. Now I am even older, learning to pilot a small hover craft nad my instructors nods appreciatively but I know that he is impressed. I am older still and I whoop with joy as I fly into the glittering void of space for the first time alone and I imagine the service I might provide the Tau Empire.

The memories go on and on, those that were most frequently visited by Vre'Mi'el with other, vaguer memories flashing by almost too quickly to see. Finally I come to his most recent memories. I see myself first, a huge armoured figure reaching for him and I feel his terror, his fear and his despair. I die as Vre'Mi'el before I see the memory of his attack run on Cage. I see the great warmachine wounded, the sudden, unexpected power failure after the third railgun shot. I see the armoured figures jumping from the doomed machine. Some of them are very messily destroyed but the others fight back and are well coordinated even as they plunge through the sky.

As I come out of the omophagea trance I put a hand to my head to wipe away the perspiration from my brow before I remember that I am helmeted. I remove the helm and feel the cool air on my overheating skin and get my first taste of this world which the local inhabitants call Gracer. This battlefield will be a first for me. I was not sent here to fight the Tau, nor was I sent here to put down a rebellion; this war is about bringing Gracer into compliance. I have never had the opportunity to bring one of Mankind's lost worlds back into the fold. It was not supposed to come to bloodshed but it does not surprise me.

Thanks to Vre'Mi'el I now know that many of my Brothers survived his attack. Whether they survived planetfall I cannot say nor can I say where they are but they are not close as my helmet vox is still hunting for a frequency. I haul myself to my feet and unsling my bolter, racking the slide and checking the action. I walk out of the garden, pulverising fallen bricks beneath my boots or crushing them into the soft turf and walk onto the pavement and scan my immediate surroundings. To me right the civilian housing is flattened and the horizon is a featureless tumble. Behind me to me left, approximately three miles away, the city seems largely intact although there are many plumes of black smoke and the unmistakable flicker of vast fires.

My Brothers and I were given a simple task, to neutralise a chemical refinery that was supplying fuel for the Tau and, unfortunately, to the anti-Imperial human resistance who are aiding them. Not all of Gracer's human population has sided with the Xenos against us but it would seem that half of them were impressed enough with the Tau's promises and demonstrations to side with them against their own kind. I believe the fault lies with Prefectus Odonna whose overbearing approach to the governments of Gracer overawed and cowed some and, quite literally, alienated the others. It is the fact that Gracer is a world of separate nations that has largely allowed the Imperium to pursue any kind of military action. Without so many Gracerites on our side it would have been difficult to contend with the Tau.

I have a much more informed opinion on the wider picture from the Tau perspective because of Vre'Mi'el. What the Tau think of as civilian news is little better than propaganda and it amuses me that they go along with it so readily. There is much and more about the Tau that I do no understand, their culture, their hierarchy, their relationship with the mysterious Ethereal Caste. Even with Vre'Mi'el's memories it is difficult to analyse them objectively; I experience his memories as he did and his own bias and opinion threads through everything he did and was in life to such an extent, that, simply viewing his memories in my mind and expecting to see some kind of unadulterated truth becomes increasingly difficult. Memories about where his base was, even in what bunk he slept, these memories can be relied upon and utilised, they are simply place and time. Using his memories to discern how he perceived his comrades, his commanders, his very people, this is where it becomes difficult; if Vre'Mi'el was so completely indoctrinated that he could not know his own mind then how can I?

Right now I do not have the luxury to ponder these things. My first objective is clear though: reunite with my Brothers. I move back through the garden and make a direct line through the destroyed houses and towards the city. As the Emperor wills it, I should find my Brothers quickly and then we can get on with the business of securing this planet for the Imperium.





**********




Thanks for the reply. There is certainly no hate for Tau players, I myself have a tiny Tau army although the last time I played 40K regularly the Tau were not even a faction! I'm glad that the passage you quote felt personal though, it should, and I wanted to convey how a Space Marine feels about the loss of, what is essentially, a machine. To him it is so much more than that. I also wanted to try and get into the hatred that Space Marines have for their enemies and again, where a man might be angry, it is personal to Carleeson and I think that much of that comes from him being a Space Marine.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/02 14:05:36


Post by: Necroagogo


Good stuff. Nice to see some focus on those aspects of a space marine's physiology that are often glossed over. Hopefully we'll see Brother Carleeson spitting acid at some filthy xenos scum at some point!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/03 00:01:08


Post by: Gogsnik


The omophagea is something used often for ritual (and other) purposes by the Prophets of Hatred so I expect there will be plenty more brains getting munched. I had overlooked the acid spit but you've given me an idea so I'll definitely be using that.

Once again, thanks for the reply.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/05 02:35:12


Post by: Gogsnik


I cannot see them but I can smell them. Approximately a dozen humans, one adult, the rest children and adolescents of varying ages. They have followed me for over two miles and the closer I get to the city the more they will hinder my attempts to regroup with my Brothers. There is no alternative but to confront them. They are quiet, I will give them that, and the bulk of the group has never strayed closer than two hundred yards. A normal man would never detect them without auspex to aid him and even then they are sufficiently far away as to render that doubtful as well. I head strait for the nearest of them, the same one who has dared to get closest so far. With a thought I open the grille of Makorro's helm and the unfiltered air puffs in. I take a deep breath, letting the scents of this world drift over my tongue, tasting the air as much as smelling it. What it tells me about my little shadow is that it is female, pre-pubescent, filthy, dehydrated. As I get closer to her position it must be obvious that I have detected her and she flees back to the group. I decide to pick up the pace and start to crash through tumbled down brick walls and the charred remains of fences and hedges, I even make a show of casually kicking aside a wrecked vehicle. The rest of them do not go far.

Loose grit on the road crunches beneath my boots and I walk steadily, boltgun raised, as I approach a relatively intact commercial building. The road I am on terminates at a staggered cross-junction, the opposite lane separated from a series of diagonal parking bays by a thick white painted line. Most of the bays are occupied by destroyed vehicles, some with the bodies of their occupants still inside them. The damage is inconsistent with Tau weaponry; humans or one of the Tau allied xenos races did this.

The parking bays are fronted by a strip of now yellowed grass and then a large paved walkway. The corner building is the most intact, shaded by a large, badly burnt tree; although I see much of it has begun to sprout. A plate glass window that comprises much of the frontage of the building is shattered, a cascade of glass fragments spread over the interior of the building like a vitrified wave. At first I think the building is filled with corpses but as I look more closely I realise that only some are real, the rest are mannequins.

There are clothes everywhere as well, on racks, on shelves, scattered over the floor and on displays throughout the building. Many of the latter have been dragged into a flimsy barricade and I see several butchered human soldiers lying over them or next to them, many with shrapnel wounds in their backs from a large hole blasted into the side wall. There are several dead soldiers facing the barricade, as well as two kroot. Many of the bodies have distinct wounds where they have either been gnawed on or had hanks of flesh cut away. The kroot are allies of the Tau, well known as mercenaries they have a long and complicated history of coexistence with the Tau. They also eat the dead and I know that their 'shapers' as they call them are able to make use of the genetic material of what they eat to enhance the other kroot. Many would call the practise barbaric perhaps even an unholy sin. Vri'Mi'el's memories flicker unbidden through my mind and I know that the truth is that the kroot are not so different to me.

"I know you're there." I take a few more long strides towards the barricade. "You may as well come out."

Slowly, in ones and twos, dirty, pallid faces rise up to stare at me. Some stand with their mouths open but a few give me hard glares which makes me chuckle. It has been a long, long time since I had cause to interact with children, save the boys who are initiates in the Prophets of Hatred but it is many years since I visited my homeworld of Carnate and even then I never trained recruits. The defiance of those few children before me now amuses me, the fear or awe of the others barely registers, like unfocussed figures in a pict. Only the last person to stand holds any true interest to me however.

The adult I detected. Female, approximately thirty-five standard years of age. She is unsteady on her feet, one arm bound up in a sling with dirty bandages wrapped around her head, covering her left eye. My little shadow is supporting her.

"You are the leader here?" I ask. The woman gives a little snort, but whether she is amused, angry or exasperated I cannot tell.

"Am I the leader?" She repeats the words as if giving the question deep thought. "What exactly do you suppose we are, a band of warriors? These are children! But to answer your question, no, I am not the 'leader' here. My name is Miss Crofter, I am a teacher. These are my pupils." I can understand her tone. Ironically it is the memories of Vri'Mi'el's time in what I believe to be the Tau equivalent of a Schola Progenium, that gives me the best insight into what this woman must be thinking. Into what she must be feeling. I compare what I 'remember' about the Tau orphanage with what I know about a true Schola; military academies for children, where they are taught creed and combat, where the teachers are more truthfully instructors more than capable of taking to the field if necessary. I apply this knowledge to what this woman has just said and find her statement completely alien.

"That is not my concern. You have been following me and that is unacceptable. You will desist. Now."

"Or you'll what? Gun down innocent children? Is that what your Imperium sent you here to do?"

I shift my stance slightly and every one of them flinches back. "Imperator Vult; as the Emperor wills it. And I believe what you meant to say is 'our Imperium'." I see the woman's throat bob as she swallows, see a bead of perspiration break out on her temple, just below the bandage, and trickle all the way down her cheek. I also see the stiffness of her posture and the hardness in her eye.

"Your Imperium. I know that your people have taken it for granted from the beginning that you had a right to our world but you cannot come here and simply take what you want. That is not how things work here."

"That is not how things used to work here. This world, and every other world in the galaxy, are the sovereign domain of the Imperium, by the will of the God-Emperor of Mankind." I look around at the bodies, at the kroot and their human collaborators, at the men who died here defying them and then catch Miss Crofter's eye. "I think perhaps we are both on the wrong side of that barrier."

"What difference would it make?" She spits at me. "Both sides are just as dead. Is that what you want?"

I raise my boltgun and fire. Someone screams and keeps screaming. In an instant I am through one of the flimsy wood boxes with its charred clothes. Bodies tumble around me as I surge through the hole in the wall.

Outside, the Tau collaborator explodes as his headless corpse, and the grenade he was about to throw, fall to the ground. Hard rounds spank off my armour, tight, concentrated bursts, first on my chest and then at my head. None of them do more than chip the paint but even that minor violation sends my armour's machine spirits seething. Combat stimms dump into my system and Makorro's helmet targeter sweeps across my foes whilst making an angry buzzing sound as if urging me on. I aim, shoot, aim, shoot, one shot is one kill but this action is done so swiftly that my bolter coughs out a continuous stream of rounds. Bodies come apart, the damage catastrophic and dramatic.

I am facing professional, well drilled soldiers but they did not expect this. Like Miss Crofter, not only have they never seen a Space Marine before, until very recently they did not even know such things existed. I will enlighten them.

Four men are dead already and a fifth goes down when my bolter stock demolishes his skull. I kick a grenade back at the thrower even as it lands at my feet. Seven dead including the first one I shot from inside the building. I Mag clamp my boltgun to my backpack with a single motion; I will waste no more ammunition on these fools. I reach the eighth soldier, a woman, on one knee steadily unjamming her weapon, some kind of autogun. Her steadiness impresses me but it is misplaced. She ejects the jammed round and lifts her weapon. I let her get a shot off, the bullet caroming from the front of Makorro's battered warhelm. Closer now she reaches for a combat knife whilst still levelling the barrel of her rifle at me. She lunges in, the blade scrawping over my thigh. I unsheathe my own dagger, the weapon more like a sword in comparison to the black blade of my opponent.

"Call that a knife?" My dagger punches into her guts and I saw it up and out through her left shoulder. She shrieks in unimaginable agony but is dead before she hits the wall where I throw her, her body spilling her insides everywhere. I shout at the top of my lungs, an animal roar of anger.

"Traitor Filth!" And this achieves the trans-human dread I was after. Both remaining soldiers are stupefied with terror. I pick one up by the face and pound his body into mulch against the trunk of the old tree next to the parking bays. His corpse is so crushed into the bark it stays in place when I let go. I skewer him into position with his own rifle for good measure. The other soldier is running by now, weapons dropped in their desperation to get away. I let them go, the damage they will do when they reach their own lines more deadly than another broken corpse out here.

I hear a scuffle behind me and see Miss Crofter, mouth agape, face ashen. I smell faeces and urine and hear quiet sobs but my little pack of shadows are all there.

"Ah. Yes. The children." I stalk towards them and stop in front of the teacher, overtopping her by a good two feet. "You were asking me what I want Miss Crofter. Let me tell you."


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/09 23:29:58


Post by: lliu


This is amazing! Exalt 4 sure.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/10 17:39:35


Post by: Necroagogo


That's one Angry Marine! I loved the visceral nature of that fight, the sheer one-sidedness of it. This story continues to impress.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/10 23:37:01


Post by: Gogsnik


"You cannot seriously mean to leave us here?" Miss Crofter calls at my back. "Letting defenceless children take their chances! What kind of man are you? Is this the sort of treatment we can expect from the so-called Emperor's soldiers!?"

The pitiful attack on my masculinity puzzles me more than anything but it is her casual blasphemy that truly angers me. I turn, slowly, hunched in an attack posture.

"So. Called. Emperor?" Saying the words out loud, spitting them through gritted teeth, has a far more potent affect than I anticipated. I know I scream the words 'you would dare?' but I do not hear them, my ears filled with tinnitus, my whole body fizzing with adrenaline blocks out my own words and all the ones that follow.

Most of the children flee back into the shop, although I am only dimly aware of this, with the remainder gone away into some safe place within themselves, glassy eyes staring into the middle distance. The teacher, the tiny, fragile, wounded woman, is pressed into the ground on her backside, unable to lay flat because of her wounded arm she hovers inches above the dusty ground with her free hand held up to try and ward me away. She is looking at the floor, her tears flowing freely. I know the soldiers I just killed were afraid but that was different, it was the detached panic of one who knows they are outclassed and about to die but with this woman, it is the fear of an ordinary human being pushed well beyond their limit. I only catch myself as I see my hand rise for a backhand blow that will crush her skull if it connects.

"I should kill you." Her loud sobs catch in her throat as I lean right down over her, words a sibilant growl, droplets of moisture from Makorro's helmet grille gently pattering on her head. "For the sake of your pupils I will let you live but profane the Emperor once more and I will crucify you." I lean in so close the glow of the helmet lenses bathes her face ruddy orange, her head barely a quarter the size of mine, armour clad.

I put one hand under her armpit and lift her up with the gentleness that only inhuman strength can provide. As I stand us both back up, she is close to me, so close that I have to hunch myself so that I can angle Makorro's old MkV helm down into my gorget in order to get an angle that allows me to see her. I brush strands of sweat slick hair over her ear and tilt her face up towards mine.

"Look at me." Her one unbandaged orb swivels desperately, not wanting to look but unable to defy my command. "Look at me and imagine the nature of the enemy that requires a warrior such as me to combat it. You have no concept of the threats which face humanity. You think that your glorious isolation here means that the galaxy is a place of wonder and beauty, of mercy and peace? I have fought and bled in a thousand wars to keep humanity alive. I have seen worlds that were home to five hundred billion souls burnt to ashes because the sacrifice of so many allowed the greater part of human kind to endure for just a second longer. You ask me not to abandon you for the sake of the children you have saved and my only answer for you is that those who want to live must fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.

"The galaxy is not a place of wonder and beauty, it is a place of fear and darkness. The galaxy is not a place of mercy and peace, it is a place of pain and war without end."

I cannot explain the compunction that sees me remove the scowling Heresy Armour helmet, but I do, and Miss Crofter's eye widens in shock and she gasps as she sees my face. I can only imagine how it looks from the wound I have suffered for this world already and the wounds that I have taken on every other world I have ever set foot upon. What does this young woman see when she looks into my centuries old eyes?

Her fingers curl around mine and I kneel down to look at her eye to eye.

"Do you know how many worlds there are in the Imperium? Do you know how many Space Marines there are to defend them?" She gives a slight shake of her head, still held lightly in my gauntlet, her fingers tightening their grip more and her eye, so liquid and bright stares into mine, unblinking.

"There are one million worlds and one million Space Marines. Just one of us for each of those worlds. Now look at me and tell me you believe that I alone am enough to turn back the tide, that I alone can fight every battle, vanquish every enemy so that your children do not have to." A ripple of movement crosses her face, and her trembling lips part ever so but she does not speak.

"You are wounded, weary and alone. I am weary, wounded and alone. But I will fight, and I will always fight, with every last ounce of strength with which the Emperor has endowed me because the very survival of the human race depends upon it.

"In the fight for survival there can be no bystanders," And I leave that quote unfinished for this woman's sake. "so, I ask you a very simple question; will you fight with me?"





**********



Thank you for the replies and I am gratified that you are enjoying the story so far.

I am reminded of something someone said they were told by GW when they applied for that writing position; characters should be flawed but awesome. I can only hope that Carleeson approaches that as he is an old character of mine who always seemed to get the best out of me. People often say that Space Marines are boring characters because they have nothing going on but I disagree with that and I think there's a great deal going on inside them that people don't see and I would like to think that I'm scratching the surface a little.

I also hope that the fight scene seems believable. Weapons aside, I think that a punch from a space marine is going to be almost always instantly fatal to any normal human and other attacks no less deadly with any return blows as useful as punching a car door. I don't have any problems with a Space Marine being able to go through a squad of trained soldiers without breaking a sweat circumstance allowing and besides, it's pretty fun to write!!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/11 12:15:35


Post by: lliu


This is really epic!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/12 00:23:53


Post by: Gogsnik


She nods distractedly and pulls away but does not let go of my hand. She sniffs noisily and tries to wipe her face on her shoulder and stares at the smoking horizon, the destroyed homes, the shattered city.

"Why is this happening to us?" Again, I feel that this woman has wrong footed me in a way I am unable to understand. I did not exaggerate when I told her that I have fought in a thousand wars and I want you to imagine what that means. There are few civilians in the Imperium that have not had some relative, no matter how distant, who has fought in one of Mankind's endless wars. These could have been wars that engulfed worlds and entire star systems, even entire sectors, wars focused on some backwater moon, wars restricted to ship-to-ship duels. You may know of the deeds of this relative or ancestor, if you are lucky you may perhaps have a pict of them, maybe even a letter. Even if they could never return home there is always the expectation that they would win their war and then their service would end. Can you imagine that person sent from that first war to another, then another, then another, then another and onwards until war claims them?

I have fought orks who are bred for war, who love it like life itself. I have fought the Eldar who fight for their own mysterious ends or merely for the pleasure of slaughter. I have fought the Tyranids who make war only to consume the fallen. I have fought the Enoulians whose hatred of the Imperium is well known. I have fought Fra'al pirates and Donorian fiends and a score of xenos races besides who fight and make war with every breath in their bodies. None of them are content to simply sit in their homes. None of them shun the idea of combat like this human creature before me. I realise as I look at Miss Crofter that she does not want to fight. How representative of humankind is she?

I have seen civilians before, from afar, and whilst ostensibly I fight in their interests I do not make war for the safeguarding of ordinary men, women and children but for the human race itself, for the Imperium and the Emperor. When I have seen these people in the past, fleeing in terror for their lives I understood their fear as a mechanism of animal survival overcoming their sense of duty, as a symptom of selfishness, as a lack of faith. War is the Emperor's Creed, it is the sacred task with which he set us, His Angels of Death, and all those legions of men and women who battle in His name. The Emperor's church is a battlefield, a gunshot is a prayer, the roar of an engine is plainsong and the destruction of every xenos, deviant and heretic is an act of worship, righteous malacide in the Emperor's name.

What does it mean if humans do not want to fight? What does it mean when their souls do not cry out to make holy murder on the enemies of Man?

I jerk back onto my feet as if electrocuted by this woman's touch and realise that she is more alien to me than even the most bestial foe I have thus far encountered. I cannot breath in her presence and fumble to place Makorro's helmet back on so that I can hide my face from her sight.

Miss Crofter has finally regained some measure of composure and she tilts her head back so that she can look at me. She smiles, as cheerfully as she can but I can see the tremor in her lips and the tears in her eye. She says something but I do not hear a single word. All I can think is, 'what are you?'.

"I said, if I must fight then fight I shall?" Her eye searches the impassive lenses of my borrowed warhelm. "I don't think I'll be much help though eh?" She gives a little cough of laughter, held in her mouth as if she does not want to let it go. She looks at her injured arm, and frowns.

"When did you dress the arm?" I say and resist the urge to wipe my gauntlet on me leg as she finally lets go to half turn and indicate an older girl clutching two of the youngsters.

"Resecka, she helped me bind it up after... Well, the school was attacked and I was injured in an explosion but I lost consciousness for a little while." She trails off. Perhaps she does not want to remember the attack on her 'defenceless children' by the faithless cowards who have joined the Tau or whichever heathen scum it was that attacked a school.

"Let me look at it." I do not wait for her permission and as gently as I can stand, I pull her arm from the sling and feel my way up her forearm and up to her shoulder, the sensors in my gauntlet translating the touch more keenly than my old bare hands would manage. "Your arm is dislocated not broken." Before she can process this information I stretch out her arm and snap it back into its socket. She yelps in pain but grey's out and I have to catch her in my arms as she stumbles. Propped in the crook of my left arm I peel the bandage from her head. The hair is crusted with blood and the scalp still weeps from a jagged cut. Her eye is swollen shut but seems undamaged.

"You, come here." I look at the older girl the teacher indicated who hesitantly comes forward but stops I few feet short. "If you want to help this woman you must come closer." I try not to raise my voice but since it is naturally deeper than any normal man's voice, more powerful because of my size and third lung and distorted by the helmet mic it is hard to sound gentle, hard to sound as if it would not be easier to gun down every last one of them than talk softly. Never-the-less the girl comes forward and I hand her my dagger. She needs two hands to use it but under my direction cuts the hair from Miss Crofter's wound whilst I spray it with synthiflesh. It is the best I can do but already her body is less tense, no-longer held stiff to protect her wounded arm. She looks quite different now I can see her face properly for the first time, much younger than I estimated earlier.

My diversion to shake off these scraps has cost me almost forty minutes, an intolerable delay, but I am committed now. Even so we need to more.

"Miss Crofter." She winces as she wakes and runs a hand over her shorn scalp before realising she is using her previously incapacitated arm.

"Oh, you've fixed it. Thank you." She is as tiny as a newborn babe supported on my arm and whilst I can never know how a father feels to hold his child for the first time, it is not this, it is not how I feel now. I wish her arm was still dislocated so I could hurt her again. She does not want to fight...

"You are very welcome. We must move now. Strip what you can from the dead. Take their weapons, one for yourself and to which ever of the children you think can be trusted. I will scout the area to make sure there are no more enemies nearby." I leave her sat on the ground and do not look back; let the girl help her up.

I hope there are foes close at hand, someone needs to die.




**********



I'm glad you're enjoying it lliu and thank you for reading along. I don't know, maybe I've had writer's block or something all these years but this seems to be getting out of me from somewhere. I hope it keeps up as it feels good to just type away for a change.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/12 12:07:36


Post by: rez


This is great work! I'm really enjoying it.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/12 12:45:40


Post by: lliu


"Someone needs to die?" Are you sure that SM is not possessed by some Chaos spirit?


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/12 14:25:41


Post by: Necroagogo


A couple of really good updates. I was fascinated by Carleeson's whole mindset, his musings about fighting and dying and trying to relate to normal humans.

Nice last line, too.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/13 00:34:19


Post by: Gogsnik


 rez wrote:
This is great work! I'm really enjoying it.


Shucks, thank you. Hopefully it will continue to entertain but I think I've given myself enough hooks to keep going for a while and should be able to come up with more as I progress, touch wood anyway.

lliu wrote:
"Someone needs to die?" Are you sure that SM is not possessed by some Chaos spirit?


I suppose it's just as well the old GW forums no longer exist...

 Necroagogo wrote:
A couple of really good updates. I was fascinated by Carleeson's whole mindset, his musings about fighting and dying and trying to relate to normal humans.

Nice last line, too.


Thank you. Carleeson was always quite individual but also in this story, it's a way to get across the personality of the Chapter too without labouring the detail which is often something I get bogged down with. I suppose the first person also helps too as I get to show more rather than just tell. I was also conscious that I've said Carleeson is over two hundred years old, so I wanted to show that he personally has never interacted with regular humans before and then these ones aren't even Imperial so that adds an extra dimension to it.

I imagine it must be pretty difficult for a Space Marine to understand just how different he is to a normal person when he's either interacting with soldiers and officials in a formal way, revered and feared by any civilians he might encounter who spend the time prostrating themselves and trying not to soil their breeches and either in or heading to the thickest fighting. Imagine just an ordinary man having people treat him like that all the time with no-one ever just being 'normal' with him, he'd be batpoop crazy. It could even be the fine line between a loyal Space Marine and a Chaos Space Marine; they are both identical except one of them has chosen to take advantage of how ordinary humans interact with him and the other stays focused on his duty.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/18 01:54:07


Post by: Gogsnik


My thoughts keep returning to the civilians I am now lumbered with. They have provoked strange thoughts, feelings and emotions which I realise are not unknown to me, but so long in my past they existed at a time when I could still forget. It is these distractions which cause the lapse in concentration that almost kills me. The rail rifle shot hits me in the shoulder shattering the ceramite like a sledgehammer on a tea cup and shredding the reinforced under layers. Shrapnel flies like confetti and the power of the shot tosses me through the air like a ragdoll. First encountered on Dolumar IV the weapon was deployed with the express intention of killing Astartes.

I smash through a wall, splintered wood, plasterboard and lagging exploding around me in a choking haze. I hear screams and running feet and another slamming report as the rail rifle fires again. Nearby, someone shrieks in horror. The actuators in my pauldron spark and jeer, the mechanisms twisted and squeezed by the rail round into scrap. I pull the broken pad from my arm and lay it reverently on the ground. The bloody hand symbol of my Chapter has been obliterated and a liquid heat spreads through my belly at the sight.

Through decades of war this ancient armour has protected me and even as it was destroyed it saved my life once again. I brush my fingers over the still warm material as if what I see is unreal and by touching it I can take back this mortal wound, but the pauldron is just as ruined after my touch as it was before. A red rune blinks on, intoning the reduced integrity of my armour. A red rune. The ancient spirit of Makorro's helmet shares my indignation at this injury. Vengeance!

I surge to my feet, barrelling through another wall to come at my enemies from a flank. I do not know their exact position and I put my trust in the Emperor that they have no relocated to a new firing place that overlooks the alley I am now in. I jog forwards and in a moment of precognition I snatch up an industrial waste bin to act as impromptu shield. The heavy tin is scorched to rust and the plastic lid melted at one corner where the bin has been set on fire in the past. It will offer scant protection from so mighty a weapon as a rail rifle but it will be something.

As soon as I cross the threshold back into the open the bin is snatched from my grip and flung away as a rail round punches into its side. My cover lasted less that a second but it was enough. I have pinpointed my enemies location and am under their angle of fire before they can take me down. I expect there will be two of them but another shot from behind me indicates they are still targeting the children. Xenos scum!

I vault a low hedge and stumble as I drop two yards over a wall that was hidden from view. I land on a bare metal crash barrier that fences in a vehicle parking area. Dozens of civilian vehicles are still parked, waiting for owners who will likely never return. I squirm through the barrier and head strait for the ramp that will take me to the next level. I reach for a blind grenade and throw it ahead of me as I reach the top of the ramp. Makorro's helmet automatically adjusts and the autosenses cut through the smoke with ease. There are no enemies to confront me however and I use the poll of this level's maximum speed sign as a pivot to swing myself swiftly up the next ramp as I continue to run on.

I do not have another blind grenade so sacrifice a frag to cover my approach; I cannot afford to take any chances with the Tau Pathfinders manning the rail rifles, a single good hit will kill me outright. The Emperor Himself must be watching over me, as the grenade, out of my sight on the next level, detonates and explodes a vehicle. I hear a Tau cry and know that at least one of them is wounded. I throw myself into a roll as I reach the next level, using a vehicle for cover and I leap up, boltgun panning, searching for the Tau. The wrecked vehicle burns fiercely and plumes of acrid black smoke belch from the machine's corpse. One Tau is sat nearby, scorched and bloody, staring sightlessly at the ground.

Heavy concrete beams and this level's ramp obscure my view of the rightmost area. I vault the bed of utility vehicle and punch through the passenger window, reaching into the cab and releasing the handbreak. With a shove I send it rolling forwards, where it bumps to a stop against metal mesh gates that protect some kind of generator. The impact triggers the vehicles alarm and it begins to beep and hoot, yellow indicator lights flashing, mixing with the flickering fires to throw abstract blocks of colour across the dingy interior.

I pick up a piece of wreckage and hurl it into the far corner and run after it, trusting once more in the Emperor to make such a simple ploy work. The Tau fires into the flickering shadows and I have him. I send a few bolts towards his hiding place and charge strait for him using my bulk and power armour augmented strength to shunt the line of parked vehicles towards him. The Pathfinder flings himself to the ground to save being crushed. My bolt tears open his plastron and buries itself in his chest, like a wolf sinking fangs into prey. The mass reactive detonates tenths of a second later and the puny Tau splatters over grey concrete and vehicles honking in protest at my earlier rough treatment.

I scan to make sure there are no more ambushers even though I am confident they were the only two. I retrieve both rail rifles and smash them into pieces before dropping what is left into the still burning vehicle. I squirm my way through the barrier on this level and drop to the ground, missing the low hedge and sinking inches into bark chippings. I return to my little entourage to assess what damage has been done.

One of the children has been utterly demolished by a rail shot and what is little more than human slurry is hugged close by a teenaged boy who howls with grief. He holds an arm severed at the elbow and the hand against his cheek has been so comprehensively exsanguinated by the force of the shot that it looks like wax. Miss Foster holds herself nearby, staring at him, totally incapable of consoling the boy or even processing what has happened. Whilst I do not share her shock, I am as useless as she, and I realise that I, along with all of the survivors of the attack are mutely watching the spectacle.

Survivors.

An interesting choice of word and it changes my whole perception of these children and their teacher in an instant. It would be a sad and pitiful scene, played out on dirty slabs next to destroyed and ransacked buildings but I feel as if my presence makes it worse. The giant in armour, with his mighty weapons, who stands and watches a crying boy seems so incongruous as to be a joke. A flicker of self loathing for my inability to combat this problem makes me grimace. I am one of the Emperor's Chosen, it is not meet that I should feel this powerless. I know that this very human suffering plays out on a thousand thousand worlds every moment of every day but I have never been confronted with it. This is not a scenario for which I was made to face.

Something clicks in my mind, some primal instinct hitherto unknown to me. I cross to the boy, kneel down and lift his head. I remove Makorro's helmet again as I know this is a task for which only my unshielded face will work.

"She is gone. She. Is. Gone." He cannot resist me as I take the remains from his grasp. I remember the first time I saw one of my Brothers die. I remember the words that were said to fire me for battle, so that I could use my grief, my outrage, my hatred to avenge his death. Those words seem hollow here. I am nothing like what these people have ever known before and I am as alien to them as the Tau and I have already put the fear of the Emperor into them. Warrior's words will not serve here. I decide that a personal truth will be the only thing to reach him.

"I have seen many Brothers taken from me. Nothing can prepare you for that pain and nothing will ever make it right. It is though, one of the greatest strengths and also the greatest weaknesses of the human race that, wherever they may be found in the galaxy, they always learn to adapt. You can adapt yourself to pain given time but often grief demands more than that.

"In my Chapter, when a Brother is slain we enact a sacred ceremony which imparts to us a piece of that Brother that can never be forgotten and in that, he and all of the Brothers who have proceeded him down the long millennia, live forever.

"She was your sister." I do not need to ask, I can smell the familial connection between the boy and the sundered body. He nods anyway.

"Celly."

"Celly." I repeat and I hold the boys hands, my gauntleted paws dwarfing his. "I cannot bring back your sister but I can make her live forever." His eyes widen, filled with hope with incomprehension.

"How?"

"The sacred ceremony we perform for our fallen Brothers. I can do that for her. For you."

"Do it."

"First, you must understand that what it involves will be something your natural instincts rebel against. It involves a special ability that I possess. It will allow me to access your sister's memories, to make them mine and in so doing, her memory, everything that she was and hoped to be will live in me. In time I will live likewise in one of my Brothers and so too will your sister and so on forever until the stars go out. But it only works by doing one thing." And I drop my voice so that only he may hear for this is something that can only be shared amongst brothers. "I must consume her flesh."

The ability of a Space Marine to absorb the memories of another is a skill more potent than any other his enhanced physiology grants him. Coupled with an eidetic memory it means that that which is learned through this skill can be recalled as readily as any other memory. For those few that hone it most it can even grant skills and techniques. My Chapter makes use of this skill far more readily than almost all others because the process by which it is achieved requires acts which are seen as barbaric in the extreme, even monstrous. It is something that even Astartes often baulk at, most never making use of the omophagea. For those outside the mighty Brotherhood all Space Marines share it can be an act that engenders a violent reaction and there are Chapters who have been purged, or driven from the Imperium for making use of an ability granted us by the Emperor Himself.

I see these thoughts and more play across the features of the boy before me but even so, the words force themselves from his mouth.

"She will live forever?"

Celly's right shoulder, neck and skull are mostly intact, her torso and upper legs a smear of gristle only held together by the threads of her clothes. She has been scalped down the left side of her head and the bone beneath shattered like an egg shell. I brush back a few loose strands of hair and scoop out her brain in liquid portions, hiding what I do even though it is too obvious to pretend ignorance. Processing her thoughts is the work of moments for they are few. Her last memory is a pinprick flash of blue light but before that she watched me hit and it is strange to feel the surge of emotions this girl felt for me. I skip back a few moments more and I see her watching her brother's back. She felt guilty because the had put all of the responsibility for their shared survival on his shoulders.

"When you were children you fought over a toy," And I stumble over the words as I draw upon more and more memories to explain what I can see in my mind so vividly. "A dolphid. A yellow dolphid which your mother bought." It is enough detail to make sure he believes that I know her memories.

"I remember that. It was mine but she took it. We got into a lot of trouble but I took all the blame."

"She was thinking about you at the end. About your strength, your courage. She regretted that she had not done more to help but was so glad of you."

I do not know how much these words can comfort him but I was not made to spin stories. I can only tell the truth even if it does not amount to very much. Whatever her final thoughts were, they mean something to him which I will never be able to fully understand. He throws his arms around me and my armour's sensors relay the pressure of his head as he presses it against my chest. I hook my arm up his back and cradle his head in one hand so that the other is free to replace Makorro's battered old warhelm. I was not made to deal with this.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/18 16:24:22


Post by: lliu


This is nice as always!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/18 19:41:59


Post by: Sgt_Smudge


Oh damn, this is great! I love seeing the Space Marine, brought low by that which he is bound to protect. The ritual with the Omophagea is a great touch, and I'm just loving where this is going. Please continue!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/18 19:58:14


Post by: Mr Morden


Excellent and really well written - thank you for sharing and look forward to reading more.



Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/19 01:54:50


Post by: Gogsnik


Cheers all. I've been really enjoying typing this up, don't know where it's all coming from, but I'm glad people are being entertained by it too. Thank you.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/19 14:35:18


Post by: Necroagogo


Food for thought.

And thoughts for food.

Keep 'em coming!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/21 23:35:41


Post by: Gogsnik


My Brothers' voices on the vox is an immense relief. The words hash with static and fade in and out strangely, at one time sounding as if coming from a great distance and then inexplicably loud and clear then chopped through with squawks and giggles of interference. I cannot get through to them and on my fourth attempt I hear a monotone Tau voice, which sounds like that of a child, counting out a sequence of numbers with slow deliberation. The line cuts suddenly dead with a greasy pop.

Hunkered down in the lee of a building, a dirty, tattered awning providing scant concealment, I take a long look at the blown out facades of the nearby buildings. The sun is full up now and the air seethes with heat but the silence is unbroken. Progress has been slow since the ambush and in the hour since then we have gone only two miles but we are well within the outer bounds of the city now. I suspect that the area was rundown and derelict before the current conflict but even so, the stillness is unnerving. I thumb my palm as a ward and wonder just what those two pathfinders were doing out here. That's when I hear the low thrum. It is the unmistakable sound of a Tau anti-grav unit.

"Quickly, inside."

With a gentle shove I force open the door to the shop with the tattered awning, the simple lock shearing away under the power of my augmented strength. None of the children hesitate and even the teacher barely spares a questioning glance as they scuttle inside. I have moments before the Tau vehicle approaches, not enough to push myself through the tiny, human sized doorway so I pull it shut and step out into the street. It isn't likely they will expect an Astartes warrior to be waiting for them here, least of all one with half a class of children in tow but with that element of surprise and alone, I expect that will be enough to keep all the Tau's attention on me and away from the children, in case the damned blue bastards offer more resistance then I anticipate and this is where I finally part ways with Miss Foster and her charges. The first thing I see however is not the Tau but a gaggle of sprinting troopers.

"Get down!"

They are local military, it is unlikely that they have seen Astartes yet but the power of my voice overrides any reluctance on their part and they each drop to the baking hot road. The overcharged blast from the Razorshark's ion turret punches a bubbling crater into the pavement moments before the craft itself appears. My bolts are already in the air, enhanced hearing as good as sight, to tell me when to shoot and a trio of detonations spark along the sleek hull of the Tau machine with only one bolt wasted, taking a bite from a corner gable opposite and showering the street with brick fragments.

The humans get back on their feet, one of them tries to say something but a flat palm to the shoulder hurls him away with a strangulated squeak of surprise. I consider lining up to unleash another salvo when a thought occurs to me. I stamp down hard at the base of a street light, crumpling the metal and with a twist I tear it free. Time for some obvious tactics.

As the deadly Tau aircraft comes back around for another attack run I am ready, another little surprise they will never expect. The nose mounted burst cannon is already firing as the machine streaks into view over the roof adjacent to my position. Searing blue rounds rip up the road and punch into my leg like hammer blows. One clips my arm and the burning heat is too intense to feel although the sweet smell of cooked flesh wafts to my nose. I send the street light flying, the thirty feet long pole tangles in the Razorshark's airframe and snags the roofline above my head as the machine flies over. Suddenly anchored, the flimsy Tau vehicle buries itself in a mass of air-conditioning units and breaks apart like a child's toy. I throw myself forwards as chunks of brick and masonry collapse to the ground.

Coming up, I pan left, the scowling visage of Makorro's MkV lingering over the bedraggled men and women before me. They stare at me in awe but as I hear a door creak open behind me one of them, a pale young man with oily skin and black rimmed spectacles, raises his rifle, for all his unlikely appearance he is the most alert of them. Even so, I cannot have him panic shooting Miss Foster or the children.

"Move another inch and I will kill you wear you stand." The threat works on all of them, each one freezing in position and even behind me all movement has ceased. "Miss Foster," I say in a loud, clear voice. "Come into the street, slowly." I listen to the scuffle of shoes behind me but keep my attention firmly on the soldiers, the glaring lenses of the old warhelm keeping them rooted to the spot. I hear the steady tread come up beside me and spare a glance through the periphery of the right lens. Miss Foster is looking from the soldiers to me and back again, I wonder if she is expecting that I will kill them?

"Which one of you is in command here?" It is the second time today I have asked that question, but the man I knocked down clears his throat, attempts a salute, and then simply says, 'I am'. I allow the barrel of my boltgun to lazily drift his way.

"You are not friend's of the Tau it would seem?"

"We are from Taskforce Beta, under Commander Brant." He says it like it should mean something to me. Or like I should believe him. I think back to the Tau voice on the vox.

"So you claim." I eventually say. The soldier eyes his comrades nervously, hardly daring to take his eyes off me. Very slowly he raises his hands, palm up.

"I have documents from my immediate superior and they carry the code submitted to us by the Adeptus, er, Adeptus Administratum. They will confirm that Taskfroce Beta, along with the other three Taskforces, all operate under the auspices of the Munitorum/Gracer Combined Arms Force."

He says it slowly, carefully, enunciating each word as if explaining something obvious to a child which he expects will be enough for him to assert his authority over this situation. Does he seriously believe that he can resolve this by waving about a slip of paper and then have me fall into line? The transparent sheet of plasfex stains his hand green as he slowly holds it out for me to inspect. I catch a glimpse of the Administratum seal and even the smell of the plastek material seems authentic. I did not really consider duplicity at any point but this little piece of theatre grates on my nerves. If all of the Gracen peoples who have wisely joined the rest of the human race are as officious as this man then they will get on wonderfully with the ink scrawlers of the Priesthood of Terra.

"The Adeptus Astartes do not answer to the Administratum and your 'documents' are meaningless to me." In one stride I have the man's arm in my hand and I yank him around to look at the armband he wears, a thick strip of camouflaged material embossed with the Aquilla. "Miss Foster. Would you say these soldiers are loyal to the Throne of Terra?" I lean in close enough to almost touch the soldier's face before turning to look at the teacher.

"Yes." She says confidently but here eyes flicker. "Please, don't kill them." The catch in her voice is perfect and I smile inside Makorro's helmet. Miss Foster's belief that I might have slaughtered these soldiers out of hand, just because, is of no consequence although it nags at me that I do not have her full trust. Even so, the effect on the soldiers is useful and it is right that they should fear the wrath of a Space Marine.

"What is your name little man?"

"S-Sergeant Kopez, 228150, 2nd Battalion, Urdeska Sector Marine Corps."

"Marine?" My laughter echoes down the deserted streets.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/21 23:58:16


Post by: lliu


That is very epic! Very exciting! I love this!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/22 00:36:38


Post by: Gogsnik


Thank you. I was going to have him regroup with his Brothers but it evolved differently. I need to avoid having just a few characters basically wandering around doing very little (as I've had before) so, hopefully these new additions will give me something that will lead to a bit more action.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/25 00:36:12


Post by: Gogsnik


I push the heal of my palm into my eye, wiping away tears. Marines! I drop the MkV back onto my head and let it settle back into the neck ring under its own weight, enjoying the sound of the soft click as the seal engages. I knock twice on the helmet, an old habit I haven't indulged for many years. Marines... I sit on the counter of the old shop, feet not quite touching the floor and lean forwards, hands braced either side of me. Eleven children, one teacher and seven soldiers- no, marines. I only become aware of the low growl in my throat after every wary body leans back in the dusty old plastic seats they now occupy.

The shop seems to be some kind of food outlet, I think I heard one of them use the phrase 'tea room'. There is no power, no water and no food. A mouldering pile of old letters in the doorway are dated from several years previously. That little nugget of information was announced to general silence by the spectacled trooper, Dright, R.J. 389167, Marine First Grade, or MFG which I was informed made him and the others Mother Fruking Grunts! I glowered at them from the shadows until the nervous grins wilted.

But these are no amateurs it would seem. They have completed three 'tours' in Kesslin, a nation state at war with Urdeska, one of an alliance of nations of the 'Central Region'. Kesslin and its allies in the 'Archipzone', so called because they exist in the heavily populated Archipesia area (no doubt a corruption of the word archipelago, but I have no wish to delve into an etymological discussion) have joined the Tau in order to finally destroy their enemies of the Central Authorities Strategic Alliance or CASA as it seems to be more commonly called. Most worlds in the Imperium are controlled by a single government, headed by an Imperial Commander which is commonly a hereditary position. It is unusual for a world to have so many governments and even more unusual for ordinary citizens to be so well versed in politics. Clearly the Imperial model of hereditary governorships is superior to this unstable cauldron of divided interests. If these people believe that the Imperium will win their wars for them and then give them back this world to squabble over then they are sorely mistaken. A change in leadership will effect the common folk little but many of the leaders will need to be removed. Still, that is a problem for the Administratum. My concerns are more straight forward.

"There is a chemical refinery in this area. It is being used by the Tau and their human allies. Where is it?"

Sergeant Kopez exchanges a glance with Dright who is the one that answers my question.

"That would likely be Hornlow. It's about five clicks north-east of here but you won't make it."

"Is that so?" Dright coughs and shakes his head.

"Here look." Dright stands and spreads a map over a table and clicks on a torch clipped to his webbing to dispel the gloom. He waits for me to join him but I can see clearly from where I am, memorising every inch of his map in seconds. I indicate for him to continue. "We're, er, here," he says, tapping the map and looking to me before going on. "And this here is Hornlow. Over fifteen square kilometres. Down this side is a lagoon, completely impassable. From the south-west until just here, you have what used to be Westow but that whole part of the city is a complete death trap now, you can't get more than a block without coming under heavy fire."

"The east side," I say pointing. "Open country." Dright seems surprised that I am able to discern such detail from my position but then he just frowns.

"Exactly, open country." He says, emphasising each word. "The Tau have complete air superiority, no way you can get through there, I mean..." He trails off and waves his hand from floor to ceiling. "You're huge. Not exactly subtle."

"Subtlety is for those too weak to take their enemies head on." I slide down off the counter coming to a decision. "You came from this, Westow. Your military is in that area?" Sergeant Kopez answers this question.

"We have a command centre set up there. We were on a patrol trying to find a way to Little Gessly, there's a railyard there which the damn drebos' took off of us two weeks ago. They only sent us because we just don't have the men to spare. The entire area is a meat grinder man." He concludes with a shrug.

"Drebos?" To my surprise it is Miss Foster who answers.

"A derogatory term for people from Kesslin. Quite a nasty one too."

"Pft! Please, spare me the moral outrage chica. We've been fighting those gakholes for ten years. You know how many of us they've killed? You think I care about what I call them? They're drebo scum, every one!" He chews his lip and then his eyes narrow at the teacher. "Wait a minute, your name, Foster right? Hey Zebeck, ain't Foster a drebo name?"

"How dare you!"

"Yeah, you're a drebo alright," Kopez says, jabbing a finger hard into Miss Foster's chest. "I bet-" Makorro's old warhelm conceals my sigh. I pick up Kopez by the back of his head and fling him into the wall. Rifles are aimed by some of his squad but I crush the closest with no more difficulty than a normal man would squash a paper cup. The other guns lower. Kopez gets onto his hands and knees with a grunt and I shove him back onto his belly with my boot. I pick him up by the heel and throw him again. Point made I look at the other soldiers.

"Any one of you lays a finger on the woman again, you all die." I had hoped to leave the children in the care of the soldiers but it would seem that the rigours of war have taken too much of a toll. They will probably turn on them or abandon them as soon as my back is turned. However, if the situation is as they say then coming with me will be suicide. My course is clear though.

"I am going to the refinery. I cannot be your guardian any more Miss Foster but you may continue to accompany me if you wish. Perhaps at this Command Centre in Westow there will be a place for you."

I am tired of humans. I am the Emperor's mailed fist, I am the sword that cuts down all who oppose His will, my purpose is to kill and kill and kill in His name, not to coddle civilians. I leave and do not look back.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/25 08:30:56


Post by: Mr Morden


Really awesome writting thanks


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/25 20:49:00


Post by: Gogsnik


Cheers and thanks for reading.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/26 11:04:46


Post by: Necroagogo


I'm getting a bit of an 'Aliens' vibe from the Marines, which isn't a bad thing! Another solid couple of updates. Am enjoying this.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/26 14:28:49


Post by: lliu


Hmmm... Is he one of those cocky marines who don't think that humans are what they were made to protect?


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/26 16:42:54


Post by: Gogsnik


 Necroagogo wrote:
I'm getting a bit of an 'Aliens' vibe from the Marines, which isn't a bad thing! Another solid couple of updates. Am enjoying this.


I wanted them to sound more real-world since this is a planet that has existed outside the bounds of the Imperium so I wanted the people to be more 'modern'. I also wanted to make it a contrast with how Guardsmen are often portrayed interacting with Astartes, since these people don't know what a Space Marine is they are in awe because he's a giant that just swatted a plane out of the sky but rather than bow and scrape they played up to it a bit. At least, that was what I was going for

lliu wrote:
Hmmm... Is he one of those cocky marines who don't think that humans are what they were made to protect?


I don't think he believes that specifically but the attitude is definitely there. The main thing for Carleeson is that these people aren't like any people he's encountered before and he's never had to spend time with ordinary humans either, certainly not like this and he just can't handle it; they talk to him like he's a man but he isn't so there's a bit of dissonance.

Part of the character of my Chapter is inspired by a Rogue Trader Index Astartes article on the Mentor Legion. So with the Prophets of Hatred, they don't have a lordly or aloof manner like most Space Marines so even though that is one barrier they don't have separating them from ordinary humans, their outlook and beliefs still make them inhuman; unless that human happens to be an Istvaanian!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/26 22:15:11


Post by: lliu


So he is really pissed?


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/27 00:33:59


Post by: Gogsnik


Absolutely.

To give some insight into the mind of the Chapter, here are a few quotes:

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way... ...War is god.

Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

You people do well at war because you treat it as a religion.

Squat Warlord Hargir

The fight is on, until my final breath/ I've never wanted anything more

Hatebreed, Never Let It Die


It isn't an outlook which is unique to my Chapter, nor to Space Marines in general but, that Istvaanism is considered a radical belief amongst Inquisitors tells you a lot. It may well be that killing a heretic or a rebel or an alien is a holy act, a prayer to the Emperor. It's more than just a moral imperative to destroy the enemies of the Imperium and the Emperor, the very act itself is a sacrament. I guess it's all about extent.

So war becomes the ultimate state of being and the thing from which all other human activity derives. I already included the Adolf Hitler quote in the story, 'those who will not fight, do not deserve to live'. Naturally that way of thinking makes Carleeson very different to a normal human being. You can add to that, 'to admit defeat is to blaspheme against the Emperor'. Clearly what is right and wrong to a person who believes that is going to be almost completely opposite to what normal people believe. Obviously it's very difficult for Carleeson to reconcile the vestiges of his human nature to protect with his philosophical and religious beliefs especially when we know that the process of creating a Space Marine starts at a very young age so he has a lack of empathy with anyone, of any age, who's first instincts are not to fight and kill.

That's the main gist of the Chapter's beliefs and I know normally a Chapter is generally monochrome but that isn't true for my Chapter, so some of them are a bit more like Salamanders, having seen the flaws in such an extreme belief system, but Carleeson isn't one of them. I don't think it's even that unrealistic to have such differing views exist in a relatively small group of people either. If you imagine any office, college, school et cetera could have a thousand staff/students then your own interaction is with a few dozen people at most, and you will almost certainly never talk in depth with the boss/teachers. It's perfectly possible that you will never meet some of the other people let alone know there specific beliefs and thoughts. People may well like to argue that a Chapter isn't big enough to capture a world or whatever, but as a group of people living their lives then, there's quite a lot of them.

Anyway, that's enough rambling from me!!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/27 01:05:16


Post by: Buttery Commissar


Been enjoying this since you started, but shamefully been too lazy to give thanks. Really good stuff. Great job on making a flawed but awesome character.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/27 01:37:52


Post by: Gogsnik


Thanks for the comments, it's good to know all those views aren't just me checking for typos!

I have an idea for the next 'scene' so there's more to come. Thank you for reading and I'm glad you've been enjoying it so far.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/27 03:09:11


Post by: Buttery Commissar


Honestly, it's also great to see someone writing in the first person. An awful lot of the fiction I see around 40K is third person, and to me it puts that distance between the reader and and the characters.
It's tricky, but you've totally managed, and made him relatable, despite the vast majority of us being nothing like.



Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/27 23:50:57


Post by: Gogsnik


Thank you. I think that with Space Marines a lot of what is going with them is internal so from outside you never get to see them as a person because they appear so focussed; I can't claim it was planned but, thinking about it now, I'd like to think that is why Carleeson is a bit miffed that the teacher sees him first as a killing machine when inside his own mind he thinks he's been really open! The first person just sort of happened so I'm very pleased that it's worked out so well.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/28 11:46:49


Post by: lliu


Hmmm... When shall thou next chapter doth cometh?


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/28 16:58:27


Post by: Gogsnik


Thou mayest expect an update anon.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/29 18:13:39


Post by: 2BlackJack1


Really like where this is going and how a space marine is handling being stranded in enemy territory.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/29 23:47:07


Post by: Gogsnik


I have only traveled a few streets when I sense my little shadow trailing behind me. I ignore her and keep moving, scanning for contacts. I can see evidence of where the razorshark harried the troopers and following the scent of chared bones I find what is left of one of their comrades. I squat down on my haunches and flick through the debris with one finger. There's nothing much to see; a few scraps of burnt cloth, blackened, crisped flesh on one remaining arm and a twisted rifle.

Behind me there is a lttle gasp and I turn to see my shadow watching me with a strange, flat expression I cannot place. I estimate her age at no greater than eight years standard. She wears no uniform, no personal trinkets. Her dirty blonde hair is in a loose plait, starting to come undone. She seems completely unremarkable to me but then, even the adults all look alike, completely unremarkable except for the small wooden bat she carries.

"What do you want child?"

"Why are you always so mean?"

I could not tell what her expression was before, the subtleties of human emotions beyond me, but that changes now. Every micro expression on her symetrical little face makes her skin tighten in anger, her posture shifts and her tiny hand grips the eighteen inches of scuffed and dented old salix wood tight enough to blanche the knuckles. I taste her adrenaline at the back of my throat. I feel the muscle fibres of my armour bunch, ready to pounce, hear the faintest click as stim injectors get ready to dump combat drugs into my system.

I can see now why there are so few accounts of Space Marines amongst ordinary humans. That said, there are a myriad of attacks committed by the regular citizens of the Imperium, fuelled by anger or lust, the 'crimes of passion'. I wonder then, do they respond to even a child's aggresion like this? Is my reaction so different? The question then is not how can they be so affected but how can they not be and if that be the case, why hold back?

I am not aware of having moved or made any sound but there must be something in my demeanour that she picks up and I watch her pupils dilate, see her lean away as if from a fierce heat. And if my anger be a fire, would I be remiss to burn her? One must tread lightly when dealing with Angels for we are wrath incarnate. So what intrinsic value does this child possess that means I should not kill her for irking me? I take a breath.

"And by what metric do you judge my meanness?"

She looks at her feet and pivots the toe of one shoe on the ground before looking at me from under her eyebrows and with a pout on her lips.

"You just are."

My snort of humour is a hash of soft static from Makorro's old vox grille.

"Very well, I am mean then. What of it?"

"I bet you don't have any friends." She says it as if that could sting me.

"Friends are for little girls like you. I have no need of friends. I have Brothers. I will rejoin them soon."

"I don't have any brothers. I have a sister but she moved away."

I stand back up and begin walking, but not fast. I take my time, examining every detail of the street. I glance through windows, at twilight worlds preserved under layers of dust. I look at signboards over boarded up shop fronts so ancient and neglected that the decades of paint have peeled away to reveal the details of past businesses that traded a century ago. I see street lights so long disused that their casings are filled with moss like an old terrarium. It allows the girl to keep pace with me.

"My name's Ashney by the way." I can practically hear her thinking and wait for her to get it out. "Why did your brother's leave you alone?"

"They left me to die."

"Oh."

I glance at her briefly. Her expression is old, I can see her thinking again. Her sister moved away she said. Does she wonder if my experience mirrors her own? How absurd.

"They must be as mean as you then." She finally concludes and there is an edge to her tone.

"I was badly wounded, they likely thought me dead. Had my place been taken by one of them I would not have hesitated to leave. Our duty comes before all other considerations and if it is the Emperor's will that we die, then we die. It is not for us to second guess the fates of our Brothers but to look to our own first. Duty, Faith, Honour, these are all that matter."

"But won't they feel bad for leaving you when you get back to them?"

"Why should they? If my destiny was to die then nothing they could have done would have changed that. Having left me, I survived and I will rejoin them, so their doing nothing amounts to the same as them having done anything. The only difference is that in my detour down to your world, I saved all your lives from those soldiers, kept all but one of you alive from the Pathfinder ambush and saved those 'marines' from the Razorshark on their heels. It is the Emperor's will, don't you see?"

"Who is the Emperor?"

"The Emperor is the saviour of Mankind and the founder of the Imperium of Man. From His flesh came the first Space Marines and from them all other Space Marines that follow. In each of us flows the Emperor's blood and so wherever we walk, the Emperor walks with us, wherever we stand, the Emperor stands with us and wherever we shed our blood, the Emperor bleeds with us.

"And so, on every world in the Imperium where a Space Marine has shed his blood, there is the Emperor. And in the unreality of the Warp the light of the Emperor's soul is like a beacon fire by which all human ships navigate thus ensuring Mankind's dominance of the stars.

"The Emperor is the Imperium and the Imperium is every one in it. Even you, in your own way, are a part of the Emperor so long as you accept Him in your heart. You have already seen what those who reject Him are capable of and you know what they would have done had I not been there. Do you understand?"

"I think so. So, the Emperor is watching us now?"

"He is."

"And if I get into trouble, the Emperor will help me?"

"He will."

"And if I get lonely, will the Emperor talk to me?"

"The Emperor speaks to us all, we just need to listen. You may not hear His voice, but you must have faith that His spirit guides you."

"So, is the Emperor like a god?"

"There are no gods."

"But gods made everything. They made all the people."

"They did not make me. I told you, all Space Marines are made from the Emperor's own flesh. But there are no gods, that is superstition. There are many who hold that the Emperor achieved apotheosis when He sacrificed Himself for the good of Humanity. But we Space Marines are the Emperor's sons and we know the Truth. Many will tell you the Emperor is god and it may well be wise for you not to disagree with them but you have heard my words. There are no gods."

"I don't think people really believe in the gods anyway. They're supposed to live in trees and rocks and in the air and water but, people cut trees down and throws rocks away and nothing ever happens. I don't think a god would like to be thrown away."

I wonder how much I should say about the metaphysical underpinnings of the world. In my centuries of life I have learned much, certainly far beyond what ordinary men are able, or permitted to know. But I am not one of the Ministorums pious fools or an Administrtum drone terrified at what the common man might do with a little bit of knowledge. They pursue their pogroms and expurgations and what does that achieve, it does not make Mankind's enemies fewer.

"There is a little truth perhaps, in what your people believe. You see, beyond the veil of this world lies the Warp, called by some the Sea of Souls, and it is upon the aetheric tides of that other place that the shadow-selves of all men dwell, the reflections of men's souls. But all things are mirrored in the warp; trees, rocks. And just as a man might lay his hands upon a stone, so too does his soul impart a piece of itself upon the stone's presence in the Warp.

"Over time, those imprints build so that the echoes of men's souls can be felt. So you see, in a way, it is possible that your ancestors could feel those presences, but, being ignorant of their true nature, gave them a supernatural explanation."

"Soo, does that mean that things can remember the people that have touched them?"

"Yes."

"And that's why the Emperor is everywhere, because if you've been there, then He's been there too!"

"That's exactly right. So you see, it all makes perfect sense with no recourse to gods or any such nonsense."

She looks up at me and smiles. I am pleased. She turns to say something and that is what saves her. I have a bolt in the air before the bullet that would have killed the girl, richocheting from my plastron, craters into the road sending up a spray of grit.

I waste no time in getting the girl behind me and instead step in front of her. My shot punches through the sill of a window and sends shrapnel whickering into the room from which the attack came. I already know from the weapon used that this is a human assailent. More shots come at me from the next window along but the flicker of movement before the shots were fired see my pre-emptive attack pulverizing bricks and glass and with a scream that does not stop I know the shooter is badly injured.

"Come with me!"

I do not wait to see if Ashney is following as I run headlong into the ground floor of the building, a terrace of shops with two stories of accomadation above. Metal shutters buckle and plate glass shatters as I charge right through and into a small room. The floor is tiled in pale blue squares which dip in the centre from the traffic of thousands of feet. A flaking wooden counter runs full length and behind that are empty racks, save at one end where suits and dresses in dirty plastic sheets still hang.

"Ashney," I call, turning as I hear her crunch over broken glass. She is wide eyed but her limbs are steady. I lean into an open doorway that leads into a short corridor. Two doors down the left wall and at the end, steps, that turn almost immediately ninety degrees into a flight which must lead to the first floor. "We are going to attack. The safest place for you is right behind me, do you understand?" She nods and I see a firmness enter her eyes. "Take this." From a compartment of my armour I hand her a tool used for making adjustments to the systems within my backpack. The plasteel shank is thin, a rough approximation of a stilleto. I have never used it as a weapon but nothing else I have is small enough for the girl to wield and her wooden bat will be no good against trained soldiers, she needs something that will maximise her strength and size.

"Stay as close to me as you can, if you get the opportunity you stab them in the inner thigh, here," I say, tapping the inside of my leg near the groin. "Then retreat, do not engage them. The Emperor is watching. Are you ready?" She nods and we move.





**********




@ 2BlackJack1: Thank you for the reply and I'm glad you're enjoying things so far.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/29 23:47:47


Post by: Gogsnik


EDIT: Stupid internet made me double post.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/30 00:54:11


Post by: Mr Morden


Another great chaper - brilliant interaction...............

thanks


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/30 01:26:59


Post by: Gogsnik


I'm glad you liked it. I knew I wanted it to be the two of them but the whole Emperor dialogue just evolved out of nothing, I hope that bit worked alright.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/30 02:55:41


Post by: 2BlackJack1


Sweet, a shoutout. Also really liking the explanation about what the Emperor is, while he does admit that saying the Emperor isn't a god isn't a good health decision. Really nice way of jumping to action and making sure the place is never really safe, with Ashney almost getting shot.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/30 17:05:03


Post by: Gogsnik


It made sense to me that he would be inclined to indoctrinate her but that he would also recognise that the Astartes view is not shared by the Ministorum who are undoubtedly on their way and already present in some form.

As I said earlier, I don't want to get bogged down with the characters just wandering about, so some action is definitely called for and this time it will be something more than just a few people taking pot shots.

Once again, thanks for the comments, they're all welcome and useful, I've had a few ideas pop into my head based on the feedback. Thanks all.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/04/30 18:23:13


Post by: lliu


Just brilliant!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/01 00:36:52


Post by: Gogsnik


Thanks.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/03 20:06:33


Post by: Necroagogo


So are we going to learn any more about the Chapter itself? Rites, famous battles or the like? Continued goodness!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/03 21:47:14


Post by: Gogsnik


My boots thump hollowly on the flimsy pulpboard flooring and the threadbare carpet does nothing to soften my footfalls. The entire edifice undulates and after four steps I crunch through to the true floor hidden beneath. Cables and pipes cross and re-cross and it seems likely the false floor and the cabling were done by a complete amateur. The fractional delay gives my enemies just enough time to limp into the corridor themselves as I smash through a fire door in a wash of retardant grit and splinters.

One man carries the other with an arm draped around his shoulder. They both turn at the noise, the one, with a face washed in blood from my earlier bolter fire cannot see through eyes swollen shut and the second goes pale as my immense frame squeezes into the narrow confines of the corridor, shoulder pads raking thick grooves from the plaster walls and mag boots wading through the disintegrating floor.

The sound of my boltgun firing is colossal and the unwounded soldier has just enough time to give an involuntary shout before he and his companion explode in a patter of gore. Their corpses grind to bloody mulch beneath my feet as I continue on. I go through another fire door and enter into a room lined on two sides with old couches. A table under the window has a large device on it with a removable glass jug. Cups and mugs are shattered on the ground where an impromptu sniper's nest has been set up on the table, the rifle lying on its side.

Gunfire in the street attracts my attention and I watch the marines advancing in pairs to engage more of the Tauist soldiers. The marines do not hesitate, constantly moving toward the enemy fire and it is obvious that they are a cut above the soldier's they face. I can see now how they have managed to hold this area for so long but even as I watch one goes down, his legs a red mess. He keeps shooting as a comrade drags him into cover. Impressive.

I am about to bracket the enemy from the window when I hear a thump behind me. I turn and catch a glimpse of a grenade just before it detonates. The force of the blast lifts me off my feet and slams me into the corner, one of the couches collapsing under my weight in a puff of old wool stuffing and twang of springs.
There is a hole in the ceiling and I can see daylight spilling through. To my left, opposite the doorway that led me here, a soldier emerges, stepping out from a small supply room I had not seen, the doorway hidden by a large steel cabinet now lying on its side. Stumbling through the choking dust Ashney doesn't yet see him and he makes a grab for her. He catches her by the arm and presses the barrel of a pistol hard into her temple.

"Drop your weapon or I swear, I will shoot her!"

"Go ahead," I say, unmoving. "But afterward I will pull you apart piece by piece."

"Bastard! I mean it, I swear I'll kill her! Just me let go!" A note of pleading enters his voice.

I ignore him and look at Ashney her eyes boring into mine. "Ashney, no-one's faith is certain until it has been tested. Do you have faith in the Emperor?" She tries to nod, but the gun digs into her flesh and she stops, replying 'yes' with a firm tone.

"Good. The faithful are only truly tested in battle for life is the Emperor's currency." I make a show of raising the scowling MkV to make it obvious I am looking at the soldier. "I make you this promise: Kill the girl and I will let you leave this place alive and unharmed. But no guns."

"You're crazy! Sick! You want me to fight a little kid?!"

"I find that hard to swallow since you are the one with the gun to her head, threatening to shoot."

"How do I know you won't just kill me anyway?"

"Question my word again and I will kill you where you stand, girl or no girl."

Slowly, he moves the gun away and throws it to the ground. He backs up a step and eyes the open corridor.

"Try to run and I will kill you." I say, before he can even attempt doing so. Ashney looks at me and I look back, the lenses of my borrowed helm giving nothing away. "Trust in the Emperor."

Before she can move the soldier launches himself at her with a howl. She turns and staggers to one side, a clumsy evasion which works as she trips over a chunk of plaster. The man is on her instantly however, pushing her to the floor and grabbing a kicking leg. He drags her towards him and gets down on his knees. She fights wildly but her child's strength is nothing compared to a grown man's, and a trained soldier fighting for his life to boot, and she can do nothing as he pins one arm to the floor and reaches for her throat with the other.

Her eyes are liquid with fear and desperation but I do nothing. Her skin begins to redden, face swelling as the soldiers throttles her. "Trust in the Emperor, Ashney." She flicks her gaze to the man killing her, her free hand clawing at his arm, twisting her fingers into the cloth of his uniform. Her eyelids flicker and just as the end seems close a brick tumbles through the hole in the ceiling and hits the soldier on the back of the neck.

He falls sideways and Ashney gasps, her bruised throat squawking as she desperately tries to suck in a breath. She flops to her side and half raises herself onto her knees but wobbles like a drunk and flops back down. The soldier comes again, fighting his disorientation. As his arm snakes around Ashney's throat I see a flash of metal and Ashney strikes blindly with the tool I gave her. The soldier staggers away, gurgling, and reaches up to pull the spike from his throat. He pulls it free and drops it to the floor, a wash of blood sheets down his chest like water from a split bucket.

He staggers to the wall and tries to stay on his feet but he looses control of himself and pitches forwards, his forehead smacking into the dusty carpet. He ploughs forwards on his face and ends up in a quivering heap, gurgling and retching. His death is not swift.

Ashney stumbles forwards, watching him die and she looks down at the tool on the floor covered in his life's blood. She has one hand on her neck and I see finger marks over the carotid artery; had he used two hands he most likely would have crushed her larynx but as it is, the Emperor has smiled upon the girl. She sits down heavily on the opposite couch and we look at each other for a long while in silence. She has the brick in her hand.

"I am very proud of you Ashney. You fought a greatly superior opponent but your faith in the Emperor was true. An enemy of the entire human race lies dead by your hand. Ave Imperator." I thump a fist into my plastron and the noise seems to snap the girl out of her torpor.

She moves the brick around in her hands, examining it from every angle before very carefully setting it down on the seat next to her. She stands on sure feet and goes to retrieve the tool.

"Leave it," I say, finally standing myself. "A warrior needs a real weapon." I pick up the pistol and hand it to her. "This is yours now." I set her to going through the pockets of the soldier, taking anything useful, whilst I take the sniper rifle from the window. It is useless to me but may be of use to the marines and I am loath to leave it here for another traitor to find.

Outside the gunfire has stopped and I see Miss Foster and one of the older girls helping the wounded marine. Moving back down the corridor I catch one last glimpse of Ashney before she falls in behind me and the hard edge that has now entered her eyes makes me smile.





**********




 Necroagogo wrote:
So are we going to learn any more about the Chapter itself? Rites, famous battles or the like? Continued goodness!


You must have replied whilst I was typing! I would like to get in as many details as I can but I suppose that is one drawback of using first person, it isn't as easy to just have a great big chunk of exposition. I've been meaning to write an Index Astartes for the Chapter for years and years but I've never got around to it, beyond basic ideas jotted down, so most of what the Chapter is, is just undefined ideas in my head.

I used the Chapter a lot in some massive RP's back on the old GW Conclave forum but, thinking about, a lot of those stories will be set after this one so far as Carleeson is concerned. Way, way back, when I first got on the internet and starting writing stories I had what was already then, an overdone trope of a Chapter war. I think that event will have already happened but due to the very nature by which the Chapter overcame the schism, in stories written years ago now mind, Carleeson won't really know about it!

I'll have to try and work something in to explore that after he has met up with the other Prophets of Hatred and I'll have to go back over some of my earlier stuff so I can get in all those terms I've invented for Chapter specific ranks and things like that. Otherwise I can just type up a bit of background in one of these Out Of Character posts to cover anything that Carleeson might be able to in the story.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/03 22:01:01


Post by: konst80hummel


This story has very good pacing and a theme one does not encounter often. Please carry on kind sir!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/03 22:59:49


Post by: Gogsnik


Thank you I definitely have ideas that should go for another four or five posts at least and after that, I have no idea. Hopefully something will occur to me!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/04 00:51:09


Post by: 2BlackJack1


I hope so too, this story needs an ending, it deserves it. Really liking this latest bit.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/04 21:51:10


Post by: lliu


Love it! And, kindly, BlackJack, please don't cause this to end, I really love it.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/05 22:41:51


Post by: Mr Nobody


I'm still wondering if the space marine is a good or bad influence on the little girl.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/05 22:54:45


Post by: 2BlackJack1


I wasn't asking him to end it, I was just saying it is better than being given up on


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/05 23:14:03


Post by: Gogsnik


I have no ideas for the end yet but it is something I have been thinking about but I would give a hesitant guess that I am maybe a third of the way through. I've had a tendency with the last few stories which I did, inevitably give up on, to outline a larger conflict which was seemingly stood still while the main characters wandered around not really doing anything. So far I think I've avoided that but it is looming. I think that once I've got Carleeson to the marine HQ that will mark the turning point of getting stuck in with the proper fighting.

As for Carleeson's influence, hm. There are people in the world right now (not that I had any of that in mind when writing, I'm just drawing a parallel) who are doing exactly what Carleeson is doing: indoctrinating children and getting them to kill. I don't think we would call them a good influence. The contexts may be very different, or perhaps not so different when all is said and done. It's an interesting angle and not one I had considered before although, it's given me some ideas for then next post so, yay!

Thanks for the comments all, they're much appreciated


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/06 01:25:30


Post by: Mr Nobody


You couldend the story with them reaching HQ. Carleeson disappears back into the fires of war while Ashney must live a life with the lessons Carleeson has taught her.

Carleeson could also take her with him. Space Marines have to get more servants from somewhere.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/06 01:32:57


Post by: lliu


Or he could have the Space Marine die in order to destroy the Tau force, that would be reasonable. Aren't all Space Marine stories about victory with a massive sacrifice?


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/06 16:37:55


Post by: Gogsnik


There's definitely more to come after they get to the HQ. I'll probably try and get another post up tonight as I got a bit of an idea for it after reading yesterday's comments.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/06 18:25:15


Post by: Mr Morden


Another great chapter - I do like the idea of her becoming a loyal serf - or maybe, some time in the future - an Inquisitor -


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/06 23:05:07


Post by: Gogsnik


I have a tendency to shoot my favourite characters in the face or immolate them so, who knows what will happen... ha!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/06 23:52:12


Post by: 2BlackJack1


In one story I made awhile back I made a character get his arm ripped off by a daemon, and then beaten to death with said limb, just to prove a point to a rookie in the story that Chaos is dangerous. Bit of a shame, character had potential.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/09 01:25:10


Post by: Gogsnik


Miss Foster runs to Ashney when she sees the blood. She asks the child if she is alright but Ashney tries to pull away. That's when the teacher sees the gun in Ashney's hand.

"What's this? Why do you have a gun Ashney? This is very dangerous. Please, give it to me." She goes for the weapon but the girl pushes her away much more forcefully than the teacher anticipates and they begin tugging on the gun. When it goes off I am not surprised. The bullet hits the tarmac and zooms away with long twang. The sudden bang causes Miss Foster to burst into tears.

"A warrior needs a real weapon! This one is mine!" The girl screams, her face red with anger. She backs up a few steps and Miss Foster looks up and sees me.

"You. What did you do!?" She is on her arse on the road but launches herself at me, one shoe coming off as she does. Her fists beat on my chest.

"You have some fight in you after all Miss Foster."

"You monster! She's just a little girl! She's not a fighter, not a, a warrior! What did you do!?"

"I did nothing. She fought for her life and won. She killed an enemy of the Imperium."

"She's just a child. Why didn't you protect her? Why!?" She hits me some more and makes her knuckles bloody. I hold her arms to stop her hurting herself further.

"She has been baptised by the blood of traitors! She is a warrior of the Emperor now." I haul Miss Foster up by one forearm until her eyes are level with mine. Her legs kick several feet above the ground. "If you hope to live much longer you will need to join her." My voice is a growling rumble of static laced menace. "Your old life is over. Let it go and I will be the angel who guides you to the next life. Defy me and I will be the demon who tears your soul apart!" I put my free hand under the pit of her other arm and then transfer my grip to her throat. I hold her enough so that she does not hang but I grip her tightly, her face reddens, eyes bulge. "Your choices are very simple: kill or be killed. Accept the Emperor into your heart as Ashney has done, or," And I tilt her around so she can see the sprawled bodies in the street. "Join them."

I set her down gently and brush my thumb up and across her cheek to ease the pressure from her throat. With my other hand I brush the backs of my fingertips through her hair, gently, so as not to aggravate her wounds. "I am trying to save you but I cannot do that if you resist." She puts her hands on my wrists and looks up.

"Save me? For what?"

"For the Emperor."

"I just don't understand." A single, soul deep sob, brings fresh tears. One runs down the side of my thumb and down to my wrist. I watch it drip to the floor. "I don't understand." She says again and her voice is hollow.

"You do not need to understand Miss Foster. Have faith. Serve the Emperor and everything will be as it should be." I kneel down so that her eyes look into mine. "Family, friends, possessions. Your life; these things are an illusion. Your fear of losing them cages you, binds your soul in fetters that will destroy you if you do not let go. You must choose to be free, to unshackle your soul from impermament things and embrace the Emperor, for only He is eternal. Pledge yourself to Him and He will be your guardian, your shield, your protector, your strength and your answer and in return the Emperor asks only one thing of you: kill His enemies."

I stand again and release the woman. Miss Foster is not a child like Ashney whose mind is free of knowledge and free to accept the Emperor. Miss Foster has lived a life and more than that, a life spent imparting knowledge, of questioning the world and her place in it and encouraging others to do the same. But to question is to doubt and to doubt is to open the gates to all of the vile and perverse things in this universe. To safeguard the soul one must never doubt, never question, only obey. Serve the Emperor, kill His enemies. These are the things that a Space Marine knows and that is knowledge enough.

I hear the approaching engine before any of the humans around me. More enemies are coming. I hear the marines getting up, getting ready. I hear the slide of Ashney's pistol, hear the hammer draw back. Even as bullets whine around me I keep my eyes on Miss Foster. Her head turns slowly to face the soldiers bearing down on us. Her dull eyes do not blink for long moments and when they finally do, I see a light kindle there. I see the first spark of hatred. I step behind the teacher, and rub my hand up the back of her neck and onto her skull. I lean forward to whisper in her ear.

"Serve the Emperor, kill His enemies."

I reach around and put my knife into her hands. With my left hand I grip her wrists and raise them up so that the knife flashes in the sunlight. I point to first one soldier with the blade and then another. I raise my bolter in my right hand.

"Which one Miss Foster. Choose."

"That one."

She looks down the spine of the knife and watches as my bolt punches through the primitive flak vest of the soldier, watches as the mass reactive detonates and sprays bloody flesh over his comrades.

"Serve the Emperor, Kill His enemies."

I let her go and she totters forwards, like a baby learning to walk. Then she takes a few more steps and then a few more and soon she is running. I take down two more soldiers in order to get Miss Foster into their midst but after that her fate is in the Emperor's hands. I move forwards and the marines join me. Ashney stands in the middle of the road, cradling the pistol like a rifle, the recoil shaking her entire body with each shot.

The marine's shout and call out orders, they whoop and scream and I add my battlecry to theirs.

"For the Emperor!"


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/09 01:48:53


Post by: 2BlackJack1


Beautiful, he now has his own militia, and another great installation. Nice to see Foster actually doing something useful (for the IoM, anyway)


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/09 01:49:00


Post by: 2BlackJack1


Beautiful, he now has his own militia, and another great installation. Nice to see Foster actually doing something useful (for the IoM, anyway)


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/09 05:03:04


Post by: Mr Nobody


Carleeson is getting pretty physical with the teacher, will he do some foot rubs next ?


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/09 10:34:51


Post by: Mr Morden


Great work - very impresive


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/09 11:46:57


Post by: lliu


Yes! This is like General FitzGibbon at the Battle of Beaver Dams!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/09 16:15:29


Post by: Necroagogo


... and so was founded the order of the Schoolma'ams of Battle.

Praise the Emperor, for He is our Principal.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/10 01:17:43


Post by: Gogsnik


Thanks for the replies fellas

I don't suppose you can accurately convey a psychological breakdown in a few sentences but that's what I was going for with Foster although I had in mind that some of it was what was done to Carleeson as an initiate.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/12 01:56:23


Post by: Gogsnik


I was never afraid of physical violence. I have vague recollections before my initiation of being nervous of the consequences but the instinct was always there, the instinct to settle a difference not with a word but a fist. I can no-longer picture her face, only the hint of her features, but I recall my grandmother saying she laughed when I tried to throttle a cousin for taking a toy because she would never have believed a child so young could know to do such a thing.

As an initiate I remember many of the other aspirants being afraid. They were afraid of fighting, they were afraid of being hurt and of hurting another. But for me, it was the first time in my life that I felt free.

As a scout I exulted in the power my new body endowed me. I was still consumed with the petty dreams of my old life and to see them fulfilled was the greatest joy. To be so much stronger than an ordinary man, to be so much more resilient. You cannot know what it is like to see every punch snap bones, pulp flesh, to kill whilst every blow against you is like the caress of a butterfly's wings. Pinch the skin on your elbow as hard as you can and then imagine that is how even a hammer blow against your skull would feel.

I had forgotten what it felt like to exult in my power. That has changed now because of the woman and the children. It was my destiny to become a Space Marine because I never felt as other men feel but I have been so long in the company of my Brothers that I had forgotten that. I had forgotten how weak humans are. It has nothing to do with their muscle power or their skills or their training. They are weak because they fear violence. Even the so called 'marines' fear it. Their training has focussed their fear, given them skills and tactics with which to overcome it but were they not running when I first encountered them? They were not falling back, they were running. They encountered a foe stronger than them and they ran in fear. And after, they threatened an injured woman, and a mere teacher of children at that, as if somehow that could mask their inherent weakness.

These people think that raising families in peace is the purpose of life, and afterwards, what is war? War is a monster to be unleashed or caged as absolutely necessary in order to protect or enrich those families. That is why they fear it but it is not the cause of their fear. Their fear is soul deep. They can mask it, channel it they may even overcome it but they can never banish it and everything they do, everything they believe is built on fear. A Space Marine knows no fear and it is true, I have never been afraid. Only the girl, Ashney, shows any promise and I knew it from the first moment I tasted her scent on the breeze. My little shadow, such a shame she can never be Astartes.

Bullets thump into the grille of the armoured transport and flames lick up from the bonnet, tentative fingers that reach out for the gunner stood in a cupola above the driver's cab. The flames are almost transparent, tiny ribbons of colour that flicker up his torso, onto his arms. He doesn't start screaming until they reach his throat. I put a boot into the left corner of the vehicle, the headlights shatter clear glass and their wireframe shield hangs loose by a single rivet. The truck shunts back, the driver gunning the engine, trying to turn to ram me. I put my fist through his window and drag him out and he lands with a crunch on the spread of flickering granules of glass.

I ignore him and put one foot onto the front wheel and lift myself up, the suspension dips under my weight. The vehicle's mounted gun is some kind of heavy stubber, drum fed, large calibre with a perforated air-cooled barrel shroud. I rip it free and snap off the trigger guard so I can get my finger in place. I empty the weapon into the fleeting forms of the enemy and then toss the gun away. Across the back of my calf I feel a sensation like a nail dragged across my skin, my armour's systems translating the knife attack from the driver. I drop back down off the transport and club the driver with my boltgun, his face tears away like wet paper.

I dig my fingers into his belly and rip him apart like an overripe fruit and throw the pieces at his comrades. Makorro's helmet vox increases its volume to full as I bellow my rage. My arm twitches as I consider going for my knife before I remember I gave it to Miss Foster. I wade into the nearest soldiers with my fists, ceramite gauntets knocking apart fragile human bodies like blocks of warm lard. I pick one up by the back of the head and ram her skull into the MkV, crushing her face to jelly. My grip turns limbs to mush, my backhands snap necks, boots crush legs, feet pulp torsos, vox howls so loud they burst eardrums. They are running! As fast as they are I have stride length a third again as much as theirs. The first of them I barge into a wall, crushing him dead, and the others I grab and throw over my shoulder like a terrier with a rat. I kick their corpses apart for running from me.

Four marines and seven children left. Faces are waxy, pale. They stink. Dright is still alive, I jerk my chin up in his direction.

"You, how far to Westow?"

"Three blocks." He swallows, wipes a hand down the side of his race and stares up the road. I see one or two survivors still running, jogging to a halt at the next junction as they reach more of their forces moving up. Another transport skids to a halt. "No way are we gonna make it man. No way..."

I eye the transport behind me, the occasional flame still peeks out from under the bonnet. Time for some Obvious Tactics. I drag tha machine around to face back up the street and lash the wheel in place. I lean into the driver's bay and use one hand to press the clutch down and slip the gear stick into neutral. I eye the body of the female trooper whose skull I crushed; her blood still drips from Makorro's helmet.

"Miss Foster." The woman looks at me, her eyes filmy and distant for a moment. She looks stronger to me than before, as if the brief moments of combat have melted the fat from her frame, revealing the lean muscle beneath. "Take her boots and her weapons." I say pointing at the body lying on it's belly. Miss Foster sits in the dirt and picks the laces undone and slips the boots onto her feet. Strange, to watch her do that, pulling the laces tight and rapping them once around the back of her legs before double knotting them. She takes the rifle, a pistol, the webbing and quickly gears up.

"You four and Miss Foster," I say, indicating the marines. "You wait until I am a quarter of the way to the enemy, then follow, use as many grenades as you can. Children, you will follow after but do not linger, we are going to punch through their centre and keep moving until we reach the marine base. Gather weapons, shoot anything that moves and do not stop, if you fall behind, you die. Ave Imperator!"

There is no time for further discussion. I begin to push the transport, picking up speed as I go. The bullets start to hit the vehicle almost instantly, glass shatters and the fire eating the engine slowly, pops the bonnet free with a dry cough. I hear them screaming orders and the bullets hitting the vehicle start to spang off the road as they aim for the tires but the fools pop both almost simultaneously and apart from a brief wobble I remain on course, wheel hubs squealing as rubber shreds away.

The first grenade detonates moments before the tattered transport slams into its opposite. The impact knocks the gunner back into the cab but I send a burst of bolts that kill the gunner and driver both. I do not stop, shooting down any soldier I see. I draw most of the fire but there is no confusing the pitiful squeals of children as they are gunned down. They are dieing behind me but their fates are in the Emperor's hands.

Two junctions down I can now see that every building has been demolished and the rubble pushed back into a defensive line, the road sandbagged, barb wired and blocked with tank traps. I stop and turn, the fighting now only behind me. I lay down as much cover fire as I can as what is left of the humans that follow me sprint to safety. A hundred feet back down the road, at the last junction, I see one of the female marines is captured. Four of the enemy have hold of her, a limb each, but she fights like a hellion and manages to kick one onto his arse. I consider putting a bolt into her for expediency but shift my aim and take down one of her assailants.

The other two go down quickly after but not at my hand. Behind me, manning two watch towers, marine snipers have joined in. I wait until the woman catches up, her face swollen with bruises. In the road a small tank has appeared and its contribution sees the Kesslin soldiers finally fall back, but not far and I feel certain they will overcome their reluctance to assault the marine base very soon.

Three marines and five children. Miss Foster carries one of them in her arms. I give thanks to the Emperor that we have reached this place, I will no longer be burdened with these humans and can leave this pathetic sideshow behind me, enough of my time has been wasted on the dregs that linger here as it is.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/12 02:23:08


Post by: 2BlackJack1


I really liked the mentioning of his time as a scout, nice bit of insight into the character.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/12 08:15:26


Post by: Mr Morden


Just brilliant writing


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/12 11:52:32


Post by: lliu


Brilliant! Man, the centuries of arrogance have really made a mark on that guy!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/12 20:32:35


Post by: Gogsnik


He's angry and he likes it! I was originally thinking about him saying that all the killing blurred, that he'd moved well beyond what a boy, in a space marine body, would feel. Didn't quite get it in there but I hope it came across in the more oblique sentences.

I think it was almost necessary to have him recall his time as a scout, even briefly, as that's one of the chief aspects of the Chapter, that they are very memory focussed, it's only the things beforehand which can have possibility of being forgot.

I've been reading Tallarn: Executioner and one sentence gave me an idea for the next post so, there's still plenty to come.

Thanks for reading and the comments!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/21 22:13:28


Post by: BobNT


Love it. Great job so far

I'm impatiently waiting for the next chapter of the story


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/23 02:42:06


Post by: Gogsnik


The Headquarters occupies approximately twenty square acres, a rough oval surrounded by a wall of rubble fifteen feet high. At various points around the perimeter are wooden sentry towers but I see that each is enclosed by a shimmering energy field; the roof of each topped by a smaller mushroom-headed device that must be the projector. Each tower is equipped with a large weapon of a type unknown to me, but, given the Tau's air superiority in this area, it is not unreasonable to surmise that each weapon is far more deadly than its sleek profile would suggest.

The Headquarters compound itself is hidden behind a wall of steel cages filled with rough blocks of stone. Ordinarily it would be a primitive defence but I see more of the energy field emitters and automated turrets as well. Two solid metal gates provide access, each one withdrawing swiftly along runners embedded in the ground. I am not prepared for the gate's operator however.

"What is this?" I say, bringing my bolter to bear.

"It's just a Man sir." Dright answers me, hurrying forward and laying a hand on my vambrace. I tilt my head and the glowing lenses wash the skin of his hand orange. He slowly raises his arm away and tilts both hands back to show no threat, his throat bobs as he swallows.

"Man?"

"Mobile Automaton. We use'em for pretty much everything: driving, flying, running errands," He waves a finger around to indicate the base. "Guarding gates." Dright shrugs and flicks his eyes between the impassive gaze of the man and me. "My grandma has one to help out round the home, cleaning, cooking, things like that. They're pretty basic really, running set routines, it's all menial stuff and they aren't too bright but you tell'em what you want'em to do and they'll get the job done if it's in their programming.

"There're all sorts though," Dright walks forwards and leans up against the 'Man' and puts an arm around its back. "This one here is an Army Man. They were designed to go into combat but some people, they didn't like'em, didn't think it was right letting machines do all the fighting, they thought it was way better that people killed other people, 'course, they weren't the ones being sent out to do the dying. That's why he's armoured; they removed the combat routines and that was that really."

Dright looks up at the Army Man with a wistful expression and it tilts its head down to look at him. The machine is humanoid, with slabs of armour roughly shaped like human musculature. It stands a head shorter than me, aproximately seven feet tall, and the face is blocky and angular. "We call this big guy Bob," Dright says, giving the machine a pat on the chest. "Old Bob's saved my life a dozen times. They say they took all the combat wetware out but I don't know, Bob's still pretty handy, aren't you Bob?" 'Bob' stares at Dright for a long moment and then makes a sound between a grunt and grinding gears.

"Of course, that was before the Tau came. Obviously their people aren't so bothered about using robots to fight for'em, what with all the drones. I've heard that they're re-equipping the Men, putting them back out into the field but, even now, people don't mind'em as servants but they still object to them fighting." Dright shakes his head and stares at Bob. "Better that people kill people right?"

Within the Imperium, robots are rare and precious. I am aware of the existence of many such machines employed in the armies of the Adeptus Mechanicus but I have never fought beside nor seen such a thing. If battle worthy robots are being produced on this world, it will be a huge coup for the Mechanicus and even the Tau could benefit from this technology. There is more at stake here than I realised.

We are escorted within the main Headquarters building, a quietly bustling environment. The operations room is a larger version of the prefabriacted units seemingly used to create all personnel buildings. The walls are made from slabs of a composite material which appears designed to absorb impacts, blasts and shrapnel and locks into a lightweight frame, an example of which I saw quickly being dismantled under the supervision of overalled technicians.

"Jenniser? Jenniser Foster? I can't believe it! What, what are you doing here?" A marine officer wearing combat fatigues and a cloth cap slowly walks toward Miss Foster, his speech faltering as he takes in every inch of her battered form. He puts his hands on her shoulders and his mouth hangs open slightly.

"Melgin? I didn't know you were in the service. It's been a long time." She doesn't touch the officer back and as if realising what he is doing for the first time, he lifts both hands off her shoulders and takes a half step back. He takes a moment to compose himself before he answers her.

"Yes, it's been a long time." His gaze takes in the children and his frown deepens and he shakes his head as if he cannot believe what he is seeing. Then he sees me. He swallows and takes a step back.

"Brother Carleeson, of the Prophets of Hatred Chapter of Space Marines." I say, before he can speak, laying emphasise on 'marines'. "You are the commanding officer here?"

"Yes. My name is Lietenant Colonel Brant, Commander of Taskforce Beta. Pleasure to meet you, er, Brother." The Commander's hand hovers halfway between a salute and offering me a handshake. I stare at him until he drops his arm.

"I have no wish to divert you from your duties Commander and I have my own to perform." I turn my gaze to Miss Foster for a moment and then turn to leave.

"Now just wait a minute." I hear Brant closing behind me. "What are you doing here? Are there more Imperial forces coming? We need reinforcements."

"My Brothers and I were tasked with the destruction of the refinery at Hornlow. We were attacked entering orbit and I became seperated. It would appear you are acquanited with Miss Foster. She and her pupils followed me into the city where we encountered some of your personnel who directed me here. Now that they are here I put them into your care." I take a step towards Brant, forcing him to tilt his head almost as far back as it will go. "As I said, Commander Brant, I have duties to perform. You would not wish to impede one of the Emperor's Astartes in executing his duties, would you?" Before he can answer Ashney interjects.

"You're leaving us here? But- I thought- You can't leave us here!"

"I can and I will. You are not my concern, I made that very clear from the beginning. Y-"

"NO!" She screams and launches herself at me, her face a mask of anger. She beats her fists on my leg, unable to reach much higher.

"Enough." She continues her assault. "Enough." My voice comes out as a low growl between clenched teeth, this tedious nonsense very quickly draining my patience but still the girl will not stop. I do not do it consciously, but I feel Makorro's helm turn the vox-emitter to full volume. "ENOUGH!" My amplified voice hurls the child to the floor and every other noise silences immediately. I sense dozens of eyes upon me. I snatch Ashney up off the ground, only just checking myself from crushing her to death, so fragile is she.

"I am the Emperor's Angel of Death. I am not your personal guardian. I execute the Emperor's will, nothing else."

As soon as the word leaves my mouth a muffled boom filters through into the operations room. Cool lines spread across my back and chest, my armour lowering my temperature even as I become aware that my anger is making my skin sizzle like I am doused in liquid fire. The sounds of battle calm me, giving me focus.

I put Ashney down as I begin to make my way out, and behind me the operations room explodes into sound as Brant begins shouting for a situation report and his people move to obey. Outside, marines are running and I hear the throaty purr of the small tank as it charges off, somewhere outside the stone cage wall.

The gathering enemy forces we ran through to get here were obviously building for an all out assault but I had hoped they would be helpful enough to wait until I was on my way. Three of the guard towers are smouldering ruins and I watch a fourth explode as dozens of missiles slam into its energy field, the protective bubble popping with a screech. Scores of ragged, enemy soldiers pour over the rubble barrier and flood into the compound.

Where we enetered the base, the small tank is making a very good account of itself and several missiles hit it directly but with little effect, the warheads seemingly designed to take down the marine's energy fields but ineffective against conventional armour. Even so, the flood of bodies is too much for one vehicle and crude incendiary exploves smash over its hull. It reverses, and those few marines that are still alive begin to scramble back along with it. I add my bolter fire to theirs and see traitors chewed apart and explode by my attack.

I continue to advance even as the tank passes me, the bang and scream of my bolts familiar music to my ears. Each bolt is fired like an ordinary bullet but the bolt's own propellent kicks in after several heartbeats, giving every shot that distincive scream and howl. At the target, the armour piercing tip gives a dry crackle before the mass reactive detonates with a moist thump.

The situation is hopeless. Hundreds of the enemy have breached the outer defence. Behind me a siren begins to wail. I fall back to the inner compound where my erstwhile companions wait for me. Brant jogs across to me with several more of his officers in tow. More engines roar into life and I see large cargo trucks begin to move out.

"We've been expecting this for a few days now. I guess that Emperor of yours got you to us just in time." Brant gives me a pointed look but I find his logic vexatious. I have no time to explain to him that the Emperor is his also and simply ask him what his plans are.

"That refinery your're supposed to be destroying, that's their main base. Arch forces and their new blue buddies are dug in there like ticks. Arch forces are more numerous than us, got more resources than us but could never really bring any of it to bear whilst we outgunned them. Their tech just couldn't compete with ours. Now... This place was just a firebase, damn Tau demolshed the main HQ months ago. Top Brass kept us here as a distraction but I was damned if I was going to let all my people die out here for a distraction! That's why I had my men out hunting for a way through. Look, we need all the help we can get, especially now. I know I have no authoirty over you so as just one soldier to another, please, help us."

"I am going to Hornlow. I will find my Brothers on the way and then I will aid them in our mission. I will not be going with you Commander Brant." I see him sag as I say this but I am not finished yet. "I will give you the same choice as Miss Foster however. You may come with me but your life will be in the Emperor's hands.

"You've been out here for a long time Commander, while the enemy picked you off one by one. Even your own superiors left you out here to die. Wouldn't you prefer to strike back, to take the fight to the enemy, to crush these traitors in their lair?"

I watch the surge of emotions play across Brant's face. Attacking Hornlow was obviously something he never considered, at least not seriously, he didn't have the strength to do so. Now though, he has a Space Marine.

"Let's do it!"

"Ave Imperator!"






**********



Apologies for the slow update, had one or two important events to get out of the way this last week or so. All things back to normal again, for now. Emperor willing that's how it will stay!



Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/26 23:49:47


Post by: Gogsnik


I watch the compound recede behind us, as the open topped troop transporter rocks and jounces as its driver speeds away. Explosions rock the base and men scream under the steady high-pitched beat of the automated turrets covering our withdrawal. It shocks me that the marines could leave their wargear without even a backward glance; these weapons will be destroyed or fall into the hands of traitors and aliens and yet the men and women of the Corps have abandoned them to this ignominious fate with no more thought than one would spare for a used food wrapper. It sickens me and I see now why they have faired so poorly against the rabble they have faced here: they do not honour the machine spirits or the memory of those who have fought and died with these weapons in the past. They are selfish and wanton.

Miss Foster sits almost opposite me, just to my left, leaning on the tailgate and she is turned away as much as the narrow timber bench will allow but I can still see the tears. Weak. The older girl who has helped her up until now is another survivor and she sits next to her teacher, holding her left hand tightly, but she is staring at the scuffed deck with a heavily knotted brow. She runs a thumb absently across her bottom lip and bites the corner, gently repeating the action over and over. Ashney is the next in line and she is sat leaning forwards, staring at me intently from under thick lashes, leaning on her elbows, her wrists crossed over each other. In her right hand she holds her pistol. I tilt my head to one side and through the dark thunder of her expression a timid, hopeful smile twitches across her mouth. Fool.

Beside her is the brother and what seems to be the two youngest children. For a moment the idea runs through my mind that the marines abandoned their equipment as I have abandoned the bodies of the fallen children. They mean less to me than wargear and I had no responsibility to them. Their lives were in their own hands and the Emperor's but a machine is at the mercy of whomever wields it, you might even call machines innocent. But the thought lodges as I scan across each face again. I feel...

As the convoy of trucks moves off the dirt track that has brought us to a wide road lined with one hundred feet high trees, pale grey leaves flashing golden in the sun, I see something thrown from one of the other transports which hits a man, stood by the road, in the chest. From my position, and with my enhanced sight I see every detail of him very clearly. His arms are black to the elbow and split with thick red fissures. He has no expression, eyes unfocussed. He stands next to a burnt out vehicle with a number of charred corpses inside. At his feet lies the thrown item, a flat, brown box; a ration pack. I keep my eyes on him as we thunder past but he doesn't move except to sway in the backwash of the passing trucks. I think I can guess what happened. But they would be his own family in that vehicle, his flesh and blood, not some strays picked up along the way. I wonder what his father's grief feels like. How would his sorrow taste on my tongue if I ate his thoughts? Infection will kill him soon. Perhaps I will return here after- No, it is beneath me to sidetrack from my duty in this way, unseemly for an Astartes.

Under my breath I recite the Fifth Psalm of Duty: Blessed is he that walketh not in the counsel of the faithless, nor standeth in the way of heretics, nor sitteth in the seat of traitors. But his delight in is the law of the Emperor; and in His law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The faithless are not so: but are like the chaff that the wind driveth away.

I wonder why the Tau have not already attacked the column but then I do not suppose they ever would have expected this paltry force to attack them in their stronghold; I trust also that my Brothers will even now be at their throats. With a whirr the engine note changes, powering down and the transport comes to a stop, crunching over loose gravel. I jump down from the bed of the transport even as squads of marines do the same. I approach the commander as he ushers some of his men away.

"We're going to cut through the fence here. It used to be a rail access but that's been gone for decades but there is a clear corridor direct to the heart of the refinery. The Tau are holed up at the old research laboratories, it's just tanks and fuelling depots on this side, best place for an ingress because if they start shooting here then the whole place could go up!" Brant says with a lobsided grin.

I walk with the Commander to the fence, a heavy gauge mesh thirty feet high. It is the work of only a few moments to slice through one side and the Army Man helps to push the fence back on itself. I step off the old ballast left over from the period when the tracks ran through and onto a relatively newer hard surface of scabby, grey concrete. A thicket of corroded alluminium pipes and stainless steel tubes spreads off to my right, denoting the fuelling stations where abandoned chemical haulers still sit and to my left are hundreds, if not thousands, of tanks; ugly white spheres like oversized cistern floats streaked orange and black like candle wax running down a skull, and squat cylinders all shades of rust, haphazardly jacketed in thick, sludge black padding that hangs in places like rotten skin.

"The mission as outlined by your people and the Munitorum, when they sought the aide of my Brothers and I, was to level this place. A waste don't you think Commander?"

"Damn impossible too if you don't mind me saying so. Seems like destroying the Tau force here would safely see it back in our hands, I can't even imagine why they would ask for it to be destroyed."

"Nor I." I say, musing on a nascent thought. "Have you seen many Tau Commander, during any of your enagements thus far?"

Brant gives me a sideways look as he stares out at the horizon, where the Tau must be located.

"Honestly? Not many. They have some aircraft which occasionly do a run through but I haven't seen any of their ground troops. Mainly we've been fighting the same enemy as ever."

"I killed two pathfinders on my into the city. They were armed with weapons originally designed to kill Astartes, overkill if they only expected to face conventional troops such as your marines and wholly inadequate against large bodies of infantry."

"Where are you going with this if you don't mind me asking, Brother Carleeson?"

I look at the Commander and I cannot answer him but something does not feel right to me. But then little has 'felt' right since I landed on this world.

"I don't know Commander but I aim to find out."


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/27 01:08:28


Post by: 2BlackJack1


Oh boy, keep up the great work man, I'm really liking where the story is going.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/27 23:20:17


Post by: Gogsnik


Thanks for reading along. That last little bit just sorta popped into my head as I was typing but needless to say, there'll be a few more proper Marines joining the story soon and I have a few ideas about just what the hell is going on, sorta. Who knows, we may well have got a half coherent story by the time it's all done!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/28 00:40:29


Post by: 2BlackJack1


Lol, wherever your taking it, I can't wait to see. Some more actual marines might be nice too, so I'm excited for that.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/28 03:33:02


Post by: Mr Nobody


Looks like our marine's army grows bigger everyday.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/29 00:18:10


Post by: Gogsnik


Thanks for the replies fellas, they're all very much appreciated


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/29 01:33:20


Post by: 2BlackJack1


Yeah, it seems like some stories get a bit of replies at first, which motivates the writer a lot, but then the replies die down, which isn't too much of a help. (Just for me, anyway, but I may rely on what some people think more than what's good for me.)


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/29 08:08:10


Post by: Mr Morden


Loving this story and characters


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/29 12:06:45


Post by: lliu


LOVE!!! If you don't mind me saying so, there is another thread called The Death of The Emperor, and the latest chapter fits this story incredibly...


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/29 20:39:29


Post by: Necroagogo


This continues to entertain. The gradual humanising of Brother Carleeson is fascinating to watch. I look forward to seeing how he responds when he's once more among his own kind.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/29 22:50:48


Post by: lliu


Ooookay... Is this done to every thread?! I meant the Maelstrom's Edge ad that teleported my thread to above it.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/30 01:51:26


Post by: Gogsnik


The offices that the Tau had commandeered provided the first tangible evidence of my Brothers' presence on this world. There were a scattering of static defences, operated by the same machine intelligences that guide Tau drones, and each one had been destroyed. There were a few scattered corpses and a shas'ui, the Tau equivalent of a sergeant, lay on the steps to the main building, his ceremonial bonding knife in his left hand and his skull emptied.

I walk through the scene, examining every detail. At the top of the steps I look through the glass doors at a reception area lined with potted plants. I push the doors and they are locked. I step backwards and look up towards the roof and I see no obvious signs but I am certain that Modak will have made entry from there as is his want. I sniff, and the scent of bolt propellant is slight; there was not much of a battle here.

" 'Dug in like ticks' you said, Commander Brant." I barely lift my hand to encompass the silent buildings. "Would you care to comment?"

Brant stares around for a long while, he gently flips over a Tau carbine with his foot before picking the weapon up and checking it. He starts talking whilst his hands rove over the alien weapon. "I just don't get it." He touches something on the carbine and a series of lights flash up the side, several green but many more red. He stops what he is doing and looks up at the office complex and then at me.

"Command told us that Hornlow was the main base of operations for Arch Forces in this area. They told us they couldn't get us out because the area was too hot but they were working on a contingency and we just had to sit tight." He shakes his head, staring around again. "This isn't a HQ, this is... this is nothing! There's nothing here. There was what, a few hundred Kesslin troops keeping us penned in at Westow? If I had known that that's all they had I could have staged a breakout months ago! If it wasn't for you showing up we'd probably still be sat on our hands over there." As he says it, his eyes snap back to mine. "You. They attacked because of you?"

I think back to what I learned from the Tau pilot, Vri'Mi'el. In my mind's eye the base he was from is located many miles to the south which tells me nothing about Hornlow. His orders are similarly unhelpful but he was directed to search the area where Cage entered Gracer's atmosphere. A coincidence, luck? That Vri'Mi'el was not told we would be there does not mean he wasn't sent to destroy us. The Shas'ui didn't eat his own brains so perhaps one of my Brothers has learned something.

I do not care for intrigue, nor speculation, but I ponder the things I know and try to piece them together as if they were all part of a deliberate plan. Vri'Mi'el was sent to take out Cage... Hm, take out the Thunderhawk, take out us. Evidently it was not supposed that any of us would survive the attack, in which case I will assume it was an order given by someone who does not know the capabilities of the Astartes even though they knew were we would be. So, a Tau or a native of Gracer then. They didn't care that we would find Hornlow to be a ruse, they did not expect we would ever get here.

So how does Westow fit into this puzzle? Another diversion? For who? By who? The only possibilities are not comforting. The marines stationed at Westow did so under orders by their own people, who it would seem, lied to them. What about the Kesslin troops then? They obviously had the means to overrun the base but chose not to do so until my arrival forced their hand and what about the Pathfinders and squad of Kesslin troops I encountered earlier? Vri'Mi'el... He told his superiors that my Brothers had survived but was ordered to stay with Cage. Hnr! His memories are difficult to grasp! ...! The survivors?...! What about the survivors? The Tau on the radio in Vri'Mi'el's memory speaks rapidly, I should know what it said because he knew, but it is not that simple. I experience the memory like an eaves dropper spying over his shoulder. Then I realise that it was his co-pilot that received the message, Vri'Mi'el was not listening, his memory fills in the blanks based on what his comrade told him afterwards. I think they wanted to keep an eye on the Thunderhawk in case my Brothers tried to get back to it but again, it shows that they do not know us. My Brothers left Cage like they left me, they would never have gone back until the mission was fulfilled.

Through Vri'Mi'el's eyes and ears I listen to my attack on the Hammerhead, I hear as I kill his co-pilot and see his hands fly across instrument panels as he sends out a distress call. The troops they had on the ground were the Kesslin special forces team who were almost certainly hunting for me and the Pathfinders laid an ambush but failed, I did let one of the special forces go after all, it stands to reason the trooper got a message out and so that explains the Pathfinders. Damn my own hubris! I should have killed them all! I turn my attention to Commander Brant.

"Yes. They attacked because of me. I am not one given to speculation, but if I were, then my conclusion would be this: CASA are in league with the Tau and by extension your old foes from the Archipzone. And before you try and deny it as possible I tell you this, you do not know what the Tau Water Caste is capable of, they are snakes who's forked tongues drip with lies, half-truths and propaganda and if they can broker alliances with scores of disparate alien races then reconciling two human factions, long grown weary of their conflict, is nothing to them."

"I just don't accept that. Even if what you say is possible, and I don't buy it for a minute, why would CASA switch allegiance to the Tau and why now? It doesn't make sense." Whilst the voice that answers is Astartes, it is not mine.

"It's because your snivelling masters have been with the Tau from the beginning."

Croagan is stood only a few feet away but the pandemonium caused by his sudden appearance clearly shows no-one saw him arrive.

"Croagan. As sneaky as ever."

"Who said that?" Croagan makes a show of looking around, he even kicks over a Tau corpse and peers underneath. His double-take when he looks up at me is as exaggerated as it is moronic. "Carleeson! Still not dead? Pity."

"Carleeson's not dead? Imposs- Ohh. Noo. He really isn't dead. Just when I thought this putrid day couldn't get any worse..." I look over my shoulder at another of my Brothers stepping into view from behind a brick wall.

"Didn't that Hammerhead kill you Gordreg?"

"Heh! No, but it did put a shot through Gaddon. One less of your old cronies, although I will miss watching him outclass you in every way in the practice cages." Gordreg chews out each word almost one by one, the result of having his throat cut many battles ago by an ork painboy, hence his greenskin name, but I can hear the smile on his face in every last syllable.

More of my Brothers materialise into the midst of the marines and it amuses me that even though they number thirty-three they crowd the small square outside the offices and the human soldiers all unconsciously step back towards their vehicles. A scrabbling from above tells me that Modak was up there all along and as he peers over the edge of the roof the Mahtar Charkaz's taloned gauntlets sink inches deep into the concrete lintel with no resistance at all.

Croagan isn't wearing his helmet, and he beams at Commander Brant as he walks up beside me and claps an arm around my shoulder, his ceramite clad fingers digging deep into my wounded arm.

"So Carleeson, making friends with traitors again? It's starting to become a habit. Tut tut." Croagan shifts to put both hands on his thighs and squats down just enough to get on Brant's eyelevel and with his very best, condescending and overly loud voice he says, "Hello. little. man. Why. don't. you." He says pointing at Brant for effect. "Tell. your. men." He says, his finger passing along the rows of marines just in case Brant didn't quite understand who Croagan meant. "To. put. their. weapons." And this accompanied by Croagan miming the pulling of a trigger. "Down. There's. a good. fellow." I half expect him to ruffle Brant's hair but he gives him a dead eyed grin instead.

Brant cannot know that Croagan is barely repressing his natural tendency to kill and so he looks to me first before doing anything. I give him a nod, and as he turns to tell his men to stand down he uses the excuse to take a few steps away from Croagan.

"Commander Brant and his, troops, are not enemies of the Imperium. I vouch for their fidelity."

"Really? Good for you Carleeson. I had a good, long discussion with Shas'ui Su'ell over there who has known about the CASA deception since before we even arrived in the system." Croagan turns away and raises one hand, wagging a finger back in my general direction as he muses out loud. "But you vouch for these 'marines'. You vouch that whilst their superiors ran around cutting deals with the Tau behind our backs that these men and women were so grox ignorant they thought we were actually all friends?" And he raises both hands in an open gesture and shrugs. "Hm. Not really much of a compliment to them is it Carleeson? Or maybe they just took you in? Been done before hasn't it."

I do not believe that Brant or his men are traitors and despite Croagan's spin on the subject, I am willing to believe the Colonel was ignorant.

"Think about it Carleeson and let me ask you a question. Did your Commander Brant here suggest you should all come to Hornlow to find us or did you? No no, no need to answer, I can tell, you suggested it. And all of these heavy defence weapons mounted on the trucks, they just happened to have all that ready did they? And you rolled up here and now we're here, they're here, we're all here, ready to finish what the Hammerhead started and where, I might add, you almost died."

"No."

"No?"

"No. Too much coincidence. Too much paranoia, even for you Croagan. I will admit, there is an element in what you say that is suspicious but not enough that it cannot be explained by the wider deception taking in a few expendable troops. I know that's how these people think, if the disrespect they show their wargear is anything to go by, so what would a hundred souls matter?

"And how do you know that all of CASA is working for the Tau and not just elements within? This is a fractured world with multiple players involved in the game and it would only take one of them to have been subverted to the Tau cause. There would be no requirement for this deception if we did not have allies still on Gracer and some of those allies are stood before you."

I know now that Croagan was convinced of the duplicity of Commander Brant and everything up to this point was merely to get me away from him and his men, Croagan is, even now, interposed between me and the nearest heavy guns. I walk up and stand beside him to give weight to my conviction and I can see him balancing what I have said against what he believed to be true. To one side, Brant flicks his eyes from me to Croagan and back again and I am acutely aware that Croagan's drawn out pause is making the marines nervous and that will not help them in his eyes.

"Bah. We will see Carleeson. We will see."






**********




I thought more story would be preferable to more waffle from me so, here's another instalment and what's with all these random adverts? And thanks for all the positive comments as always, even though I do find even light praise somewhat awkward it's good to know people are enjoying this and that I'm not just pissing into the wind


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/30 13:19:16


Post by: lliu


Yeah, these are really random adverts, anyway, good job!!!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/05/30 17:44:16


Post by: Mr Morden


Interesting turn in the story Wonder what his brothers will make of the children


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/07 01:56:56


Post by: Gogsnik


Apologies for no update again for a while but it's been a very hectic week full of 'real life' urgh!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/10 22:48:24


Post by: lliu


Hmm... I wonder what will happen next.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/12 19:59:52


Post by: Mr Nobody


So much for a happy reunion. Not much brotherly love between these marines.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/12 20:32:36


Post by: lliu


Hmmm.. These aren't the superhuman, completely cohesive fighting force I thought it would be... Aren't these guys united? They're on the edge of shooting at each other!!!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/12 21:23:06


Post by: 2BlackJack1


Space marine infighting isn't terribly uncommon. Look at Dak'ir and Tsugan. Or Ragnar and Strybjorn. Also, don't forget Tsugan's 'buddy' Iagon being a maniac and doing some stuff that is way worse than anything that happened so far in this story. (Don't want to say it as it does do a decent bit of spoiling)


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/13 21:36:53


Post by: Gogsnik


"Have you ever seen the like Carleeson?" Croagan's mouth is downturned and his nose wrinkled in distaste. He tilts his head on one side as if a different angle might make sense of what he is seeing.

"The galaxy seems to provide endless ways to disappoint me Brother."

"It's good of him to play with the children like that. It's good for them to have a little bit of normality and honestly, I think they've all been quite scared by you Space Marines. I know I have." Miss Foster adds the last sentence in a small voice but Croagan turns to her with one eyebrow raised.

"His behaviour is abhorrent. He-" Croagan bites off whatever he was going to say as I catch his eye from behind the woman between us. "Brother Ferrax suffered extreme... head wounds-"

"Brain damage." I interject.

"Extensive brain damage," Croagan carries on. "Er, during a mission of course. He has needed a great deal of careful rehabilitation but the effects," Croagan keeps his face directed towards Miss Foster but his eyes slide across to Brother Ferrax as he searches for the right words. "They reduced him to an almost childlike state."

Miss Foster is frowning and her eyes dart towards Ferrax and the moronic grin plastered across his face. Why wasn't someone watching him? He is sat on the floor, awkwardly cross-legged, his armour not designed for such a position, and he and the two youngest children are rolling small model vehicles backwards and forwards across the carpet of the meeting room we have gathered in to discuss our next actions. One of the children produces some kind of upright, two-legged, plastek crocolid and walks it through the dry mulch of a potted plant.

Croagan steps across and looms over Ferrax and patiently waits all of two seconds before delivering a sharp kick to his leg to get his attention. Ferrax looks up still smiling and lifts up the model vehicle for Croagan's inspection.

"It is your turn to walk the perimeter Brother Ferrax. Go at once." Ferrax sticks out his bottom lip and turns his face away, refusing to meet Croagan's eyes.

"Don't want to." He mumbles in a voice like a rockslide.

"It is your turn Brother. I won't ask again." Ferrax juts out his jaw and rolls his head around on his neck as if he's trying to a stir a pot with his mouth and then hunches down into his armour. Before either he or Croagan can escalate the situation the smaller child mercifully interrupts.

"It's okay. We can play again later." Ferrax smiles.

"Okay Lissie." He hands the girl the toy and stands up, his huge bulk overtopping Croagan by a good six inches, checking his bolter with precise, expert movements before striding from the room.

Lissie? Is that the girl's name? I had no idea. How is it that our poor Brother Ferrax could have such knowledge and not I? Because he asked her, you fool, or simply listened when she told him.

Commander Brant gets our attention by clearing his throat. The room's large, oval conference table has been dragged to one side, near a wall that very helpfully displays a map of the whole planet indicating all of the areas that the Hornlow refinery company held corporate offices, drill sites and other areas of interest. In thick, red ink, Brant and his people have marked out all the areas of strategic interest to us: Hornlow, the Westow area, the marine headquarters, the city, various known outposts both friendly and enemy and the main camp at Redwick, held by the Imperial Guard.

Our position is at the tip of a finger of hotly contested land but I look at the map as if everywhere beyond Redwick is hostile. We are a long way from any allies.

"Yes, yes. We know all that Commander," Croagan interrupts as Brant highlights all of the Tau bases in blue ink, discussing the military situation up to the point he believed his own intelligence was accurate. The blue circles splatter the map, concentrating more and more to the North and East, into the Central Region where Brant has hastily scrawled long, blue lines to show the Tau dominance in that area. "None of us here need a lecture on the Tau or your internecine conflicts. We need a plan of action. What about you Carleeson, you've always got something to say?"

"We head South for Redwick. They need to know about this conspiracy, because if it is true, then we have a hell of a fight on our hands."

"Bleh!" I turn to look at Gordreg who is rocked back on a chair far too small for his bulk, with his boots up on the table, arms crossed over the scorched and chipped belly plate of his modified MkV armour.

"You have something to say Brother?"

"Head South? Away from the enemy? You've always been soft Carleeson. We don't need to go to Redwick, all we need is a vox. Find one. Contact the Guard. Let them sort out the traitors." With a squeal and a sigh, the chair scoots away on its casters from Gordreg as he stands up, rebounding off the floor to ceiling plate glass window and spinning to rest, half hidden and peeking out from behind a long drape curtain. Gordeg stabs a finger into the map, leaning in and squinting myopically. "We go right into the heart of them. Find the leaders, one of those slinking Ethereal bastards or whoever they've got up there calling the shots. We kill them. Job done."

I have to admit, I like the sound of it. Commander Brant feels differently.

"Madness. So you're suggesting we just drive all the way up to Bennig, fight our way into the Spirlin and then the war will be over just like that?! Are you guys vucking serious? How are we supposed to make it through that?"

"There is no 'making it through' little man." Says Croagan. "If you don't come with us then you're dead. If you surrender then your own side will execute you to keep you quiet and you'll be dead. If you come with us against the Tau you'll probably end up dead. If you survive, and it's a very big if, then this world will be brought to compliance and you and all other military assets will be drafted into the Imperial Guard. Then you'll be shipped off to another warzone and then another and then another and then another until you are all dead. If you are very, very lucky, you might get to settle a new world, you can call it New Gracer, and your time in the Emperor's Astra Militarum will be over. You will be old. You will have wounds and disabilities and all manner of other aches and pains because you are only a man and that is what happens to old men. You will be given land you cannot work, money you cannot spend, you will take no wife, father no children and you will lie on your deathbed dreaming of the glory days. And then you will be dead. Your life is over. Get used to it." Croagan makes a face like a hound chewing a wasp and then looks to me. "We are in agreement Carleeson?"

"Aye. We go North."





**********




Well I had builders in the week before last and this week the internet went down - I actually got to work on some Space Marines as there was nothing else to do! Excuses, excuses I know.


There is a lot of unspoken backstory to the Prophets of Hatred which I have built up over the years and I am hoping that the interaction between the characters in the last few updates can be interpreted sufficiently so that people get the gist of what's gone on in the Chapter's recent past.

The way I have always viewed the Chapter is that they are all individuals with no particular company, squad or leadership units. They group together as it suits them or because they are a member of one of the Chapter's various organisations like the Mahtar; my version of the historical Janissary musicians present in both my homebrew Guard and by extension the Prophets of Hatred because they originate on the same world and the cultural practices have bled into Chapter tradition. Within the Chapter the Mahtar are a sort of quasi-priesthood, a cross between a Chaplain and a Noise Marine; the Chapter retaining only one true Chaplain but he's another story.

So they are very autonomous individually and band together for all sorts of reasons and fight however they can with whatever resources they have; basically they just turn up and get stuck in doing 'Mariney' things. I don't necessarily see that any one of them would therefore take power within the Chapter but none of them exactly like being told what to do, hence the bickering, arguing and general pushing and shoving. They are brothers after all and they don't all have to get along with each other even though they would fight to death for each other.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/14 12:55:35


Post by: lliu


Sure, so, like one of those Chaos Warbands, but loyal, and have some sort of glossy coating to prevent the Ultramarines from Exterminating them.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/14 13:45:19


Post by: Mr Morden


Very cool new bit - love the Child-Marine


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/14 16:58:57


Post by: Gogsnik


lliu wrote:
Sure, so, like one of those Chaos Warbands, but loyal, and have some sort of glossy coating to prevent the Ultramarines from Exterminating them.


Pretty much and it's also along the lines of the Space Wolves too. Originally I had a Chapter called the Spectral Hunters, and I used the Space Wolves Codex to design the army even though by that point I wasn't really playing the game any more, I still liked to have things game-compliant. They slowly morphed into the Prophets of Hatred and rather than simply have two separate Chapters I began to formulate the idea that they were the same Chapter and in the back of my mind was a sort of Alpha Legion style guerrilla force of infiltrators couple with a Chapter war and my ideas about mind-wiped marines and the ability of the Astartes to absorb memories.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Very cool new bit - love the Child-Marine


Thank you

This follows on from what I was saying to lliu. Brother Ferrax is an attempt to portray a mind-wiped Space Marine. In the earlier background we were told a min-wipe reduced the recipient to a baby-like level and imagine that Ferrax is only part of the way recovered from that procedure but he still retains all of those reflexes and instincts which I think seems reasonable. We also have instances of partial wipes in the background and novels but, that seems a little too easy. In the past I've had mind-wiped characters who, through psychic manipulation and the use of the omophagea were given the memories of a fallen Battle-Brother so that they would then become the dead Marine to all intents and purposes.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/14 17:06:19


Post by: 2BlackJack1


So in a way Ferrax is a gentle giant? He just wants to do kiddy things and doesn't want to fight, being a victim of being mind-wiped, but if he does want to fight its gully fledged space marine?


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/14 20:31:42


Post by: Gogsnik


Well he has a childlike mentality, that means he can play, as demonstrated, but even very small children get angry, throw tantrums, fight, they just aren't very good at it because they're small. Put that mind into an eight foot tall killing machine and you have something that needs to be handled carefully. I still think that all of his instincts, honed over centuries, are still there, I think they go deeper than mere memory. But it's all part of a process, all of the ingredients needed to make a normal, fully functioning Marine are there, it just needs time for it all to work through.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/15 04:06:22


Post by: Mr Nobody


I think Carleeson was right to fall back and solve the internal crisis. Croagan wants to charge into unknown forces in unknown territory and attack its commanders at an unknown location. Not only that, they're marching with with unknown allies at their backs.

Sounds like a Space Marine made this plan.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/15 13:59:52


Post by: Ustis


I'm not sure storming the tau headquarters on an assassination mission is the most tactically shrewd option, but I'm sure it will make a great read!
I can sense a finale, and the spilling of space marine blood, lets hope its not Carleeson's!
As always a great read, my compliments to the OP.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/15 20:22:03


Post by: lliu


If Carleeson dies, I freeking will start throwing a temper tantrum. After what happened to Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, I am ready to freak if any more main characters die.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/15 22:48:17


Post by: Ustis


lliu wrote:
If Carleeson dies, I freeking will start throwing a temper tantrum. After what happened to Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, I am ready to freak if any more main characters die.


Spoilers dude.....Spoilers


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/16 02:11:50


Post by: Gogsnik


 Mr Nobody wrote:
I think Carleeson was right to fall back and solve the internal crisis. Croagan wants to charge into unknown forces in unknown territory and attack its commanders at an unknown location. Not only that, they're marching with with unknown allies at their backs.

Sounds like a Space Marine made this plan.


All very true but I like killing Tau so

I don't know, maybe this is my subconscious digging in to my 'tactics' for when I played the game many years ago, and by tactics I mean charge into the middle of them and hope for the best!

 Ustis wrote:
I'm not sure storming the tau headquarters on an assassination mission is the most tactically shrewd option, but I'm sure it will make a great read!
I can sense a finale, and the spilling of space marine blood, lets hope its not Carleeson's!
As always a great read, my compliments to the OP.


My pleasure, I'm just glad people enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it! I think I was definitely going to have them fall back until I thought about the option to simply communicate the information, seemed a bit much to have them trudge all that way just to deliver a message and as I say above, time to get some dakka into the Tau.

lliu wrote:
If Carleeson dies, I freeking will start throwing a temper tantrum. After what happened to Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, I am ready to freak if any more main characters die.


They've got to that part in the TV show then? Even if Jon is dead, he won't be staying that way.



Thanks for the feedback all, very useful, I will certainly be keeping in mind the expected difficulty of them heading off into the unknown. Hmm, now I have some conflicting ideas, I'll have to have a good think about how they justify it. Looks like Commander Brant is the only one with a sensible head on his shoulders.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/16 23:10:03


Post by: lliu


I've read the books and is watching the TV show... It will be creepy to imagine a Lady Stoneheart type Jon Snow...

I also Carleeson is sensible...


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/06/18 02:38:50


Post by: Gogsnik


"You're certain this will work?"

"No sir but we can't trust our own communications gear now and I just don't know how to boost the signal for your armour's on-board systems. Besides, I just don't see the Tau wire-tapping the phone lines!" Olan Broan gives a facial shrug and grins. He is Brant's vox operator and he is holding out a small black, plastek receiver to Croagan.

In his gauntleted hands the device is tiny and he holds the thing to one ear using just his index finger and thumb.

"Hello?" Croagan frowns and lifts the receiver away from his ear, glaring at Broan. "All I hear is music."

"They er, must've put you on hold."

"Hold? What do- Hello? Yes? Who is this? I don't care if it's reserved, I need to- They cancelled the link!"

"I'll re-dial it."

"It'd better work this time or I'll redial you!" Croagan says in a stage whisper. Broan leans forwards and hits a button. Croagan's eyes unfocus as he listens. "It's ringing." He holds up a hand for quiet. "This is Brother Croagan of the Adeptus Astartes, sending vital information. To whom am I speaking?" Croagan doesn't look like he is enjoying the forced civility. "Yes I did. Never mind all that just listen! Find someone in authority and put them on the line." Croagan flicks his eyes up at me and takes a deep breath. "Hello? Yes. This was the only available means of communication, now listen, I don't have time to explain. Our mission was to destroy the refinery at Hornlow, believed to be an enemy stronghold. That information was false and furthermore the enemy were aware of our objectives. It is now our belief that our allies in CASA have sided with the Tau." Croagan frowns as he listens to the voice on the other end of the line. "I see. Then our warning has come too late. And you Major, the Emperor Protects. I hate phones." Croagan grumbles.

"Well?" Gordreg says before Croagan even gets the receiver back in its cradle.

"The Tau have launched a massive counter-offensive and have moved the front forwards a hundred miles. Redwick is now being attacked by their long range airpower. CASA forces lead the 9th and 11th Battalions of the Ormain Dragoons into an ambush and they were slaughtered to a man. Apparently the Marine Corps elements present refused to turn on their Imperial allies and were also destroyed."

"Just like I said. Find the Tau leaders. Kill them." Gordreg chews out each word with an added touch of bitterness.

"That's still easier said than done." Commander Brant has a calm expression, as if the news has removed all his doubts and he now inhabits a world of simple actions and reactions. "Bennig is Sixteen-Hundred-And-Fifty-Six kilometres from our position. Less than three kilometres from here we have upwards of three hundred Kesslin infantry and last I saw they were hot on our tails. If the front is now moved then that means we are deep inside enemy territory and the Tau have already moved their forces right past us, and they could easy re-task some of them to mop us up. We'd have to go in convoy and at least some of it would be on the autoexpressway where we would be completely exposed. Assuming we could make it a-hundred-and-fifty clicks then we could go through the wilds at Felce but it would be slow going through there. That'd get us maybe two thirds of the way to the capital and after that," Brant shrugs matter-of-factly. "I just don't know what to tell you. Your plan sucks major ass."

"It is clear the Tau wanted us destroyed." I say before anyone else can reply to the Commander. "They must have known that Cage was our only Thunderhawk. With Cage gone we are effectively neutralised as a threat although they clearly believed we were enough of one to go to such elaborate lengths to get us out of the way. And I received no communication from the Contumax since we entered orbit. The Tau have been preparing this for a long time but I would hazard they are in a more precarious position than their gains would suggest. Obviously not all of CASA has been successfully turned." And if not all of CASA then why all of its former enemies?

"Commander Brant." I say, turning to the marine officer. "Do you think it feasible that any elements of the Archipzone would not have sided with the Tau?"

"Kredesh." He says it without hesitation and that somewhat surprises me.

"You sound very certain."

"They're fanatics and isolationists. The only reason they are allies with the other Arch powers is because every demand they made was met. In the Seventy Year War they were bitter enemies of Kesslin, slaughtered thousands of civilians. It all came to a head on the Field of Tears. Kred Zotacks, their terror troops, took all of the Kesslin women from a maternity hospital and impaled them and disembowelled them, something to do with 'destroying the seeds of the enemy'. So Kesslin retaliated, bombed them to hell and back, killed who knows how many and in the centuries that followed both nations blamed each other for all the atrocities.

"But the Kred, the Kred..." Brant's smile is tight and he shakes his head. "Those weapons that were used to knock our shield defences back at the base, you can bet those came from the Kred and anything else advanced of sophisticated that the Arch forces have: Kred. The only thing that stops them using all those fancy kill toys is that they are few and far, far away. Then Kesslin signed a treaty with Kredesh, brought them into the Archipzone, posthumously pardoned troops, scientists, even the Zoltar, he's like the Kred king. Now that you've mentioned it, it does seem odd that no Kred forces have been in the vanguard of this war and it seems to me they would have taken one look at those Tau and said 'no thank you'; they may even hate aliens more than you boys, I bet you'd get along just swell with'em."

"I'll keep that in mind Commander." I say.

"Oh I'm sure you will."

Wickedly clawed fingers gently slip over Brant's shoulders and Modak's elongated helmet slides into view next to Brant's nervously frozen face. There is something vulturous or python like about the Mahtar Charkaz's helmet, the skull plate bulging with vocal enhancers and the snout grille a snarling, distended maw, held open in a silent scream. His voice is a sibilant whisper that gutters out into a throaty, wet growl which makes the hair on Brant's neck rise. Even though the office lobby is glass fronted, I did not see him enter.

"We have company." Modak's growl stretches out like a consumptive's chest rattle. He struts away from Brant and his armour purrs like a great leonid. The modified sabatons of his armour force Modak to walk on his toes but his steps are silent.

Beyond the Mahtar Charkaz, past the laager of marine transports come all the hundreds of Kesslin troops that overwhelmed Westow. I pity them for now they do not face marines but Astartes.





**********




lliu wrote:
I've read the books and is watching the TV show... It will be creepy to imagine a Lady Stoneheart type Jon Snow...


But Caitlyn has been in the river for a few weeks hadn't she where as Jon will have been dead a few hours or less I would imagine. Besides, we all know that Stannis is a phoney and R'hllor needs his true champion.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/01 01:45:39


Post by: Gogsnik


At the final reckoning there were three-hundred-and-ninety-eight infantrymen. They all died. They tried to flee before the end and some tried to surrender but there can be no surrender for a man who would turn his back on his own kind to ally with the xenos. For what manner of man can turn away from his own people to embrace the foreign, the exotic, the alien? I will tell you what manner of man can do this: a traitor.

Even as lieutenants and sergeants called orders to the marines my Brothers and I stepped past them. We walked into the fussilade and soaked up the punishment. No bullet, not even a thousand bullets, could have stopped us in that moment. Our hatred was a shield against injury and no Astartes fell before we reached the enemy line.

Modak made the first kills. He swept down into the swirling mass of bodies with a scream so loud it went beyond sound and the noise of it rendered the battle into silence. Those at the centre of his sonic attack were killed almost instantly. Armour, cloth, flesh and bone liquefied. Lumpy streams of flesh cascaded and where they soaked into the parched ground they left a frothy scum. Those on the periphery perished in agony. Eardrums and eyeballs burst, bodily functions were lost and many went into seizures so violent that bones snapped. Skin blanched and blistered and hearts stopped.

Crorgal was a member of an esoteric Chapter cult whose name I was not permitted to know. His armour streamed with prayer parchments and a gossamer fine sliver chain of sacred sigils. His helmet was adapted to fit around the grotesque bionic maw that replaced all of his lower face and throat. His visor slit was an unblinking acid yellow band that gleamed with holy murder-lust. His mandiple split open to reveal a gullet filled with spinning discs that roared like a chain weapon. He stuffed heads and arms into his distended mouth, jets of blood venting from crackling gill slits down his back.

Flebathiel promised a no less bloody demise, his chain gauntlets shredding men apart with every touch. He looked like a minister of the Ecclesiarchy blessing the faithful and, truly, each soldier fell to his knees like a penitent as Flebathiel passed. Graicul sang as he slew, his angel's voice filled with compassion as he unleased a torrent of death from his boltcaster, a specialist piece of wargear designed for siege breaches. Mounted on his forearm the gun's multi barrels span around his wrist, unleashing scores of bolts every second.

For every one of my Brothers there was a different means by which the Emperor's judgement fell upon the enemy and none escaped. Men with automatic weapons are no match for the Angels of Death and I had the honour of silencing the last of them. Please, please he begged. On his knees, on his arse, on his back, please, please, his hands clasped before him like a shield. Please, please his face red, eyes swollen shut with tears. He was a young man, almost a child as reckoned by one who has fought for centuries, in his third decade, thick brown hair stuck to his scalp with sweat and a small golden locket on a chain round his neck in the shape of a heart. Please, please... I stamped on his guts and he wretched and gagged and vomited blood. Please, please, he choked out the words until the very end and I thought he would never shut up. I stamped on him until what was left didn't even look like a human being anymore. Ask your Tau masters please little man, ask them please and see where it gets you.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/01 02:34:19


Post by: 2BlackJack1


What a poetic wording for a battle. It was really cool to see just battle, and to see his brothers in battle. The most freaky one has to be either Modak, or Crogal


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/01 21:58:03


Post by: Gogsnik


Thank you

I think the weirdness of some of these Prophets of Hatred is unique to how I perceive them in my mind, certainly it wouldn't fit for how I think of an Ultramarine for example. I just keep thinking about these men being centuries old, often isolated from each other for hundreds of years, and you see in the background it said that it's been millennia since the entire Chapter was in the same place at the same time and that also is in my thoughts too. With that in mind it seems to me that there is a lot of scope for some very bizarre traditions and groups to form where normally Marines are portrayed as quite static, as people, and I think that misses out on a lot.

I forget the name of the Night Lords Raptor from ADB's novels but there's a little of him and the creature from the Come To Daddy music video by Aphex Twin in Modak. Crorgal is inspired by Devastator from Transformers (3 I think) probably with a bit of the Merman from Cabin in the Woods thrown in.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/02 07:34:26


Post by: 2BlackJack1


I'm curious as to how the Prophets of Hatred go about recruiting, if it's so lone wolf based. It seems like an interesting process, and some insight on that would be cool


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/02 23:11:03


Post by: lliu


It's very nice. I want more!!!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/02 23:26:00


Post by: Gogsnik


The Chapter basically grew out of the background I designed for an Inquisitor character and the reasons behind why he was bound to a giant daemon sword.

In order to properly explain about their recruitment I should give a brief(ish) overview of the Chapter's history but I shall put it in spoilers for those who don't want to read a long ramble.
Spoiler:

The gist of the story was that the Chapter had initially been fleet based and sent off into Wilderness Space. They fought extensively alongside Legio Destructor and vanished into the Charadon Empire for a long, long time. Legio Destructor are supposed to becoming increasingly orky and that was something I incorporated into the Chapter, which is where they get their sonic weapons from, gifts of the Legio; on the simplistic reasoning that the Titans often have plenty of speakers and the like attached so they can compete with the orks in a good old war chant ipso facto sonic weaponry.

Eventually they help to bring into compliance the world of Carnate, which I envisioned as one of those super-Earths, which exists in a system far, far beyond the Galaxies North-Eastern edge; I always liked the idea that it was so far off their are no stars, just a perfect view of the galaxy itself. The premise for the world is that it exists at the end of a stable Warp route that is little more than a tiny thread of stable warp surrounded by intense storms so people end up there by accident pretty much. So early Earth colonists on their way to some other uninhabited world end up on Carnate which already has an established human population due to Warp/time travel shenanigans. The new colonists basically go troppo and become obsessed with technological augmentation and end up as immense bio-mechanical cannibals, think of the creations from the Jamie Lee Curtis film Virus. Naturally these inhuman constructs end up at war with the normal humans and eventually, to destroy their most potent enemies, that build a massive super weapon and shoot a hole through the planet to destroy the lands of their enemies on the other side of the world.

This place becomes the Fortress Monastery of the Prophets of Hatred. So it's half buried in this giant wound in the planet, surrounded by raging seas that poor down into the abyss, immense jungles created by terraforming gone completely haywire and all manner of gribbly creatures and constructs which the Marines let wander around so they have something to hone their skills against. Anyone who wants to join the Chapter just needs to reach them.

Now, the very early background I had for my Inquisitor was for an earlier incarnation of the Prophets, the Spectral Hunters. These were much more vanilla in their structure as a Chapter so they did have a scout company at that time. I had the idea that the Chapter became so obsessed with war as a concept, and a philosophy that the Chaplains all became devotees of Khorne. I also had the nebulous concept of the Marines eating portions of the fallen to gain their memories. I also wanted to incorporate the idea of mind-wiping as in accordance with the early 40K background. I combined the ideas in having the Chaplains corrupt their Brothers by feeding the brains of the fallen who had died fighting Chaos but, obviously, by being dead, hadn't been mind-wiped. So they basically got to hi-jack these mindless, blank marines. This eventually lead to a Chapter schism and way back when I had the first company captain as the arch traitor, sacrificing all of the scouts in a blood ritual to gain entrance to ancient daemon weapon which he would use to instantly ascend to daemonhood. Except my Inquisitor character got in the way and ended up bound to the weapon himself. The only surviving scout then became a member of his retinue. I should also say that my Inquisitor was only an Interrogator at the time, and his master who supposedly died heroically trying to stop the traitor marines was actually a part of the heretic cabal who helped in the corruption of the Chapter - long, long story, basically everyone died in the end!


So currently I don't think their are any scouts or recruits as such. I should probably think of something to resolve that!!!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/02 23:35:56


Post by: 2BlackJack1


Yeah, it sounds like a dying chapter. Really epic and unique, but dying nonetheless. It's a very cool idea, and I like the isolation their planet has.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/03 01:25:25


Post by: Gogsnik


Well funnily enough I used to use the Chapter Trait, Faithful Unto Death to represent how hammered they were after their Chapter war although I suppose technically there are more of them out there, as most of the rebels survived. I really enjoyed traits, everything that I had for the Chapter fitted in perfectly with that Codex. And yes that did mean I had infiltrating terminators; only ever utilised in stories though. Same with my dreadnought HQ, I suppose old Maloch-Reus should make an appearance one of these days.

I absolutely will get another update tomorrow to get things moving forward.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/04 01:00:02


Post by: Gogsnik


We pile the corpses thirty feet high and Kazh lights them up with his flamer. Gordreg cackles to himself as he struggles to impale the few fire caste warriors onto improvised spikes made from street lights; he started his chore by muttering something about, 'looking down on their new servants' but it never pays to ask Gordreg to repeat himself so we let him get on with it alone. By the time he is finished, sweating and soot stained, the bodies of the Tau stare blankly down into the fire and their cues and loose webbing pouches shiver in the updraft.

Most humans think that Astartes don't understand their emotions, and in the main, we maintain that we struggle with them, but for the most we do know. I know that the marines didn't like that we slaughtered their enemies, and they don't like that we are burning them. I don't give a care.

"So what message does this send?"

"It says we know and it says we don't care." I look at Miss Foster and I wonder... I wonder how it is that she can forget the atrocities that she has born witness to in just the few days I have known her, let alone from before. "What message do you think these Kesslin troops and their ilk were sending when they attacked your school Miss Foster, or firebombed civilians as they fled in the street?"

"So that's it is it, an eye for eye? We sink to their level? Shouldn't we be more than that? Shouldn't you?" Now I genuinely struggle to imagine her feelings. She is frowning and her eyes are liquid and there is a beseeching quality to her expression and perhaps a great sadness.

"Explain to me Miss Foster, just exactly how I could be 'more than that'?" She blinks and frowns harder, I think she believes I am mocking her but can see from my face that I am not. She looks confused for a second.

"Some of those soldiers tried to surrender, killing them was murder by the Articles of War that my country abides by. You could have taken them prisoner. You could have laid out the bodies peacefully and the aliens, there was no necessity to do that to them and they may not be human, and they be attempting to subjugate my world, but they're only soldiers in their own way." She looks away, towards the pyre and drags a hand down the side of her face and over her open mouth, their is a look of anguish etched into her features. "You could have just done nothing and it would have been better than this, this barbarism."

She jerks around suddenly and I realise it is because I have put my hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry." The moment seems to stretch out. "I just don't agree, and neither would my Brothers if you could get one of them to give you answer on this."

"I don't care what your Brothers would say, I'm asking you. I just- I mean, can't you just be your own man, can't you just see that what you're doing is wrong, it isn't even productive, there must be more than this, to you? Your not like your Brothers, I know that, I- I know. Please."

Please. Please...

"But I am like them?" How could she think otherwise? "And I have never been a man. I was a boy, and then I was a warrior of the Emperor. I was never a man, never had a man's feelings or a man's dreams or a man's fears or a man's desires. I told you before Miss Foster, 'Serve the Emperor, kill His enemies', that's all there is, nothing more. That is our duty, our purpose, that is our joy in life. And if not that then..." I look at the pyre and shrug. "Oblivion."

"No." Her voice seems to come from far away. "No." She says more forcefully. "You're wrong. And you're sidestepping the issue. I don't question your purpose, I question your actions. And I'm sure you must believe that people can reform. Recant? People make mistakes, they make wrong decisions. Don't you believe that they can be forgiven, given another chance?"

Brant and Croagan approach at the same time.

"My men are ready to move out. Are yours?" The Commander stands with his arms crossed and brow furrowed. He doesn't wait for a reply but turns on his heel and then quickly stops and steps back with one foot. He turns his head but doesn't actually look back. "Are you coming Jenni or are you riding with them?" Her body sways sideways towards Brant but her eyes are locked on mine, she barely hesitates but that split second is too long for Brant and he carries on walking without another word. He hauls himself up into a transport and slams the door shut, vanishing into the shadowy depths of the cab.

"Mmm, I think he was a little bit annoyed." Croagan purses his lips and then grins that big dumb grin of his. "I guess you will be riding with us afterall then, Jenni, well, as soon as Brother Carleeson unhands you of course." I see Croagan lift his eyebrows and then tilt his head with a smile. I might also add there is something dangerous in his eyes, but then Croagan always has had something dangerous in his eyes.

"I guess I'll be safer with you anyway." She makes an effort to be lighthearted but Croagan bursts into guffaws and walks away.

"Come, we need to be off."


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/08 12:51:50


Post by: lliu


Nice!!! I really like it!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/10 02:01:00


Post by: Gogsnik


The marines repacked their transports and managed to clear two of them for our use. P.F.G. Dright is assigned to us thanks to his comms training as well as the other two surviving marines who I had encountered so many days ago; Nurez, a swarthy skinned woman with a long ponytail of obsidian black hair and an iritating habit of pouting smiles and spinning a large, custom pistol around in her hand and Korhein, assigned as our driver, an intense and fussy little man who doesn't talk much and who had spent much of his time before we moved out adjusting his seat and the transport's wing mirrors and wiping down the instrument panels.

The front cab is a stepped bay with a one piece bench for the driver and his mates and a horseshoe of seats in the back with a back-to-back row of seats up the centre aisle. The back bed is an open topped row of wire frame steel benches and the same pattern of vehicle is being used by the rest of my Brothers, both being large enough to accomadate our post-human physiologies. All of my heavy weapon armed Brothers have taken seats on the beds of both trucks and Modak has chosen to swoop alongside, providing us with a meagre amount of air cover and that is probably for the best; he makes even us nervous, never mind the humans.

Brother Ferrax is nursemaiding the younger two children, Lissie and, I have now learned, Grethor Nuelins Junior, a particualrly small boy with a mop of blonde curls who insists on his full name being used at all times. The pair seem to have taken a shine to Ferrax and it is probably fairer to say they are nursemaiding him; they are surprisingly adept at reading his moods and encouraging his cooperation. Strange... Right now they are keeping him calm by sleeping whilst leaning on him. Ferrax's eyes are blank and distant, staring into the middle distance. He absently strokes the tips of his finger's through Lissie's hair, his hand big enough to encircle her skull with room to spare. I wonder what he is thinking about.

The brother, as I have been thinking of him, Edgal as he is otherwise known, is in a transport with the marines although the older girl, Resecka, is sat opposite me, linking arms with Miss Jenniser Foster. The woman sits with her head turned to the right so she can see out of the blast-proofed glass window. That's how we are for a very long time, the jouncing of the transport rocking us in our seats every now and then is the only movement any of us make. Of course, that just leaves Ashney. I slowly tilt my head down and there she is, still staring up at me. Insufferable child. I see the contrail of the missile reflected in her blue eyes. The transport shunts sideways, lifting off its tyres but to his credit Korhein regains control with a snarl of effort.

"Stay calm."

The humans obey as I get to my feet, hunched badly in the small space. I crab walk to a hatch big enough to get my head out. We are on the autoexpressway, a twenty lane, raised road. It is littered with wrecked vehicles and it is from these our attackers have launched their ambush. Hordes of civilians, all armed, are running alongside the convoy. They hurl stones and molotov cocktails. Some are letting loose with automatic weapons and I see another missile corkscrew towards us but a stabbing beam of lascannon fire intercepts it in mid air; Grethuel, he has always been an impossibly gifted marksman. An arrow skitters across the cab roof several feet from my head. An arrow!

"Oh man!"

I duck back inside and see what Korhein already has; a barricade of burnt out hulks right across the auto, coming into view from behind the slope of the road. Even as I watch dozens of figures scramble to take up position. As we close I see cars, vans, busses, artics and all manner of civilian and some military vehicles pushed to the distant hard shoulder. There are suitcases and clothes everywhere, the detritus of hundreds of people fleeing the fighting. The transport jounces again as we go over a gap in the lane allowing the road to swell in the heat without buckling. It also marks the point at which a forty feet wide crater has blasted through the colossal bridge and two hundred feet below I catch a brief glimpse of all the corpses as we hurtle past.

++Modak, did you see the bodies below us?++

It is a moment before the sibilant tones of the Mahtar Charkaz come in over my comm-link.

++I did Brother Carleeson. What of it?++

++It is an outrage. These filth must be exterminated!++

Above me comes the scream and howl of a plasma cannon. The blasts of roiling matter in their electric shells vapourise great bites from the barricade, chewing out a big enough gap for our transport to pass through.

++A needless delay Carleeson. We have more important targets for our wrath++

**Astartes come in! Repeat, Astartes come in!**

I reach over Korhein's shoulder and snatch the mic from its cradle before Dright can get a hand on it. His voice crackling over the line, Brant sounds frantic.

**Commander?**

**Carleeson? All you damn Space Marines sound the same. I didn't get any luck with the others. We need to put these savages down! Tell me you saw what they've done?**

**Yes Commander, I have** A needless delay? There is a terrific explosion and I see the fireball bloom in the transport's wing mirror. One of the rearmost marine transports. **Commander, report!**

**They just smoked one of my transports! Vuck! We need to curbstomp these !**

++Modak, we need to retaliate++

++I disagree Brother. We will lose more of the humans if we stop and we cannot afford to waste ammunition on these dregs++

++Modak...!++

++Your sentimentality will get you killed one of these days Brother. If it assuages your conscience, we can always come back++ I can hear the smile in his voice and it makes my blood boil. How I loath him now! Hatred! Hatred! I can feel my knuckles pop in my gauntlets. Time slows as I watch the detonations of bolter fire rake across the primitive barriers of the feral humans. Thank you Modak, you are right of course. Hatred. The mission. Duty. ++Commander Brant will hate us for this Modak++

A pause.

++Good++

**Commander Brant? We must not stop. We can return once the war is won and deal to these creatures. We will have all the time in the world then to deal to these creatures.**

**But my men! I-**

**More of them will die here if we stop and we will need every one of them if we are to succeed. There is more at stake here than the lives of any one of us**

"Korhein, keep driving," I say, releasing my finger from the send button of the vox-mic so I can talk to the driver. "Stop for nothing you understand me? Stop for nothing."

"All due respect, but I don't take orders from you sir."

I put a hand on his shoulder with one thumb up the back of his neck and I lean in, squeezing him firmly enough to send the message.

"Keep. Driving."

**Carleeson?**

**Commander?**

**You won't stop will you. And we can't stop without you.** There is no question in his tone, just a quiet resignation but I hear the bitterness hidden underneath. I don't reply. **Fine** There is a muffled noise over the vox as he releases a breath over his mic and then the vox clicks off.

We hurtle through the still glowing breach, drooping shreds of bodywork flapping in our slipstream. There is a spill of detritus as we clear the other side and Modak thunders over with a big human struggling in his taloned boots. The Mahtar Charkaz swoops up and up ignoring the rain of blows the human rains down on him. I can see that under normal circumstances such attacks would demolish a normal man but Modak is not a normal man. He lets the human go, like a crow dropping a shell on a rock to break it open. But Modak does not let the man hit the ground, he swoops down and catches him. As the convoy continues on its way, the scrap barricade disappearing behind us, Modak drops his prey a number of times, toying with him, letting him get closer and closer to the road hurtling by underneath, before he catches him.

Everyone on the convoy gets more than ample opportunity to see this little game. Modak takes an ankle in each talon and a wrist in each claw and jets up high on his jump pack. Modak rears back like a cobra and looks down into the face of the big man held spread eagled in his grasp. And he screams. He does it softly at first, causing the big man's skin to drizzle away. I cannot hear his cries of agony but I can imagine. With a final yell Modak detonates the human, his grizzly remains splashing wide over the faded tarmac.

++He looked like a leader to me. Good enough to quell the humans' ill humours you think?++

++A small measure of revenge is always welcome, is it not Brother?++

I hear Modak's laughter over the comm.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/07/13 21:32:50


Post by: lliu


Aaaah... Can't wait for more.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/08/17 03:33:55


Post by: Gogsnik


"Are we nearly there yet?" Croagan can barely sit still, the long hours of confinement finally eroding his patience.

"Emperor's sake Croagan, even the sprogs aren't whining as much as you." Brother Sehrag intones quietly. He doesn't look up, his attention fixed firmly on the flat of his combat knife. He holds the blade up near his eye checking for imperfections that even a Tech-Magos wouldn't see with a fully equipped tooling line and a microscope. Sehrag's story is that he was gifted the simple weapon by one of Marneus Calgar's own honour guard. No-one knows if his claim is true. No-one cares.

"We're about fifteen klicks shy of the wilds but we'll have to come off and go through Port Maythen." Korhein chimes in without turning around.

A strange silence descends on the cab. With a soft rasp Sehrag slips his combat knife back into its sheath, Croagan is staring at the floor, gnawing on his bottom lip. The others all look glaze eyed and weary. I think about going up through the hatch, I imagine myself doing it, several times, picturing the actions of standing, crab-walking to the hatch, twisting the handle, looking out, but I don't move, I feel curiously glued to my seat, I can't even lift my hands, I just imagine doing it instead.

The engine note changes down and I turn my head to watch as Korhein takes us down an off ramp. Ahead, the expressway comes to an abrupt end, a large swathe of gritty tarmac painted over with white chevrons and edged in ragged bushes and pointed trees. At the base of the ramp I can see that where the expressway might have run, had it continued, is a steep grassy bank and heavy concrete stilts boxed in with timber panels although a gate is open revealing the area that is fenced off as nothing but a patch of heavily rutted bare soil with a faded, old portable works cabin and two rusty, dark green shipping containers stacked side-by-side.

The ramp leads up to a circular junction and off to the left I can see the ocean but Korhein takes us right, the curve of the road giving me an angle back on the convoy where I can see curious faces glancing around. Korhein takes the first left off the junction passing large warehouses on our left, each one with the roof collapsed in with sooty black smears around the entrances where fire has blasted the doors away. But the damage is old, green, leafy bushes cling tenaciously to the crumbling walls and security barriers are pushed down at one end of the lot, heavily caked in mud and there is a large pile of dead, brown tree clippings dumped in one corner. The road begins to incline, taking us up and over railway tracks but my view is quickly obscured by a high plate-steel guard fence. Back down the other side we head up and across another, smaller, circular junction and I see a sign that indicates straight on for the 'Town Centre' and it seems that this is where Korhein is taking us.

As the buildings start to overcrowd the road I see Modak jet ahead and land like an oversized crow on the clock tower of a red brick building that has 'Library' carved into an ornate stone lintel, even though large, gaudy billboards clumsily bolted into the fine brickwork indicate the building is actually some kind of kitchen showroom. Korhein drops down a gear and I find myself on my feet and heading for the hatch. With a clearer view I see the streets are deserted but there is nothing like the destruction I saw when I first made planetfall. The streets are empty, but vehicles seem untouched, the buildings intact. There are no bodies.

Modak flutters down, wobbling slightly as he matches speed with the transport before landing on the cab roof on all fours with a gentle clomp. He is slightly ahead and to my left and he doesn't turn but his voice comes in over the vox, sounding slightly distorted and tinny thanks to the vehicles slipstream buffeting over Makorro's old Mk V.

++Too Quiet++

++Do you detect an enemy presence?++

++Auspex returns negative. I can feel them though++

With that he launches himself back into the air, wheeling away down a side street and out of sight. We continue, over several crossroads, through the centre of town and back out the other side, a series of staggered junctions taking us past an omnibus station, the multi-decked vehicles all parked neatly alongside tunnels of nicotine yellow acrylic glass covering rows or paddle seats. The place is deserted except for a single wire trolley piled high with bags of shopping, pushed carefully to one side to keep the waiting area clear.

I check the signs which have now changed to a different colour to help direct drivers more easily onto the route out of the town centre. I see one mention 'The Wilds'. We skirt the western edge of the town, travelling up a steep curving gradient that gives a perfect view down and over Port Maythen. It's as if all the inhabitants just got up and walked away, but tidied everything up first. Except for that trolley, the only thing that comes close to indicating that humans once lived here and perhaps left in a hurry.

As trees lining the road start to thicken and obscure my view of the town I just manage to catch a glimpse of a bright, blue pulse and then Modak's anguished cry comes in over the vox, abruptly cut short. I bang my fist on the cab roof and dip down through the hatch, yelling for Korhein to stop. The transport halts quickly, heavy tires skidding along the road but I am already out and on the ground, my Brothers falling in behind me.

"What was that?" Croagan calls, his brow knotted with consternation.

"I don't know, there was a flash. Modak is in trouble."

I think about what we are doing as I sense, rather than see, that the rest of my Brothers are leaving the transports and even marines are hopping down and running over to join us. Modak is just one individual and there is a world at stake. I stop running.

"What is it, why have you stopped?"

"The convoy needs to keep moving Croagan." I glance across at the closest marines, all jogging to a confused halt. "We didn't stop when we lost a transport, we can't afford to stop now."

"All very equitable Carleeson but as it happens I value Modak's life a little higher than a few humans."

"There is much more at stake here than any of our lives. This place smelled like a trap from the moment we got here, we cannot allow ourselves to be drawn into an ambush."

"You propose we leave Modak to his fate then?"

"He would."

"Well I'm not Modak and I don't take orders from you Carleeson so I'm going back. You stay with the convoy, I'll do this on my own if I have to." Croagan, huffs and turns away, ducking through the trees and out of sight.

++Commander Brant?++

++Brother Carleeson? What's going on?++

++I need you to keep the convoy moving. Pull your men back to their transports and keep going++

++You know eventually we're going to have to fight our way through? Here's as good a place to start as any++

++I appreciate the sentiments Commander but I must refuse, for the good of the mission. Keep moving++

I vox my Brothers and urge them to stay and I see those furthest back getting onto their transport, Gordreg beating them with his fists where they seem reluctant.

++Look++ Commander Brant comes back over the vox. ++A squad of my men are already over there with you and your transports half empty already anyway. You keep two transports and my men to act us backup, you do whatever the hell it is your doing and catch us up. Brant out++

The rest of the convoy move over, overtaking the parked transports. I see Gordreg walking back down the centre row of benches on the rearmost vehicle, as if trying to stay as close to us as possible. He raises one hand in a slight wave and I raise mine and then he is gone, over the brow of the hill.

"Dright, Korhein, pick five men and stay here. Give us thirty minutes and if we aren't back by then get moving. Ferrax, I want you here as well, keep an eye on the civilians and make sure the marines get out of here if we don't come back. Do you understand Brother?" I ask, putting my hand on Ferrax's shoulder. He nods back at me.

Miss Foster gives me a sad smile. "Why does this feel like saying goodbye?"

"You're not getting rid of me that easily. Stay here with the children."

"I'm coming with you!"

"Ash-"

"No! Sorry miss but I'm going." For some reason that cracks me up and I laugh but there is no more time to debate and I am already jogging away down the bank in long steps and half jumps.

"Come if your coming," I call back. "But keep up!"

The girl goes one better than that and launches herself down at me, almost knocking me down the embankment and forcing me to grab a branch as I stumble past, which snaps, but slows me enough for me to regain by balance. Toes on the lip of my belt and one hand curled around the grille of my backpack, Ashney hangs off my back but her weight is so slight I barely even feel her. She has her pistol in her other hand, aiming over my head. Madness.

I skid down through a thick layer of pine needles and hop over a crash barrier and crunch down into a service alley that terminates at a set of concrete filled yellow bollards that act as a barrier between the alley and the foot of the sloping road we've just come from. Directly opposite me is a small vehicle parking lot, enclosed by a low brick wall topped with chain link. To my left is a brick power house and left of that the rear wall of a warehouse. The buildings, power house and car park all look new, the bricks bright and the gravel in the soak away running the length of the alley is clean. At the far end of the alley, crouched down at the corner of the warehouse wall Croagan is waiting for us.

"The flash came from that direction, approximately four hundred yards from this location." I say as I kneel down next to Croagan, who glances back almost with a double take as he sees Ashney gazing down at him but he says nothing, curling his lip in a silent rebuke and shaking his head. A series of rumbling detonations roll through the streets away to our left followed by a hollow bang.

"Come on!"

Croagan is up and running, leading the way. Behind me are another ten Astartes and about the same again, slightly more perhaps, of marines. We move quickly, keeping low and slipping around the edges of buildings, barely checking for hostiles as we cross open ground. Moving around the corner of one building the sounds of battle become clear suddenly as if they were muted until that very moment. Pulse rifles, the crack of some kind of solid projectile weapon and something altogether more potent that sounds like a flare of gas being ignited in a large tube, a strange, resonant, high-pitched cough.

Croagan doesn't wait to assess the situation, he doesn't need to, centuries of experience and post-human physiology telling him at a glance what minutes of careful observation would tell an ordinary man. His first bolter round punches through the thick collar of a Pathfinder, the detonation of the mass reactive throwing the Tau's corpse to the ground as if it had been floored by a giant's hand. The second pathfinder almost manages to turn around before Croagan's second bolt punches through its chest.

Those kills are the only advantage our sudden appearance grants us, the rest of the Tau force quickly compensating for our presence and bringing their rifles to bear. Brother Keinos is hit multiple times as he tries to duck down behind a twisted, bronze sculpture and he staggers away with acrid smoke belching up from his neck seal before collapsing on his face, dead. Even if we save Modak, these slit head Tau have taken one of my Brothers regardless. Ashney fires over my head and I see a Tau clamp a hand to its neck, cyan blood pumping from the wound before the girl gets three more shots into the collapsing Fire Warrior, the bullets splitting the alien's carapace and shattering its helmet optics. Heh.

The Tau's quick and ferocious response sputters as the marines make their contribution to the fight. From behind me they open up with a heavy weapon, laying down suppressing fire but they are then quickly forced to move as human troops open fire on them, the source of the solid round firing I had heard. I give them a quick glance and they look like the elite troopers I killed after I first met Miss Foster and the children.

Despite everything this is only a small force and with a dozen Astartes the opposition is only academic. Then the Riptide appears. The sound I heard earlier was the battlesuit's Ion Accelerator. It coughs again and where three of my Brothers stood, almost nothing remains, whisps of their armour still under motion clatter to the ground like shed skin. The colossal machine nimbly sidesteps and jets up and over the open plaza where the Tau are hunkered down behind benches, concrete plinths and brick flowerbeds. Under its weight stone slabs crack as it thumps back down and fires again. Another two of my Brothers perish, Brother Aecodd gruesomely still alive, his front vaporised and his glistening skeleton somehow still moving, perfectly visible from feet to skull and absolutely denuded of all flesh and muscle, lunges forwards and lets off with a blurt of bolter rounds that skitter up the Riptide's legs before he collapses on his side and lays still.

Emboldened, the Fire Warriors redouble their attack and I see several marines collapse as pulse rounds rip through them. With a scream like a hundred tortured souls Modak hurtles into the midst of the Fire Warriors. His armour is scorched and shredded but he moves with preternatural speed, his claws disemboweling and reaping heads in swift succession. With a space cleared around him, the Riptide has no reason not to fire but the Mahtar Charkaz slips sideways as if trans-locating, his movements too quick to see. Backing up the Riptide continues to lay down fire, the stones all around Modak turned to bubbling slag but nothing touches him. Launching forwards he jumps onto the Riptide's chest like a felid on a curtain, the battlesuit's cumbersome gun jabbing around in an attempt to dislodge him. He manages to rip chunks from the armour and in desperation the Tau pilot jets forwards, smashing chest first into a glass fronted building and sending Modak flying across the polished marble floor within but he is using his own jump pack to barrel right back onto the Riptide.

It knocks him away again, staggering backwards across the plaza and lifting into the air, Modak following with a screech, mobbing the larger battlesuit like a crow chasing a buzzard. The Riptide crashes back down and a blistering fusillade of shots forces Modak to his feet as well. With quick grace the Ion Accelerator hoses Modak and he is lost within the blue light of the attack. The steam blows away and Modak, stood awkwardly on his raptor's talons, glowers up at the battlesuit, ancient mechanisms within his armour flaring like caged lightning. The Ion Accelerator fires again, to the same effect and in a final effort to slay the warrior stalking towards it, the Riptide engages its Nova Reactor. A fatal mistake. The dangerous energies harnessed by the alien Earth Caste engineers malfunctions and a cone of blue/white light erupts through the battlesuit which staggers to its knees. Still not quite dead, the machine has strength enough to look up as Modak steps before it and screams. Xenos alloys and rare materials liquefy under the barrage and within, the tiny Tau pilot detonates in a fountain of smoking gore.

The rest of the aliens and their loathsome human allies quickly follow, pulled apart like roast fowl by vengeful hands. There is little of the wounded left to check but to my horror Aecodd yet lives. I scoop him out of his ruined armour, the raw ceramite scoring grooves in my gauntlets, and lay him out on the cracked slabs. It takes all of our combined synthi-flesh to cover him although the Emperor's Mercy would surely be a better option. In all my long decades of life, I have never seen anything like it. Four of the marines are dead but my Brothers opt to carry them back to the waiting transports, none of us willing to leave the fallen behind.

"You should not have come back." Modak's helmet cocks to one side as he regards Croagan who does not meet his gaze.

"No. We should not have. Brother Carleeson couns-"

"Brother Carlesson went along with the plan of his own free will." I cut in before Croagan can finish.

"You should not have come back." Modak repeats. "But you have my thanks Brothers."


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/08/17 08:14:40


Post by: Mr Morden


Brilliant story - can;t wait for more


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/08/17 23:00:00


Post by: Gogsnik


Thank you. I was really slow with this update so will try and get the next one up more swiftly!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/08/20 23:26:02


Post by: lliu


This si really nice!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/08/20 23:59:21


Post by: Gogsnik


Cheers lliu and thanks for reading along I'm quite surprised I've still got ideas for the story to be honest, usually I run out after three posts!!!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/08/21 00:07:49


Post by: Buttery Commissar


I'm glad you didn't stop!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/08/21 01:33:30


Post by: Gogsnik


I intended that last little fight to go a bit differently but I guess I just forgot as I was typing! I have some ideas for what's coming up though so there is definitely more to come. Thanks for reading and for the comments


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/10/11 23:23:25


Post by: Gogsnik


"It's a ceramite breastplate Vedrius, no matter how many times you tug at it it's not going to move."

"But the helmet seal keeps touching the hair on the back of my neck and it's very irritating."

"Then shave your hair off then. Why do you think the rest of us do it?"

Vedrius looks up at Croagan with an expression that conveys utter disgust, as if he'd just been told that excrement actually has quite a pleasant, nutty taste once you get used to it.

"That's hardly the point is it Croagan? Besides, I like my hair."

Brother Wilfran makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a throat clearing cough, it is the sound an old man might make just before he begins a sentence with, 'back in my day.' Wilfran is seven-hundred-and-fifty-eight years old and he looks every second of them.

"Space Wolves grow their hair long and they have beards." We pause in case there is any more wisdom to be imparted but Wilfran looks half asleep.

"Yeah... And imagine what that must be like when the helmets go on, it's no wonder they're all mad."

"That and the ale."

"And the wolves."

"And the women."

"I thought that was just a myth?"

"He's thinking of the Salamanders."

"Heh heh heh! I always thought there was something off about all that 'unto the anvil of war' guff. Promethean Creed..."

"No, it's definitely the Space Wolves, there might even have been an Eldar involved."

"Disgustin'! Back in my day we used to make 'em suffer! We didn't have no 'alliances' with xenos scum! That's what's the matter with these little blue devils, too much friendly 'hobnobbin' with Inquisitors, that's what that's all about. Think we're soft. Make 'em suffer...!"

"You seem very defensive Wilfran. Anything you wish to get off your chest?" Croagan teases but he crosses his arms with a frown of mock disapproval.

Wilfran tilts his head back, eyes rolling with a mad glaze and his mouth gapes, teeth bared, a half snarl, half disgusted grimace. A noise comes from deep out of his throat like the hiss of an asthmatic snake.

Nurez snorts and then gives a dirty chuckle, slapping Croagan on the thigh with a slight pout as the impact of her hand on ceramite stings her palm. It's difficult to lie to a Space Marine. We don't always understand the nuances of human behaviour but when you can stretch a second out into minutes, replay memories at will and with perfect recall and even smell the most subtle change in body chemistry, that which may be hidden even to you is broadcast loud and clear. Nurez looks at Croagan from beneath her eyebrows and her hand lingers just that little too long on his leg although she cannot know that the sensors built into the ceramite skin of Astartes powered armour coupled with the Black Carapace means that Croagan can feel every movement of her hand as if it were against his bare flesh. I consider my Brother to be one of the more human of us but I wonder what thoughts are passing through his head. Is it possible to sexually assault a Space Marine?

She looks around at us with a frown and the question forms somewhere at the back of her jaw and works its way forwards, around her eyes and down to her mouth and pours out of her.

"So... Do you boys have, 'families' back home?"

"We all probably have blood relations somewhere but it is highly unlikely that any of our parents or siblings still live." I say, and I do not think I have ever truly considered it before. I know that I had parents as a matter of biological fact but I do not remember their faces or anything particular about my birth family, their fates are irrelevant.

"No, I meant, you know, wives, girlfriends? Do any of you have kids?"

"I do not even know if it is possible for an Astartes to father offspring. Our modifications change us at a genetic level, it may well be that an Astartes is too removed from ordinary humanity to breed. I know of no such attempt to try. Nor do we engage in romantic relationships."

"But you must have needs, no? All men have needs."

"But we are not men." Says Croagan and in the shadow of the cab he looms with a face obscured and stony. The constant smile that ghosts about Nurez's lips falters.

Seven feet or more in height, fifty stone or more in weight, bone denser and harder than stone and almost impossible to break, muscles so much more efficient than a human's that it is not unknown for a Space Marine to die on his feet and remain standing such is their power and numerous other biological systems that put us so far in advance of a man that it seems ludicrous to imagine us as anything alike. Croagan steals her smile and in the darkness it is not friendly.

"What you are asking is, do Space Marines need or desire sex or love and the answer is no. Both of those things are symptoms of an organism that reproduces sexually and what you think of as lust and love are merely manifestations of your DNA ensuring it is passed on. We do not have those genetic controls and so we are free to perform the task for which we were created and that is to wage the Emperor's wars." Croagan looks to Modak, the Mahtar Charkaz being the closest thing we have to a spiritual guide. "What say you Brother Modak? Would you agree with my assessment?"

"A cynic might say that the real reason we Astartes safeguard mankind is to ensure a viable pool of breeding stock. We are all human to begin with and we each contain the means to produce more Astartes, once we have found a suitable human host of course."

"But our purpose is to serve and the tenets of the Codex Astartes dictate the maximum number for a Chapter and it is only the High Lords who can decree the creation of more Chapters."

"Not all our willing to serve, Brother Croagan."

"Hah. It seems to me," I say, interjecting before Croagan can say anything else and as the thought strikes me. "that would be a supreme irony, if it were true."

"In what way, Brother Carleeson?"

"That those of us who serve would be the least human."

"An interesting thought Brother."

"Hey I hate to disrupt the debating society back there but I see something up ahead!" Dright calls to us over his shoulder and I turn to look through the windscreen.

"Oh."





**********




I don't know where I'm going with some of these posts but there it is!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/10/14 20:32:11


Post by: Mr Nobody


Good to see more of this. An interesting discussion, inspired by the debates on the forums perhaps?


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/10/14 20:39:46


Post by: Mr Morden


Thanks great to read


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/10/15 02:07:11


Post by: Gogsnik


Thank you for the comments fellas. Those topics do come up regularly so, percolating around in the back of my brain, they must be the inspiration for this but I figure that, since these people don't know anything about Marines, they have no awe beyond what anyone might have for a huge armoured soldier that is so they can ask questions.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/10/16 17:03:32


Post by: Buttery Commissar


Glad to see another update. And quite eloquently handled.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2015/10/16 23:40:58


Post by: Gogsnik


Thank you

I worry that maybe these interludes get a bit samey-samey (even though I imagine that there is a lot of sitting around waiting to get somewhere) but then the bolter porn can get samey-samey too, so... If people are entertained for a few minutes then job done


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/05/09 01:31:18


Post by: Gogsnik


(Something short just to ease back into things.)


I watch the marine transport die even as we overtake it. The cab shreds like confetti and the driver is reduced to a howling skeleton in seconds. There isn't much blood, the flesh of the driver's face and chest, his uniform, all flutter away like dry threads unravelling. The cab roof, windscreen, engine and front wheels all go the same way until the front end is a jagged spike of twisted metal the drops down and punches into the road. Unsecured humans are catapulted from the wreck and die instantly. As Korhein accelerates away I see many of the human troops staggering from the wreck.

It took longer than I would have liked for us to reach the convoy and by the time we did it was already under attack. The enemy was not initially visible until a lucky hit from an exploding transport disabled whatever stealth mechanism was making it invisible. It is an anti-grav tank with a profile so low its crew, if it even has one, must be almost lain flat. It is matt black and angular and even though I can see it, it doesn't show on the auspex. A thin barrel projects half again the machine's length ahead of the hull. The effects look like solid ammunition but I expect it to be some kind of energy weapon.

It moves like a hover fly, quick bursts of movement that jink it around swiftly before it settles again, perfectly motionless. As we begin to come parallel to its current position I see that it is daubed along the left side with symbols I have come to associate with the Kesslin forces that appose us, as well as Tau markings. The hull has been modified inexpertly with crude welding. Based on what I have seen so far I would say that it is another piece of Kredesh technology re-purposed by the Tau and the human allies. Its attacks are dramatic and swift but it is a glass hammer. I wait for it to jink again and then open fire with my bolter, aiming for the crude repairs. The bolts chew through the hull and the machine drops like a stone hitting the road with all the integrity of a cardboard box.

Another transport slews wildly across the road behind us and hits the downed craft, obliterating it; I see Gordreg standing in the troop bay and I can see him cackling. His amusement is premature as more weapons fire starts from up ahead. This was no lone hunter, just a scout for a much larger force. Finally, I think, time for some real fighting.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/05/09 15:57:47


Post by: gel0


AWESOME READ! ty!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/05/10 01:58:08


Post by: Gogsnik


I'm glad you enjoyed it, thanks for the reply

Determined to get this one finished so, updates more than once every six months should be in order!!


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/05/13 23:19:40


Post by: Gogsnik


My name is Carleeson and I am a Battle-Brother of the Prophets of Hatred Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. But before I ever heard the words 'Space Marine' I was born for war. War is not battle, it is not conflict or even violence. It is something beyond flesh, beyond steel. War is two atoms colliding together, it is the underpinning of the universe, the fundamental aspect of all existence. War is flesh, War is steel. War is the air we breath, the ground we stand upon, the light in the heavens. War is everything.

And War is eternal.

But I am a human creature and I am limited to the biological functions and imperatives of any living being. Even with the Emperor's devine blood flowing in my veins, I am still shackled to a mortal point-of-view. I know what War is but even still, in order to truly comprehend that truth I would need to become War itself.
In the mean time I get as close as humanly possible.


Ahead of the convoy is an army. It is Tau and their alien and human allies. It is also a prison train. There are twenty of them, male and female. They are non-descript, but their very ordinariness is in itself unusal. They are brawny but not over-muscled, lean but not undernourished. There is a fleck of something not quite natural in the sheen of their skin and as the distance closes I can see that they are laced with bionic augmentations which are almost invisible, a clear indication of their advanced nature. The shackles on their wrists and ankles look strong enough to hold even an Astartes. Chained down to the deck of the prison transport are two large bipedal constructions. I think at first they could be armour but on a second glance I believe them to be more advanced versions of the MAN used by the human marines. Robots. They have a passing resemblace to the captured grav-tank.

The Tau react first and efficiently, pulse rounds targeting wheels and drivers in the convoy. There is much to admire in the Tau's Fire Warriors, their marksmanship being only one thing. The lead transport swerves sharply as its driver is killed, quickly followed by the tyres being shot out. The combined effect causes the vehicle to flip on its side. It rolls over once before leaping into the air and coming back down in a pancaking heap. A few jerky movements indicate survivors but the electric blue of pulse rounds whicker into the stricken vehicle and all movement ceases. Pintle mounts on the marine transports return fire, suppressing the Tau. Autocannon rounds from one of my Brother's then chew apart those fast acting Fire Warriors.

Kroot warriors come on in leaps and bounds, using the pulverised transport as cover, the burlier aliens banging off shots with their crude rifles to buy time for their blue-skinned masters to bring their deadlier weaponry to bear. One of the Tau's human auxilliaries reverses a flat-bed vehicle up to the transport to create a barrier across the road. I see the man driving the vehicle, see him glance at the onrushing convoy. His adrenaline is pumping but he isn't panicked, he's moving fast, but smooth. What does he see when he looks at his alien allies? What does he see when he looks at his human adversaries? How does a man come to betray his own kind? I do not know what thoughts might run through his head but I know my bolter shell does as it blows out the front of his skull before detonating in his brain, obliterating him from the chest up. Traitor.

Lascannon beams carve mercilessly into the carcass of the transport; if there are any marines left alive they die for certain now. The transport is carved apart and a volley of missiles blast the wreckage off the road and take the kroot with it. The rear end of the human flat-bed bursts into flames, oily black smoke billowing out from its rear tyres as they burn. Human military vehicles are already turning so their mounted weapons can be brought to bear, Tau machines glide into place and Fire Warriors and human soldiers scramble into firing positions along the side of the road.

It's all too little too late, for the convoy is already into the midst of them. Modak screams past, his jump pack flaring as he lands on top of a Fire Warrior like a bird of prey. I get just enough time to loose one more aimed shot from my bolter, a perfect hit on the chains of one of the prisoners, the warhead punching clean through the shackles binding her wrists, the mass-reactive tumbling harmlessly across the deck; I just hope one of the fools doesn't think to pick it up or they'll lose their arm.

Even as my own transport barrels into the enemy force I leap and I get just enough of a glance of the shocked face of a Fire Warrior to laugh out loud, before my boots crush the xenos into paste.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/05/18 01:28:50


Post by: Mr Nobody


Good to see more additions to this story. I particularly like the brief reflections during the combat, it makes for reflections on Carleeson's part.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/05/19 01:32:34


Post by: Gogsnik


I'm glad you don't find it jarring to have all these little asides thrown in. I can't say it's particularly deliberate, most of this stuff is just what comes out as I type but I'd like for it to show Carleeson's character as well as that of the Chapter which is half my intention with this story; which reminds me of something I was going to include in this next instalment but I guess it'll have to keep for another time!

Thanks for the comments and for reading along


**********



Pulse fire brackets Wilfran as he clubs down a kroot. He rolls around the shots and drops to one knee and returns fire with a bolt pistol but I can see the blood bubbling from his armour, his lungs shot through. He coughs up blood and for a second our eyes meet. Death is often an almost imperceptible thing, a slackening of the eye muscles for instance. I see Wilfran's pupils unfocus and know that he is gone. When we are done here Wilfran's memories will be shared amongst my Brothers and he will live again, in us.

The Tau are unsuited to this kind of up close and brutal warfare. It is where we Astartes excel however. The mass of Tau and human vehicles prevent the Fire Warriors from a quick withdrawal and redeployment. The aliens know what we are, they know what we can do, but their human allies are ignorant. Maybe they think we are like their robotic warmachines, tough but mindless, easily destroyed once outmaneuvered. Maybe they think we are just armoured men, that we will try and withdraw like their alien friends, to give ground, redeploy, avoid the bullets.

I choose my next target: a bipod mounted heavy machine gun, crew served. The two Arch troopers see me turn towards them and swivel the gun around. I step right onto their bullets; it feels like being punched through a pillow by a small child. Another dozen troopers have fallen back into a line centred on the gun, they all watch as I soak up the bullets. With a thought I ramp up the volume on my external vox emitters and my battle cry is a distorted bellow of jagged static. It takes seconds to reach the crew and I feel bullets cracking through the hasty repair in my plastron. I still hurt from the wound I took aboard Cage but nothing in life gives me the sort of fierce joy I feel as I snatch up the machine gun and hurl it away.

The crouching troopers fall back, mewling and shouting with panic. I kick the rightmost one in the face and he goes down like a puppet with its strings cut, his jaw and right cheek crushed. The other one fumbles for a pistol but his arm has tangled in his webbing. It takes a moment for him to get his arm free and in that same instant I remove Mokorro's old warhelm. The trooper pauses with his gun half aimed and I smile before spitting acid in his face. He screams. He drops the gun and puts both hands to his face, curls of ashy white smoke coming from his melting flesh.

I step towards the next trooper, too stunned to even react, and stave his skull in with the old Mark IV helmet before I put it back on; it wouldn't do to get shot in the face now. My bolter discharges, and this death is very easily perceived. The bolt explodes on contact, the armour piercing warhead blasting chunks of flesh like thrown chum before the mass-reactive burrows into the chest. The trooper's armour keeps his body in one piece but the explosion vents through his throat and groin. Two more die before the rest react but not to fight back. Some flee but the one that gets my undivided attention is a female trooper who just holds her rifle above her head in surrender.

I could kill her and my instinct is to do so, but accepting her surrender serves my purpose in this moment. If I seem to secure this one prisoner now then others, hearing of this battle, may also believe they can surrender. If they think they will die either way they may be more resolved to fight to the death, as the majority of the Imperium's enemies do. Many may consider it deceitful, that to feign mercy to an enemy that deserves only death is beneath the dignity of a servant of the Emperor.

There is more to war than simple killing however. It is not practicable to kill every human on this world, whose governments have chosen to defy the Imperium even if they themselves may not have, and I defeat those masses now by sparing this woman. I make a show of lowering my boltgun as one of her comrades looks back before disappearing from view into the trees.

A flurry of missiles obliterates a squad of marines as a Tau Sky Ray glides into position. As I said, the Tau know what we are and they know what we do, they expect no quarter and so they give none.

"Kill the Gue'la! Kill them all!" The Tau's voice cracks as it screams and I have to throw myself in front of the woman to stop her being cut down by pulse rounds. I cannot keep the smile from my face. Thank you Tau, thank you!

A pair of lascannon beams punch into the Sky Ray, cooking off its ammunition. The vehicle crumps into the ground and flames gutter around its missile turret. A side hatch is thrown open and a choking Tau falls to the ground. Fire Warriors move forwards and one of the xenos hauls the coughing pilot away from the wreck, firing his carbine one handed. Modak slams onto the side of the hull like a bat and his head swivels before unleashing a sonic scream. The pilot and his would-be rescuer burst with Fire Caste up to several metres away sagging to their knees as their flesh and the cloth of their uniforms sloughs away from their bones. Those on the periphery of the Mahtar Charkaz's attack stagger back, flailing before turning on their heels and running for the safety of the forest along with their human allies.

I look around and see that the battle is over. Several of my Brother's are dead and the rest are gathering in the midst of the Tau convoy, surrounded by the vehicles and grav-tanks that thought they could kill us. Further back are the marines, counting their own losses and salvaging what they can from their own destroyed transports. Dead foes litter the far right of the road where the released prisoners systematically butchered their way through their would-be jailers, the two battle automata standing at their backs; the machines twitch and shuffle as if eager for more battle but they seem under control for the moment.

I step back and turn, looking down at my own prisoner. She looks stunned, which is fair enough. She looks passed me and frowns.

"A child?"

I turn further and look at Ashney as she approaches, pistol raised. "Yes. I saved quite a number of them from a squad of your elite troops. They had been hunting them, killing everyone they found." I hunker down next to the woman as she stares into the barrel of Ashney's pistol and then whisper, "I wouldn't make any sudden movements if I were you, the girl doesn't haven't much tolerance for your people after what they've done."

The trooper's frown deepens and she shakes her head and I see the tears building. "No. No no no no! We don't do things like that. We don't kill children!"

"The evidence speaks for itself. Your comrades, your political masters and your Tau allies, have slaughtered millions, burnt them to ashes and destroyed entire cities. You deny this?"

"I, I..." I pull the soldier to her feet, her weapon forgotten at her feet. Ashney stops beside me and I watch her carefully secure her weapon and smooth down her dirty shirt.

"You wish to rebuke me child?" She doesn't answer, save to shake her head. She tilts her head to one side and eyes the woman. With one hand she reaches out and takes the soldier's gloved hand in hers, turning it over and sliding her fingers down the woman's. Ashney shrugs and walks away, stepping over the bodies of the dead.

"That is what your people have made of her."

"What will you do with me?"

"Nothing, you have already served your purpose to me." I raise my boltgun to her head.

"Don't!" Ashney is coming back. With handcuffs.

"This woman is an enemy of the Emperor. I allowed her to live long enough to send a message to her cowardly fellows. She should die now."

"But she gave up."

"And? You feel this entitles her to live?"

"If someone gives up then you should give up too." She sounds definite.

"And who told you that drivel?" I lower my bolter and walk away. "Fine, but you want to take her prisoner then you can be responsible for her." I keep walking towards my Brother's but stop for a moment and turn back. "And Ashney, when she betrays you, don't look to me to save you."


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/05/25 21:44:37


Post by: Mr Morden


More great story telling - well done sir


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/05/26 06:20:25


Post by: theCrowe


Started reading this way back, only getting back to it now, havnt quite caught up yet but it's all great so far!

Thanks for a great read, I'm really enjoying it.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/05/27 00:16:16


Post by: Gogsnik


Thank you both for the kind words and I'm glad you've enjoyed the story! I think I might use the new characters to zoop this along to a conclusion, it's taken me long enough as it is.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/06/03 21:25:48


Post by: Gogsnik


Yorghad Kneels down over Tariem's corpse and strips the plastron away with careful movements. Tariem was only twenty-seven Terran years old, both his Progenoid Glands had yet to be harvested so Yorghad cuts him open. I watch Tariem's head move slightly from the tremors of the Reductor biting into his throat and the blood only trickling from the wound, now that his hearts have stopped. It is strange how the small things can cause the most affect.

My own Progenoids have long since been harvested and it has been a strange privilege for me to fight beside Brother's who were created from my own gene-seed. You may think that a Brotherhood of a thousand warriors is a small number but I have known in all my centuries only a few score of my fellow Prophets of Hatred. A Chapter is an ancient and complicated beast, there are many elements to it that any given member might never know. I have heard it said than some foster those made from their own flesh, that there are lineages of great warriors whose living descendants stand apart from the rest of us, that they even feel that they stand above us. Then there are dark legends, like that of the Vituperator, said to be a thousand warriors and one. Stories for Initiates.

I've heard the raised voices for several minutes now but I have chosen to ignore them but the sounds of weapons being readied drags my attention away from observing the rites due my fallen Brothers. Croagan steps across towards me eyeing the developing situation between the marines and the former Tau prisoners.

"Should we leave them to it or do you want to get involved?"

"Neither." I sigh, a gesture unfit for an Astartes but dealing with the humans is a draining business. They weary me more thoroughly than the fiercest fighting.

The prisoners are stood in two ranks, flanked by their constructs, facing off against a semi-circle of marines who have their weapons raised. The prisoners are armed with a mix of pulse carbines, kroot rifles and Arch troop autopistols. As I approach, Commander Brant jabs a finger, hard, into the chest of the female prisoner I freed. With super-human speed she grabs his wrist and spins him around, choking him with his own arm whilst using her captured pistol to cover the other marines who are all barking and shouting orders. Over it all the female prisoner raises her voice, hissing directly into Brant's ear.

"Touch me again, and you will die. Take this as a lesson in manners." Her accent is precise, not quite clipped but oddly annunciated as if she is speaking each word individually and then splicing them together into one sentence. Her skin is pale but her hair is completely translucent but somehow lit from within, giving it a pinkish tinge, some kind of cy-grafting? It is scraped back into a long braid and reaches almost to her waist. On the right side of her neck and extending down onto her back is an elaborate tattoo and the sub-dermal implants I noticed earlier look like silvery white lines in her flesh. With a shove she throws Brant towards his people and I see her left arm is completely bionic but far in advance of anything I have seen in those not of the highest orders of the Mechanicus; the main structure of the limb is a white ceramic material from the looks of it, perfectly imitating human bone, the muscles and sinews of the limb are equally biological in design all blurred beneath a fleshy, clear 'skin' that, were it darker, might render the bionic indistinguishable from a natural human limb.

For the first time since I have known him I see real anger in Brant's eyes. He puts his arms out to hold back the marines whilst drawing himself up to his full height.

"Take their weapons, kill them if they resist."

"We won't-" The female prisoner begins before I cut her off.

"Is there a problem Commander Brant?" They were all so intent on each other that they didn't even notice my approach. Close at hand my armoured form dwarfs the humans, even the battle automata, heads and shoulders above the humans, cannot match my bulk or sheer physical presence.

"Do you know what these, these 'people' are, Brother Carleeson?"

"Allies?" I say sardonically, although Brant doesn't seem to appreciate my facetiousness.

"These are Kredesh Zotacks!" He all but spits the words from his mouth. "Dangerous, murderous and utter ruthless, they-"

"Sound like us." Gordreg interrupts, joining me. "They fought alongside us, seems good enough to me. Your prejudice is irrelevant so long as these 'zotacks' kill Tau and their xenophile comrades."

"And if they acknowledge the Imperium." I add, eyeing the Kredesh soldiers.

"Imperium?" The female is defensive but I sense her curiosity.

"The Imperium of Man, the human empire that spans this galaxy from edge to edge. The Tau are an upstart race that harass the Imperium's furthermost border here on the Eastern Fringe. This world is to be brought into compliance, to rejoin the human race and the Imperium."

"And if one does not wish to join the Imperium?" The female asks but I only smile and hold out an open hand to indicate the ruination of the Tau convoy.

"The aliens, the Tau, they too spoke of their Empire, and of your Imperium too, I wanted to hear you explain it in your own words. They say that your Imperium is weak and backwards, that you worship a distant god and pray to your machines. They say their Empire has taken many worlds from the Imperium and that the humans their have welcomed them and flourished."

"There are more humans on one hive world than there are Tau in their entire empire and the Imperium has tens of thousands of hive worlds. The Tau believe in their 'Greater Good' the Tau'va in their own tongue, and they believe that snatching a few dozen barely populated human worlds is something to boast about. They have no true understanding of how insignificant they are. They spread throughout this area of space because it suits the Imperium to ignore them, there are far mightier foes to take care of first.

"These things are of no concern to you however. What you should concentrate on is your immediate survival. None who oppose the Imperium may be permitted to live. The Tau took you prisoner and we have already seen evidence that Kredesh technology has been used by them and their allies on this world but you are the first Kredesh we have seen. You are not allies to the Tau that is clear but if you think your people can remain isolated after the war here is over then you are again mistaken. You must choose: Humanity, the Imperium and the Emperor of Mankind, or, Death."

There is a glint in her eyes and a smile almost forms and I think that she might actually like to chose to oppose us for the hell of it. Instead she stands to attention and smacks a fist into her left shoulder in an ancient salute. Her fellows do the same and even the battle automata echo the gesture. She flicks a quick glance at Brant and again, I sense her holding back a smirk.

"You can't be serious about letting these animals join the Imperium Brother Carleeson?"

"In the fight for survival, Commander Brant, there can be no bystanders." I turn to face the female warrior and remove my helmet. "I warn you however that if your acceptance of Imperial governance is a ruse to expedite matters in your favour for now, you will regret your duplicity." A flicker of irritation passes over the Zotack's face.

"I have sworn."

"Good." I study her for another moment. "My name is Carleeson, I am a Battle-Brother of the Prophets of Hatred Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. Who are you?"

"Zylvia Mordran, Zotack-a'Shal of the Lizzet Pah'shadath." She stands up taller but her designations are as foreign to me as mine will be to her.

"How were you taken prisoner and where?"

"We have- had, a covert monitoring base on the west coast. The aliens encroached on our Eastern territory and were immediately countered by our unmanned defense systems. There were some limited diplomatic overtures made afterwards but it was decided that the threat of their military presence made any negotiations moot, it was clear from what had transpired on the rest of the planet that these, Tau, would not take no for an answer. Much like yourselves for that matter.

"When it became clear that we would not be cooperating with them the full weight of their power was brought against us. They were rebuffed. They then turned to a stealth war and began capturing our personnel and equipment for study. We believe this is how they obtained the intelligence that allowed them to pinpoint and neutralise our base as well as the weaponry that allowed them to disable our battle suits, drones and even us.

"I will not lie to you; it was a humiliation. They disarmed us, took us prisoner and were moving us to somewhere in Kesslin for, 'interrogation'. The birdlike aliens made many remarks about eating us, to make our strength theirs. If that's what they mean by the Greater Good they can keep it."

"You reactivated the battle-automata, how?" Mordran frowns at the question.

"Simple enough for those instructed in the operation of the systems. I see you have one of your own, but it did not fight, why?"

"The MAN's combat wetware was removed." Brant answers. Clearly it would be an advantage if 'Bob' could fight and the Commander isn't so intransigent that he cannot see that.

"It would be a straight forward matter to re-enable it for combat." Mordran offers.

"Perhaps." Brant is clearly uncomfortable and he turns away, snapping orders to his.

"You are making for Kesslin yourselves?" Mordran asks, turning to me as the marines depart.

"Yes. Our objective is the Tau leadership. Without one of their Ethereal Caste to direct them the Tau will lose co-ordination and the will to fight on. Kill the Ethereal and this war will effectively be over."

"It will take you many days in these vehicles. It might be possible to get you there quicker."

"Explain."

"If we can salvage the right equipment I can contact my superiors, despatch a Shiva assault craft. It could take us all the way in just a matter of hours."

"I knew I liked this one Carleeson." Gordreg chimes in and I have to agree. I have no doubt that the Kredesh have their own agenda but if it coincides with ours for now then I am happy to go along with it, and my Brother's also, if it means we can finally take the fight to the Tau more quickly.

"Do it."


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/06/04 18:56:08


Post by: Mr Nobody


I appreciate the irony of Brant's disdain. Claiming one group to be savages while loyally fallowing space marines who have clearly shown to be equally savage.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/06/04 19:03:27


Post by: Mr Morden


Ohh enhanced humans - I like this - kinda cyberpunk...... although any techmarines may not be too happy with them ..........given their Mechancius upbringing

Like the nuances of the Chapter background you are bringing in

Great new addition - look forward to the next


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/06/05 00:10:18


Post by: Gogsnik


 Mr Nobody wrote:
I appreciate the irony of Brant's disdain. Claiming one group to be savages while loyally fallowing space marines who have clearly shown to be equally savage.


I suppose I like the idea that the characters, whether protagonist or antagonist are all more or less the same, neither better or worse than each other. Without even mentioning the possible conspiracy theories about the Tau I think it's fair to say they are pretty ruthless and that holds true for the other factions I think, they do what they think is right which ostensibly is a noble thing and yet, to step back and view it all from a distance they are all violent, often savage and only interested in their own agendas.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Ohh enhanced humans - I like this - kinda cyberpunk...... although any techmarines may not be too happy with them ..........given their Mechancius upbringing

Like the nuances of the Chapter background you are bringing in

Great new addition - look forward to the next


Thank you for the compliments

I've had some enhanced humans before in another story and I really liked the idea of the geno troops from the Horus Heresy novels. I also like the idea of technologically advanced human societies. Like you say, once the Mechanicus get there dendrites into something it's pretty much game over for those people but it makes sense to me that outside of their influence, normal humans are capable of trying to improve things so I like to indulge in these ideas from time to time!! At one time I had the Techmarines as pretty integral to the Chapter's leadership but they've developed as something so fractured and fractionated I'll need to have a good think about how these traditional Space Marine officer types fit in. I was thinking the other day about how the priestly aspect of the Mechanicus doesn't get touched on much it might be interesting to play that out with a techmarine, make him a more spiritual and priestly rather than just a glorified mechanic/blacksmith.

I think I stole a line from Game of Thrones for the Vituperator, I'm pretty sure the Three Eyed Crow is 'a thousand and eyes and one' but whatever! I had the idea for him in another story that I just never used, I think I might have been thinking of using the CSM Codex and he was the Prophets version of Kharn.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/06/14 01:19:39


Post by: Gogsnik


To save the humans from any discomfort at the sight of our rituals, my Brother's and I move to the far side of the ruined convoy where we cannot be observed. Four of our Brothers are laid out, stripped of their armour and wrapped in canvas sheets cut from one of the ruined marine transports. Yorghad takes the honour of preparing them, slicing through the scalp at the back of the head, running his fingers beneath the skin and peeling it back. Using the blades of his narthecium he cuts away the skull, exposing the brain beneath. Carefully cutting away the membranes covering the organs he then scooped out the brains and places them with care upon a sheet of metal, washed down and cleansed as best as possible. Replacing the skull caps, he pulls the scalps back and staples them shut. When possible, the skulls, and indeed, other parts of the skeleton, are salvaged for use; On my hip I carry a sheathed bone blade, carved from the femur of Yessel, a fellow neophyte, who died on his first mission as a full initiate. In life he never claimed one enemy life, but in death I have despatched hundreds of the Emperor's enemies using the bone blade, the hardened Astartes femur providing a material that is superior to mere steel in many ways.

The flesh of our fallen Brother's is diced into mouthfuls and each of us take a turn to take a piece of each of our Brother's remains. Knowing what is to come I start with Tariem, flashes of his short life flitting before my mind's eye quickly, but as I move on I can feel the process of ingesting the memories of the fallen begin to take their toll on even my genhenced metabolism. My body temperature spikes, forcing me into a feverish fugue state. When I reach for the brain piece from Wilfram, my arm is shaking so violently I have to concentrate all of my willpower on the simple action. Swallowing down the still warm lump, I am overwhelmed by sensation, falling to my knees.

I try to calm my hearts, try to slow my breathing but it is impossible, I collapse to my side but do not even feel the impact as I sprawl across the soot flecked ground. Blades of grass are magnified in my vision so clearly it is painful to look at them, I think about shutting my eyes but by now my senses are so overcharged that even so simple a thing seems to take hours, enough time to watch a tiny insect biting lumps from a fallen leaf, and that metaphor crashes into my subconscious with all the force of a tidal wave. I can feel my jaw clamp shut and my muscles cramp. Even in snatches and glances, nearly eight centuries of life is a lot to take in.

Of course, it is not merely Wilfram's life that I see, it is also the lives of every Brother who fell, and who he consumed. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of years of life! It is too much! Make. It. Stop!! My consciousness hovers like a page held in the fire, my sanity fluttering away into darkness. I hear a scream and I do not know if it is me.


* * * * *



I am surrounded by darkness and whilst I am awake my mind is dominated by dream logic, my subconscious mind dominant in a waking body. I feel a presence, some malignant that I cannot see even as the details of the room I am in become clear. On the wall is a security alarm, it is active, I know this from the two small, red LED lights built into its casing. My sub-conscious sees the eyes of a daemon and the terror is so pure, so complete that I feel it wash through my body like ice water in my veins. I want to shout, to cry out for help but only a strained moan escapes my lip. I know this is not real. I begin to struggle, to thrash, but my body is locked in paralysis, I seem to fight against myself for an age before finally breaking free. My waking mind surges to the fore and the dregs of the night terror hiss in my ears until they fade into silence. On the wall, the alarm is just an alarm again.

"Still with me Sabaddon?"

I am sat against a stone wall, on one knee beside me, a hand on my shoulder is the neophyte, Wilfram? Yes, Wilfram. I push the boy away with a grunt and push my self onto my knees and then, using the wall for balance, I stagger to my feet. The grogginess passes in moments, an unwelcome and alien sensation. For a moment I was almost not myself, not anyone even, strange, but I remember now.

"You are not my Battle-Brother yet, neophyte, so address me by my rank."

"Yes, Captain."

"Hmpf." I look around, we're in some kind of storage bunker, heaps of decaying technologies are wreathed in webs and layers of dust, lit by a pale blue light, filtering through a narrow firing slit in the wall. "Where are we and where is the Chaplain?"

"Chaplain Eskott was almost on us when another Chaplain found us. He didn't even hesitate, simply started shooting at Eskott. I dragged you away whilst he was distracted. We're nineteen levels down, I didn't want to take any chances after what happened to the others."

"You did well. Who was the other Chaplain?"

"I did not recognise him Captain. I think he had a black crown on his helmet?"

"Ah. How interesting."

"Captain?"

I look in Wilfram's eyes for a moment, see the puzzlement, of course, he wouldn't know. Why would he? "Don't worry about that neophyte."

"Why did the Chaplain attack us Captain?"

"I don't know, but-" But what? If I am right the entire Chapter is imperilled and I have only a neophyte to confide in? I should tell him, I can feel my wounds are not healing and I only just avoided falling into a sus-an coma. If that happens and Eskott finds us... And our erstwhile rescuer? None of the Chaplains can by trusted.

"I need to tell you something of the utmost importance Wilfram but not here. And, if I should fall, you must perform the rites, take my memories and-" And tell who, who can be trusted? "First we ne-"

The door blasts inwards and I see the red lights of the alarm flick green. There is no siren but someone will know where we are. Clever of the neophyte to lock us in here. Eskott's armour is shredded and blood is pouring like water from a tap over a jagged spike of ceramite in his left side. He half shuffles, half collapses into the room, he is dead on his feet. The laughter from his helmet mic is wet. Then, in an instant he is upon me, like his mortal wounds mean nothing. His speed is incredible. I fly through the air and crash through broken machine parts that explode around me. Then Eskott is on me, crouched on my abdomen, his blood washing over me. He speaks but the words are just gurgles. His crozius ignites in green flame and then plunges into my chest. I hear Wilfram shout and then bolter fire from the doorway. But I see only darkness.


* * * * *


"For the Emperor's sake Carleeson, pull yourself together." Gordreg is leaning over me, his face inches from mine, a finger prodding at my head. Behind him Croagan stands with his arms crossed, frowning. My Brother's are all watching me where I lie in a foetal ball on the ground. Behind them all, half obscured by the haze from a flaming pile of debris, I see Modak. He is peering at me from behind the bulk of a Tau Devilfish and as is his want, he is clutching onto the alien vehicle like some kind of wall climbing lizard, with only his head and right shoulder just visible, and only to me, and only from this angle. His serpentine helmet watches me with such stillness it is unnerving, the expressionless, unblinking lenses of the helmet never-the-less conveying secret meaning. I flick me eyes to Gordreg and he hauls me to my feet. Looking back for Modak I cannot see him anywhere.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/06/21 23:39:46


Post by: theCrowe


It makes me wonder what Wilfram knew. Makes me want to check back through the story and look for evidence of Wilfram being funny about Modak. Like he didn't trust him... I wonder...


Thunderhawk Down @ 2016/06/22 00:16:16


Post by: Gogsnik


Well I can tell you now that he didn't EDIT: that Wilfram didn't have any interactions with Modak that is, not that he had issues with him, that was terribly ambiguous of me, ha!

I think I did mention earlier in the thread about a Chapter schism so, this is a little hint of the origins for that. To me, Modak is a sinister character, so having him 'know stuff' adds to that impression. Then there's Ferrax, the mind-wiped marine, who saw things he ought not to and got scrubbed...


Thunderhawk Down @ 2017/09/19 21:43:00


Post by: Gogsnik


It seems like months have passed since my last conscious thought. I am aboard the Shiva assault craft, but I have no recollection of its arrival; odd then that I recall its designation. My head swivels on my spine from right to left taking in my brothers and our human allies. As if weighted down, my head droops and it takes a moment for me to process just exactly what it is I am looking at: a human girl-child.
She looks half starved and filthy but her smile is genuine. Whatever she's looking for in my eyes, evidently, it is not there. Her smile falters and she looks confused. I turn away, she is not my concern.
Against all sanity and logic, Modak hangs from the roof. What is he doing up there? Can't the others see him? He moves closer without seeming to move and no-one bats an eye at the spectacle. He is above me now and slowly, his head descends into view, inches from my own. His helmet lenses are black, I cannot see his eyes through them.

My vox-bead clicks on but there is no sound, just empty air. It clicks off. After a moment it clicks on again, still nothing.

"Modak. What are you-" My voice feels thick in my mouth, my thoughts are slow. I feel unwell. I have never felt unwell. Modak reaches out with both hands and they seem to sink through the meat and bone of my skull. There is no pain. There is nothing at all in fact.

"What did you see?" Modak's voice is faint, as if his vox is picking up his voice from the other side of a room.

"What?"

"What did you see?" Now his voice is like a whisper in my ear.

In that instant, I remember everything. Everything from the moment I came to on the Cage, after my brothers abandoned me for dead.

Everything swims back into focus and I see Modak, strapped into position on the far side of the troop bay, he tilts his head to the side and then down. I get the impression he was smiling at me and then saw something at my side. He looks away as I register this.

A Space Marine's Powered Armour is not merely dead ceramite. Woven into the surface are thousands of sensors, relayed back through the Black Carapace, it allows the wearer to "feel" the armour as if it were skin. That is how I can sense the tiny fingers curl around the last digit of my gauntlet.

I break the contact and Ashney looks up at me with a hurt look that vanishes as I brush my hand over her hair. I can feel the texture, feel the oil and sweat and grime. My armour's systems also convey a sense of the fragility of her skull, its relative mass and compressive strength interpreted by my armour's cogitator as a sense that if I were to apply even a hundredth of the pressure my gauntlet can bring to bear, her head would pop. I have done such a thing many times. I can see in my mind's eye, with perfect detail, exactly how her tiny face would slowly rupture as her brain was squeezed from her skull like paste from a tube. It is a strange and terrible burden to witness the ruination of the human body, to see how meagre we are, the vast range of our human intellect and character, decades of memories, and what are we? Just meat and bone and blood. And then gone.

I think of all the lives of my brothers that live now only in me. I think of all their secrets. All their weaknesses, all of their lies, which now live in me. That now are me. How much of who I am is really me at all? And my life in the minds of others. I know myself through the memories of dozens of others, the memories of brothers who knew me well or hardly at all and I have seen myself as they saw me. If I now lived only in their memories, if I had expired, unrecovered on some distant battlefield, and their memories of me were all the remained then everything I am, everything that I had ever done would be rendered so small and hollow, that it might just as well be that I had never existed.
What legacy is that?

Ashney turns her face into the palm of my gauntlet and I feel her eyelashes brush the reinforced weave as her eyes close. Somewhere on the world below, her parents lie dead. They do not live on only in her memories but in the very fabric of her flesh. When I was not much older than this tiny girl, too young to even conceive of the notion of legacy, and my only concerns were for my own life and the adventures I would have, I gave away my opportunity for a normal human life. I am incapable of regretting that choice but even so, I would make the same choice again. But... I will never have children. My gene-seed have already been harvested and used in the creation of more Space Marines, some still alive, others long dead. But they were not my children, my genetic material, accumulated through the progenoid glands, was transplanted not inherited.

These are not my thoughts, or at least, they were not, even if they now are. I look up and Modak is watching me again. He knows.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2017/10/02 02:49:32


Post by: theCrowe


A welcome return for THD! Do you have a plan for how to wrap it up or are you just seeing where this goes?


Thunderhawk Down @ 2017/10/04 00:14:56


Post by: Gogsnik


It has been a while yes, but I had this 'scene' and one other floating around in my mind so, needed to get it typed up.

I'm dreadful at planning out stories, which is to say, I don't plan them at all. I do have a number of vague ideas for things and I try and work them in but mainly it would be accurate to say most of this stuff just appears in my head, occasionally I may dream something!

There are a few things I want to do before I finish the story though: 1. see what the new human faction have to say, get some reinforcements. 2. Finally get around to taking out the Tau HQ and 3. Some manner of confrontation with Modak about all the secret nonsense.

Many, many years ago, Carleeson was a rogue space marine character I came up with for a series of ColFic stories on the old Conclave forum. I'm not sure if this version is headed that way but I've written in enough so far that, it's possible.

As always, thank you for reading along and for the comments


Thunderhawk Down @ 2017/10/10 01:29:09


Post by: Gogsnik


The interior of the Shiva is black matt, a grilled deck and four rows of benches, two back to back in the centre of the bay, the other two alongside either side of the fuselage. A raised step at the front of the craft has seperate seats for officers and a communications station. The only overt indication that we are about to land is the activation of red lighting. It is a quiet machine and the landing is barely perceptable. Despite the Shiva's seeming sophistication the straps securing me to the bench are simple, locked tight under tension, a saftey feature in case of a crash no doubt. I like it.

The troop ramp descends quickly and silently and our rescued Kredesh troops lead the way out, followed by the human marines and finally my brothers. We are in the centre of a small clearing, slick with recent rain. There are no buildings more than two feet above ground level, firing slits and little else, each covered by turf, or built into the natural rock or under trees. Tracked gun units patrol the perimeter, fully robotic versions of kataphron battle servitors. We are met by a coterie of officers and civilians backed up by a platoon strength detachment; the men and women stand rigidly to attention, showing not a flicker or twitch at the sight of forty transhumans in their midst.

Zylvia Mordran, steps forwards and salutes. In her own language she gives a short rundown of who we are, or so I summise. She seems honourable but her reassurances to me when the convoy was taken cannot be said to extend to her commanders. The Zotack-a'Shal half turns and indicates me, her leaders look at me and their faces crease in half frowns. At the head of the civilians is a female in a strapless dress and a fur collared belero jacket. Her dark hair is scraped back into a bun and whilst her bearing is poised she does not seem like ex-military. She nods at Mordran, and the two of them, alongside a small, older male in kredesh fatigues approach.

"My name is Alonette Torparn, Tarshock of Kredesh and this is Agre, Lockumdai of the Lizzet Pah'shadath. You are," She struggles for a word, "Commander?"

Behind me Gordreg laughs.

"I am Carleeson, brother of the Prophets of Hatred Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. The war here does not warrant what you might consider an officer in our Chapter. Be thankful." The Tarshock seems taken aback by this pronouncement but I interrupt her before she can speak again. "This is Kesslin?"

"Yes. We came h-"

"How far is the Spirlin from this place? It is our understanding that the Tau leader caste are in this place. Can you confirm?" The female frowns and shakes her head. Evidently she is not used to being addressed in this manner. She will need to learn fast once the Administratum arrive. Her military advisor speaks for her.

"Yes. The aliens are ensconed in the fortress along with their allies. It is heaviley fortified. You will not be a-"

I turn away, confirmation is all we need. And transport. I eye the Shiva, it seems as good a vehicle as any I have seen but without any obvious weapons systems.

Gordreg jerks a thumb at the craft and glares at the kredesh leaders. "We're taking that. And the pilot."

"How dare you. This is not how things are done. There are protocols. Much needs to be discussed." She looks towards Brant and his marines and she double takes as she sees Ashney stood to one side with her Kesslin prisoner. "There is a great deal to discuss. You cannot-"

Gordreg is not an agile creature, he is crude, if he were a normal human he would be obese, a result of incompatabilities with his gene-seed. Even so, the female is off the floor in an instant, her throat fully encircled by Gordreg's gauntlet. Now the Kred troops move, but my brother's are among them far too quickly, as if Gordreg's outburst had been coordinated ahead of time. Knowing him as we do, it was practically certain.

"Let me explain something to you, little human. We do not answer to you. This world will be Imperium or it will burn. Comply or die."

For all the aggresion, when Gordreg puts the woman down, there is barely a mark on her, but the point is made.

"My brother makes his argument robustly but he speaks plainly and true. Our mission is to destroy the Tau threat, nothing more. Negotiations will come after, with the approriate Imperial bodies, not with us and certainly not now."

Brant steps into the midst of us and he backs up to the Tarshock. Interesting. We are the true outsiders here, for all the long centuries of fighting and untrust between these two human peoples. This is their world, their fate hanging in the balance. Even now, even a man like Brant, still does not quite grasp the new reality.

"We can't just go rushing off, even if you Astartes can. We need to resupply, get some rest. We need some rest." He puts an emphasis on his words as if trying to convery far more meaning that his speach allows.

Why do all these humans think that I am the reasonable one?

"Whatever." I walk away.


Thunderhawk Down @ 2017/10/10 13:53:03


Post by: Mr Morden


Always a joy to see an update


Thunderhawk Down @ 2017/10/11 21:45:18


Post by: Gogsnik


Thanks for reading along, I'll try not to have any more eighteen month gaps

EDIT: waagh emoji just did not want to go away.