Lone Wolf Sentinel Pilot
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Hey folks,
A new story about the 197th Bataviran.
Please, let me know if you like or dislike it and how to improve it.
Thanks,
Loner
Lieutenant Sammy Short was placed in command of the remaining hundred-odd Batavirans.
Their job was to protect the hundred civilians that were in the Imperial Basilica further up the hill. The civilians were family and friends from the planetary governor and thus had to be protected at all cost. Sam and his group were cut off from the rest of the company. They were fighting elsewhere in the city. Sam quickly had established a perimeter around the Imperial Cathedral, but every time the heretics attacked, they were forced to give up some ground. Because if he didn’t his troops would be too far spread out… The cathedral was quite large, maybe a thousand people could fit in here. It even had multiple levels. Rain fell inside through the holes in the roof. The benches were used for barricades. For some reason Sam kept thinking that the entire cathedral could collapse any moment.
Outside lay a lot of bodies from heretics and loyalists. The smell was horrible. Despite the storm, the rats had a feast outside… Sam sat down near the alter and looked into the rain, he could barely see anything. He couldn’t see any of the heretics, but he knew that they were there, watching them and waiting for an attack.
Sam looked at the sky and wondered… If it stopped storming, then the rest of the regiment would come to their aid. Because of the storm, the Imperial Navy couldn’t take off with their valkerys. Sam said a prayer to the Emperor, hoping that the storm would stop… Then he turned around and looked at what was left of his platoon…
Stulf, the voxcaster was trying to get into contact with the rest of the company or the rest of the regiment. Sergeant Frank Blach and some troopers were sitting on the ground, playing a game of cards. Around forty troopers were upstairs and on the roof stood another twenty soldiers.
Laurus Sten, the medic had laid several wounded in a corner and was looking after them. His uniform was smeared with their blood. The civilians were scattered throughout the church, some sat down in little groups, others prayed at the altar, but the majority just lay on the ground, trying to sleep.
Techpriest Adept Malakite Behmon came out of his Chimera tank, followed by his mechanical centipede Fluffy. Sam smiled when he thought back to what happened three days ago… When they were surrounded, Sam had decided to use the church as his camp. The techpriest had managed to get his tank into the church, although no one knew how he did it. Then Malakite got into an argument with commissar Toland von Heydte about his Chimera… Von Heydte said it wasn’t respectful to the Emperor to bring a tank into his cathedral, while Malakite claimed that he could keep his Chimera wherever he liked, because he got it from the Omnissiah for his birthday.
Suddenly someone screamed “Incoming!”, followed by a shell impacting. Everyone lay on the ground when several more shells started to explode around the church. Then one exploded upon the roof. One guardsman had fallen off the roof, he kept screaming until he was splattered on the ground. Sten, the medic immediately ran around, trying to look after the wounded. Sam had to acknowledge his courage, that man really looked well after the wounded.
Then the shells stopped impacting and heretics came screaming out of their cover from all directions, running forward and trying to reach the Batavirans. Immediately the troops on the next levels opened fire with their lasguns. A lot of the enemies fell from the aimed lasgun fire, but some managed to get in cover and fired back.
Sam tried to organise their defence: “Sergeant Blach! Tell those soldiers above us to keep firing! I don’t care what happens as long as they keep firing! Sergeant Adelis, take those soldiers and watch that side! No, not this side! That side!” Sam pointed in the direction of the entrance. “Guard the bleeding entrance and make sure not even one heretic gets in! Commissar Von Heydte, may I ask you to look after this place? I want to make sure that the everything is okay.”
When Toland gave a slight nod, Sam ran towards the northern side of the cathedral, away from the altar and took cover next to Tuck McNitt, one of the youngest soldiers around, he managed to sign up for the Imperial Guard, by lying about his age, and Faticus Morbosis, a former gangleader, who now served as a meltagunner. “Tuck, what’s going on?.. Lost your tongue or what?! Spit it out!” Tuck McNitt seemed to need a moment before he realised what was going on… He looked up from his lasgun and said: “Well sir, we are being attacked by heretics!”
Sam could see the heretics quite clearly now. Most of them had some sort of mutation on their body. One has thin wings coming out of his back, another one had large horns, one mutant even had multiple legs. Most of the heretics wore white robes. Sam aimed his laspistol, inserted a new laspack and screamed at Tuck and Morbosis: “Batavirans! We have come a long way and we aren’t stopping yet! Now let me hear a Litany of Hatred!”
As several soldiers started singing the Litany of Hatred, Sam aimed his laspistol at the winged heretic and fired three shots. He hit twice, one shot went through the thin wings, but the other one hit the mutant just below the eye. The heretics’ head was a fountain of gore, when he fell forward.
The heretics fired back, but it was sporadic and often missed.
“FIRE! FIRE! FIRE” urged Sam his soldiers, “kill all of them!” Next to him Tuck McNitt mumbled the Litany of Shooting: “Take a moment… Hold your breath… Shoot to kill… Do not regret…”
After a couple of moments, somebody dropped next to Sam. It was Manfred von Jager, a soldier in Frank Blach’s squad. “Sam… I mean, sir… Frank is asking if you can come to the roof. He says he has found something that might interest you…”
-“I’ll follow you, just wait one second.”
Sam crawled closer to Faticus, realizing his past as a gang leader and thus being able of commanding people, and told him: “Make sure that the enemy doesn’t get inside the church! I don’t care how you do it, just do it!”
Faticus replied that he would shoot anyone that tried to run away if he had to… Then Sam and Von Jager crawled away from them and made their way towards the stairs.
When Sam reached the roof, he had to watch out that he wouldn’t fall through one of the many holes in the floor. Blach was standing near the edge and ordered several soldiers around. When Sam approached him, Blach handed him a pair of field glasses and pointed at a ruin to their left…
It took a while before Sam saw what Blach had pointed at…Saw was horrified by what he saw, it was a large man in black armour, several skulls were placed on spikes on the shoulders and large horns grew out of his helmet. Sam muttered only one thing: “A bleeding Chaos Legionnaire…”
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“Frank, what is the situation?” Sam asked.
-“We got six casualties, three wounded and one missing soldier. Laurus is currently looking after them.”
“Alright, thank you. Now sergeant Adelis, how are the civilians?”
-“We have one wounded, a piece of debris fell on his arm. We were forced to amputate it, but he will make it. We also have a casualty. One guy was hit by a shrapnel right in the throat.”
“Thank you… Now… I asked all of you to come here since I have something important to tell…” Sam looked at the group of people that had gathered around him. Commissar Toland Von Heydte, Techpriest Malakite and a couple of sergeants. “During the attack I spotted several Chaos Space Marines watching us.”
-“Are you sure that it was a Chaos Marine and not a reflection or a corpse?” Commissar Toland Von Heydte asked sceptical.
“I’m sure it was a Chaos Marine, sergeant Blach can confirm it. Now I don’t know how many there are out there… I counted at least four. ”
-“Four Chaos marines?! That’s nothin’, on Rygva 5, I have fought against thousands of them. I grabbed my Heavy Bolter, every servitor I could find and Fluffy. Then I ran towards the barricades, jumped over and fired away. After I killed thousands of them, I…”
“Last time, you killed just hundreds of them!” sergeant Blach interrupted him.
“You said you had killed hundreds of them… Not thousands!”
-“I must have mistaken, my dear friend… So as I said, after killing millions of them…. There were just a few left, a couple of Chaos Terminators. They charged at me and killed all of my servitors. However I also managed to kill all of them in return, except one. The large Terminator Captain,” Techpriest Malakite began stroking his mechanical pet Fluffy, “that large brute was about to step on my dear Fluffy! I grabbed him by his neck and lifted him up. Then I choked the life out of him! That brute thought he could hurt my poor Fluffy. All the time, fluffy was ay my feet, running around and poking in the ankles of the Chaos Marines with her powerpincers…”
It took Sam a while to realize this entire story: “And how does that help us in our current situation?!”
-“Not much, but I thought you might want to know it. I still have several of their helmets in my Chimera…”
“Alright.. Thank you, Malakite for sharing this story with us. I don’t think it was much use, but I’ll keep it in mind. Currently we have a couple of problems: First, why didn’t the Chaos Marines attack straight away? I think they tried to probe us, to test our defenses… But I’m not sure…
So we can expect them to attack us… Now do we have to tell it to our soldiers? And do we have to tell it to the civilians? Commissar Von Heydte, what’s your opinion?”
Commissar Toland Von Heydte stood up, cleared his throat and started: “Back at the Commissariat, they taught us two things on this matter. They cannot fear what they don’t know. If we don’t tell them, they won’t fear them. The other one was, prepare for your fear and you can beat your fear. If the men prepare for Chaos Marines, we might be able to beat them. About the civilians… I don’t really know. Our men, when we tell them, will of course be scared. But I don’t think that they will try to flee. They don’t know this city or this planet… And even if they make it back to our lines, they will still be shot as deserters. Now for the civilians, it can work both ways. They might try to run when they know that they will certainly die here. Or they won’t run at all, knowing that there are Chaos Marines out there that will kill them. I think that it’s best to tell them, to see how strong their faith is. Those that desert us, desert the Emperor. Those that desert the Emperor have no right to remain alive. So I say we tell everyone, I want to know how strong everyone’s faith is. ”
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Sam and the others told everyone about the Chaos marines. The Batavirans accepted the news, although they weren’t too happy with it. Chaos Legionnaires were fearsome opponents, capable of killing you in a blink of an eye. The civilians didn’t take the news very lightly, some started crying, others started praying, but two of them had other ideas…
In the dark of the night, there stood two man near one of the barricades. It still stormed and it didn’t look like it would end soon
“Ruvman,” whispered one of the civilians, “it’s dark enough outside. Are you ready to go?”
-“Hietbink, I ain’t sure if this is a goo’ idea, wha’ if them Batavirans found us? We ‘d be in a lotta trouble then.”
Two man had gathered near one of the many barricades in the cathedral.. Hietbink, the tall man, wore a large backpack. Ruvman didn’t carry anything.
“Fine then, coward. I’ll go alone. We are surrounded by heretics and those dumb Batavirans have to look after us. But now, there are Chaos Marines out there to kill us. If we try to escape, we might survive this.”
-“Why can’t we just stay ‘ere? I’ d rather be with them Batavirans then with them Chaos Marines…”
“Coward,” scowled the first man again, “do you rather wait here? What for what? Untill the Emperor saves you?! The Emperor doesn’t exist! I have an autopistol with me, I stole it from one of the Batavirans, so I can protect us. Come on, let’s go.”
Hietbink jumped over the barricade, ran forward, dodging corpses and mud. At one time, he slipped and fell in a pile of mud. After a two minutes, he went inside a building and looked back to see if Ruvman was coming. He sat down behind a wall and waited a moment or two, but he couldn’t make out Ruvman among the rain. “If it wasn’t for this damned rain, I’d already be safe by now,” he cursed.
Suddenly Hietbink heard something to his left, apparently Ruvman had run just next to him. Hietbink mocked poor Ruvman, because he wasn’t so clever. Hietbink listened to see if he could hear anything from his friend, but couldn’t hear anything anymore.
Then he heard a scream, followed by a gurgling sound.
Hietbink looked over the wall and saw a large Chaos Marine choking Ruvman.
Hietbink screamed, stumbled back and fired his autopistol at the Chaos Marine, but it was all in vain, because Hietbink didn’t see the other Chaos Marine behind him, lifting a large poweraxe.
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Everyone in the cathedral woke up when a shot was fired and when another scream came, every soldier immediately grabbed a weapon. “Protect the civilians!” Sam screamed, “whatever happens, protect the civilians!”
Soldiers ran towards their positions, expecting the worst, but no enemy came.
“Sir, no enemy here!” a soldier yelled. Followed by another saying that in his area, there was nothing unusual. Then one soldier opened fire. Sam rushed towards the place where the soldier had fired, peeked past the barricade, but saw nothing but the endless rain. “At what did you fire?! ” The soldier, with a confused look on his face, stammered, “a Chaos Legionnaire… There was one…. one in the rain! I saw one in the rain!”
Before Sam could reply, another soldier opened fire with his lasgun on the other side of the cathedral. Sam ran towards the other side, dodging soldiers and civilians. Sam dropped next to the soldier that fired. “It’s gone? He’s gone?”
Sam grabbed the soldier at his collar, “who is gone? Who ‘s gone?!”
-“The Chaos Marine! I saw one walking in the rain…”
Sam stared into the rain, but nothing moved… “Damned heretics… What are they up to?!”
Suddenly there a lot of noise near the entrance, Sam ran towards it, but when he was halfway, it stopped again. Stopping near the altar, he sank to his knees…
“Sir, one of the civilians reports that there are two missing,” Stulf, the voxcaster reported, “she says she saw them getting away and I’m missing my autopistol…”
“The Chaos Marines have tasted blood, they will be coming for us soon… ” One of the civilians shrieked, “they will be coming for us!”
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“Quiet!” Sam yelled, “they are trying to make us crazy…” He looked at the civilians and the soldiers, Then the lieutenant stood up…
Sam lacked the time to create a good plan, he just started handing out orders, because there wasn’t much time left, the Chaos Marines could attack on any moment… “Blach, get twenty soldiers on the roof! No, leave the meltagunners here! Now go!.. What you have to do? Well, fire at those Chaos Marines! Toland and Malakite, hand out any weapon we have to the civilians! I said any weapon!.. Malakite has a gun collection in his Chimera, use that!.. Have one woman stay behind to look after the children! Sergeant Adelis, take twenty soldiers and bring them to the next level, fire at anything that isn’t one of us!.. Laurus, give me all the wounded that can hold a weapon!.. I don’t care if they are dying, if we don’t do this then we will die too!.. Now do it! And grab a weapon yourself! The rest of you, go to the barricades and keep an eye out on the civilians! The meltagunners, spread out on the lowest level. Don’t you dare it to waste ammo on a mutant, just fire on the Chaos legionnaires! Stulf and Morbosis, follow me!” With his two friends by his side, Sam loaded his laspistol and ran towards the entrance.
Commissar Toland Von Heydte stood upon the altar, with a lagun in his hands.
“Who among you know how a gun works?! Those that do can proceed to Malakite immediately.” Several civilians left the group, but the majority still stared at him.
“Alright! Listen up, I’ll only explain this once!.. What I have here is a lasgun, first of all, switch off this button. That’s the safety! Make sure it’s off!.. Now you can pull the trigger, aim your gun at a heretic or a mutant and pull the trigger!.. Keep firing until it drops dead, then look for the next target, keep firing and repeat that until your laspack is empty... Push this button and the laspack will fall out, now you can insert a new one in… Remember to switch the setting to semi-auto, otherwise you run out of bullets too fast... Remember to sing the Litany of Reloading, while you reload your gun! Now go towards Malakite and get your gun! After that go towards one of the barricades! ”
All the civilians proceeded towards the Chimera, however one woman and several children still stood in front of the altar. Toland walked towards the woman and gave her a laspistol, while he whispered in her ear, “shoot the children if it’s necessary… Don’t let them fall into the hands of Chaos…”
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Malakite was really hurt, when he had to hand out his gun collection… All these guns he had ‘borrowed’ from Ministorum stocks or ‘found’ on the battlefield. Now he had to hand them out to these fools! He almost cried, despite that the ability to cry was removed, he still felt as if he was going to cry, when he gave away his favorite gun. After he had handed out every gun and Malakite climbed in his Chimera turret and loaded the multilaser. “By the Omnissiah, I’ll make those Chaos Marines pay! Because of them, I’m about to lose my gun collection!” The techpriest swung his turret around and aimed into the rain, ready for anything that might come out.
Frank Blach stood on the roof, he was already soaking wet from the rain. The sergeant had soldiers facing every direction, but they couldn’t spot the enemy yet… “If it wasn’t for this bloody rain, we could see th…”
Blach couldn’t finish the sentence because the troopers to his left opened fire on some shadow that moved through the rain. Before he could do anything, the soldiers on his right side opened fire and then on every side all the soldiers fired. Blach looked over the side and saw hundreds of mutants and heretics running towards the cathedral from every direction, but that didn’t scare him, what scared him more where the Chaos Marines that stormed towards the entrance of the cathedral…
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Sam looked for cover as bolts started to explode around him. Morbosis sat behind cover while Stulf was fumbling with his vox. Together with some other Batavirans and a couple of civilians, they had to hold out against those Chaos Marines that were storming the cathedral. “Morbosis, don’t fire yet, wait until they are close enough. Don’t fire on the mutants and the heretics, just shoot the Chaos Marines.” Then Sam said to the others, “Fire! Keep firing! Don’t let one of those damned mutants into this cathedral! Don’t give those filthy creatures the pleasure of polluting an Imperial Church!”
The civilians and Batavirans fired at the Chaos Marines, but their lasgun barely harmed their armor.
One Chaos Marine died when a shot penetrated his helmet and showered the others with gore. Another Chaos marine fell when his leg was blown off, yet the Chaos Marines kept coming…
On the loyalists their side, several casualties fell when the Chaos Marines fired their boltguns, one civilian had his arm blown off, a Bataviran tried to help him, but she was hit in the head.
One civilian went insane and ran forward, screaming on top of his lungs. Using his gun as a club, he charged the Chaos Marines… Before he had even done five steps, he was riddled with bullets.
“You,” Sam pointed at a civilian, “get every meltagunner here! All of them, we need them to hold off the Chaos Legionnaires!” The civilian nodded and turned around to get them, but he was hit in the back of his neck. The man fell on his knees, clawing at his throat while blood kept gushing out of his wound. Within a moment he had bled to death… Sam grabbed a Bataviran and gave him the same order. The Bataviran slipped away and avoided any harm.
Sam crawled past Morbosis towards Stulf, the voxcaster. Morbosis, the man really had to restrain himself from not opening fire, however the Chaos Marines still were out of range.
“Stulf,” Sam yelled in his ear, “send out a distress call!”
-“But Sam… No one will hear it…”
“I don’t care if anyone hears it, just send out the freaking message!”
Stulf sat down with his radio and tried sending out a message.
At the same time, the heretics and mutants just kept coming closer and closer. The Chaos marines were down to a group of six that still ran forward and a group of twelve that provided fire support.
“Kill the Chaos Marines! Aim at the Chaos Marines! Don’t worry about the mutants!” Sam reminded his troops, “Fire! Fire! Fire! We have the Emperor’s blessing!”
Sam looked at the Chaos Marines and saw that one died when his arm was blown off, another one was hit in the neck and he fell down. Sam carefully aimed at one Chaos Marine and pulled the trigger.
The shot penetrated the glass on the helmet of the Chaos Legionnaire, which fell back and didn’t stand up. However, the remaining three marines, still ran forward, the shots bouncing off their armor as if it were flies. One was now near the entrance when Sam gave out the order: “Morbosis! Cook that damned bastard!”
Morbosis stood up from behind his cover, aimed a moment and fired at the Chaos Marine.
The shot melted the upper part of his body, but Morbosis was already behind cover, reloading again.
Another Chaos Marine died when finally the shots penetrated his armor. The last Chaos Legionnaire still ran forward, swinging his chainaxe in broad circles.
The Chaos Marines seemed to run straight at Sam, so he stood up, tried to keep it cool and aimed his laspistol at the charging enemy… He pulled the trigger, but no shot came out… “Empty…” He groaned, looking up, Sam saw that the Chaos Marine was maybe four meters away, resigned himself to meeting the Emperor very soon…
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In the last final moments, a couple of heavy bolters opened fire on the Chaos Marine and tore him to shreds. Sam looked in bewilderment as the bullets missed him by mere inches. Sam looked at the sky and saw a lone Valkyrie hovering in the air. It seemed to have a hard time, keeping stable in the air.
Suddenly a voice broke through the vox, “Greetings from Stormtrooper Sergeant Samuel Linius to our brave fellow soldiers in the 197th Bataviran! How are you down there?”
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Before Stulf could reply, Sam had grabbed the speaker and was yelling into it.
“Samuel, you don’t know how glad I am to see you guys… What are you doing here?!”
Outside the Heavy Bolters slaughtered all the mutants and heretics that tried to get out of cover.
The respond was barely audible, because of all the noise…
-“Well… Colonel Prendergast wouldn’t let us go to help you, so major Falkenhorst advised us to take off and have a quick look, but we had to be ‘very careful because we might fall out of the valkyrie’…”
“With all the wind outside, you have to be very careful indeed…” Sam laughed…
With the Chaos Legionnaires taken care of, the attack was easily repelled. Blach and the soldiers on the roof fired at all the heretics that they could see, while the Stormtroopers descended to the ground. Blach aimed carefully one a large heretic that had two heads. Blach fired once and hit the heretic in the left head. The other head shrieked as both fell down. Blach fired at it again, just to make sure that it wouldn’t stand up anymore…
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“I’m glad all of you got down in one piece.” Sam greeted Samuel, “how was your flight?”
-“Well, not too bad. Kyel had to vomit because of the trip, but otherwise it was quite good.”
“May I ask why you are here? Because I wasn’t expecting any reinforcements…”
-“We got word from Demitrix Nulstovsky, he received a message from your voxcaster, but he couldn’t reach you. So he asked us to look after you. However, Prendergast wouldn’t let us go, because the Imperial Navy couldn’t take off. Luckily, major Falkenhorst insisted that we should take a look. At the moment we were about to take off, Falkenhorst came to us and wished us luck and most of all, ‘that we were very careful, because we might fall out of the valkyrie with all the wind’. Then he left again and we took off. I guess we arrived not a moment too soon.”
“Hehe, so you took your squad with you again?”
-“Our entire group is here, Kyel Petersson, Laertes O’kar and our meltagunners, Sanje Scott and Keith Kolojeieh. They were quite eager of going into action.”
“Alright, take a moment or two to get comfortable around here and then come to me, I want to discuss some things.”
Samuel Linius walked across the cathedral. He still wondered why this building hadn’t collapsed? "There were blast craters and holes everywhere," he thought.
Inside one of the many corners of the church he encountered the rest of his squad, some Batavirans and a couple of civilians.
One of the Stormtroopers waved at Samuel, “Hey sarge, care to play a game of cards?!”
-“Why don’t you hand over your money already? Because you know damn well that I’m going to win!”
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Samuel sat down next to Leartes O’kar and a tall meltagunner of whom he didn’t know the name… “Hey, I haven’t seen you before, have I?..” He pointed at the meltagunner to his left, “What’s your name and what’s your job?”
-“The name is Faticus “Troll” Morbosis, I’m from the hive world of Illbostra and I currently try to keep Sam’s ass out of trouble.”
Samuel offered his hand, “I’m Samuel Linius from the Stormtroopers, now to celebrate our meeting, I’ve brought a little drink.” Samuel grabbed a bottle out of his bag and after that bottle was empty, Samuel had a new one and a new one and another one…
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“Faticus,” Sam poked Morbosis, “have you seen Linius? I’m looking for him…”
Morbisis rolled over, “whazza matt’r? Cancha lemme sleep?”
“I’m looking for Linius, the Stormtrooper sergeant.”
-“Ask Larry, I’m gonna sleep…”
Sam swore to himself, for some reason, half of his platoon was drunk and passed out.
“Faticus, where’s Larry?... I’ve got the feeling that something is wrong…”
Morbosis didn’t answer him, because he was already fast asleep.
Sam stood up, trying to look for Larry.
Sam ran around, trying to find a sober Bataviran, although he knew damn well that there weren’t any… Sam remembered that Techpriest Malakite didn’t drink any alcohol and ran towards his Chimera. When he was about to enter it, he bumped into the red-robbed figure. “Malakite! I need your help, I’m looking for Samuel Linius, have you seen him?” Malakite, pointing at the altar with his servo arm without even looking at Sam.
“Thanks,” and Sam was off again, looking for the missing Stormtrooper sergeant. Near the altar sat Larry O’kar, explain something about lasguns to some civilians. When Sam approached him, Larry saluted him, but Sam ignored it, “Larry, I need your help, almost my entire platoon is drunk or sleeping, I want you to gather every sober person and bring them here.”
Not awaiting Larry’s reply, Sam ran off again, he could hear someone singing in the back of the church. Yet Sam knew that something was wrong, but he didn’t know what…
When he was around the corner, Sam found the stormtroopers, singing, drinking and cleaning their weapons. The ground was full of empty bottles and cans. “What the…” Sam wondered, but he knew that it was what he could expect from the stormtroopers... He stepped over a sleeping Bataviran, kicked some cans to the side and walked straight towards Samuel, who sat on a stone, singing a dirty song while cleaning his weapon with some liquid.
“Samuel! What is going on?!” Sam wanted to know. The stormtrooper sergeant gave a weird answer, “well, yes, Sam, I love you…” and then tried to hug Sam, but instead he fell from his stone and lay on the ground, still trying to clean his weapon. After a while he took a sip from the liquid, before polishing his weapon again. Sam grabbed the bottle to see what the stormtrooper was drinking… Weapon oil…
It took a moment before Samuel started vomiting and another minute before he was done vomiting and another two minutes before he even knew where he was… “Aww.. My head…”
“Glad you are welcome to the land of the living, I need your help. There are heretics seen outside, we got twelve Chaos Marines after our blood and I’m stuck with a group of drunk Batavirans… Sober up and wake everyone up…”
-“That’s an order?” Samuel asked with a sour face, holding his head with his hands…
“Yes it is…”
Sam ran back towards the altar, where Larry had assembled a group of twenty people. Sam quickly climbed on the altar and started speaking, “we have a problem. Quite a number among us are drunk or sleeping and…” Suddenly Sam was interrupted by the thunder. At the same moment, he knew what was wrong, there were no sentries anywhere! He hadn’t seen any sentries watching the area… Sam looked up and in a new thunder flash, he saw a Chaos Marine standing in the entrance of the Imperial Cathedral…
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“Get a gun! We’re under attack!” Sam yelled, while he pulled his laspistol from its holster. The soldiers that had gathered immediately turned around and opened fire on the Chaos Marine. The Legionnaire died from all the shots, but behind him stood four more… Suddenly they ran towards the Batavirans. At the same time, drunk people woke up, because of all the things that happened around them. Some staggered in front of the traitor Marines and were run down, others cowered in a corner.
Suddenly a Chaos Legionnaire fell down, his arms and chest plate molten to slag, screaming in his pain, while Morbosis stood up, “What monkey turd woke me up?!” Another Chaos Marine noticed him, but Morbosis, had already reloaded and fired at the traitor. The entire marine was reduced to a bloody mess on the ground. “That will teach the damned bastard… ” Morbosis grabbed a bottle and tried to drink from it. However, another traitor jumped at Morbosis. The former gang leader ducked, but the Chaos Marine grabbed the bottle. Morbosis, furious about the loss of his bottle, fired at the Chaos Marine, killing it. “That was my last drink!”
The last Legionnaire looked confused at the single trooper that had killed three of his comrades.
For a moment he just stood there and that was all Morbosis needed, firing his meltagun at the traitor. The head was just gone, while the body slowly sank to the ground.
Morbosis cursed loud and tried to look for a new bottle, couldn’t find any, lay down and went back to sleep.
Sam and the others looked in bewilderment at the single trooper who had stopped the entire attack.
Sam and the others looked in bewilderment at the single trooper who had stopped the entire attack.
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However, before they had any time to congratulate him, Sergeant Blach came falling down the stairs, “Sam, they are coming from above! While you fought against the Marines below, some of them climbed the cathedral and attacked from above!”
“Blach, get every soldier down there! Fall back!” Sam ordered him, “get everyone down there!”
Blach yelled something that Sam didn’t understand and several soldiers came running down the stairs. One carried a wounded comrade across his shoulder, while another one dragged somebody down the stairs. The wounded screamed in pain… The last one was the medic, Laurus Sten, he helped a wounded civilian. Behind him a traitor Marine appeared and for a moment time seemed to slow down, everyone yelled at Laurus to take cover, the traitor leveled his axe and slammed into Laurus…
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“Where are our damned Stormtroopers?! Tuck, go find them!” The lieutenant kicked Tuck out of cover, so that he would find them faster. Above them the ceiling started to crack… While Tuck ran away, Sam cursed at him for not getting them fast enough. The Batavirans kept firing at the stairs, preventing the Chaos Marines from getting through and the Chaos Marines fired back, killing several Batavirans and civilians. Sam gave a troubled look at the ceiling and knew that if Tuck was back fast enough, they would be in a lot of trouble.
Tuck ran around the cathedral, trying to find Samuel Linius and his squad. There were in some dark lit room in the back of the cathedral, he told them that Sam was waiting for them and ran further. Larry Okar and some civilians were holding off heretics near a barricade. For some reason, Tuck seriously wondered why the stormtrooper had a freaking Lascannon with him! A lascannon was a weapon usually employed to destroy tanks. Tuck didn’t waste any more time and grabbed Larry, pointed at the altar and Larry immediately started dragging the Lascannon towards the altar. Almost all of the stormtroopers were found, so Tuck just had to find Samuel Linius, the stormtrooper sergeant… He cursed to himself: “Where the heck was that guy?!”
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Sam laughed loud when he saw Larry O’kar carrying a lascannon towards the altar. With that, they could easily hold off the cursed traitors. Sam dodged bolts when he ran towards Larry. “You brought a Lascannon into this cathedral?! How did you get that in here?!”
Larry shookhis had and grinned broad when he aimed the lascannon at the stairs, “I didn’t, it’s made from scrap!”
The Lascannon reduced a Chaos Marine to dust, while the bolter clattered down the stairs.
“Keep firing at the stairs, don’t let any legionnaire come down!” Sam patted Larry on the back and leaped out of cover, running for the others Stormtroopers. All around him bolts exploded…
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Suddenly Sanje Scott, one of the meltagunners grabbed Sam and dragged him behind cover, “are you trying to get yourself killed, sir?”
Sam took a moment to regain his senses, then he handed out some orders: “Thanks, now I need you and your squad to prevent the Chaos Legionnaires from coming through… Fire on the stairs, don’t let any come down.” Then the wooden ceiling started to creak again…
The creaking grew louder and louder, planks started to fall and then the entire ceiling came down, pillars fell and the entire cathedral collapsed. A lot of dust came down and when it finally settled, Chaos Marines and heretics lay everywhere, while the civilians and Batavirans tried to kill them as fast as possible. Some Batavirans were crushed beneath the large boulders, but the most of them were still alive. Techpriest Malakite crushed the skull of a Chaos Marine with his servo-arm before he could get up. Fluffy, the mechanical centipede, had found a weak spot in the Chaos Armor of another traitor Marine, right near the neck and poked her powerpincers through it, straight into the skull. Toland Von Heydte drove his chainsword in heretics and traitors, severing limbs and heads before running to the next one. Larry O’kar pointed the Lascannon at a Chaos Legionnaire that lay on the ground and fired, reducing the traitor to a pile of dust. Faticus Morbosis stepped on the armor of a traitor Marine, aimed his meltagun at his face, “get ready to meet the Emperor” and pulled the trigger. The Batavirans wouldn’t survive in close combat with Chaos Marines.
However, the Batavirans and civilians couldn’t kill all of the traitors fast enough. Traitor marines and heretics tried to get up and within a moment the entire cathedral was filled with fighting people. From all sides, Batavirans and civilians joined in the fight, while mutants and heretics climbed through the windows to join the fighting. The Batavirans fought with knives, used guns as clubs, the sergeants tore off limbs with chainswords. The civilians used whatever weapons they could get their hands on… The mutants and heretics used claws and crude weapons to fight against the Batavirans, but they were no match for them. Techpriest Malakite used his servo arm to sever limbs and crush skulls, Blach slashed around with his chainsword and killed several heretics. Larry O’kar fired his laspistol at close range, slaughtering many heretics and traitor marines. “We aren’t done yet!” Sam shouted, “they will take this cathedral, but over our dead bodies! As long as one Bataviran is alive, they will not take this cathedral!”
During the melee, Sam took a moment to glance upward and noticed that the entire roof was gone and that the sun was shining… He started laughing when he stabbed a mutant in the chest. “Our regiment is coming! My friends, our regiment is coming! The Emperor has mercy on us!”
Several more Batavirans let out a war cry and everyone began fighting more ferociously. Then Sam looked back at the melee again, just in time to see a fist coming at his face.
Sam fell backwards and rolled over. Desperately he tried to focus his aim and could see a Chaos Marine kicking him, the next moment Sam flew through the church, crashing into a wall.
For a moment Sam moaned and tried to crawl away, but the Chaos Marine was already coming for him…
Sam doubled over and spat out some blood, then he looked up at the face of the Chaos Marine. The latter one just stood there for a moment, slowly bringing a fist upwards. “Ave Imperator!” he yelled and spat at the traitor Legionnaire…
Both stood there for a moment, then Sam was showered in blood as the Chaos Legionnaire’s head exploded. Dazzled, he noticed that the Chaos body fell to the side and that Morbosis stood grinning behind it. “You couldn’t survive a minute without me, sir…”
Then the former gang leader offered a hand to the lieutenant and dragged him to his feet.
Before Sam could thank him, a Valkyrie, an aircraft that contained troops, flew very low over the cathedral, firing it’s heavy bolters at the mutants outside. Then more Valk’s followed, each firing at the mutants…
“The regiment is coming for us!” Each Bataviran shouted a war cry and fought like a madman, the mutants tried to flee, knowing that they would die if they stayed. The Chaos Marines, without their allies were easily overwhelmed. Just as the sun shone on his face, Sam saw that several soldiers were jumping out of the Valkyries, slowly descending towards earth.
Sam, helped by Morbosis, walked outside to meet their saviors and was glad to see that Major Falkenhorst, the tall regimental commander, was among them. Sam tried to keep standing on his feet , when he saluted the major.
“Sir, may I report the remains of the first platoon from the 7th company. We got 34 soldiers ready for combat, 9 missing and 12 wounded, the rest are casualties. We have 58 civilians left out of the 124, we had to protect. We also have one soldier that ran away, Samuel Linius, the stormtrooper sergeant.”
Then major Falkenhorst stepped aside and revealed the Stormtrooper sergeant. “Sam, we thought that all of you were dead or taken prisoner, however we kept receiving messages from Samuel that you needed help fast. Thus we mounted the entire regiment into the Valkyries and took off, not knowing where we had to go exactly. This sergeant here,” Falkenhorst patted Samuel, “gave us all the coordinates, that we needed… So thanks to this guy… You all are still alive.”
Sam apologized to Samuel and then looked at major Falkenhorst again, “Are we all evacuated right now or do we have to clear up here first?”
Major Falkenhorst gave a broad smile, “All of us evacuated? No not at all… You get some rest and a good meal, the rest of the regiment is going to war again!”
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