Death-Dealing Dark Angels Devastator
Point Marion, Pennsylvania
|
Schee
No one living on Schee could remember a time when the world was not a frozen wasteland. Generations ago, perhaps as much as three hundred years past, Schee had been a budding Agri-World, its vast plains covered in endless seas of golden grainstalks. The oceans filled with fish, the mountains home to massive herds of bovine-like creatures, and the handful of huge cities were run by an industrious group of farmers, fishers and herders. That was before the uprising.
The locals still refer to it as 'The Uprising', but it was more like an outbreak. A madness enveloped the southern continent of Schee and city after city succumed to it as a cult of Chaos spread throughout the citizenry. Those who did not convert were brutally sacrificed in the name of Chaos, and those who converted to the Great Enemy saw it as their duty to turn Schee into a grand, bloody Shrineworld to their Dark Gods. With hope to stop the rising tide of Chaos, the cities of Schee had taken up arms. Machines to plow and harvest were converted to make war and colossal fishing ships were armed with artillery. Within a short few years the crops were left unattended and the herds unsupervised as there was simply no manpower to spare to those tasks. All that a farmer or herdsman could expect now was a lasgun and a long march to the front lines.
As the tide of war shifted in favor of the Imperium and the armies of Schee closed in on the cities of Chaos, they found that the very cities themselves had been converted into shrines to the Dark Gods. Symbols of madness and sadistic perversions rose, towering kilometers into the air above the cities as the cultists sought to earn the favors of their Gods. When the men of the Imperium set fire to these cities, the cultists revealed that they had yet one last tool available to them: Destruction. As the men of Schee ringed the cities and fought their way inwards, one by one, the cities themselves began to convulse. Visable shockwaves exploded outwards and obliterated men by the hundreds of thousands, before the buildings errupted and the very ground heaved. In titanic explosions that caused earthquakes on the opposite side of the planet, the cities exploded. The planet Schee was actually knocked somewhat off of its axis and took on an odd wobble that persisted for decades, throwing the weather patterns into havoc. With the force of a billion nuclear bombs, dust and ash were hurtled into the atmosphere and blotted out the sun.
In the centuries that followed, Schee became a cold and inhospitable planet. Even when the dust had settled one hundred and fifty years after the explosions, Schee did not warm up much. It became arctic, with heavy snowfall for much of the year and a brief, mild summer. The population steadily declined and the Imperium lost interest in Schee as it no longer served a purpose. Schee's petitions for aid went mostly ignored and the citizens learned to fend for themselves in the snow laden wastelands. Twenty years ago, rumors had began to circulate that a new cult had established itself on Schee and that another city had fallen to Chaos. Schee's pleas for help were at last answered, but only to stop any new uprising. Help came a year later in the form of a regiment of Imperial Guard from the planet Starlight.
Ten thousand men of the 7th Starlight Regiment landed on Schee and for two decades waged a war of attrition and desperation with the growing cultist movement. Ten thousand became seven thousand, and then seven thousand became four thousand. The years grind onwards. The fight continues.
Outpost Delta Bravo
Private Sean Coleman rolled over in his bunk and reached out blindly to feel for his buzzing alarm clock somewhere on the floor nearby. His fingers found the clock and pushed in the small button to shut the alarm off as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the cot. Rubbing at his eyes, he blurrily looked around the small room he shared with another Private from the 20th Platoon. The rooms were small and simple, built with sturdy concrete blocks to support the weight of the overhead earth. Outpost Delta Bravo's quarters were fifty meters beneath the ground to help insulate against the cold. Two bunks with storage footlockers, a small desk that the two Privates shared and a few shelves for books and other belongings, just enough to feel like home. Right. Coleman stood up and lightly kicked the leg of his roommate's bunk, "Wake up, Day."
Dyson Day groaned and rolled onto his stomach while pulling a blanket up over his head. "Piss off." Coleman shook his head and bent over the small sink built into the wall to shave. A tall, rugged young man, Coleman was one of the 7th's 'Brat Pack'. The Brat Pack was a semi-affectionate term for those born into the Regiment. With much of the 7th aging now, most of them being fourty years and older, youth was in short supply and almost everyone who was thirty and younger was considered a Brat. Coleman was only eighteen himself, having finished the basic training program less than a month earlier. His blonde hair was only just now growing back in from when it had been shaved off during boot camp. Coleman finished shaving and wiped off his face before turning to Day's bunk and yanking down the blanket, only to make a disgusted face as it revealed Day was naked beneath the blanket. Day covered his eyes with one hand at the sudden light and groped for the blanket. "Hey!"
Coleman wadded up the blanket and threw it at Day's head. "Hey yourself. Why aren't you we-.. you know what, I don't even want to know. Blessed Emperor, you're pale! How can you be so pale, yet your ass is as red as an apple?" As Day awkwardly climbed out of his bunk, Coleman stepped into his boots and opened the door to walk down the corridor to the showers. Ten minutes later Coleman was buckling on his gear in the armory room when Day strolled in fresh from the shower. "Good to see you with some clothes on."
Day flashed a good-natured grin and keyed a code into one of the armory lockers and then opened it to retrieve his gear. "Listen, I had a bit of a wild night Sean. I won't go into details, but there's a certain waitress at the pub who was quite accomodating." He sat down on a bench and slid his legs into a pair of insulted trousers. "A man must spread his wild oats."
Coleman stood and zipped up his jacket before lifting up his flak armor and slipping it onto his torso. He spent a moment tightening the straps as he looked at Day with skepticism, "A waitress 'eh? And here I thought you got drunk and passed out naked. That's happened a few times, as I recall." Coleman then slipped on his combat harness, which supported the weight of his bayonet, canteen, grenade and ammo pouches, and an assortment of other gear. Next he grabbed his white-washed helmet and lasgun before walking towards the door.
Bent over to adjust the seal between his boots and pants, Day looked up with a huge smile, "That could've happened too. The whole night was a blur!" He then stood and looked through his gear for his thermal jacket. "Tell Sarge I'll be there in a couple."
Already halfway down another corridor, Coleman grunted and waved dismissively. "He'll have your ass in a sling, Day." He opened a door and stepped into a small room that served as an enviornmental lock. He passed through and then climbed a set of worn iron grate stairs to the surface. Lowering his glare shades, Coleman swung the door open and stepped out into the brilliant white world of Schee. Cold air immedietly assaulted him and his breath came out in foggy clouds as he walked across the compound towards the southern watchpost. "Another day in Paradise."
|
Being new to 
