Guard Heavy Weapon Crewman
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Death in the Stars
Prologue – 18/9/M41.997 0648h
As the blue sun rose over the mountain fortress of forge world Helfyrion the three surviving marines let out a collective sigh as they saw a flotilla of battle barges in the skies above. Though they held their position, they knew that they had been relieved, and as they watched and waited, until, they saw their brothers heading up the slopes and heading into the riddles of tunnels that lead to the heart of the fortress they received the summons to attend the Force Commander.
They arrived at his rapidly expanding field command within minutes of being summoned, after three weeks of fighting in and around the fortress the three survivors knew the tunnels like the backs of their hands. They gathered around him, Krul at the front with Vrek on his left and Skaal on his right. After the Purge Crusade team leader had been killed, Krul had taken over command of the squad, and Force Commander Andrelex Faustine could see why, he exhaled an air of confidence that seemed to calm the men around him; his assumed role could become a permanent one. He turned to address the Marines assembled around him and took in the salutes he was given,
“Marines, I know you’ve had a hectic couple of weeks and I’m sorry we couldn’t get here any sooner, warp storms. Anyway, if I could have you for a couple hours, I want to debrief you personally. I’ll see all three of you in the medical bay at 0800 hours. Clear?”
“Sir, yes Sir” the Marines replied as one.
Krul broke ranks and stepped towards his CO, there was something about him that made Faustine want to step back, but he quelled that impulse and stepped forwards to Krul who held out a small cloth bag.
“What are these?” Faustine felt the words snap from his lips, in an almost aggressive tone.
“Dog Tags Sir, from every trooper; marine or guardsmen; who fell defending this damn rock, Sir.” A bitter tone crept into his voice as he said this, then he fell back into rank. “Permission to carry on Sir?”
“Roger that, crusade leader Krul, carry on. 0800 hours remember that.”
Last words - 18/9/M41.997 0800h
Force Commander Faustine looked around at the three survivors of the original 6 strong Purge Crusade hunter/killer strike team. They were all weary, their shoulders drooped, their eyelids faltered and there was no sense of urgency in their movement, it wasn’t lethargic, but it was slow. It was clear that that they needed rest but the debriefing needed to happen as soon as possible to find out what they had encountered. Krul seemed the weariest of lot, the weight of leadership had pressed heavily on his shoulders.
“Sit down Marines; this is going to take a while”
Faustine waited for the men to seat themselves. The room echoed with the sounds of metal on metal as the marines sat.
“The last message we received from here informed us that the enemy had successfully created a shielded staging zone for the deployment of a planetary invasion force. While there was radio traffic for a while after that, we heard nothing at the next confirmed communication point, and then nothing still. In three days, we heard no radio traffic at all even though we were monitoring all radio frequencies. That is, until you got in contact with us, two weeks ago. Now marines, I need to know exactly what happened from the day you were deployed until we relieved you.”
“Well sir, the easiest way to sum up the mission, was in Kall’s, Crusader-38’s last words. He was fatally wounded when an enemy gunship opened fire on our position, but he still managed to take out the pilot. I ran to him, he looked up at me, pulled off his dog tags, handed them to me then pulled me close and whispered “don’t let it be.... in vain.” And I hope, I truly do, that it wasn’t.”
“We were dropped here to reinforce the PDF who were being besieged by the traitor legions. It took a while for us to reach our destination, our Valkerie was shot down by a Hydra Flak tank and we crashed behind the appearing Chaos lines. There were cultists everywhere, minor daemons scurrying to and fro about the crash site. We were truly blessed that we had been thrown from the Valkerie as it crashed. The pilots weren’t so lucky...
Crash Landing – 27/8/M41.997 0445h
As the Marines watched with horror, the two pilots, one living and the other unconscious or dead were pulled from the wreckage of the Valkerie. The live pilot was offered a choice; the marines could hear the foul gurgling voice of the Plague Marine over the roaring of the flames from the crashed transport.
“Right now, my contagions are infecting your very bones, within two minutes you will be dead. Two minutes after than you will rise again as a mindless minion of my gracious father Nurgle. But I can offer you a choice, if you pledge yourself to Nurgle; I can spare you the shame of zombie hood, you won’t die, you will live, and you will serve. What do you say?” The gurgling, drowning voice grew silent as the corrupted marine leant down to hear his victim.
“How about you do one cockbiter? You will never take me! The Emperors’ soldiers will strike you and all your treacherous kind down!” His voice grew to a shout as he pulled out a Bolt Pistol, levelled it and fired. The round spat out of the barrel flying straight and true at the Plague Marine, but it rebounded off of his helmet and carved cleanly through the pilots head, going in through his forehead and releasing a spray of blood, bone and brain over the ground behind him. The marine laughed, coughed and spat a clump of black phlegm on the pilot. The phlegm hissed and bubbled against the pilots armour, quickly burning through to the flesh, where it discoloured, turning a mottled purple green. The marine aimed a kick at the ribs of the now dead pilot, putting his armoured boot straight through the corpses’ side, spilling a tidal wave of black acid blood over the ground. The marine let out a laugh as he watched the unconscious pilot rise to his feet, staggering and falling.
“Sorry old boy, but you didn’t get the easy way out, tough luck. Now, head east until you find the slave drivers.”
The zombie let out a groan in response and began to shamble away from the wreckage. Directly towards the hidden Marines.. As one, the Marines drew back, seeking darkness to cloak themselves, but Sergeant Talosicas realised that they wouldn’t make it and instead moved forwards towards the approaching abomination. His squad, realising his intentions raised their bolters in case anything went wrong.
Talosicas waited until the zombie was almost level with him and then gently kicked a stone across the ashen ground. The sound was too soft for the Plague Marine to hear 20 feet away, but the zombie heard it. The staggering undead puss-bag halted, swaying precariously close to falling as it tried to understand what it had heard. Then, it turned in the direction of the noise, tendrils of green gas seeping in front of it. As soon as it was past the rocky outcrop that had initially shielded the Marines from their treacherous brethrens’ sight, Talosicas struck; his tac-blade severing the head from the neck in one fell blow. As the zombie fell to the floor, black bile blood pumped from its’ fatal wound, soaking into the rock floor like water into soil. Talosicas backpedalled from the corpse to avoid getting its blood on his boots. As the Marines watched, the Plague Marine turned and began to march towards an awaiting corrupted Rhino Transport. The transport had been severely corrupted by Chaos energies, and now sported several pulsating oozing sores as well as hideous patches of warped and deformed flesh. The Marine clambered inside the Rhino, the hatches closed with a squelch and the transport began to crawl westwards, deeper into the Chaos lines.
“Right, now he’s gone, we can get out of here.” Talosicas’ sharp voice cut through the now still morning air, “According to the NacCom we are over 20km east of the Forge-Fortress, and we need to reach it before sunrise, and that's in about an hour. Anyone up for a run?”
“Sir Yes Sir.” The Marines responded as one, their bodies tensing for the run.
After an hour, the Marines paused on the edge of a cliff as the sun rose behind them, painting the land a pale maroon. A couple of the Marines turned, stared into the sun, then turned back,
“Boss, is the sun meant to be that colour?”
“Yeah, it seems pretty ominous to me”
“No, the sun here is supposed to burn a clear blue, that certainly isn’t blue. I think we best get a move on, things aren’t looking too good.”
“Umm Boss, dunno if your noticed, but there’s a bloody great cliff in front of us, and I for one forgot my jump pack.”
“You know Krul; I had seen the cliff, and we are going to go down. The foundries are in the cliffs we are standing on, so logically there will be some sort of access shafts in case of emergency. All we need to do is find them.”
A booming voice echoed off the rock all around the Marines,
“Attention, you are trespassing on Imperial Land! If you do not leave immediately, you will be exterminated!”
Talosicas responded in a quiet tone, but one that rang with authority,
"I would not recommend firing upon us, if your weapons succeed in killing us, you will be left without the support you requested and need, and if they don't you will not have any assistance, instead a second enemy, one who can and will rip your foundry into its component parts. It's your choice."
He then turned to us; "I'll give it twenty seconds."
Someone replied, "twenty seconds to wha..."
The booming voice spoke again, "Weapons systems deactivated, I am coming to the surface now. Wait there and I'll be up."
"That was the first time we met General Lucius Holl. He seemed to be a pompous officer, but we later saw a different side of him as the conflict grew."
Faustine spoke for the first time since Krul had started speaking, "But the General, would you consider him a competent commander?"
"Hmm, it's really hard to say. At times he seemed to go off on a tangent over little things, but if the situation was serious, he was the most level headed guardsman officer I've ever met. But anyway, back to what happened..."
Assessing the Troops 27/8/M41.997 0603h
By now, the sun is coming over the horizon, and it was starting to get hot, and I mean real hot. The sun only truly rises here 3 times a month, and when it does, anything living on the surface is burnt to a crisp. Talosicas was getting a little nervous, not for himself, but for his troops. As soon as General Holl opened the emergence hatch, he decided to ignore normal pleasantries and instead got everyone inside. When they were inside and the hatch secured, and only then did Tal take off his helmet and introduce himself to General Holl.
"General Holl?"
"Umm, yes?"
"Allow me to introduce myself, I am Sergeant Talosicas Vendat and these are my men. Their names are not important to you, and if they choose, they will reveal them. Do not take this as an insult, it is one of our Chapters' peculiarities. Before you ask where your reinforcements are, if they are going to descend from the sky in glorious pillars of fire, do not fool yourself into discounting us. While there are but six of us, combined we have over 1000 years of experience behind the wheel of almost every vehicle and firing every weapon the Imperium has. So yes, there may not but many of us, but unless we decide so, we are all you will need, and we shall not allow this world to fall. Do you understand?"
The General responded with unneeded courtesy,
"Yes Sergeant I understand, but please, if my men doubt or slight you, do not take it personally, we had been promised several regiments as reinforcements, not a single tactical team. So until your actions prove you to my men, they will respect you, but there will be whispers amongst the regiment. I hope you understand?"
"Of course General. For mortals in your case, such a reaction is to be expected. My men and I will do all we can to prove to your troopers that their lack of faith in us if misguided. Now, if we can turn to business?"
"Of course Sergeant, if you all follow me, I'll take you to the ops room and brief you on what has happened here."
The marines followed the General down several flights of stairs. The natural blue light faded, leaving a harsh white synth-light glow casting dark shadows in the cracks in the granite walls.
As the marines traipsed into the Operations Centre, heads swivelled and jaws dropped as the men and women manning the computers realised that the Emperors' chosen warriors were standing in their presence. General Holl got all of his men back to work with a few sharp looks at the senior intelligence officers.
Cries of "Get your heads' down" and "Back to work" split the gentle hum of computers. Holl then summoned his senior intelligence officers over, introducing them to Krul and his men as
"Senior Analyst Rex Cramer and his brother Senior Field Operative Martin Cramer" Both of these two had spent over 20 years in their specialised fields and are the best men that Holl had to offer.
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i hope there'll be much more to come 
I've never actually read any Warhammer fiction, so I haven't got a clue what my 'Characters' would be like in 'real life'. I think I'm gonna develop the marines, so maybe he seems to be an aggressive guy, but actually he's a loveable Chaos Worshipping Traitor ;P I'll work in a background story for him, I think he's gonna appear again. My exams are over, so hopefully there should be relatively regular updates. Could you check out my other stuff and tell me what you think?? Thanks
