874945:M42 Troop transport Impervious
(Corporal Joelle Youngblood was in the shooting range doing practise drills with her squad mates on thier way to the warzone on Capula XIV.)
Snap-Crack, a las round hit the target dummy squarly in the chest 50 meters away, Sergeant York was walking behind the squad bellowing orders to his troopers who were kneeling in a neat line behind the practice barricade, small low yeild lasers were firing back from the dummies on a random pattern to simulate a battlefield
The trooper next to joelle froze for a half second then collapsed to the ground a small red mark just under his left eye, she paid him no mind and aimed through the sights of her las gun again, Snap-Crack her lasgun slammed into her padded shoulder and another target dummy colapsed to the ground.
Sergeant York bent over the prone trooper and proceded to yell at him at the top of his lungs. What in the name of the Emperor are you doing soldier?
Sir, I was hit in the face Sir, the unfortunate trooper managed to squeek out through his frozen lips.
I can see that soldier! the sergeant yelled, my question was Why in the name of all thats holy didnt you keep your eyes on the target on DUCK!!
Sir, I guess I forgot Sir!
with that the Sergeant pointed a small data pad at the helpless trooper and released him from his frozen state.
You owe me 100 pushups, NOW!
The poor trooper rolled onto his stomach and started counting as he pushed himself up from the floor.
Snap-Crack Joelle's lasgun pounded into her shoulder once again and another dummy dropped to the floor. Reloading she yelled and ducked behind the barricade exchanging her spent practice clip for a fresh one, Rising above the Barricade once again she was greated with a sharp punch to the temple as a dummy moved into close combat range and connected with the flesh just under her helmet lip, the last thing she remembered before she blacked out was was seeing Sergeant York bending over her his face bright red and spittle comming out of his mouth as he proceded to yell at yet another failed training excersize.
* * *
Opening her eyes Joelle looked around at the stark white walls and curtains surrounding her, blinking in confusion it took a few moments for her to realize she was in the regiments med bay, not hearing anything she slowly sat up holding her pounding head in her hands and closing her eyes against the pain.
Blinking back tears she slowly stands up and opens the curtains, looking around she notices that there are many wounded and dying men and women laying everywhere, she spots Sergeant York by the door a massive piece of armor plating imbeded in his chest, his head lolling lazily as the ground shook. Her pain fogged brain finally begins to notice the sound of claxons and explosions in the back ground. slowly comming to her senses she left the med bay and grabbed a nearby lasgun that was left on the rumbling deck, checking its charge she started off towards the sound of battle.
Halfway to the corridor a giant hole appeared in the wall to her left, her mind regestered the hole miliseconds before the concussion hit her like Chimera crashing through a rockcrete wall, shaking her head and looking up her body froze in shear terror Huge armored figures came through the hole and began butchering her wounded comrades. seeing everything in slow motion the enemies were wearing red armor with spikes everywhere, the hornes comming out of their helmets looked like they were grone from the ceremite, the bolters looked old with belts of ammunition dangling from the bottoms and sides, one of the warriors tured and fired a bolt round in her direction, as it came screaming towards her she could see the rifling on the shot and the ugly inhuman face as it passed by her head and exploding the chest of the trooper who she didnt know was standing behind her.
Drenched in the mans blood and bone fragments from the exploding projectile everything seemed to speed up again, Corporal Joelle ran to the nearest corridor and went through a bolt round punching through the armored bulkhead were her head was a moment before and detonating on the far side.
Stumbling through the blinding smoke and darkness Joelle found a small hatch which opens, wearily peaking through she discovers the very spartan interior of an escape pod climbing inside and shutting the door behind hoping that none of the chaos marines saw her enter, sitting down quietly she takes stock of her situation, if the chaos marines take the ship its only a matter of time before they find her and kill her, if her comrades manage to repel the assault then the company commisar would execute her for cowardice and desertion, perhaps they will wipe each other out she begins to think when a massive rumble makes its way through the ship.
Joelle is thrown to the roof of the escape pod as a massive explosion tears the transport ship in half, protected from the cold void of space by the escape pod the young trooper floats weightlessly around the stark interior her blood dripping from the long gash in her arm caused from impacting one of the structural supports on the inside of the pod.
Joelle wakes up to floating around the cramped interior instantly wishing she had to forsight to strap herself in, she locates the blinking control panel and slowly makes her way over to the command chair and straps herself in. Looking around she notices a small book labeled "Instructions" bolted to the wall next to the panel, opening the book gingerly with her injured arm she laughs quietly, apparently the adaptes mechanicus priests had a sense of humor when they designed the escape pod because all that was in the book was a big red button that said "push"
Pushing the button turned on the artificial gravity and blood fell from the air where it had been floating to stick to the decking and some of the chairs, one particularly large glob landed on her shoulder and stuck fast, the lights on the panel came on and told her the date, apparently it had been a little over two weeks since her training accident, looking at the screen again which was showing the space around the escape pod she was amazed at the destruction that the ship she was on had suffered, it looked like the core had gone nova and the twisted remains of the ship looked partially melted.
After studying the display for a short time she selected the nerest inhabitable planet to try and land on, the pods machine spirit kicked in and launched her from the remains of the ship and after about on hour of correcting she was slammed back into her seat as the main thruster fired and went dead, the cronometer read 8 days 17 hours to arrival, having nothing else to do Joelle took out the pods first med kit and wrapped her injured arm in a steril pack and took some anti concussion medications that were in the pack. laying down to sleep on the uncomfortable deck she partially wished she hadnt turned the gravity on, at least she would be more comfortable while she slept.
* * *
8 Days later with her arm almost healed but leaving an ugly scar Joelle was once again sitting at the controls, the screen was blinking a warning "no signs of life detected, continue with landing procedure. Yes? No?" looking the the overly simplified star chart and the next planet being well over a year away Joelle pushed the yes button, Immediatly the pod starts to drop into the upper atmosphere.
Praying to the Immortal Emperor the the explosion didnt damage the pods shield array all she could do was hold on as the pod rocked and jerked with the atmospheric turbulance. as the pods braking thruster fired Joelle's vision turns gray and her breathing becomes shallow as her body is pressed into the seat by the gravitational forces of the planet and the pods deceleration.
Slaming into the ground at nearly 80 Kilometers per hour the impact jars her body roughly but is dampened by the soft earth of the crater that the pod created. checking the auspex for atmospheric conditions Joelle cracks the hatch open and steps out to a war torn wasteland. looking around at the scattered equipement and wrecked vehicles, a stech wafts over her and she violently retches at her feet, walking over to the bloated corpse of a guardsman she noticed the unit patch on his flack armor, "Voltaran 432nd 6th platoon 2nd company" walking through the battlefield she wonders to herself why someone hadnt burried the dead.
3 hours after landing she had her answer, as she saw the wreck of a missive starship that had plowed a trough into the earth a Kilometer wide and over 60 kilometers long, looking at the sky she began to understand why no life was present on the planet, it had suffered an extermanatus at the hands of the imperial fleet.
having no direction and few supplies she decided to try and find the imperial command post. looking through the bloated bodies of the dead she discovered a working data pad with a map and coordinates. setting the homing becon on the closest imperial controlled structure at least at the time that the unfortunate trooper was deployed she bagan to walk west south west, as night began to fall she could see the ruins of the imperial fortifications, they were situated on top of a small rise with an impressive feild of fire in all directions, as she got closer she saw more bloated bodies, looking at the corpses and seeing the split grotesque skin and the chaotic symbols of the traitor fenatics made her want to be sick all over again. as night fell she entered the wrecked building of the imperial post.
Knowing she would find no survivors here she bravely opened the rusted, bent doors of the post and found a discarded canteen and a commisarial cape as well as some rations and a las pistol, she felt a little more confident in her ability to survive this nightmare that had become her life.
"have the adventure of a lifetime" the holo vids said, "travel the galaxy" they said, "serve the emperor proudly and come home a Hero" they said. "in the Imperial guard all kinds of people are needed, we have thousands of positions available everything from custodian to commander, join today and jump start your career" "Always wanted to be a pilot? well in the Imperial Navy you can pilot anything from a lighting strike fighter to an Emperor Class Battleship"
Of course they didnt tell you that the odds of surviving your first deployment were zero, zilch, and none! Joelle grumbled under her breath as she prepared to make camp for the night in the ruins of the abandoned post.
The next morning a drizling rain was at a slight angle over the war torn ground, all around her were the corpses of dead men, women and chaos zelots. A slight breeze was blowing making the cloying scent of torn earth and rotting flesh more bearable. As she prepared to leave she threw her commisiarial cloak over her shoulders for some added warmth and protection from the rain, resolving to find some sort of hive city on the cursed planet she looked at her data pad and grimaced, 473 kilometers to the nearest place that might have some sort of ground transport to make her travel a little easier. with a sigh she picked up her things and stuffed them into the med pack and slung it over her shoulder.
Stepping out into the rain and looking up she noticed some lightning in the distance, not wanting to be stuck on top of a hill in a thunder storm she began walking in the direction the data pad indicated.
Making her way through the torn earth and wreckage of war was tough going, after three hours she had finally made it to what appeared to be some sort of track or path that someone had made for shuttling men and supplies to the front. it was remarkably easy to travel on the road as long as she stayed away from the craters and wrecks, but the stench of deacay and burned flesh was ever present making her gag more then once in her short trip.
looking at the data pad and seeing it was near sunset she decided to make camp in the burned out hulk of a Chimera troop transport, getting inside wasnt a problem as the rear hatch had been blown open by the force of the explosion that had destroyed the vehicle. with a satasfied nod she was glad that the men who had died inside were vaporised and she wouldnt have to clean the place before she went to sleep.
Dragging a piece of flack board over she covered the entrance to her shelter as best she could to shelter her from the rain she took of her cloak and hung it up on one of the jagged metal spars that were hanging from the roof to let it dry as she slept, still wearing her now dirty hospital smock it was rather chilly in the burned vehicle and she began to look for something that would insulate her from the cold metal.
after a few minutes of searching she found a partially intact survival kit which included an imune booster to help her fight off the radiation of the nukes used on the planet, a partially burnt emergency blanket, and a couple of chem logs for a small survival fire each one lasting 6 hours, checking to make sure she had enough ventilation in the vahicle and clearing the entrance hole she now had very slight breeze blowing through her shelter. lighting on of the chem logs it burned fitfully at first them took the chill out of the surrounding air, and acrid smoke drifted lazily upward to be carried away by the slight breeze. Moving her cloak closer to the small fire to dry faster she set the blanked out and hugged her knees to her chest and cried quietly.
She started thinking about her family back on Ryzan III and how they must be taking the news of their yougest daughters apparent death, she wondered what the recruiting commisar would tell her parents... was she a hero? did she die bravely in the service of the Emperor? or did they get the news of her death through a cowardly letter from the adminastratum?
Wishing nothing more then to be back home in a warm bed listening to her older brother and father bickering about the political aftermath of the Lord Governors untimely death she fell into a fitfull sleep.
Waking up some time later to the sound of thunder and lightning she guessed she had slept about two hours by the rate the chem log had burned, looking out across the crater filled landscape she was blinded by a lightning stirke then promptly defened by the loud boom created by the sundering of the air around it. stepping back to her fitful fire she noticed a small pack sitting under the bench of the Chimera that had remained unscathed by the blast, pulling it out and opening it she found a small black leather bound book with the holy emperor's scriptures inside its worn cover, a picture of a cute ebony woman holding an even darking looking child, turning the picture over she tried to read the words on the back but they were in a language she didnt know.
Setting the picture aside she kept looking through the pack and found a gas mask stuffed into the top of the pack followed by an extra shirt and trousers which she set aside, then she found a multi tool and enough field rations for a week, at least i wont go hungry she thought to herself. In the front pouch she found a multi size wrench and some wire cutters, the side pouch contained a portable vox set with a dead battery and the other side contained a full canteen with something that smelled of alcohol.
Casually Joelle discarded the battery and put the items back, leaving the clothes out and pulling some wire out of the wall of the chimera she put the clothes on and tied them up with her makeshift belt.
Feeling a little warmer she ate some rations consisting of powdered protein and dried vegetables and taking a few sips of the alcohol she went back to bed to the sound of thunder and the flashes of lightning.
Waking the next morning she looked outside to discover that it was still raining but the lightning had moved off towards the mountains in the far distance. gathering her things and putting on her cloak she stepped out into the rain once more and kept walking along the road. several hours later she came to the scene of a great slaughter of the imperial forces that were caught in a shallow bowl, looking down into the cold partially filled depression she noticed some figures wearing red ceramite armor curiosity overcame her judgement and she stepped into the bowl.
Aproaching the figure which was partly covered with dead imperial guardsmen she took a closer look at the monster, the armor was mostly red with black trim, skull motifs were emblazoned onto the armor and there were spikes everywhere, planting her foot on the dead man laying over the things neck and chest she shoved him off, even through the dried blood and guts she could see the 8 pointed star proudly emblazoned on the things chest, staring at it was making her quezy so she looked at the things head, the helmet was open and the horribly scarred and mutated face looked blankly up into the sky, grimacing she looked at the horn growing out of the center of the things helmet, looking at the corpse she realized that this thing was over 8 feet tall and armored like a space marine.
Cursing loudly at the dead comrade of the enemies that had killed her friends and destroyed the ship she was on she quickly left the depression and continued on her way towards the small town.
walking another few hours she began to notice that the amount of death around her was becoming less frequent and surmized that she was nearing the edge of the battlefield, guessing that she had crossed roughly 60 kilometers in the last two days she figured it would take her about 2 more weeks to get to the small most likely deserted and destroyed town, with nowhere better to go to she trudged onward, the road becoming easier to walk on with some sickly shrubs growing along the side.
Following the road was rather easy, it was a well maintained road with only a few ruts from the passage of the Emperor's war machines that had never retured. Cursing her fate once again as the rain started comming down she bagan to look for a place to camp, with no vehicles in sight on the road ahead of her and the closest one being several hours behind her and only some low sickly shrubs as the only shelter in sight she sighed, selecting the largest of the shrubs she walked over to it and began to clear the bottom, snapping of branches and twigs as best she could with the few supplies she had, she began placing the largest of these on top of the shrub for some added protection from the rain that was falling heavily now. Crawling inside she huddled under her cloak feeling miserable and cold. Deciding that the limited branches she had put on top were not enough she crawled out of her pathetic shelter to gather some more branches. walking over to the nearest shrub she started breaking the largest branches off, it was rather easy as most of them were hollow and the ones that wernt had a sponge filling that smelled sickly sweet, after gathering branches from several of the nearby shrubs and depositing them next to her shelter she began to stratigacally place the bushiest branches on the bottom and the rest on the top. selecting the dryest looking branches for a fire she placed those inside to keep them somewhat dry.
After piling a large amount of branches on the top of her shelter and reducing the amount of water getting inside to a few drips she squeezed inside and began to place the drier of the branches in the entrance of her small cave, pulling out a chem log and using the igniter to create a spark she tried to start some tinder made up of dry grass and bark, taking about 20 min the the tinder finally caught the spark and began smoking, in a few more minutes she had a small fire going in front of her with the sweet smelling smoke drifting up through the mass of branches heaped on top, warming her hand and feeling a little better despite her present condition she promptly fell asleep.
With a feeling of weightlessness she floated down a deserted street her feet comming close but not quite touching the ground, she tried to look around but discovered that her head was in a fixed position, only being able to look around with her eyes she studied the buildings passing by her. Looking at the cracked and fractured rockcrete walls and seeing the indentations of las and solid rounds ringing almost every window it looked like a battle was fought here, most of the building had colapsed in on themselves with some wooden beams sticking out like ribs, many of them blackened and chared, the deeper into the city she floated the worse the destruction became, at first it was hardly noticable with a building here and there being mostly rubble, it slowly became most of the building being mostly rubble then a few of those beind completly leveled with only a few stone blocks where the building had stood, watching where her feet were floating she bagan to notice other detritus of was, a discarded ration pack here a combat knife there, a helmet wedged between two fallen blocks a smear of crimson where someone had pulled a wounded comrade to cover.
floating along for what seemed like hours with the ground beneath her changing from paved streets and ruined building to broken earth and muddy pools, it almost looked like she was leaving the city, a whisp of unfelt wind parted the fog and she was looking at the walls of a hive city, the Adamantium and ceramite walls streaching to the horizon on the left and right and towering above her floating form to a height of 1/2 kilometer, the walls were impressive and fearfull, knowing that those walls contained heavy stubber nests, rocket tubes, and anti aircraft batteries as well as morter pits and sniper holes she began to feel a sense of dread as she slowly approached the walls, seing more detritus of war here then anywhere else in the city, there were broken bunkers hastily repaired just to be shattered again and again, the ceramite armor of chaos marines were scattered in places and the lighter flack armor and robes of cultests were scattered everywhere, most of them pressed into the earth by the billions of feet that had trod on the corpses of the dead in the attacks on the walls. as she floated closer to the defenses the armor scattered on the ground became thicker until she was floating above a solid mass of shattered armor and broken bone, the flesh having long since rotted away, looking up at the pristine grey and black walls of the city she bagan to notice massive craters blown into the hardened walls from seige weapons that the forces of chaos had employed.
Floating still further along the ground she looked down and noticed that she was floating above a light tank or troop transport that had been destroyed, seeing the armor fragments piled high against the sides of the vehicle and guessing that many millions of chaos worshipers had died and that the vehicle had most likely ran over the corpses in an attempt to assault the walls. floating still closer she started to notice main battle tanks of the chaos forces and lighter armored tanks of the traitor legions, all having been destroyed by some sort of artillery fire and anti tank weapons from the high walls, seeing that most of these tanks were burried under mounds of broken personel body armor and that the imperial forces stationed here had been most effective in destroying the enemy forces her heart began to lift at the thought that the traitor forces had failed to capture this unknown world that she was traveling in her dream.
Comming still closer to the walls and seeing the broken remains of the lighter seige vehicles like Leman Russ Demolishers, and vanquisher seige tanks, she was able to recognize these vehicles from the basic training she had before she deployed, what she was unable to recognize were the four legged spiky vehicles that were sporting two massive claws and a massive main battle cannon comming out of what appeared to be its mouth, she was also unable to place some of the large six legged walkers that were carying multiple seige cannons and cutting lasers, as she aproached the base of the walls she saw massive eight legged walkers with steam powered battering rams, the ram itself was twice as big as a leman russ tank and the damage it had caused to the base of the wall was horrendis, massive holes had appeared where the rams had managed to get into contact with the wall, molten debries and rockcrete that had been turned into glass from the amount heat that the melta blasts had produced, each hole in the base of the wall was large enough for an imperial lander fly into and have room to manouver, small holes filled the cavity in what Joelle assumed were passage ways for shuttling troops and supplies to the needed locations.
She kept floating closer to the wall and started getting very uncomfortable at the thought of slamming into its chipped surface, being within arms length of the the wall she tried to stick her hand out to stop herself she started to panic when her arm remained at her side, before the panic sould set in however she was passing through the outer layers of the heavily armored wall, swiftly passing through the outer layers into the the core of the structure moving swiftly by corridors that were blackened with soot and blown glow bulbs, las guns and flamers were dropped from the lifeless hands of the skeletons that littered the halls, both imperial and cultists alike, they diferences were easy to spot as the imperial forces wore tan and grey flak armor with grey helmets, and the cultists mostly wore purple robes with bits of flak armor when they found a piece that was still usable, there were more cultists bodies in the halls then imperial and once again her heart began to lift.
Expecting to see intact buildings and clear streets when she came out of the other side of the wall, she was dissapointed to find as soon as she exited the walls that the devistation continued, it was clear that the traitor legions tanks could not make it through the walls and that the cultists and chaos marines had assaulted the hive city on foot. the cultists had died by the millions there skeleton's were piled deep from the foot of the walls mixed in were the bodies of chaos maries these were infrequent and she guessed that they had used the cultists as a living shield so they could get close to the defenders. as her body floated towards the hastily barricaded streets she noticed the fallen defenders, included in the mix were loyalist marines, they were wearing dark green armor with black trim, the armor looked pristine and new except for the head sized hole punched through the imperial eagle emblazoned on his chest, next to the fallen marine were the corpses of imperial guardsman, these men wore different uniforms then the others, they had on white and light grey fatigues, with white flak armor and fur caps, they carried ancient looking las rifles with wooden stocks, the unit patch on on mans shoulder said they belonged to the Hell's Reach 3rd armored company regiment, she quickly found out what happened to their Chimera troop transport as she floated by the wrecked vehicle that was tilted on its side with its belly blown out from under it.
Floating down the street with blown out windows and open doors staring at her acusingly, dead imperial and chaos forces littering the ground under her. Her heart began to race as a sound reached her a quiet thump of a drum was felt more then heard, her body was pulled forward faster now the ground swiftly passing under her feet as more and more drums were felt, she began to hear them now, there was no rythm to the beats it was completly chaotic, traveling closer the the source the drum beats were accented by shrill screeches and screams, rounding corner she was looking at the main hive tower, the center of government and power for the entire city, seeing that the walls of the spire were decorated with the corpses of the defenders and feeling bile rise in her throat she was powerless to stop herself from floating forward. feeling her hand begin to burn but unable to do anything about it she felt that she was traveling toward her death, entering the spire through on of the main entrances which was littered with the corpses of fallen traitors and loyalist forces, it became obvious that the defenders had made a last stand here and lost. passing through blacked corridors and partially melted walls to finally enter into a large chamber, the place was filled to bursting with chanting cultists, in the center of the room were three space marines, thier power armor having been removed from their massive frames and thier wrists and feet having been nailed to massive wooden beams that could support a main battle tank, they were hanging with their head down and were completly naked, sickening insignia had been carved into there flesh that made her want to vomit and the pain in her hand was becoming unbearable and yet she was unable to stop herself from watching the ritual.
A massive form in spiky red and black armor stepped forward with a wicked looking dagger in his hand and began carving an eight pointed star in middle mans chest, gritting his teath to keep crom crying out in pain as the torturer completed the symbol the mands flesh began to bubble and puss ran from his wounds, not wanting to see anymore she tried to wake herself up from this nightmare.
Opening her eyes slowly she wondered briefly why the roof of her shelter looked like it was on fire, looking at her hand which had begun to blister with the heat she came completly awake to the realization of her own stupidity. Scrabling quickly out of her shelter and scalding her knees on the coals of her fire she quickly realized that she had left her things in the back, reaching back inside she was rewarded with another burn to her already damaged hand but was able to grab her pack and pull it out, backing away from the burning bush she quickly walked to a puddle and pushed her damaged hand under the surface. the cool water helped the pain immediatly but it quickly returned, she had to keep moving her hand in the water to keep the pain bearable. rifling through her pack she located the med kit and took out the burn spray, drying her hand on her cloak she quickly sprayed her hand and the pain was immediatly gone but the blisters would remain for awhile, at least the rain had stopped she thought to herself and she put her things back in her pack and started once again walking down the road.