This is my first submission. I have written various fanfics in the past but none really came to any conclusion. I have been rolling the idea for this story around in my head for a while now. Comments and criticism welcome, feel free to pm me any suggestions too. I will try to update as regularly as possible, but I do have school.
Action does start a little late in the book, sorry about that.
Sev wiped an imaginary speck of dust off of his elbow. Ryn was saying something to him but he couldn't quite catch it over the roar of the valkyries engines. Sev was seventeen and had been in the guard for two months now. Those two months had been spent on a huge troop transport ship with the rest of his regiment. He had gone from being a lanky teenager destined to be a fisherman to a professional soldier. At least in terms of logistics he was a professional soldier. In reality he and all the men of the regiment varied in confidence and all could do with more training.
Sev was a heavy weapons trooper. When he told people this he imagined that inspired images of him heroically sweeping a heavy bolter back and forth, cutting down the enemies of mankind with twenty five millimetre mass reactive shells. If questioned he would then be forced to sheepishly explain how that was not him. In reality he was the guy making sure that the heavy bolter had twenty five millimetre mass reactive shells to fire. He had dark brown hair and freckles across his nose. He was now sitting in a valkyrie with his squad, toting a tripod and two boxes of heavy bolter shells. A bullpup lasgun, favoured by drop troops, was securely strapped to his leg. He recalled his training. Jumping off of wooden platforms onto the metal deck. Hours spent blasting at wooden targets on low frequency. He and the men around him had spent the last two months preparing for this. They had become a tight nit group, able to go through the drills and manoeuvres efficiently and quickly. They may have never seen combat but, in their minds, they were as good as you could get without it.
The men were illuminated by the red glow of the drop light. Their ochre flak armour and grey fatigues were given a sickly glow. The sergeant was staring at his feet and fiddling with a button on his pants. The corporal with his flamethrower, the oldest man in the squad at nearly fifty, was playing with one of the dials on his gas tank. All of their faces were masked by the re-breathers worn by Roland Regiments. The only sign of the human underneath was through heavily tinted green lenses. The re-breather itself was covered with a pale white canvas. The emotionless white mask gave no tell tales of the soldiers thoughts, but Sev was sure that many of them were muttering various litanies and blessing under their breaths, quiet enough that the vox beads would not pick them up.
There was a slam of G-force as suddenly the engines of the valkyrie flipped. The hatch gunners grimaced with knowing experience as the valkyrie dropped at a steep angle towards the landing zone. They were navy and, unlike the Rolanders, had probably done this countless times. There was a final blast of the engines which was replaced by a steady whine as they idled. The light flipped from red to green and the ramp dropped with a bang. The Sergeant visibly perked up.
"Boots First lads!" he shouted. The men echoed the drop troop slogan. They immediately started disembarking, one hand on the man in fronts shoulder, just like training. Ryn and Sev were last in line, and Sev didn't even get a chance to take a look outside before he jumped the metre drop between the hatch and the ground. He hit the ground running. He could see his squad mates around him. They were blurred partly because of the lenses of his mask, but more so because of the dust and dirt being whipped in a frenzy into the air by the valkyries.
After a few more seconds of desperate sprinting the squad had made it out of the worst of the maelstrom of dust. After a moment of hesitation the sergeant called the corporal to do a sound off. Every man was accounted for. They all knew what to do. The orders had been given before they had left orbit. The men slid into a line and moved to the edge of the clearing, guns levelled. Sev could now see that they were in a plaza. Tall buildings rose around them and behind. Where the majority of the valkyries were now leaving a tall monument stood, a giant man holding up an imperial eagle depicted in brass. A dark wrought iron railing separated the plaza from a road and the squad moved up to the fence and deployed.
Sev went through the motions of deploying the heavy bolter. He spun the tripod off his back. It got caught for an instant before he freed it from a loose strap and pushed out the leg. As soon as it was down he set to work opening the ammunition box. As he lifted the buckles there was a crunch as Ryn slid the heavy bolter into place. By the time Sev had placed the box and got the belt ready Ryn had the chamber opened, waiting for the belt. Only once everything was set did Sev allow himself to take in his surroundings.
What were probably hab or office blocks surrounded the plaza. Sev couldn't tell which; he had never seen never mind been in a city before. A wide road ran around the plaza, separating it from the buildings. Trucks sat abandoned in the road way, doors hanging open and glass broken. Off in the distance smoke stacks could be seen through the haze. The buildings were very plain, being all rockcrete and iron. Sev couldn't imagine living in such a bland looking place but knew that life was like that on many imperial worlds and was in fact luxurious compared to others.
The last of the valkyries were disappearing into the distance and the entire company had finished forming the perimeter around the plaza. This was a mining city, dedicated to the retrieval and processing of ores from the nearby mountains. Contact had been lost three months ago and the imperial guard had finally arrived. While the majority of the imperial elements would be pushing in from the south, three companies of the Roland 7th Drop Regiment were to insert and disrupt the enemy, whomever they be, and make the main forces job easier. It all sounded a bit vague to Sev, and he had a nasty feeling that his first drop would be his last.
Sev sensed some movement behind him and looked to see the vox operator moving over to the sergeant. They conversed briefly and the sergeant nodded. He held up his hand and then motioned in a forward action twice. A second later and the heavy bolter was packed back up. There was a burst of vox chatter and the entire company moved down the western most road, towards the smoke stacks. Minutes later and the company was out of sight. A scrap of waste drifted across the plaza lazily in the gentle breeze.
The buildings seemed to close in over head. They had been marching down the wide industrial rode for five minutes now and there was no sign of the enemy. A poster depicting a stoic looking guardsman running through a xenos with his bayonet and the words "Fight for the Emperor, join the guard!" in huge red letters flapped in the breeze that ran through the desolate streets. A dust bin was toppled next to the poster and a rats tail disappeared in as Sevs squad passed by. They were close to the rear of the column and Sev was trying to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He itched his head, right beneath where the imperial eagle sat on the ochre stahlhelm style helmet. Everyone was on a razor edge.
Suddenly there was a call from a squad a little up ahead. He looked to where an arm was pointing just in time to see what looked like a twinkle of light disappearing. The column kept moving but the platoon's lieutenant came running back.
"Charlie squad, the major wants you to check the building and report in" the lieutenant barked, the order slightly muffled by the rebreather.
It struck Sev that Charlie was their squad. The sergeant nodded and with a wave of his hand the squad broke off from the column, which continued marching. The squad formed up around the entrance of the building in question as they had in training. Sev clipped the box magazine onto his waist and slid his lasgun off his shoulder. The heavy bolter would probably be next to useless in the confines of the building. Ryn did not have the luxury of being able to wield his lasgun carrying the heavy bolter and all, and it was Sev's job as loader to cover Ryn. The men had bullpup laguns at ready as the corporal kicked in the door. The squad filed in with Sev and Ryn towards the back with the flame thrower at the front and a squad mate behind them.
They were in a hallway that led broke of into a T, two ends forming a lateral hallway and the long end leading to a stairwell that presumably formed an identical arrangement on the other three floors. The flash of light, whatever it was, had been in a balcony of the fourth floor. The squad ignored the hallway and proceeded cautiously up the stairs. Once on the top floor they began moving down the hallway. The movement was awkward, with each squad member covering another, but Sev noted it was coming along nicely since training. When they got to the room in question they went through the same breaching action as before with the corporal kicking in the door and the flamethrower coming through.
The room they were in looked like a hab. It was unsurprisingly as dismal as the exterior of the building. Light came through the window that led to the balcony, picking up the dust that drifted lazily down. The room had plaster walls that looked grimy. A double bed sat in one corner. There were some basic furnishings; a dresser, table and chairs, a wardrobe. A tiny kitchen was situated in a semi closed off area of the room. A greasy oven and counter could be seen. There was nothing out on the balcony aside from a piece of paper that was held against the bars of the railing by the wind. The squad leader stepped out. He looked around with confusion and then sniffed the air.
"Smells like ozone" he muttered and then stepped back in. He waved the vox operator over and took the vox horn. After relaying what little there was to be told to the lieutenant he gave the vox back. Five minutes later they were back out of the building, taking just as much precaution leaving as entering. The company had long disappeared out of sight but the sergeant knew where they were headed.
It was strange. Before, marching with the column, there had been a sense of fear. But at least there was over a hundred and fifty armed men around. Now there were nine and everyone was silent and apprehensive. They moved at a decent paste past the empty rockcrete buildings and occasional derelict truck. They paused briefly around lunch time to rest and eat.
Sev slung his lasgun off his shoulder and dropped his bag, the tripod and the ammunition. The squad sat up against an overturned truck and prepared to eat. They pulled masks down over their necks and tucked into rations and canteens. The vox operator, who had been at the back of the squad, had been throwing looks over his shoulder the last ten minutes. It was after he finished his MRE that he leaned over leaned over as if to say something to Sev but was interrupted by a loud crack. Not the crack that lasguns made as they ionized photons. It was a much deeper sound, that of a propellant weapon. Every man in the squad leapt for the cover of the nearest hab. Every man except for one.