The bridge was enormous by any standards, nearly fifteen kilometers long and over one hundred meters wide.

It had ten towers and each of them reached nearly a kilometer into the sky. They spiraled into the air, beautiful works of concrete and steel dotted with weapons made for one man to fifteen man teams.

Between the towers ran a thick steel cable meters wide from which sprouted tons of smaller cables that drifted lazily downwards towards the actual bridge below. On either end of the bridge the cable split apart into two smaller ones that ran for nearly two kilometers to points on the ground where they were grounded for nearly a kilometer more into the ground.

The actual surface of the bridge itself was made of individual section that were the entire width of the bridge and twenty meters long. And there were hundreds and hundreds of them, each of them linked together by even more steel cables and special and nearly indestructible rubber layers.

But despite the enormous amount of traffic that this bridge would normally have it was devoid of any vehicles running its length, and, truth be told it would be nearly impossible for any vehicles to make it on in the first place as each end of the bridge was barricaded off with tons of concrete and sandbag walls, towers, and emplacements.

Crawling over all these defenses were soldiers, soulless, heartless soldiers.

They were people once, it was true. They were once men with families, with homes and pets and jobs. And then came the wind. It swept over the plains and through the streets and alley ways of the cities and through the crevices that only the dead know of.

They wore armor that had belonged to them when they served under the Emperor, and now after their heretical conversion to the service of some unholy god the flak jackets and fatigues served them just as well. They had las-rifles that had been tweaked to be amazingly overpowered and some of the larger ones wielded wielded missile launchers and had bandoleers of the rocket ammunition slung around their bodies. Others worked in teams of two and carried heavy stubbers – one man would carry it on his shoulder and the other man would use this as a platform from which to fire.

And one thing was sure – they were not green; they had experience in combat.

That's why when the orbital guns that littered the plains fired they didn't flinch. When the frigate fell out of the sky and the anti-air guns all across the plane began firing they still didn't move, not even to look and see if they were to be crushed under debris.

But when two of the Imperial Aeronautica Landing Craft streaked down towards the hills only several kilometers away – well within the men's strike range – they burst into action. Hundreds of them, large, small, average, they all moved out with their weapons at the ready. The only ones that didn't move were a skeleton team of barely one hundred men who who stood ready manning heavy weapons emplacements, including a rare set of quad-mounted battle cannons that had been stripped from the now defunct Leman Russ tanks that lay dormant just behind the intricate nest of concrete and sandbags.

As a small plume of smoke rose from the hills and the sun crested the nearby horizon another group of the Lost that had been on their way to the bridge spied the smoke and observed from afar with special equipment.

And when they spied the living among one of the visible wrecks they moved in for the kill – and hopefully the following feast.


Drip.

Drip.

Riordan slowly woke up as the circuits in his brain began to fire and he began to remember where he had been before now.

Drip.

But where he was now was a mystery. Was he dead?

Drip.

And what in the name of the Emperor was that damned dripping noise?

Riordan opened his eyes, and as he did so the rest of his mind began functioning and he became very acutely aware of the fact that he was hanging upside down in his seat.

Drip.

He looked to his left and saw more men groggily coming to. He looked to his right and saw other men hanging like limp fish. And then he saw it – the source of the incessant dripping noise.

During the descent a large round had hit the side of the drop ship and in doing so had blown the front off of Riordan's landing craft. It was a miracle that the air vehicle hadn't been gutted by the shot.

This hit had taken the pilots with it, of course, but it had also taken out several guardsmen whose bodies were most likely strewn across the plains. One guardsman, however, hadn't been taken completely and was missing his legs. Already most of his blood had spilled out onto the mangled roof of the landing craft, but there was still some left and every few seconds a drop would build up on the unfortunate bastard's forehead and fall into the puddle with a 'drip'.

Riordan didn't ponder this too long, however, and instead pulled his combat knife from its sheath and began cutting away at his harness. Within a minute the last strap had been cut and Riordan fell to the roof of the landing craft with a thud.

He then put his knife away and stood up on shaky legs and looked around. Out of the men that had been in his craft around ten seemed to be either missing or dead. Of the remaining approximate thirty only ten were conscious, and of these ten only four were well enough to attempt to cut themselves free, which they were doing.

After Riordan had helped these four down and told them to do the same to every one else in the craft he opened his side-arm pouch and made sure that his hellpistol was in working order. He determined that it was and put it back in its pouch and then unslung the hellgun that had, by some miracle of the Emperor, managed to stay with Riordan during the crash and hadn't broken any of the connections to the power pack that Riordan wore.

After he had slung the hellgun back over his shoulder Riordan made his way towards the gaping hole that was where the front of the landing craft should have been and stepped out onto the few feet of dirt that was between the hole and the sheer face of rock in front of it.

He turned to his right and went down the gap a few feet and stepped out into a gently sloped open space that was dimly illuminated by the dim early dawn light.

Behind Riordan's overturned landing craft was the rest of the drop ship which was, thankfully, upright. It seemed that Riordan's particular ship had been accidentally ejected upon impact, and now there was a large and empty hole where the ship was for most of the ride down.

The rest of the drop ship was littered with small holes from smaller weapons and the occasional larger holes from the deadlier bigger guns.

Then Riordan saw that the pilot hadn't been lying when he had said that the front part of the ship had been blown off. Where the front two bays should have been there was dirt and rock.

Riordan turned and continued forwards into the bay where his ship should have been. The inside was huge and empty, and at the other end was the door into the drop ship's main hallway which was hanging open at an odd angle as a result of one of the hinges taking a hit during the ride down.

Of course, the resulting space, which was big enough for Riordan to fit through, also happened to be four feet above the ground.

Riordan stopped to think a moment and then launched himself forwards and up the smooth metal below the door and latched his gloved right hand's fingers in a jagged hole that was the result of more anti-air fire. For a second after he lost his momentum Riordan's feet were sliding on the smooth metal until his right foot found purchase on a patch of smaller bullet holes.

He held himself there for a moment and then launched himself up the rest of the way through the door and fell against the door opposite, which was still closed.

Looking to his left, and then his right, Riordan could barely see in the dim light that the hole in the door provided, but he could make out the near by door that led to the bridge. He was also aware of the fact that it was shut tight.

Riordan stood up on shaky legs and tried the handle on the bridge door.

Nothing.

He pulled out his hellpistol and shot it where the lock mechanism should have been.

Something.

The door swung open now and Riordan looked in on another hall that was lined with mesh fencing that separated the hall from the myriad of engine, electronic, and other parts that were essential for the functioning of the drop ship.

Interestingly enough several rounds seemed to have made their way through the drop ship's thick hide and wreaked havoc with the complex inner workings of the drop ship.

Riordan continued down the hall to the end where he found a ladder that climbed up the drop ship's back hull to the bridge, and in one fluid motion he transitioned from walking to hauling himself up the vertical stairs one rung at a time.

He was stopped, though, when the ladder came to to the ceiling and the accompanying hatch that stood between him and the bridge. He pushed tentatively on the hatch and found that it wasn't locked, saving his hellpistol from another needless firing.

As he pulled himself up onto the deck of the bridge Riordan saw why his landing craft had been ejected – there were two pilots sitting at the bank of controls and four other crew members sitting on two benches on either side of the bridge, and it appeared that a smaller round had entered the bridge and taken the head off of one of the crew members and had then proceeded to hit one of the pilots in the back. When the pilot fell forwards his hand had smashed against a panel of switches and the locks holding several of the landing craft in the drop ship had been released.

Only Riordan's lander seemed to have been ejected, though, because the bay doors had been blown off by the same round that had taken the cockpit.

"Aw shit," someone said, startling Riordan and causing him to turn around.

His eyes were greeted by the crew man who was next to the decapitated one. Instead of panicking, though, the man was calmly wiping the blood off of his face and undoing his harness.

"I guess we crashed, did we then?" the navy puke muttered as he stood up and stretched out. "Last I saw the pilot was yellin' something about losin' one of the engines, and I blacked out around when we started spinning. And, well, hell, looks like Thurbis went and lost his damned head, the poor sap. Now, who're you?"

"I am Lieutenant Colonel Riordan of the Ninth Overwatch Station's Eighty-First Mixed Battalion," Riordan said, the previously memorized words rolling off of his tongue.

Riordan took a stim-pack from one of his vest pockets and injected the gray liquid into the living pilot's neck. Within seconds the pilot began to groan groggily and move slightly.

"Pilot, wake up," Riordan ordered.

"Well, then, what the fuck is all the noise – oh shit!" the pilot gasped as he remembered where he was. "Did we hit yet? The cargo, is it alright?"

"Yea, Willet, we crashed already. Most of the cargo's alright, too," the conscious crewman said. "Now, listen to the Lieutenant Colonel here."

"What? Oh, crap, sir!" the pilot said as he threw off a shaky salute to Riordan.

"At ease, pilot," Riordan said. No time for that now. Now, where are we, where's our other ship, and can this thing fly?"

"Well, sir, according to the system we are on the plains in between two of the 'gently rolling hills' that they're described as. The rest of your men seem to be downed on the other side of this hill – about fifty kilometers from here. And, no, this can't fly, but I'm pretty sure that most of the landing craft can, if they have pilots."

"Well, then, can you reach the rest of my men with your radio?" Riordan asked as he looked out over the rest of the drop ship through the bridge's glass canopy.

"Yea, I can try. Want me to do that?" the pilot asked even as he began to press several buttons and flip a few switches in preparation of radio use.

"Yea, that would be good," Riordan said.

The top of the drop ship seemed to be as battered as Riordan imagined the bottom would be. The small valley that they were in sloped down maybe thirty meters vertically at the most over the course of a kilometer to an open flat area. On either side of their position the hills, these lumps of dirt could even be called that, sloped upwards at a rate of maybe a single meter for every ten.

Where the hills met the flat plains Riordan could see a small stream that ebbed into the endless amount of grass, and moving through that grass was -

Oh shit.

Nearly a thousand men, if not more, were making their way up the water and towards Riordan's drop ship. He could see individuals moving between the rocks at the bottom and could make out the larger individuals and their weapons, even at the kilometer distance.

And his guess was that they weren't friendlies.

This thought was confirmed when the slight light of a muzzle flash could be seen at the bottom, and moments later several rounds pinged off the hull of the drop ship, most likely fired from a heavy stubber.

"Alright, pilot, never mind," Riordan said suddenly. "Open the bay doors for all the landing craft and release the locks, and then tell them to prep their ships. Then come with me – I want you men to come with me in case I need you later."

The pilot turned, looked at Riordan, and said, "Sir, there's no way you're gonna get us to just leave our ship here. The Tech Priest on the station told us to guard these ships with our lives, so that's what we're gonna do."

Riordan was quiet for a moment and then asked, "Well, do you at least have any weapons?"

"Yea, boy do we," the pilot said as he slid back a panel and flipped two switches. On the control banks two lights turned on – one green and one red. "Feth. Edmond, you and the El Cee head out up top and force the other panel open so that the second gun can get out of its hole."

"Alright. Come on, Lieutenant Captain, sir," the conscious crewman, Edmond, said to Riordan while opening a hatch in the roof that the ladder continued to.

Riordan followed the lanky Edmond up the ladder and out onto the top of the drop ship. The morning air was cold, but already the sun was beginning to light up the horizon. Daylight wasn't far away. It was quiet, too, except for the occasional pinging as stray rounds fired from way beyond their maximum effective distance were fired struck the hull.

Up here Riordan could see furthur as well, and he followed an enormous looking river past a towering bridge, across some empty plains, and past an urban monstrosity. From there it disappeared between two cliffs that were insanely tall, taller than most of the buildings in the city.

"Hey, man, quit admiring the view and get over here!" Edmond snapped from where he was kneeling next to an unscathed meter by two meter panel while holding onto a metal bar that was flush with the hull and connected to the panel.

Riordan hurried over and grabbed another bar that was next to the one that Edmond was holding.

"Ready? Good. On three. One. Two. Three," gasped Edmond as he pulled on his bar while Riordan did that same.

At first nothing happened, but a moment later the panel slid slowly backwards into the hull, revealing an enormous gun that Riordan had only ever seen on a Land Raider Crusader.

It was a Hurricane Pattern bolter, an enormous gun that was really six heavy bolters put on one mount.

"...And there's one on the other side of the ship?" Riordan asked as he flexed his fingers.

"Yea," Edmond replied as he led Riordan back to the hatch. "And they're one of the reasons that the Tech Priest told us to guard this thing with our lives. Can you imagine if you're fighting those Warp spawned bastards and all of a sudden they pull one of these out on you?"

Riordan followed Edmond back into the bridge where one of the other crewmen was waking up.

"Hey, you can bring 'er up now," Edmond told the pilot.

"Yea, did that already. All the feeds seem to be in order as well as the ammunition supplies, so we're all set to go," the pilot replied. "Now, help Abnett up. I need you two to fire those guns! Oh, and El Cee, sir?"

"Yes?" Riordan said as he prepared to head back down the ladder.

"I did what you asked. The pilots are just awaiting your command now as you're the ranking army out of, well, anywhere now. Normally members of the Imperial Navy aren't supposed to be under the command of Guard members, but we're all gonna make an exception for you. Emperor be with you, sir."

The pilot did a quick salute.

"Same to you," Riordan said as he headed down the ladder.

As Riordan made his way back down the hall lined with the mesh fencing he heard a ripping noise as one of the Hurricanes fired, the six barrels spewing death at the enemy. Riordan headed out the door with the blasted lock and out the damaged door that led to the empty bay. He was surprised to find all of the men from his landing craft huddled in there.

There were two medics who stood out from the crowd as they went around making sure everyone was alright, and one of the more seasoned soldiers in the group was using one of his buddy's shoulders to steady his las-rifle while he fired at the incoming enemies from the cover of the ship. After a quick headcount Riordan figured out that there were seven men either dead or missing from this group.

Riordan looked at the assembled men, thought a moment, and then called in to the pilots with his radio.

"Pilots," he said causing some of the soldiers nearby to look up at him. "I need to know if any of you have space for thirty three men."

The channel was quiet for a moment and then a pilot replied by saying, "I've got twenty-nine dead guys here that I can dump so as to make room. That work for you?"

"Yea, that works," Riordan replied. "Get your craft over by the ejected lander so that you can pick up the twenty nine. Anyone else have space for the other four?"

"I've got six dead guys to dump – take it or leave it," another pilot said. "I'm coming in behind the other guy now, so you'd better hurry the hell up before they start firing with something bigger than what they're using already."

"Alright boys, let's move it!" a nearby sergeant who had been listening in on the conversation. "Get set up by the doors – we've got pick-up coming this way!"

There was a spattering of 'yes, sir!'s in response as the men assembled just inside the cover provided by the bulkhead. Nearby the whines of several of the landing craft could be heard, and after a few moments one of the dark gray and and green ships zoomed to a halt just outside the hole.

Immediately the guardsmen began to move as the lander's back door began to slowly raise open with a low grinding noise.

"Save the weapons, ammunition, and supplies," Riordan yelled above the din. "And the gear! We won't be going far!"

Several of the guardsmen stopped to look at him, but most of them just went about the orders, removing the gear from their dead comrades and taking their weapons. As the pile of de-geared bodies began to grow the second lander passed over head, turned, and landed so that its door was to the door of the first lander, effectively creating a shelter for the working men.

"Sir, the transports are cleared of the dead and the gear is piled up! We're ready to go!" the sergeant yelled even as the rest of the men strapped themselves into the sometimes bloody seats.

"Alright, I'm going to ride in the other one, sergeant!" Riordan yelled over the noise of the engines and the fire of the Hurricane Patterns.

The moment he stepped over into the inside of the second lander the door began to pull upwards behind him, and the eyes of thirty-eight guardsmen were on him as he made his way to the cockpit where he sat down in the empty and bloody co-pilot's seat that was adorned with a fist-sized hole in the armor plating next to it.

"Alright, pilot, you're the lead ship now!" Riordan said as he searched in vain for straps. "Call in to the drop ship pilot and get the location of the nearby crash site!"

"Echo four, this is echo four-six reporting in for the co-ordinates of the nearby drop ship crash site, over," the pilot said into his radio as his lander lifted into the air, giving Riordan an amazing view of the incoming enemy that was hanging around at the bottom of the slope still despite the minimal amount of cover and the incoming bolter fire.

He watched as one figure dashed out from behind cover bearing an enormous missile launcher. Moments before he was able to fire, however, one of the Hurricane patterns fired a volley that shredded the man's body to pieces and detonated the rocket which visibly threw several nearby soldiers to the ground.

Then just before the lander turned to head towards the co-ordinates that had been provided by the drop ship pilot Riordan's eye was drawn to the bridge where the occasional flashes of light could be seen illuminating the lower parts of the towers while a light haze of smoke began to drift upwards – visible despite being kilometers away.

When he couldn't see the drop ship behind them any longer because of having turned Riordan simply switched one of the screens on the control panel to the rear camera and watched as the last of the seven surviving landers escaped just before a shell detonated on the nearby hillside, sending a cascade of dirt and rock down to the right side of the sad and battered look ship.

Mere seconds later several more shells hit, one well forward of the drop ship, one to the left, and one where the first round had hit.

Then Riordan couldn't tell where the rounds were hitting and his view of the drop ship was lost in the rain of dirt and cloud of dust.

But as the lander reached its cruising altitude of thirty meters above the ground Riordan caught a glimpse of a stream of bolter rounds flying from the dust and taking the lives of several of the men at the bottom.

'No doubt about it,' Riordan thought as he smiled dryly. 'Those navy boys are tough-assed bastards.'


"Well, shit in a tin fuckin' can, you fuckin' fuckers!" the Sergeant yelled as the pilot relayed the news about the destruction of the frigate. "Now you boys had really better fuckin' listen to me 'cause I'm in charge of you sons of bitches!"

The sergeant and the men with him were in bulky air-tight metal suits that protected them from space, hostile atmosphere, and hostile intentions. Each of the men had shotguns cradled in their armored arms and had bandoliers of shells across their chests.

"Now, we need to get further into this hell-hole of a station because if we don't any of the poor fuckers down on the friggin' surface of the Chaos infested piece of shit are never gonna get any help from the boys back at the station! Now, are you with me?!"

Spittle splattered against the bottom part of the Sergeant's visor as he said this, and immediatly the Guardsmen before him raised fists in anticipation of the coming triumph.

It was a common practice among doomed senior soldiers. Get the younger and fresher ones hyped up so that when everything went to hell and they all died they'd at the very least be filled with vigour and hope.

And what was wrong with that?

And then the special boarding version drop ship came into contact with side of the space station, metal claws grasping the side as three special necks moved forwards and began cutting into the hull.

"Are you ready boys?" the Sergeant yelled moments before they would enter.

"Yea!" came the reply.

The whole ship shook as the special charges at the front blew away the cut-out sections of the station's bulk-head, and before the smoke had even cleared the Sergeant was ordering his men into the breach down and along the three man wide sections that connected the gutted drop ship to the station.

He listened as gunshots emenated from inside, and when he went through moments later by wedging his way into one of the lines the Sergeant saw several servitors lying on the ground, twisted and dead.

His men were gathering in an enormous supply area that was devoid of any crates, or anything, really, except for the servitors and the racks that they had been installing by one of the walls.

By now nearly seventy Guardsmen were gathered in the hold while fanning out to cover the three entrances - the two main cargo doors and a small side door.

"Sir, room cleared, sir!" one of the guardsmen said over the radios.

"Roger that. Jackson, you're in charge now until I get back. Stay here and defend this area with everybody else. I want Yves, Liante, and Ragona and your squads with me! We're going deeper in to see what we find! Let's go, ladies!" the Sergeant yelled into his radio as he prepared to open the side door.

Around thirty men assembled behind him with their weapons clutched in cold armored hands, and two of them were working together to use a heavy flamer - one carried the fuel on his back and the other one operated the trigger and the firing mechanism; and everybody gave them a wide berth.

The Sergeant grabbed the lever, pulled it, and shoved the door open, ushering his men through the gap while yelling, "Go go go!"

As the fifteenth Guardsman went through the doorway bursts of shotgun fire could be heard from the other side as well as yelling over the radio such as, "God Emperor have mercy!" "Feth, it's huge!" and "Firefirefire!"

Then the noise of something louder firing could be heard and there were several whumps as what the Sergeant assumed were bolter rounds exploded on the other side of the wall. Just as the last men were going through the door (the flamer team) a round pierced the wall right by the Sergeants head and hit a Guardsman in the shoulder. That guardsman didn't have an arm any more.

The Sergeant headed around the door just in time to get several of his own shots in at the enormous armored figure that was clutching a useless broken bolt pistol at the end of the hallway, his shotgun blasts joining those of twenty-four Guardsmen around him. They finished the steel buffet off with a good topping of flame.

As soon as the flames cleared the Sergeant strode over to the writhing armored figure and stared at the bloodshot eye painted in the middle of an eight-pronged gold star on the wrecked chest armor of the figure.

"Bitch, Sergeant," one of the Guardsmen said over the radio. "It looks like a Black Legion Marine..."

The Sergeant raised his shotgun and blew the head off of the Chaos Marine.

"Not any more he's not."


(Wow. This might take longer to write than I'd thought. For this I actually kinda did a rough map of the entire planet with a more detailed one of the plains and then went to my friend and said, "Hey, this is the situation. Imagine you're in it. What would you do? So, funnily enough he commands roughly eight-hundred Imperial Guardsmen with vehicle support to come (He doesn't know that yet). And, man, some of his strategies for assaulting certain positions... I wonder at times if he's a terrorist.

But, anyways, to all you guys who read this, hope you have a nice summer.

-Robert.)