Chapter 4: First Blood

Even inside the ruined hab block, the sounds of the battle was almost deafening. The bombed out building occasionally shook from artillery shells hitting elsewhere in the city. With each shake, a small cloud of dust and a handful of rubble fell from the cracked ceiling. It was amazing that the building Sergeant Harris' squad was sneaking through was even standing, considering the amount of munitions that was being leveled in its direction. The squad moved quietly though the ruined hallways and apartments, dashing past the blown out areas, praying that the enemy outside didn't spot them.

Each of the five was utterly amazed that even though they had managed to maneuver right up to the enemy's battle line, they had not encountered a single traitor soldier.

"This is weird," muttered Michael, clutching his autogun tightly.

"'Cause a' the no enemies? Aye, I know what'cha mean…" replied Eva as she finished clearing an empty room.

"Well," added Renald in a quiet voice, "we know they're defiantly upstairs." As he said this, the sound of boots could be heard right above their head.

At the sound, the squad halted and, as one, slowly turned their heads to the ceiling. "Right, well, let's git this done." It was Dan that spoke this time. The squad nodded and continued onwards. A flight of stairs greeted them at the end of the hallway. Eva took point, aiming down her lasgun, taking each step slowly, negotiating carefully around the loose debris. Jacob followed next, then Michael, and Renald and Dan covered the rear.

The second floor was more intact than the first floor, though there were still holes in the wall and a few in the floor. Under the cacophony of the battle raging outside were voices and the sound of heavy weapons. Eva motioned Michael and Renald forward, both who stalked up the stairs and covered the hallway. Slowly, the entire squad made their way into the hallway. Each one of them was on edge. Now they were officially in enemy territory. Ahead, the hallway was mostly empty. Standing in front of a doorway with their back to the squad were three traitors in shoddy, dirty and partially broken PDF armor and gear. The noise of the heavy weapons seemed to drown out any other sound.

Michael, Eva and Renald glanced at the Sergeant, their weapons trained on the three traitors. Dan nodded, and the three soldiers squeezed the triggers. Two "Crack!"s and a "Bang!", and the traitors crumpled to the floor, a round through each of their heads. The squad tensed, and Jacob trained his grenade launcher down the hallway, ready for a response from any heretics that had heard the shots. A slow, tense five seconds passed. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. And nobody came to check out the bodies. Renald secretly thanked those heavy weapons a few rooms down, as the sheer noise had masked their shots.

Eva, Renald and Michael stalked down the hallway, covering each other and clearing the empty rooms on the way. Jacob followed behind, cradling his grenade launcher. The three soldiers stopped in front of a closed door, their guns trained on it. From the sheer noise coming from the room, the heavy weapons were behind there. Eva motioned Jacob over, who positioned himself in front of the closed, wooden door.

Holding the grenade launcher at is waist, he swing it back, then rammed the barrel through the door and pulled the trigger. There was a soft, muffled "Choomp". Jacob immediately withdrew the grenade launcher and swiveled away from the door just as the grenade went off. The explosion blew the door off its hinges, and after the ringing of the blast stopped, the noise of the heavy weapon was no more. Michael was first into the room, autogun trained on the downed shapes. To ensure that neither would get up again, he squeezed the trigger twice, putting a round in each of the heretic's head.

Now that the room was cleared, they took a moment to observe the battle that still raged outside. The heretics were now firmly dug in and everything had devolved to more or less trench warfare and a battle of attrition. The only thing that might even the odds a bit was, maybe, a foolhardy squad that had snuck behind enemy lines and more or less commandeered an enemy heavy weapons emplacement.

And that just happened to be the case.

"Eva, Michael, you take the gun", ordered Dan, pointing at the still intact heavy weapon, which had turned out to be a now slightly beat up Heavy Bolter. Eva got to the gun first and hunkered down.

"Michael, load me." she said, already adjusting the sights on the heavy caliber cannon.

Giving a grunt, Michael hunkered down next to his squad mate and began managing the belts of ammunition. He had really wanted to be the one to handle the gun, but Eva DID have seniority on him, so he figured it would be best to not argue.

"Ready," he said after getting the chains of ammunition in order. Without a confirmation, Eva opened fire on the backs of the traitor soldiers. The noise was deafening, and Michael winced at the "Choom choom choom" that was hitting his ears worse than a heavy metal concert. He glanced over at Eva, who didn't seem affected by the noise and in fact had a bit of a smile on her face. Looking back down at the traitors and heretics that she was opening fire on, Michael could see that the rain of micro rockets from the Bolter emplacement was throwing the dug in troops into a state of chaos. The young man chuckled to himself as he watched the heretics getting blown to bits, imagining what the Imperial officers were thinking when they saw the scene.

"Wait wait wait," said Commissar Fargas to a mid ranked officer, "What's happening again?"

"Madam Commissar," said the man, who was splattered with mud and blood, "It would seem like the heretics are firing on their own forces."

Mina thought about this for a moment, even turning her back on the officer to hide her surprised expression. It wasn't a secret that the forces of Chaos tended to clash on occasion, but something like this? She turned back to the man, who was still standing at attention.

"Come with me." She stepped past him, grabbing a pair of binoculars as she stepped out of the command bunker, officer in tow. From where she stood, she could see the whole battlefield, or at least the section they were defending. "Ok, where is this…disturbance?"

"Over there ma'am," said the officer, pointing to what was once a hotel.

Looking through the binoculars, Mina scanned the facade of the hotel, trying to pinpoint where the gunner's nest was. And then she spotted the muzzle flashes of the Heavy Bolter.

"What in the...?" she muttered as she saw the two Guards who were manning the gun. It was Private McKellon and the new guy, the supposed "time traveler". Seeing Eva commandeering an enemy emplacement and using it on the enemy didn't really surprise her. What did surprise her however was that Michael was assisting. What was even more surprising was that he was still alive. She figured he would have been executed already for cowardice or picked off by the enemy by now.

"Get me a vox to Sergeant Harris' squad."

Naturally, things had been going well in the first few moments of using and abusing the enemy's emplacement. However, all good things come to an end. After a few seconds of getting torn to ribbons, the remainder of the traitor forces realized "Hey, they jacked our gun. We should probably kill them". Lasgun fire lanced up towards the opening from which the Heavy Bolter sat. The angles were all wrong, and Eva and Michael were far enough back that they didn't run the risk of actually getting shot. It was however greatly distracting, what with Michael hunkering down as close to the floor as he could.

"What. The. Hell. Are you. Doing?" asked Eva between shots.

Michael, continuing to feed the cannon, glanced over at the dreadlocked woman. "Well," he said, pushing his glasses back up into place, "I really, REALLY don't like getting shot at, hence the ducking."

Michael could swear he heard a muttered "Pussy..." through the "Choom choom choom"ing of the Heavy Bolter, but paid it no mind. An pussy he may be, but he'd do his best not to get killed by doing stupid stuff.

"Ye-. No ma'am. Yes ma'am. Well, we..."

Michael glanced back in the hallway and could just barely see Sergeant Dan on what he could only assume was a handheld vox set.

"Well to be honest ma'am, it was the new guy's idea." This didn't help at all, as the response was accompanied by a stream of swears and excessive yelling.

"Well ma'am, we're kinda stuck here. So we'll turn these guys back, and assumin' we're still alive, would you mind beratin' us then?" Dan didn't manage to hear the answer however. He was distracted by the frantic tapping on his shoulder by Renald.

"What's up Ren?" he asked, covering the receiving end of the radio.

With wild, frantic eyes, Renald pointed down the hall, away from where they had come. "Can't you hear it?" he asked, an obvious tone of fear in his voice. Dan paused and listened.

Toom. Toom. Toom.

It was the sound of footsteps. HEAVY footsteps. That was never good.

Up from the stairway, walking slowly and deliberately, was a 8-foot tall, armor clad monstrosity. The crimson maroon armor was adorned with blasphemous symbols and trophies from slain enemies. The beast wore no helmet, which showed off its leering, fanged face, complete with slitted blake eyes. A pair of small horns poked out of his forehead, completing the demonic look. The shoulder pad was emblazoned with a snarling demonic face in front of an eight pointed star.

A Words Bearers Chaos Space Marine.

"Oh fucking fuck," muttered Dan, diving back into the room, followed immediately by Jacob and Renald. Eva jerked her head up from her gun and fixed Dan with an almost worried look. "What's up chief?"

"We've got company..." Toom. Toom. Toom.