Well, I hope you enjoy this little bit of fiction. Please leave a review, I will continue if I get some good ones.
The Imperial Guardsman's body dropped to the ground with a wet thump, a fist-sized hole punched through his chest. Sergeant Jrolen sheathed his sword and slid a new magazine into his bolt pistol. "Replace your ammo whenever you have the chance. That one round missing from the clip could be the lack that kills you." he had been taught as a Scout Marine, all those millennia ago. Sergeant Jrolen had followed that rule for ten thousand years, and he had never regretted it.
"Karoh, Plekkon, aside the door. Getol, in behind that rubble. Everyone else, cover me. A shot down the hall the second I'm through." Karoh and Plekkon put their backs to the wall, bolters pointing up, eyes on the door the dead Guardsman had been watching. Getol hefted himself over a pile of rubble, training his plasma gun on the door from the cover. The rest of the Iron Warriors, Brothers Dernen, Aalx, Feddorl, and Havoc-Brother Earlkas, missile launcher slung across his back, got on one knee, bolters aimed at the doorway.
Jrolen pulled out his sword, cocked his pistol, and kicked the door in. The Iron Warrior dove through the hatch, landing on his stomach. Instantly four silenced bolters coughed and four rounds shot over the Sergeant's head. Three guardsmen dropped to the floor. Two others charged around the corner, saw the Marines, and turned to yell for help.
They never got the chance. Karoh and Plekkon leaned around the doorway and shot both of them between the shoulder blades before they could utter a word. Jrolen got to his feet. He nodded to his squad and they carefully stepped forward. Aalx stepped through the doorway to the next room. Instantly two shotgun blasts rang out and buckshot pinged against Aalx's armor. He didn't even flinch, instead drawing his knife and hurling it into the shoulder of the first guardsman. He whirled and punched the second in the face as he tried to reload his shotgun. Something cracked. It wasn't Aalx's fist. The guardsman slumped to the floor.
The rest of the Iron Warriors, keeping low, carefully stepped through the doorway. No more targets were present. A heavy bolter was aimed through the window towards the street below. Lasguns lay against a wall, a polishing rag and a bayonet lay forgotten on a chair. Jrolen counted the items and bodies. Five guardsmen killed in the first room. All had been armed. Two more killed in the doorway. No spare parts or ammunition for shotguns were present. And all three lasguns on the wall were bayoneted. There was no lasgun for the blade on the chair.
Jrolen leapt forward and swung his blade at the small nook in the wall. A guardsman's yell was cut off as he fell, blood spurting from his neck. Jrolen drove the blade home, piercing the soldier's heart. From his hands fell a frag grenade, its pin not removed. Dernen stepped forward, took the grenade, and slid it into his belt.
The room secure, the squad turned to the business at hand. Earlkas unslung his missile launcher, slotting a missile in the top and adjusting the tube. Plekkon slotted a scope into place on his bolter and sighted it. The rest of the squad slid up against the walls, carefully peering around them to the street below. Jrolen didn't like what he saw. The road leading up to the Dragontail River Bridge was mined, covered in tank traps, and strung with razor wire in half a dozen places. Heavy bolters looked down from the opposite windows, and snipers trained long-lasrifles on the far end of the street. Jrolen could see the yellow armor of Imperial Fists patrolling the lower floors and guarding the doorways.
The bridge itself was defended by a full platoon of Imperial Guard. Five full squads at the very least, manning sandbags, anti-tank emplacements, and mounted heavy stubbers. Parked in front of the bridge was a Leman Russ Demolisher. More Imperial Fists were stationed here, and a squad of Terminator Marines were positioned in gaps between the sandbags.
"This ought to be fun." Voxed Feddorl. "Yes, being annihilated by a Demolisher cannon always makes my day." Replied Aalx. "Quiet," growled Jrolen. "Earlkas, target that Leman Russ. Karoh, man the heavy bolter." The Havoc Marine slid the targeting reticule over his eye and Karoh racked a round into the mounted gun's chamber. Jrolen got on the vox. "This is Kill-team to base, repeat, Kill-team to base. Come in, base." "Base here, Kill-team." Acknowledged the voice of Lieutenant Samartak. "Recognition code?" "The death of one man is a tragedy," said Jrolen. "The death of thousands is a statistic."
"Recognition code confirmed. What is your status, Kill-team?" "All targets neutralized. We have at least a platoon guarding the bridge. AT emplacements, mounted stubbers, Terminators at the front." Voxed Jrolen. "A Demolisher at the bridge itself. Snipers in the left building, two heavy bolters, Marines on the bottom floor, I'd say two squads. The approach is mined and covered in tank traps." He didn't bother mentioning the razor wire, because Chaos Space Marines could stride right through it as though it as if it were string. "They've got their act together this time." Muttered the Lieutenant. "Right. Get me the best range you can for artillery."
Jrolen turned to Plekkon, who was looking through his scope at the hilltop emplacement across the river, which the Traitor Legionnaires knew contained the Imperial artillery. "What's the approximate range? Five thousand, you think?" "I'd say six thousand, and subtract two hundred." Replied Plekkon, not lowering the bolter or looking at Jrolen. "The hills cut off sharply, it'll be easy to overshoot." Jrolen nodded and got back on the vox. "Fifty-eight hundred, straight from my rangefinder. Best guess you'll get from this squad, my lord." Samartak shouted to a Marine on his end. "Aim the artillery to fifty-eight hundred! Four shots and then come in blazing! Good work, Sergeant. Wait for the first volley to fire and then give them everything you've got. Base out."
Jrolen switched to the squad frequency. "Wait for the artillery's first salvo, then open fire." The squad nodded and cocked their bolters. Getol powered up his plasma gun, its glowing red arsenal humming and boiling. A minute passed. Two. Three. Not one of the Iron Warriors flinched. They held position like statues.
Then an unearthly howl echoed across the landscape and four bolts of fire streaked across the sky. The Imperial artillery emplacement exploded as battle cannon shells hit it dead on. A second later the entire hill was blown apart as the spare ammo for the guns ignited. Panicked shouts rang out from below.
The Kill-team opened fire. Earlkas fired his launcher's missile, which rocketed toward the emplacement and struck the Leman Russ Demolisher hard. The krak missile shattered a chunk out of its armor and blew the main cannon off the tank. Karoh let loose with the mounted heavy bolter, raining fire on the Guardsmen. Getol's plasma gun blazed at five-second intervals, its wielder allowing it to cool with practiced timing. Each shot blew an arm, a leg, or a head off an Imperial soldier.
The Guard began to return fire and Jrolen spotted an autocannon being aimed up at them. He had no time to fire a shot and yelled, "DOWN!" The squad dropped as the room exploded around them, the massive explosive shells blowing holes in the wall and knocking the heavy bolter to the ground. Karoh's leg went with it. As the squad was robbed of their cover the Imperial snipers in the opposite building began to target them. Long-lasrifle shorts began to eat holes in the wall, and a heavy bolter began to blaze up at them with accuracy that could only be accomplished by a Space Marine. Plekkon peered up, attempting to get a shot with his marksman's bolter and got a hole blown in his armor for the trouble. He dropped to the deck, his Space Marine anatomy already sealing the wound. His left arm was out of the fight.
Jrolen was about to order his squad to retreat out the door when an explosion sounded. The fire on them ceased. Jrolen counted three seconds and looked up. The arches at the end of the street had been blown away. Two Iron Warrior Predator battle tanks were positioned in the gaps, autocannons and heavy bolters blazing. Chaos Space Marines were pouring through the breaches, hacking through razor wire and firing bolters. A Havoc squad scrambled into cover and fired frag missiles at the upper floors of the opposing building. The sniper fire abruptly stopped as the upper floors exploded.
Jrolen screamed, "DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR! DEATH TO THE WEAKLING IMPERIUM OF MAN!" and leaped through the removed sections of floor, crashing through level after level. His squad followed and they burst through the doorways, bolters roaring on full auto, impaling Guardsmen on storms of explosive rounds. The Imperial Fists returned fire and Drenen hurled the stolen grenade at them. It exploded, claiming two Space Marines, and the remaining six charged. One was cut down by bolter fire, another took a plasma bolt in the shoulder and fell, his arm melted. The loyalist Sergeant raised his chainsword, bellowing a battlecry as he hurled himself at Jrolen.
The Traitor Marine parried the strike and swept low with his own power sword, cutting a neat groove in his enemy's armor as he dodged back. Jrolen leapt on him, driving his sword down in a killing strike. The loyalist knocked it aside and whirled to behead Jrolen – he ducked under the blow and swung his leg, knocking the enemy off his feet. Jrolen cut the head from the Sergeant, laughing inhumanly as his sword cut through adamantium and flesh. Another yellow-clad Space Marine staggered past him, holes punched in his armor, covered in his own blood. Feddorl leapt onto him, smashing the Imperial Fist's face in with the butt of his bolter and firing five rounds into him at point-blank range, the barrel of the gun literally touching his enemy's face when he pulled the trigger. Drenen lay on the floor in a pool of blood, his sword, still clutched in his dead hands, buried in the chest of a loyalist.
The battle was evening, the Space Marine Terminators, lead by a Captain in gleaming yellow armor, were charging the Iron Warrior lines, Lieutenant Samartak and his Chosen racing to meet them. They clashed in a deafening explosion of sparks and blades, Samartak diving under a Terminator's first swing to impale him on his satin-black blade, its soul-starved daemon occupant slicing through the Terminator armor like wet paper. A Chosen's head was torn off by a power fist, the Captain brought a thunder hammer down on another, crushing his torso, a Terminator collapsed as a plasma pistol was emptied into his face, a reaper autocannon blade impaled a loyalist and fired, blowing his upper body off.
The Imperial Guard surged forward, pouring lasgun shots at the oncoming Traitors, commissars screaming and blood spraying as the Hammer of the Emperor took bolter fire head on. Men went up in twos and threes as the Predators' autocannons ripped them apart. Missiles fired from both sides, grenades fell like rain, the Leman Russ moved out of cover, opening up with its side-mounted plasma cannons. Marines exploded in showers of white fire.
"DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!" bellowed Jrolen again and leapt forward, bolt pistol blazing, his men following. Aalx drew his chainsword and holstered his pistol, pulling a melta bomb from his belt. All personal safety forgotten he charged, soaking up lasgun shots like a sponge. A sergeant emptied a hellgun's clip into the mad Marine at close range. Aalx screamed like a daemon and swung at him, cutting the hellgun in half and slicing the sergeant's arm from his body. He bludgeoned the Imperial soldier with the melta bomb in his other hand. He leapt over the corpse and hacked at guardsmen, ignoring the blood spilling from him and the gunshots punching through his armor.
Jrolen seized a bolter out of a dead Space Marine's hands. Him, Karoh, and Feddorl opened fire. Earlkas had dropped his missile launcher and was holding a flamer in one hand and an autopistol in the other. Getol's plasma gun had overheated to the point of melting long ago and he was firing a pair of hellpistols. The squad fired until their guns were dry, reloaded, picked up new ones. Earlkas took eleven enemies with him, his left hand cut off by a lucky bayonet strike, he bashed in faces and cracked ribs with the flamer when it was empty, until a commissar with a power fist shouted "Die, heretic!" and smashed in his chest with a power fist.
Karoh blew away guardsman after guardsman until a dying heavy weapon crewman threw a bandolier of ammo at him and ignited it with a laspistol shot. Jrolen, Feddorl, and Getol fired still, all the while the seemingly invulnerable Aalx was still fighting. He vanished in a fireball as someone triggered a demolition charge. The Chaos Space Marine, who now seemed to be fighting less as a Traitor and more as a daemon, was still alive as the smoke cleared. Half his armor was scorched off, his skin melting, and still he refused to die. He raised his arm, armed the melta bomb, and hurled it at the Leman Russ.
The battle tank exploded in an inferno of fire and shrapnel. Aalx slumped to the ground, an insane smile still on his face as the life drained out of him. The Traitors were overrunning the barricades, leaping into the trenches and cutting apart the Imperial Guard with revving chainswords. A commissar screamed for the men to hold until the last moment as a Traitor sergeant stepped up and cut his head off. The melee in the center had been reduced to a duel between Lieutenant Samartak and the Terminator-armored Captain, both of them bleeding and scorched, both still swinging their weapons again and again. Samartak ducked under a swing, leapt behind the Space Marine and ran him through, the daemon-blade biting through him. He pulled out the sword, picked up a flamer, and burned the loyalist alive. He turned and shouted, "Death to the False Emperor! For Perturabo!" The Iron Warriors roared and surged forward.
The Imperial Fists met them at the bridge and the battle degenerated into a bloody whirlwind of chainswords and gore. "This is for Brother Aalx!" called Jrolen to what was left of his squad. "May the Chaos Gods shower his damned soul with praise, for never did he falter in his slaughter of the minions of the False Emperor and more of their blood did he spill on this day than any of us!" "For Brother Aalx!" echoed Feddorl and Getol, and they surged into the breach. Jrolen swung his sword in bloody arcs, cutting through flesh and metal, and Feddorl fired his bolter point-blank, shooting off loyalist heads in showers of blood.
The Predators accelerated, knocking tank traps out of the way, still firing their weapons as they rammed through the melee, crushing yellow armor and Space Marine bone under their treads. The loyalists began to fall back across the river, only to be cut down by the remaining Traitors still holding guns. A hundred voices howled into the air and guns were fired at the sky.
Then one of the buildings exploded. A shout went up from across the river. Jrolen looked up. A column of Imperial Guard were advancing, the barrels of three Leman Russes still smoking. Kasrkin marched in neat columns and Hellhounds were evident at the front. Heavy weapon teams were already beginning to set up. The battle was not over.
Fall back and regroup!" shouted Lieutenant Samartak as heavy bolter fire began to fly over their heads. "Take positions in the rubble! Get any anti-tank weapons you can find! We'll make the bastards come to us!" The Marines sprinted back towards the ruined arches. The Predators reversed, backing away as artillery began to thunder. Jrolen yelled into the vox, "Artillery! Subtract two thousand from previous coordinates and adjust four hundred to right! Do it now!"
Even as he said it the Leman Russes fired their battle cannons again. The shots arced far over the battle, away from the city, hitting what had been the Iron Warrior encampment. Howls went up and plumes of red fire shot into the sky. The Defilers were gone.
A lascannon shot flew three feet from his shoulder and blew a hole in the cover he'd been aiming for. It would have to do, there was no time to find anything better. He grabbed and holstered a plasma pistol, snatched some krak grenades from a dead guardsman, and hoisted a missile launcher off the ground.
Jrolen reached the pile of rubble just as the Leman Russes reached maximum range on their heavy bolters. Shots began to fly across the river and several Iron Warriors fell before they could get behind something. The Marines returned fire, autocannons firing and exploding against the tough armor of the battle tanks. Jrolen shoved a missile into the launcher and yanked the sight down over his eye. He centered a tank and slammed the firing stud. The missile arced away with a thunk, missing and blowing a hole in the bridge guardrail. Sniper rifle bullets began blowing chunks out of the stone. Jrolen hit the deck, letting the fire hit his cover.
He looked around the side of the rubble pile. Stormtroopers were advancing across the bridge grenade launchers raining hell on the Traitor Marines. A plasma gun fired from somewhere and burned a hole in one of the Stormtroopers' chest. Bolter fire began flying out of the craters and rubble. The Stormtroopers dove to the ground and opened up with their hellguns. Charged laserfire raked the ground and Traitor Marines ducked into cover.
The artillery fired again, the deadly Imperial battle tanks ripping apart several nests of Marines. Their namesake would have been proud, thought Jrolen bitterly. He gripped the plasma pistol with both hands and fired three shots. The gun hissed and grew hot on the fifth shot, and Jrolen lowered it, grabbing the missile launcher again. Damn it! No frag missiles. With no other use for it, he loaded another krak missile and fired it off at one of the Leman Russes. There was a plume of smoke and an explosion, but the tank still stood.
The Stormtroopers kept advancing, and now the Imperial assault vehicles began crossing the bridge. Chimeras opened up with multi-lasers and mounted hellguns and heavy stubbers, discharging squads of Guard regulars who laid down covering fire as their carapace-armored comrades began storming the craters. Each Marine fought to a man, but not even the Iron Warriors could hold against the twenty-to-one odds.
A sergeant charged around the rubble, raising a bolt pistol. Jrolen leapt at him, cutting his hand off before he could pull the trigger. The Traitor Legionnaire revved his sword and cut the man apart at the waist, grabbing the pistol. He holstered the plasma weapon, and readied himself as four Guardsmen ran around the bend, lasguns blazing. "Sarge!" cried one of the guardsmen just as Jrolen shot his stomach out. He hurled himself into them, hacking with his sword. The guardsmen stabbed with bayonets, one tried to hit him with the butt of his rifle and received a stab to the shoulder. Three more guardsmen charged, one firing an autogun, and the two fighting Jrolen jumped back, allowing the fire to hit the Marine. He growled as shots penetrated his armor. Blood flew.
He drew the plasma pistol and fired twice. Two guardsmen exploded. He pulled the trigger again and another guardsman's leg melted. The pistol overheated and blew up, taking Jrolen's lower arm with it. He rushed the guardsmen, clutching his sword in his remaining hand, swinging it. A flak jacket deflected the strike, poorly aimed and his arm shaking. The guardsman sneered at him at Jrolen and said, "This is for Sarge, you heretic bastard. Emperor forgive your soul." He leveled his autogun at Jrolen's chest.
The Imperial Guardsmen went up in a ball of fire. Jrolen looked up through eyes full of blood, and saw a monstrous figure still waving the smoke off the autocannon extending from its left arm.
The Obliterator glared down at Jrolen, the gun on its arm slowly melting and mutating into a missile launcher. Three more of the massive daemon-men stepped up alongside it, along with a single figure in power armor. It held out a hand. "Need a left, Sergeant?" asked Warsmith Althariax, grinning evilly. "My lord!" said Jrolen and clasped the hand, staggering to his feet. In the sky Doomfire bombers were soaring across the city, unloading hell onto the Guard. The bridge was smashed, but had been replaced by a pile of dead men and crushed tanks. Obliterators were advancing slowly and steadily, bellowing and firing salvoes of fire from a dozen different types of guns. Chaos Rhinos were vomiting hordes of Iron Warriors into the breach, driving the loyalists into the bloody water and back towards the hill.
"You did an excellent job here," said the Warsmith. "The reinforcements arrived sooner than I expected. You have to give those fools credit." He nodded to the four Obliterators, who turned and fired missiles at the Guard ranks, which exploded in showers of shrapnel. "Lieutenant Samartak told me about Brother Aalx's suicide. He died as a true servant of Chaos. He will not be forgotten, of that you have my word." "Thank you, my lord." Gasped Jrolen. "Now, find a transport and an apothecary. Get some attention." The Warsmith drew his sword and yelled, "Drive home the mailed fist! Kill them! Kill them all!" A dozen Chaos Raptors soared over them, rocketing towards the fight on wings of fire.
Within an hour every last loyalist was dead.
Be advised: If I get enough positive reviews to continue this, you will see Borther Aalx in a dreadnought. And come on, damnit, you know you want that.