Day 182
The ship is cramped. Really cramped. Have to share a room with Benedict, Drell, Dvis and Jared.
The gravity has been switched off to maximise storage space. We now have to clip our selves to the walls to avoid drifting. I really hate 0-G. If it was not for that node thing they stuck in my brain I would not be able to sleep at all.
It is exceedingly difficult to play cards with no gravity to hold the deck down.
Started telling stories about what we have done on other missions.
Started telling them all about Chapter Master Jophiel (the one before the one before Master Cain Corby Sternist) and how he once grabbed a Blood Thirster by the horns and nutted it to death.
Now we are moving onto the saga of Librarian Otheleg who once went toe to toe with a chaos sorcerer and won, though it cost him his life. An important lesson to us all; don't piss around with the boys form the Eye, not with out lots of back up.
Day 183
Swam over to the training room. Everyone is practicing zero-G combat. It's not as easy as it sounds. For one thing if you swing a punch at someone then you go spinning in the opposite direction and expose your back.
Found the best way to get someone is to smack him into a wall and try to land on the opposite wall.
Found a couple of mop heads. I am having an idea.
Day 184
This is really boring. Read the book about the world we are going to twice now. Basic feral world. Pre-black powder.
Apparently the world was once used as a prison colony. Then the local system governors found it was cheaper to stick the criminals in a penal legion and get a slight reduction in the amount of tithe they had to pay.
Planet is too untameable to be turned into an agri-world. It's sort of like Catchan. But with out the good selection of narcotics that make life on Catchan almost bearable.
Found some paint.
Day 185
Going to ask Captain Zakaris if we are nearly there yet.
He was in the command centre fiering elastic bands at the navigation hololith. I think he was trying to hit the planet we are heading for.
Got told that he thinks we will be out in a few days.
Asked him if we were nearly there yet every 30 seconds until he punched me in the head.
That's how bored I am.
Found more colours of paint. All the colours of the rainbow.
186
For dinner today was some sort of concentrated food pack. Decided I was not hungry enough to eat it.
After dinner I decided to stand/float too close to the librarians whilst thinking 'Can You Hear Me?' as loud as I could. Got told to go and bother the Dreads.
We left the Dreads at the fortress to save on storage space. That and Dreads aren't built for jungle combat.
Seem to be hitting a bit of turbulence in the warp. Everything is going all shaky.
Found some glue.
Day 187
Found another book to read. 'Dyela And Her Inquisitor'. Who the hell brought a bloody romance along? What is worse is its I propaganda.
Left the book floating somewhere conspicuous to use as bait to see who it belongs to.
Still floating.
It was picked up by Chapter Master Sternist. Now I have the dilemma of how to take the micky with out being thrown out of the chapter.
Decided micky taking, no matter how enjoyable, is not worth exile.
Found Sarge's helmet.
Day 188
Found a box of marker pens.
Drew a picture of an open door on one of the busy corridors.
3 people have bounced of the fake door.
Going hunting for new reading material.
Found the copy of the Codex. We usually use it as a how not to do it guide. Or toilet roll if we run out.
Day 189
I am actually hungry enough to eat the fake food bars. They are foul.
Just saw Brother Victor. I know it is unkind, but he gives me the creeps.
Wrote the words 'Purge Me Hard' on the back of the armour of the Captain of the fourth.
I am half tempted to replace the promethium in the flamer with silly string. Everyone loves silly string.
Day 190
I gave into temptation and replaced the promethium with silly string.
Now I am bored again.
Was thinking of repainting the bikes. But the problem is that there are no bikes.
I am so board that I am almost contemplating reading the in-flight magazine. No, I will never in a thousand years be that desperate.
Day 191
The Navigator has just informed us that we are nearly there.
I am so glad to be getting of this god-forsaken boat.
For dinner was sugar cube and banana sandwiches. Who the hell thought that one up?
We are now in orbit of what looks like a very nice planet. It's green with big blue oceans. The entire planet looks like one big forest. Excepting close to the poles where not even the pine may grow and the ground gives over to tundra.
The librarians have located the source of the astropathic signal. It is right in the middle of the continent shaped like an upside down 'R'.
Landed the shuttle in the only clear place we could find. And that was only cleared because we dropped some heavy weapons onto it.
We are setting up the tents and, as tradition dictates, opening the ceremonial beer cans.
Day 192
Now just begins the search for where ever the astropath who sent the message is. It is a wonder to me that anyone on this world could be an astropath. I mean, who performs the soul binding?
The trees here are really big. It is like night under the trees. Forever a world in twilight.
The trees look like a sort of Giant Hawthorn (Crataegus monogynum giganticum) with big nasty spiky thorns.
Found a sort of rock totem pole with a solid gold Aquilla on the top. There is a large horn on a string dangling from it. Sarge tried to play the tune to the song 'Do You Take Me For A Numpty'. In all fairness it was quiet good.
About ten minuets after Sarge's musical performance we became surrounded by a tribe of beastmen all of whom are holding wooden sticks with pointy rocks on the end. They are covered in hair that looks more like fur and they have very angular faces with pointy teeth.
A wizened old grey furred man has walked forwards. He surprised us all. He greeted us in fluent High Gothic.
Day 193
It is a sad fact that is overlooked by the Imperium as a whole that the abbhuman worlds provided a lot of the Imperial Army during the Horus Heresy and out of all those abbhuman units only about 5 per cent went traitor whereas about 50 per cent of the 'pure' humans went stupid. Strange that this got forgotten.
I will have to ask about this next time I see a Preacher. It is so fun to watch them trying to think of a retort.
Apparently this particular world was one of the worlds that got recruited from. They speak High Gothic as an inter-tribal language and tell ancient stories about ancient times when they fought on all the worlds they see in the night sky.
The problem they have now is that they have got a Chaos Cult. Well we assume it is a Chaos Cult. They refer to them as Worshipers Of The Old Enemy. Got taken to a big map carved on a lot of sheets of skin all sawn together. It looks like a map of the whole continent and surrounding islands.
They are much smarter than the look.
The areas with the Chaos are marked in blood.
I have just noticed. A lot of them have tattoos of the Aquilla on their chests and symbols of wolves heads and dragon heads and upside down omegas on their shoulders.
I think they dream of being the Marines from their old fables.
Tomorrow we set out to talk to these misguided tribes that follow the Old Enemy.
Day 194
Woke up with that tingly 'someone is screwing with the warp feeling'
Told Librarian Gvon and he said he heard them trying to send a 'thank you' letter to Holy Terra because we turned up.
This still does not answer the question of 'How the hell does a beastman send astropathic messages?'
Set off on the long walk back to the shuttle. The idea is that we fly over the places we are going and use grav-chuets to land in the right area.
Day 195
We have visited 4 tribes marked as chaos so far. So far we have not had to kill anyone. As soon as they take one look at us they convert back and Brother Gvon senses no deception.
Found one tribe that was... sick and twisted. Mutants and abominations with tentacles and crab claws and exoskeletons. They attacked us on site so we wiped them all out.
On a lighter note the silly string hides some of the mess. Hooray for silly string and its colourful goodness.
Day 196
Brother Gordans Grav-chute failed. Apparently he forgot to change the battery when the little red light started to flash. He now has a bracken spine. Idiot!
Gordan has been told to stay in the Craft and as punishment for being a complete dick he is being forced to read the user manual for the grave-chute and write out a new copy.
A grand total of 8 tribes turned back to sanity and 3 exterminated. I mourn for those we are forced to kill. I cannot help but think how their mothers cared for them and how they card for their children and we just murdered them.
The Preachers can prattle on about how we had to for the Greater Glory Of Humanity but I know full well that they have never seen death close up like we have. I know that by my own standards I am steeped in sin. But at least my sins are warriors sins and they are not the worst I have seen at that. Not by a long way.
Day 197
We have finished the area we had to do. The psykers among us feel the difference.
I have taken lots of pict-files with my camera. Pretty trees.
We are heading back to the ship now.
Apparently ever flamer unit thinks that silly-string is hilarious.
Sarge took his helmet off. The techni-coloured mop heads are glued to his head in much the same manner as a wig. It goes well with his camouflage tattoos.
Day 198
All we wait for is the 1st company and the 9th. The 9th had the one in the mountains and the 1st had the most to do.
For dinner is some beef jerky I found down the back of the command sofa. I am determined to get through this without resorting to synthetic food bars.
9th are back.
Putting bets of how long it will take the 1st to get here.
About bloody time. The are back.
Setting sail for home.
Day 199
The first had to go and look for Brother Victor. Poor bastard. The thing is he was once caught by Dark Eldar on one of their shit pits of a ship. They dissected him and scattered him all over the room whilst keeping him 'functional' by lots of tubes and wire. We dealed twelve colours of hell to them when we found where they were. Apocrathy 'no nose' Jock stitched him back together but in retrospect admitted that he should have just put him down. He is barley there anymore. He sometimes wanders of on his own so we have to look for him.
Whenever we take him to Cadia we generally just give him a couple of lightning claws and point him in the right direction.
Drawn a picture of a hull breach opposite a door. The shock it gives people when they open the door and see that is immense. Very funny to watch.
Day 200
Soooooo dull.
For dinner was nothing. I am not eating syntho-food.
Playing paper, scissor, stone with anyone who will play.
Day 201
Dulltastic.
I never thought I would live long enough to hear myself say these words; I miss the Dreads.
Whoa! Did anyone else feel that?
All lights and alarms!
Navigator is unconscious, ship is being dragged into real space, Gellar field is failing! We are under attack!
Day 202
It was a chaos vessel.
They must have taken a look at the crappyness of the ship and mistaken us for easy merchant prey. Fools. They were wearing the armour of the Alpha Legion. TRAITORUS BASTARDS! We fought them off. We took one casualty that I know of; Chapter Master Sternist. His bunk was next to the Plasma Reactor and a trio of Terminators warped in. They shot him as he slept.
I saw this because I was trying to stick a 'I think Banshees are Sexy' sticker on his sleeping back.
As I write this I am hiding in a cleaning supplies closet on the chaos vessel. I got here by a complicated series of events involving sticking a power claw through a Alpha Legion Terminators head, a teleportor some duct tape and several grenades.
To put it another way: I am on a Chaos vessel of unknown type or size, I have no idea the size of the crew or the numbers of enemy soldiers I will face, if I am found I am a dead Marine, I am probably in the warp going God knows where, my Brothers have no idea where I am and I have no weapons save my intelligence and wit. I'm screwed.
But at least it's not dull.