Glory Boys - Part II

[Battle Brother Arius]

From the terrace of whatever this scorched, gutted building had once been the whole of the lower section of the city was laid out before Maine's eyes; a canvas for him to paint his strategy across.  The smouldering city sprawled for miles and miles, going beyond the eyes limit to observe but Maine's destination was ominously clear, like the first stab of lightning in a storm-ready sky.  There was no mistaking the frontlines; where the Imperial Guard pushed forward, buying back each metre of land with the only price Chaos would accept; blood and lives.  It was like a crack in the land, a great swathe of smoke, fire and eruptions that boomed across the entire city.  That was where Maine was going, that was where he'd been ordered to go.

However, things weren't as simple as they ought to be.  The wave of Imperial Guardsmen had assaulted the city with the element of surprise and quickly overwhelmed the bewildered heretics, slaughtering them in their undeniable stride forwards.  They had advanced for miles across the city, burning and destroying everything that bore the mark of Chaos as they went.  Then, as always, the enemy had managed to organise themselves and had pushed back with everything in their arsenals; so the wave of Imperial forces crashed upon the armies of Chaos like water on stone and the Frontlines were formed; an area of gruesome warfare with two forces locked in a bloody stalemate.  

That was why Maine and his men were here, to reinforce the frontlines and break the stalemate, but this was where things got complicated.  After the Imperial Guard had sliced through the city those groups of cultists and enemy infantry that had survived emerged and began assaulting key points that were being held with only handfuls of men.  Now Maine had no choice but to fight his way through streets full of potential enemies.

But these were the Glory Boys, and they had weathered far worse storms than this before...

[Battle Brother Arius]

"Alright troopers!" barked Maine, looking away from the view of the city and into the room that led on to the terrace he was standing on, "Ready yourselves! We make for the front lines, double time!"

The black clad Storm Troopers jogged out on to the large platform and checked their guns and magazines; Maine surveyed them and nodded his satisfaction.  They formed a line in front of him, two deep and prepared to hear the plan their Sergeant had obviously worked out in his head.  

There was an abrupt bang and a section of the stone railing that lined the terrace exploded, spraying the group with fragments of marble.  They were already moving into cover.  The twelve Storm Troopers crouched low and ran into the building, taking up positions at the door and windows to glance down the twin-staircases that ran down either side of the raised terrace to the street below.

Suddenly a volley of gun fire, undoubtedly from an autogun, rocketed out from the cover of the buildings below and slammed into the walls of the building, shattering stonecrete and filling the air with a haze of smoke; yet for all of its ferocity it was without precision and the slugs of metal found no targets.  Lasfire flashed out from below and bore into the stonecrete, still, without harmful effect to the Storm Troopers.

As though the enemy had realised this the salvo halted and instead the air was filled with battle cries and roars of rage and blood lust.  Doors splintered apart and windows shattered and the street below was suddenly swarming with the infantry of the enemy.  They had no military composure, they were mad men brandishing any weapon they could find and protected with stolen body armour.  All this was made up for in numbers, of course, and Maine realised this as they flooded up the two staircases towards him and his squad.

"Open fire! Six men on each stair! Don't let them gain equal footing with us!" roared the Sergeant and rose from his position of cover, letting off shot after shot from his hellpistol at the advancing wave of heretics.  His squad quickly followed suite and organised themselves into groups of six, focusing their fire power on driving the enemies back down the stairs.  The high rate of lasfire worked well against the bottlenecked enemies as they scrambled to find cover from the wall of red death...

[Battle Brother Arius]

The stench of singed flesh was soon rank in the air as the mutilated enemy corpses began to pile high on the steps, which were now like waterfalls of blood; but still the enemy came.  They were like a flood of filth bearing down upon the loyal subjects of the Emperor who, even with their concentrated fire, could not hold back the tide.  The enemy crashed up against the walls, bypassing the wall of fire with their sheer amount of numbers.  They did not pause.  A man, marked with ritual scarring and wearing clothes covered with the signs of the Dark Gods, swung himself through one of the tall windows and with a savage slash buried his curved blade in the head of a Storm Trooper.  There was a moment of silence and still while the rest of the squad watched the blood seep up through the cracked visor and leak down over the black carapace; then all hell broke loose.

Crazed soldiers of the Chaos army that had invaded this planet cast themselves through the windows and charged in through the door, wildly slashing and stabbing at the quickly retreating Storm Troopers with blades and bayonets.  One man, protected by looted flak armour, turned his Combat Shotgun on the Imperial Troops, who were hurriedly falling back across the large room, and opened fire.  The spray of bullets was lethal, especially at such close range.  Two black clad Storm Troopers fell simultaneously with gaping holes lining their chest armour and whether they were dead or not from such a blast was irrelevant; their squad mates had no time to drag them and they were quickly overwhelmed by the ever advancing force.  The Glory Boys were running out of room to fall back to and the wall on the other side of the room was approaching fast; they had to salvage the situation, and quickly.

Maine felt the wall against his back and knew there was no where else to run, so he did what all brave men in service to the Emperor did before they died; he fought.  The Sergeant raised his hellpistol with reflex-like speed and pulled hard on the trigger, gauging open a mans face and sending him writhing to the floor, but there could be no rest, he stepped forward and brought his sabre round in an arc of glimmering death, slashing open a heretics waist and spilling his entrails open the blood slick floor.  His men, inspired by this act of valour quickly group together, morale’s restored, and with their backs to the wall opened fire.  The sudden return of orderly and concentrated fire momentarily confounded the enemy and they faltered, confused and scared by the sudden interruption of their victory charge.  That moment was all Maine needed to clear his mind of doubt and formulate a plan.  Years of training and battle experience flooded back to him and from his ocean of memories came forth an idea like the burning divinity of the Emperor itself.  Sheathing his hellpistol the Sergeant thrust an open hand at his squad.

"Meltabomb! Quick!" he ordered and his steely command was obeyed quickly.  A squad member, anonymous behind his cold black mask, produced the incendiary device and tossed it into his Sergeants' hand, which gripped it and turned to the enemy, a glint of determination and grim satisfaction in his eyes.  His squad, as though sensing what mad stunt their Sergeant was about to perform, acted as one and crouched away from the enemy, shielding their heads with raised arms.  Maine gave the enemy no time to exploit this opening and, activating the bomb, tossed it at the ceiling above the massing enemy, diving away moments before detonation.

The room was filled with a flash of white bright enough to burn the eyes out of a man’s skull.  The explosion that followed more than matched such deadly capabilities.  Those heretics and cultists who were not gruesomely immolated by the explosion were soon faced with the collapse of a seriously heavy stonecrete ceiling.  Chunks of stonecrete, still smouldering from the heat of the explosion, tumbled from above and crushed the soldiers below.  The survivors were not survivors for long, for as soon as the explosion had subsided, the Storm Troopers rose up out of cover and opened fire, mercilessly gunning down every single last man standing.  The smoke cleared and the last of the rubble toppled from the hole above and Sergeant Maine stepped forwards to survey the success of his plan.  As he had hurriedly calculated, the range of the meltabomb had only brought down the middle section of the room, leaving his squad unharmed, but almost entirely crushing the enemy forces who had occupied the rooms centre from side to side.  The Sergeant allowed himself a moment of relief; once again he and his men had faced overwhelming odds and, Emperor willing, prevailed against seemingly certain death.

"Good work men, the Emperor was with us," said Maine, turning to face his remaining eight soldiers, "but the day is far from over and the battle is not yet won! We have to leave this building and quick, any other enemies in this vicinity will have certainly heard us here and will be heading our way!  Move out!" he cried and proceeded into the wreckage of whatever this large room had once been.  The squad exited the building via the terrace doors and stealthily made their way into the labyrinth of back alleys and streets that made up this section of the city.  They headed for the frontlines; where the real battle lay in wait...

[Battle Brother Arius]

The nine Storm Troopers, already battered with the signs of battle a mere ten minutes after their arrival in the city, fanned out into a long, dark alleyway; eyes wide open and guns attentive to every door, window, and side alley.  Maine wasn't taken any more chances.  It had been stupid, now that the Sergeant thought about it, rallying his squad on a high platform in front of the whole of the lower city to see.  He'd been asking for a fight with that stupid move, and hell, he'd got one.  He had also paid for it with the lives of three of his good men.  He vowed to himself that he would not to make such a stupid move again; damn, what had he been thinking?  He ushered the thoughts from his mind and cautiously preceded down the street, his men moving out behind him, checking every possible hiding area before moving up.  The systems sun had been low in the sky when the squad had made planet fall and now it was quickly disappearing behind a horizon of roof tops, casting long and shifty shadows across the cobbled street.  However, it did serve as a guide to where their destination was: The frontlines, an orange glow that was becoming ever clearer on the ever darkening horizon.  The squad could already make out the distant booms of explosions and they wondered what manner of enemy they would be fighting once they arrived; each and every one of them all secretly hoping it wasn't the only enemy they couldn't face down.

Then the sun was gone and the city was plunged into twilight, the only light being the fiery haze of the frontlines and the flickering light of those lamps that still had power.  Maine stopped and held up a fist, signalling the rest of his squad to stop as well.  This wouldn't do, though Maine as he looked about the pitch black street ahead.  Anything could be lurking just beyond the next alley and his squad would never see it coming.  Well, there was a simple solution, mused the Sergeant as he plucked a pair of chunky goggles from his belt.  He pulled them over his head and flicked a switch, sending the world into a dawn of green.  They couldn't afford to use torches, lest they attract enemy attention, but that is why each and every storm trooper had night vision built into his helmet.  Maine didn't need to tell them to switch it on; for them it was like a habit.  The darkness was the foe of the Emperor, and they would bring His light, in every form, to banish the darkness.  They moved ever onwards into the darkness...

Maine could see the end of the alleyway now, just a dozen metres away, it broke out on to what appeared to be a road.  He judged it safe enough to leave the relative 'safety' of the alleyways now.  At night, the black clad Storm Troopers were invisible.  At night, they were the hunters.  He quickened his pace, eager to be free of the labyrinth of back alleys and side streets that each held potential enemies.  His squad picked up the pace as well and they hurried towards the mouth of the alleyway.  Then they stopped. Abruptly.  Maine knew why, he had heard it as well.  He winced as the eerie breathing filled the alley once more like the hiss of a rattle snakes tail.  The Sergeant leaned his mouth into his comm. and spoke quietly, hoping not to catch the attention of whatever it was that was sharing the back alleys with them.  His voice came to life in the helmets of his squad.

"Regroup.  Circle formation.  Watch every damn opening,"

The squad slowly began to make their way towards each other, slowly backing away from the walls and side roads as the deathly breathing picked up again, sending shivers down every mans spine.  To say each man was relieved when they felt the reassuring backs of their comrades would be a total understatement.  Maine turned his head and did a quick scan of his squad to make sure they were all there.  Alright, eight men including himself, that was right. Right?

"Wait a minute..." muttered Maine, but his thoughts were answered by a sickly crunch and a wet thud; like a body dropping to the floor.  The squad turned as one to the source of the noise, a narrow opening in the wall that ran off into the twisting maze of the cities urban centre.  There, lying in a puddle of crimson was a Storm Trooper.  There was a very visible gauge in his neck and shoulder and from it his blood poured into the cracks between the cobbles like little rivers of rubies.  The wound was ragged, as though the flesh had been hacked away from the trooper’s body; as though it had been bitten away.  There was coarse sigh, long and filled with delight, and in the alleyway, above the body, a silhouette took form.  A tall, thin, gangly creature that had impossibly long limbs.  It stepped forwards on twig like legs and revealed itself to the Storm Troopers vision; unaware that these men could see it in the darkness.  Its skin was pale and stretched thin over jagged bones and joints, its fingers long and curved.  When it walked each step was clumsy and misplaced, its body seemed to follow afterwards as though this being had no real control over itself.  Worst of all, however, was its face.  If this monster had ever been human once it could never be called that again.  It was as though all skin and muscle had been flayed from its face, leaving eyes without eye lids, blood soaked gums and teeth without lips.  Its blood shot eyes rolled about seemed to focus on the Storm Troopers ahead, its face contorted, what little muscles left in its cheeks and jaw jerked and twitched and in horror Maine realised it was trying to grin.  The abominations mouth lolled open and it outstretched its hands, stumbling forwards towards the Storm Troopers. 

They were firing before the order even formed in Maine's mouth...

[Battle Brother Arius]

The las-shots tore through the things flesh with relative ease and it stumbled back, shocked that it had been seen in the darkness.  The firing stop and the monster looked down at its perforated body, it stared for a moment at the rivers of blood seeping from its wounds and then whatever made this abomination tick kicked it.  Its mouth fell open and it screamed; a scream that chilled the very blood to ice, a scream that entered the mind and pulled forth irrational childhood fears.  The Storm Troopers recoiled, stumbling back as a single unit.  Maine pushed into one of his troopers and reached back to lay a hand on him, to warn the soldier that he was there.  His hand fell upon rubbery skin that desperately hugged its bony frame.

"Oh no..." he muttered, eyes wide with terror.  He turned and stared into lidless eyes.  The horror opened its mouth and reared back its head, preparing to tear into the Sergeants flesh; he'd be damned if he gave it the chance.  He hurriedly thrust upwards with his sabre and it punched through the bottom of the creatures jaw and up through its skull.  Its wide, bloodshot eyes rolled about and with a groan the creature swayed.  Sergeant Maine ripped his sword away and let the monster collapse to the floor where it writhed for a minute before dying; but Maine was watching, no, his eyes were far too occupied with what surrounded his squad. 

"We're surrounded! Open fire damn it! Make for the street!" he screamed, his eyes darting madly about the many monstrous creatures that surrounded them, all seemingly identical; to the untrained eye at least.  Maine realised, as he and his squad opened fire and quickly began to back of the alleyway, that there were differences.  Some were taller than others, some bodies were larger than others, different head shapes, and with a jolt of horror he realised that these poor souls must have once been human, before the powers of Chaos reached out and snared them, turning them into the mindless beasts that stumbled about around them.  Truly this city had fallen deep into the hands of Chaos if such monstrosities roamed the darkness.  Maine felt a deep hatred arise within him for the arch enemy of the Imperium, and on the tide of rage rode a righteous zeal; he would not allow such beasts to walk the streets of the Emperors city any longer!  With a roar of fury Maine thrust his sword forwards, taking his frightened men by surprise.

"You are soldiers of the Imperium, of the Emperor! We do not fear this darkness! We are the Emperors light! Take it to them!" he roared and leapt forward, carving the flesh out of a beast's head with one swift, furious strike.  His men, with renewed morale and valour, were inspired in more than one way by their Sergeants show of bravery.  As one they flicked on their flashlights, shining them at the lumbering enemy.  The skeletal horrors, their lidless eyes not used to the bright of day and with little protection from it, screamed and staggered back, raising delegate limbs to shield themselves from the glare of so many torches.  Little did it avail them, for soon they were bathed in red light as well; a light that tore the very flesh from the bone.  The Storm Troopers had opened fire, and like wheat before the scythe the enemy fell.  Those stalking horrors who survived the initial onslaught fled, with fear gripping at their primitive minds.  Maine thought it an amusing turn of events; only moments before it was they who had been afraid, the fear stabbing at their very hearts, but now it was the enemy who cowered, cowered from the Emperor's light!

Then they were gone and the Storm Troopers were alone, standing in an alleyway running with blood and littered with corpses.  The Sergeant took a deep breath to steady himself and calm the adrenaline that pumped through his veins, they had bested the enemy once more and Maine felt assured that this campaign would be over quickly, with the Imperium victorious and the enemy sent running with their tails between their legs.  All they had to do was get used to their enemy and find the bravery and valour in their hearts to overcome them; they could do it, thought Maine firmly, he could do it!  If it was the Emperor that lent him this strength, and he was sure it was, then truly he was a God and no enemy would be able to stand against them. 

"Alright men," he said, and their was the hint of weariness in his voice, "Let's get to those damn frontline on the double, eyes open, we don't need another nasty surprise like this again," and with his order the squad filed out of the alleyway into the road.  Here, where the initial battle had taken place, Marine could see how vicious the fighting must have been.  The street was desolate, dotted with the dark, hunched shapes of corpses and the occasional crater.  The grubby, blackened buildings that ran along either side bore many worm-holes, tell tale signs of lasgun fire and their windows were shattered, doors kicked in.  Sergeant Maine had seen many an invaded city before but there was something about this one that chilled him to the core; to see a place that once held such glory reduced to a burnt out husk, crawling with the slaves and horrors of Chaos...it was abominable.  Bile rose in his throat and he felt that familiar rage threaten to overcome him once more, but no, he needed focus here.  Forging his anger into purpose he set off at a jog down the street, his men falling in behind and around him, and pressed ever onwards towards the frontlines...

* * * To be continued * * *

Hope you enjoyed Part II!
As always, comments and criticism are welcome!

[Typheron]

groovy, i dunno if you are aware of whart happens to the guardsmen who fight chaos, any who directly encounter any demonic entity are given the Emperors mercy post-action (assumign they survive) to stop knowlege of the emeny from spreading to local populations.

only issue would be with the use of the melta bomb, by the rules melta bombs are extremly short range, high damage deviced designed to immobalise and damage heavy machinery. they typically havr to be placed upon there target in a vunerable location (such as a knee joint or the like) where they magnetically stick. there also about the side of a gas canister (2-3 foot high) rather than your standard 'nade.

[Battle Brother Arius]

About the first part, fear not, I know that!

About the second part: Shit, I didn't know that.  I shall therefore put it down to artistic liscence!  See, we writers can pull that one and get away with mistakes like that!

Glory Boys - Part III Coming Soon!

[Typheron]

curse you artistic licence and your reality warping skills!