Flesh Tearers: Assault of Ryanthis

[Ufthak]

Thanks for the info ;)

 

Feel for you mate - though I have no experience in it myself, I can guess war is a horrifically ugly business (though I really dunno whether you can call today's conflicts "war"...) Hope you came out in one piece, and I don't mean just physically.

 

In any case: back to the story!

When's the next part up? ;)

[Darkchild130]

well i have no qualms about fighting, so i'm pretty ok as far as post traumatic stress goes. friends dying never gets easy, but you learn to deal with it.

 

I will endeavor to write more tomorrow, and get some posted up by the weekend. I've started my next story, so my mind has drifted from Flesh Tearers today.

 

Darkchild

[Ufthak]

Love how the Army euphemizes "Severe Depression and psychological breakdown through the horrors of war" into "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder". Always putting a gloss on the horrible part of the job...

 

Good to know you're coping well.

 

In any case, don't give up on the story, I'd like to hear the end of it, it's really good!!! :)

[Darkchild130]

EDIT: 8/9/11

 

Chapter 3

 

The balcony simply ceased to exist. It’s sandbag fortifications, heavy stubber and heavy bolter pits, spare ammo and weapon crews, were brought down in a thundering ball of flaming death.

 

The defenders hadn’t fired at them. Even though there were shouts from the floors above about being under attack from some strange armoured forms, the first men of the 36th Ryanthis Light infantry just watched as a gore stained Vindicator smashed through the entrance of the Starport, slamming on its brakes some 20 metres into the open lobby and skidding to a halt on the smooth floor.

Their logic was that whoever had instigated the terrible carnage outside must be an ally, breaking the back of the assault to liberate the besieged defenders.

Upon hearing the sounds of massed solid projectile weapons fire, some had even speculated that the legendary Astartes had come to rescue them.

Some even rejoiced as black and red armoured forms spilled into the breach, fanning out either side of the Space Marine vehicle, fearsome weapons aimed up at them.

 

They kept this train of thought for about a second, until vengeance fired.

 

Deafening even outside on an open plain, the sound of the demolisher cannon discharging in the relatively confined space of the terminal building was a weapon in itself.

 

Cain’s helmet cut off all external sound for a couple of seconds, a safety mechanism to save damaging itself and the user from excessive noise, rendering him deaf.

Through this eery silence, punctuated only by his own breathing and the sound of his twin hearts beating rhythmically, Cain saw the effects of the weapon at close range and marvelled at the destructive forces it could bring to bear.

 

The concussion of the firing kicked up a cloud of dust around the vehicle, creating a visible shock wave that again threatened to push the marines over, shattering windows in its wake.

the warhead itself barely had time to arm before smashing into the sandbagged balcony, detonating with such force that all the defender’s ammunition and the consecrated stone of the raised area blew up, collapsing it all in a cascade of tumbling debris.

The force of the strike kicked up a huge amount of dust which roiled back along the lobby, consuming the Astartes in its obscuring false-fog.

Cain Blink-clicked his helmet’s vision mode to infra red, casting everything in hues of grey and black, the heat based ocular setting cutting through the dust and smoke with ease.

 

“Squads Phaeron and Nicholye, advance and clear the ground floor.”

Cain spoke in terse, clipped tones, the sound of a man in a hurry.

“Sternguard, with me.”

And with that he moved off, noting the acknowledgement runes of his tactical squads light up briefly, his veterans forming a loose staggered formation behind him.

Cain made a beeline for the wreckage of the balcony, clambering up the mound of debris as Daggar took a knee to cover his ascent, scanning the top of the dust filled, man-made ridge with his bolter.

 

Originally there had been a sturdy staircase leading from the ground up to the balcony, forming an easy transition point between floors. This had been extensively booby trapped by the Ryanthis 36th, then annihilated by a demolisher cannon, leaving the only real option of getting up at this end of the building via the collapsed rubble.

Cain clawed his way up, punching holes into solid stone and permacrete to drag his heavy form up to the next floor, immediately bringing his weapon into the aim as he reached the top.

Upon seeing this, Daggar began his own climb, covered in turn by the Astartes behind him.

This sequence continued until all 12 of Cain’s Sternguard had rapidly reached the second floor, Squad leader Neyf giving the signal for ‘last man in’ as he reached the top.

The balcony led off into a series of corridors, each one just wide enough to fit two astartes walking side by side.

This was the office area where most of the menial admin staff worked, scribes and auto savants, toiling away to ensure flight manifests and passenger details were all present and correct, pay was distributed and records of every ship that visited the port were accurately recorded.

 

The immediate surroundings were dark, the concussion of the recent explosion having blown out all lume-strips within a wide radius and with all windows covered by flakboard, only tiny slivers of the dull daylight peeked through the gaps.

The rapidly cooling thermal signatures of a variety of bodies were scattered liberally around the area, some crushed by rubble, others peppered by exploding ammunition or blown apart by ordnance.

The stink of burnt meat pervaded the atmosphere, causing Cain to set his helmet filters to maximum, lest he become distracted.

His full squad stationary in a line to either side of him, Cain motioned to daggar, pointing at the stern veteran, then to his own forearm.

Daggar nodded in response, immediately bringing his left arm up, regarding the auspex unit mounted on the armour plating.

He tapped a number of keys on the small device, his armoured index finger moving with a surprising dexterity for something encased in such clumsy bulk and a grid appeared in the upper left corner of each marine’s visor display, relayed by Daggar’s wargear.

 

The grid showed movement, heat signatures and energy readings as colour coded blips, overlaid with a blueprint style map of the complex.

Cain waited until every man’s status rune flicked green to show they were all receiving full signal before gesturing with his left hand.

Two fingers up, down, two fingers again, then a pump of the fist and a blade handed point to the furthest left corridor, silently telling his fellow veterans to split into combat squads, then ‘buddy pairs’ in order to move through the complex in a controlled fashion, the fist was an assault command, and the point was a direction for his second in command, Neyf to follow.

As soon as he finished the hand signals, Cain rose smoothly and moved forward, servos humming quietly as he walked, weapon in the aim towards the furthest right corridor.

 

Upon entering the dark corridors, Cain was greeted by doors stretching as far as the passageway, which terminated roughly halfway down the terminal building, simple wooden affairs without any reinforcement.

Easy to breach Cain mused.

Cain stopped just outside the door and took a split second to regard his scanner reading.

The grid showed 4 man sized heat sources, grouped closely together in the centre of the office room, watching each other’s backs no doubt.

Daggar moved past Cain and stood adjacent to the closed entrance, before launching a huge push kick, his left boot smashing the flimsy door and frame completely, showering the office’s interior with wooden splinters.

Cain was through the entrance before the splinters had even landed, stepping through and left as they had done countless thousands of times before in training and combat, spotting and engaging targets as Dagger followed behind on his shoulder, stepping to the right.

 

The room was a mess of wrecked machinery and paperwork strewn all over the place, with an adjoining door to the far right leading into the next room of the maze of offices, it‘s layout making no logical sense in typical administratium fashion.

The four men were huddled behind a hastily constructed fortification made from overturned tables, elderly cogitator banks and other assorted debris, a mounted heavy stubber pointed at the door as well as their issued lasguns.

They had the look of desperate men, those that knew they had been left to die but were determined to go down with a fight.

Cain fired two shots, the flat bangs deafening in the close confines of the office, overlapping with two shots fired from Daggar’s own bolter.

The four men were plucked from their firing positions without ever returning fire, mass reactive rounds exploding messily within their torsos.

The room entry had taken less than a second.

“Clear.” Cain spoke, his voice calm and without emotion, totally at odds with the turmoil in his mind.

“Clear” echoed Daggar.

 

Upon hearing this the next pair, consisting of Brothers Grayv and Hark, entered the room and proceeded to the adjoining door, stacking up the same way as Cain and Daggar had moments before.

As they moved into position, muffled lasbursts sounded some distance away to their left, with the distinctive bark of bolter fire responding in kind in a series of rapid, single shots.

Neyf had engaged.

 

Grayv put an armoured boot through the door and Hark stepped through into the gloomy confines of the next room, his brother hot on his heels.

There was a moment of silence, before the vox crackled.

“Cain, Civilians, twelve of them.” The Southern twang of Hark’s voice was hard to mistake.

“Acknowledged.” Cain replied.

“Conserve ammunition, switch to combat blades.”

Cain didn’t receive a reply, or even a green lit rune, it was unnecessary. The veteran heard the sounds of furniture being violently moved, then screams as the pair went to work.

 

Durden and Tath, the last pair of Cain’s combat squad moved through the room and past the second pair as they butchered the civilians with reckless abandon, limbs and chunks of meat and arterial spray flying about the room as the screeching Starport staff were put to death.

Tath moved to his furious brothers while Durden covered the next doorway, speaking to them in cold tones.

“Self control brothers, we are veterans.” He said, emphasising the word “control”.

Hark nodded, reporting

“Clear.” As he sheathed his blood slicked blade.

Durden and Tath made entry to the next room, finding nothing but a mess of wire entanglements and a daisy chain of frag grenades, it’s arming pin dangling from a wire attached to the door.

Durden focussed on the pin, swinging wildly from being violently yanked away from it’s home by the motion of entry, and yelled.

“Down!”

he and That turned their backs to the grenades and knelt down to provide a small a target as possible, no time to retreat from the blast.

A series of loud booms signalled the grenade detonations, accompanied by a sudden cloud of dust and debris that billowed into the previous room, totally obscuring everything and making thermal imagery necessary again.

Cain and Daggar were up and moving, weapons in the shoulder as soon as they heard the blast, their instinctive training causing them to advance into the booby trap area past Grayv and Hark straight away, to deny the enemy any chance to capitalise on the surprise.

 

Upon entering the room and scanning their arcs, Cain’s pair found Durden and Tath at the opposing wall, stacked up on the doorway.

Their armour was blackened from powder burns and dust, pitted and scarred even more than usual from a point blank blast of frag.

“You ok?” Cain asked, his growling voice it’s normal mask of indifference.

Both men put a thumb up, from their non trigger finger hand and Tath spoke.

“Traps were meant to take down humans, Cain. They mean naught to us but a moment’s deafness.”

Bright blood leaked down Brother Durden's left armour greave, the glistening fluid contrasting starkly with the dull and battered armour. He had clearly taken some fragmentation through the rear of the knee joint, a flesh wound to be ignored.

Cain grunted in response, already moving to take the next office.

He was running out of time.

 

This pattern continued through the seemingly endless maze of offices, each pair bounding through the last, entering and clearing every room they found with slick efficiency, no corner was left uncovered, no auspex return left unchecked.

They found a haphazard combination of scattered defenders, booby traps and totally empty rooms, with a random distribution of the terminal’s terrified workforce scattered throughout.

Cain immediately recognised them for what they were. The whole place was set up to force would be attackers into a grind, facing isolated pockets of resistance, not knowing whether the next room would explode in their faces or be as silent as a tomb.

This would slow the attackers down immensely and ruin morale, forcing them into a type of hellish combat that would leave many dead and even more wounded.

Leaving the civilians to their fate had been a ruthless tactic, one to add to the overall confusion and Cain’s respect for the enemy commander grew.

The tactic would have worked too, but Colonel Davise had never fought astartes before.

 

The methodical slaughter took another 5 minutes, Cain glancing at his mission chrono periodically as precious seconds ticked away, all the while cutting through the Starport defenders as though they weren‘t there, shooting the soldiers, bludgeoning or stabbing the civilians.

Though he was confident that his warriors could stop the next battlegroup with minimal fuss, Cain didn’t relish the thought of doing it without ammunition or without proper arcs in place.

With no fire zones, killing areas and choke points covered by his men, the armoured units rolling to meet them would be a much harder foe to defeat.

And if the next battlegroup commander decided to lift the ridiculous ban on tanks firing, it would be a tough battle indeed.

 

Durden smashed through the flimsy wooden door and kept going, stomping through and covering the left while Tath was on his shoulder, spinning to the right.

They found themselves in a long bisecting corridor that seemed to cover the width of the 2nd floor, their map overlays informing the Flesh Tearers that they were halfway through the building.

A hundred metres or so down the hallway another wooden door exploded outwards, a hulking figure in battered gore and black armour stepping to aim directly at Durden.

Neyf raised his bolter as he recognised one of his own and the two Astartes crashed their fists off their chest plates in informal salute.

Cain and Daggar moved past the pair and halted next to a large pair of double doors, considerably heavier and more ornate than those of the office network.

Neyf and his battle partner Merc stacked up on the other side, giving Cain the thumbs up, signalling he was good to go.

The type of door and intricately designed Gothic framework around them signalled the change from menial staff to middle management positions, the offices beyond considerably more spacious and well furnished to cater for the more important people they contained.

Which to Cain meant they were easier to defend with better arcs of fire.

 

Cain took a knee as his eleven veterans filled the corridor and spaced themselves along it, wide enough apart as to not attract sustained bursts of fire but close enough to bring concentrated firepower to bear.

The map displayed that a heavy concentration of PDF lay beyond the double doors, at least 2 platoons formed in a circle in the centre of vast open plan office space, being dead centre of the building it was probably previously inhabited by whatever Tech Adepts were assigned to the Starport.

And that also meant it was the most probable location of Colonel Davise, who would need to be questioned regarding the confusing fact that every human in this fight was attired the same way.

The Mechanicus adept’s lack of concern for personal space would explain the open area, which was probably crammed full of machinery and decent cover for the defenders. With the amount of heavy weapons the defenders could bring to bear, it would be a hard room to take, even with the power armoured might of Space Marines

Cain was not concerned, he had something in reserve just for this eventuality, only time bothered him now, the seconds before the next phase of the battle dwindling away before him.

 

Cain moved to his right and mule kicked the heavy door on his side of the walkway, splintering the wood and tearing it from it’s hinges.

Almost instantly a hail of heavy bolter fire tore through the entryway, Cain ducking back as the mighty mass reactive rounds gouged chunks out of the solid corridor walls, showering the Astartes in chips of stone and ‘crete.

The leader of strikeforce Reaper opened a vox channel.

“Entry pattern Stonewall, on my mark.”

He counted from three.

“Mark!”

Cain and Neyf dived into the doorway, laying prone and opening up with their bolters.

At exactly the same time, Daggar and Merc filled the doorway behind them, firing from one knee.

Behind them stood Durden and Slav from Neyf’s squad, all six men filling the portal to the office with automatic bolter fire, their last precious reserves of ammo slamming into the defender’s solid cover and driving them back, numerous explosions forcing them to hunker down behind sturdy machinery and sand bag fortifications.

This was the intention, the enemy distracted, their heavy guns laying silent, this was the exact moment he needed and with it, Cain opened spoke into his vox once again.

“Brother Lorzen, engage.”

He got one word in reply, a bassy rumble from the Marine even Cain thought of as sinister.

 

“Affirmative.”

[Ufthak]

Whoah, BRILLIANT!!!

 

While reading it one really gets that feeling that the Astartes are veterans who know their work, executing perfect assaults in house-clearing and FIBUA. Great stuff!

 

Poor guardsmen/civilians though...really, the Tearers haven't met much of a resistance yet, have they? Haven't lost a single brother yet and just keep slaughtering...

 

I feel honoured you chose to use the names I suggested :)

[Darkchild130]

Whoah, BRILLIANT!!!

 

While reading it one really gets that feeling that the Astartes are veterans who know their work, executing perfect assaults in house-clearing and FIBUA. Great stuff!

 

thanks, I'm glad you noticed, that's the feeling i'm trying to get across.

 

Poor guardsmen/civilians though...really, the Tearers haven't met much of a resistance yet, have they? Haven't lost a single brother yet and just keep slaughtering...

 

hell yeah! The real fighting will occur in the next story, if I bother to contimue after this one.

 

I feel honoured you chose to use the names I suggested :lol:

 

Well i liked them, so I was happy to use them in my story :unsure:

 

Darkchild

[Ufthak]

Oh, please do continue...love your work :(

 

 

 

By the way, dreamt up a few further names...

 

- Ghaz

- Haggard

- Buleth

- Skol

- Shrap

- Crag

- Cole

- Locke

- Fawk

- Mach(ete)

- Cleav(er)

- Bluht

- Zahrn

- Zerek

- Gorn

- Bloodwin

- Carn(ey/is/e)

- Avto

- Kass

[Darkchild130]

well I already have Gornt, so Gorn is a bit too similar.

I wouldn't touch Carn with a barge pole (Khârn, anyone? :( )

 

I like:

 

Skol

Cole (bit too human though)

Locke

Kass

 

Cheers!

 

Darkchild

[Ufthak]

I was thinking "Carn" because it is similar to italian "carne", which means "meat"; but admittedly, it IS too similar to Khârn...D'OH!

 

Skol is Norwegian/Swedish for "skull", so I thought it would work well ("skol" is also what Scandinavians say when they have a drink together - supposedly because Vikings used to drink from the skulls of their enemies) :lol:

[Oloff Hammeraxe]

Wow, I'm really digging this story! The battle narration is just as good as what I would expect from most BL books, and the characters feel alive. Even Vengeance's crew seem to have life in them. Although mentioned only a few times, when they're in the scene, I get the sense of a brash, perhaps even cocky, crew working together as if one entity. What really struck me was when they burst through the entrance of the starport. That scene to me almost seems A-Team-esque, and I can imagine the gunner and driver trading smartass remarks while going about their business of killing whoever they perceive as the enemy.

 

Bah, but I ramble. I guess I gotta sleep sometime. Way to keep me up reading this longer than I should!

[Darkchild130]

Cheers!

 

I appreciate the comment.

 

Darkchild

[Harc_Staven]

Well written cant wait to read more :D

[Sons of Horus]

love your writing style :woot:

[Darkchild130]

thanks for the continued comments!

 

I've been working 15 hour days this week, with next week being more of the same so i wont get time to write more for the time being.

But stay tuned, i WILL finish the story.

 

Darkchild

[Darkchild130]

for anyone who cares, i will endeavour to write more of this story next week, as I feel work may have calmed down enough to allow me some free time.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Darkchild

[Ufthak]

EVERYONE who has read your story so far cares!!!

It would really be a shame if you stopped now...especially since the story's about to get particularly interesting - want to see what happens when the Tearers meet the Smurf-kids :)

 

Keep it up mate!!!

[Ufthak]

No new additions? :P

[Darkchild130]

just fired up my ancient coal powered desktop to report that my laptop died this week. It seems the gods themselves are against me and i wont be able to write anything until I Fix it/buy a new one and get the stuff off my old hard drive. :)

 

this saddens me, as i have een thinking about writing all week, but need all my collected stuff to do so.

 

Darkchild

[Ufthak]

D'OH!!!!

 

God, that SUCKS...what happened to you laptop? Really hope you manage at least to transfer your personal stuff off it, really feel for you.

 

Pity, have been looking forward to new additions the last ten days or so...can't you like borrow some colleagues' laptop and write new additions from what you have in your head?

 

Wish you good luck with the laptop mate!

[Molasar]

Really great, especially the blood and gore! keep it up!

[Whitefireinferno]

Oh it saddens me to hear that there will be no more for a while Darkchild130 However I have been thinking of writing a story of my own of our chapter in the mean time since I had had a couple of Ideas. Also Waiting to hear more

[Ufthak]

Yup, I am REALLY REALLY disappointed this story isn't going ahead. It started out so well... shame!

[Darkchild130]

My continued apologies, i haven't got round to buying a new laptop yet, but I promise that when i do, finishing this short story will be top of my list of priorities.

 

Whitefireinferno:look forward to reading your story.

 

Darkchild

[Nacho Wolf]

I fope you do, I really liked this story when I read it

[Helfyre]

Wow. That was killer. When I originally saw the story I was going to skip it, initially because, well, "We don't have time." However, I used to write a lot of stories, and I'm all out of horus heresy novels. So I was like, sure, what the hell. And when I hit the intro with Cain in his cell I was like, This is gonna be a damn good story. AND IT WAS! Thank you for putting this up for us, and keep it coming!