The Sweeping Advance, or Damn ATSKNF!

[Paradigm]

This is a fluff bit, from a campaign I wrote with some friends. We never finished the campaign entirely. Life got in the way as it often does.

 

The Pertinaax Helborne are an army of traitor guardsmen, and vassals to an Eighth Legion Warband. During the campaign their homeworld was invaded by a coalition of Space Marines who didn't realize the Night Lords had claimed the world for themselves, and would eventually come to defend what was theirs...

 

 

 

I am Lawrenz Guza, of
the 47^th Pertinaax Helborne.

My father was a soldier, and his father before him. Our lineage stretches back to
the founding strife. Always true, House Guza. My great-grandfather died during
a purge while gripping the Helborne standard. Killed by corpse worshipping
traitors, his rigor mortis held firm and the winged skull standard never
touched the ground. It was a proud death. My grandfather stepped on a landmine before
my father was born, a poor death. We do not speak of it much. My father was the
commander of a tank and was consumed by it during a battle. It had become
malevolently sentient during transit in the warp. So a worse death for him,
perhaps.

 

I have yet to find a way to die in service to the Eighth Legion. I hope I die well.

 

--

 

The clock ticks down. I check my ammunition, my knife, my pack. My auto-gun sits alongside me. Engines squeal outside. Explosions shake loose a spare grav-chute. Luckily it didn’t trip and smear us all against the walls. A soldier lets loose a joyful scream in anticipation.

 

Tic, Toc. The gunship shakes violently as afterburners press us all into our harnesses. A broken rivet whistles as the hold loses air. We put on our masks, our goggles, pick up our weapons.

 

The man beside me has a skull painted on his helmet. Terror markings; noticed as promising by  command. Our comrades often are. The 47^th is a cauldron of heroes. I hope this battle will earn me mine. Tic, Toc.

 

The doors fly open and we barrel out, face-first, falling like comets into the mayhem of war.

 

Tracer fire flies beneath us. The sky brightens as a beastly tank below unleashes a coruscating beam of fury. I hear a blast, off to the left, over the rushing wind. The enemy is steadily overtaking our positions.

 

Our grav-chutes push us beyond terminal velocity as tracer fire flies through our formation. Several men die. I am not one of them. All leave man shaped holes in the smoke wafting up from the battle. My  reckoner is reading 600 klicks per hour. The man with terror markings roars past me, amping his grav-chute. Ballsy bastard. He suddenly jerks upright hard as his terror marked head is obliterated in another burst of tracer fire from the formation below. Every battle is consecrated in gore.

 

Below me, the earlier drops right themselves in preparation to touch down. Their grav-chutes jerking repeatedly to slow them to survivable fall speed. As my chute does the same, the roar of the air is replaced by the thud-scream of bolter fire and the following tell-tale explosions.

 

The 47^th are building a beachhead beneath me as I float down the final 10 meters. Dropped
in supplies are opened. Heavy stubbers are assembled. Plasma guns are pulled free from drop-crates. Men discard their carbines in favor of the heavier weapons.  Not even Helborne are insane enough to drop in with plasma guns.

 

 I hit a little hard and drop my spent chute. A fellow trooper tosses me a melta-bomb. I take a sip of water. The rest of my platoon lands around me. Many of the dead drift down like the living. The headless daredevil lands near me so I take some of his ammo. His terror markings erased along with his head.

 

The hillside is alive now with Helborne. One of us is firing a heavy stubber far to my left. The men in my squad are huddled behind the remains of some kind of cabin or shed. This area was once a part of the great boreal forest. Now it is just a network of trenches, splinters and burned brush.

 

One of my squad quietly props his plasma gun on some rubble and peaks over the side. He holds up three fingers, and motions as if rolling his hands over an enormous shoulder; three astartes. The hum of powered armor grows louder. He brings the plasma gun to his shoulder and double taps. One of the three black armored astartes drops with a gaping hole in his chest. The rest of our squad open up with autoguns. Someone throws a frag grenade. The two astartes ignore the small arms fire and one places a bionic foot over the grenade, smothering the explosion with inhuman endurance. His methodical return fire interrupted for mere seconds by the blast. The other remaining marine shoots down man after man precisely and deliberately. Our firing becomes erratic as the two marines close on our position with unnatural speed. They pull out pistols and one shoots our plasma gunner, his arm torn from his body, and his screams briefly drown out the gunfire. One by one our men fall.

Down the hill I see the fallen marine come to one knee and then stand and begin marching, then running, forward. His gaping chest wound remains but there is no pouring blood. I am puzzled but have no time to ponder this. Enemy Astartes are among us. Terrified some of us run, but are cut down.

 

I don’t know if it was bravery or utter horror that held me there. But I did nothing, and I didn’t react at all as the augmetic iron hand closed around my face and ended me.

[Teetengee]

Well done, a few minor things: a. Wouldn't he need some sort of pressure suit to survive those accelerations? b. Isn't the existence of renegade astartes in any sort of scale hidden from the guard? c. beastly seems to me as a somewhat strange adjective, I would suggest  monstrous instead.

Good stuff though, definitely want to hear more.

[daveNYC]

That's the twist, this guy is a traitor guardsman.

[Teetengee]

Sorry, missed that. Makes much more sense now.

[Machine God]

Die Heretic!

 

The Flesh is Weak!

[Paradigm]

Thanks for the kind words. I had forgotten I'd posted this. I'll drag up some more of the fluff for the campaign when I am at home. I really wish I'd finished the whole story. The campaign is long over so I doubt I ever will. It's pretty much a 40k-ified retelling of the Sicilian Expedition. The role of Athens played by the Imperium's finest, the Syracusans are the people of the Pertinaax system, and the Spartan reinforcements are a few Eighth Legion Warbands who come to town to trade war stories and home movies of dad.

[Paradigm]

Here is a little more from the Helborne flavor text.

 

 

“Shoot him up or cut him down…”

We repeat each line, in unison. Our cadence.

 “…I’m gonna kill for my hometown…”

The sky is dimming; the ever red sunset.

 “…No enemy will conquer me…”

Eighty right boots strike the pavement.

“…I’ll kill ‘em all for my family...”

Training always started at dusk.

 ‘…I might not be Ah-star-tes…”

My mask smells like rubber and over-held pennies.

 “…But I’ll still strike like light-a-ning.”

I’ll never forget these lines.

“…A little Clickity crack, clickity crack"

"crack, Crack, BOOM!...”

Our standard catches the wind.

“…The Helborne man calmly faces doom…”

Famed are the colors of the 47^th Helborne.

“…With a stern face gives his loyalty…”

The Silver-blue, the bend sinister of blood-

“…The Eighth Legion forever owns me…”

A black-winged skull honors our lords.

“…Never forget! Never forgive!..."

I was born for this.

"... Clickity, Crack, BOOM!”