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[GluttonousSlave]

I wote this some time ago on DAKKA DAKKA. I was so quick and excited to start this story, but could not really take it past its introductory phase. I would like to think that I have established a good tone and setting, but I hope perhaps another can take the wheel and provide inspiration:

AS THE GLOBAL conflict on Nordsfeld escalated, imperial forces were forced to pour thousands of soldiers into the meat grinder that had erupted across the planet. With the highly contagious zombie virus unleashed, the forces of Chaos had more than enough manpower to stave off imperial attacks. Ag workers and serfs, once loyal to the God Emperor, now saw him as an aggressor and fought with vigor against his armies. The vast fields that once kept the entire Marcies sub-sector fed, were now turned corrupt with the touch of Chaos. The lands were now riddled with vast trench systems and sprawling no-mans-lands where both sides fought to the death (and for some beyond that). As a stalemate ensued, the forces of Chaos realised that attrition was a game that only the Imperials could win. Calling upon various debts, The Thrax Knights of Nurgle were able to summon a vast host of allies. With these fresh forces, Chaos was able to start an even more decisive and bloody series of incursions against imperial strong points. Imperial supremacy over Nordsfeld had never been so close to oblivion....

THE SKY ABOVE the badlands was utterly dark. Occasionally, explosions erupted in the far horizon signaling the death of a city, or the eruption of a tactical virus bomb. Tracer fire streaked throughout the sky. Five Valkyries soared in a tight "V" formation, their thrusters barley audible over the clattering of small arms fire below. Pvt. Darren looked across the lead Valkyrie’s hold at his nine squadmates. Their carapace armour and hellguns matched his own: non-gloss black with silent zig-zags of grey. The only Stormtrooper that did not have identical kit was Sergeant Cullen, standing out with a power sword which was secured in a scabbard. Darren stared at the ground beneath the Valkyrie; It was pitch black down there. He couldn’t tell if anything was going on at all. A flare shot up from the imperial lines and streaked over the no-mans-land. This illuminated dozens of Nurgle cultists, crawling through the death zone. They each stood up and sprinted towards the imperial gun line, only to be met with the bark of Heavy Bolters. In seconds they had were all gunned down, blown to pieces by the explosive rounds.

“Chaos Shriekers Inbound! Hold on people. Its going to be rough going from this point on,” the Valkyrie’s pilot projected through the hold’s speakers.

The scream of vector thrust engines alerted Darren of the Chaos warplanes. They came in fast, at the squadron’s nine o’clock. The Valkyrie’s flight sergeant got up from his bench and strapped himself into the Heavy Bolter door gun. Yellow streaks of Bolt fire blasted towards the Chaos interceptors. One took a Bolt round directly to the cockpit, sending it's pilot to his dark gods. The Shriekers returned fire at a frightening rate, blowing apart the port wing of the left most dropship. As Darren held his Hellgun tightly, he thought he could almost hear the dropship’s occupants scream.

“One minute until we reach the D.Z. Target in sight.” The pilot informed the Stormtroopers.

The Shriekers made another attack run on the Valkyrie squadron. Multilaser shots thudded across the hull. The door gun’s ammunition hopper has hit and a violent explosion filled the hold. The flight sergeant’s cheast was blown open. He simply slumped, the gun harness held his body above the deck. Darren held his hellgun even tighter and offered a silent thanks to the Emperor for carapace armour.

“Thirty Seconds!”

Their target could only be described as vast. The Revege was an airship, the full length of three super heavy tanks. It seemed as menacing as death itself, propelled by eight immense turbines on each side, caked with the vile filth of Nurgle, and slandered with an innumerable amount of Chaos marks and Blasphemous sigils. Such airships flew across the continent, dispensing an airborne strain of the zombie virus over cities, turning defenders and citizens alike into followers of Nurgle. To look upon it was to know corruption.

“Go! Go! Dismount.”

The remaining four Valkyries hovered over the massive roof of the airship. Darren was the first out, *CENSORED*ling down the rope attatched to the exterior of the Dropship. It was a digustingly soft landing; the squishy, wet filth of chaos dominated the airship's hull. He crouched and leveled his Hellgun, searching for any possible targets. Only 13 seconds after the rest of his squad landed did a target present itself; three shapes emerged from alcove hidden among the roof. They resembled highly bloated human forms, covered in mechanical augmentations and iron plate armor. The servitors propelled themselves forth via sets of hydraulic legs ending in talons. The four Valkyries pulled away into the night, still harassed by the Shriekers.


Darren voxed “Sgt. Cullen, three defense servitors spotted at out squad’s twelve.”

Cullen replied “Received, Stormtrooper squads engage, grenade/hotshot volley zeta, adjust Hellgun power packs to max power! Demo squads, keep your heads down!”

A series of acknowledgements sounded from the three other squads that had touched down on the airship: two demolition expert squads and another Stormtrooper squad. The third Stormtrooper squad hadn’t been so lucky on the flight to the Revege.

As the servitors opened fire with their large, yet inaccurate Autocannons, the two Stormtrooper squads assumed a semi-circle formation around the servitors. As Darren, primed a frag grenade, he saw Bren take a hit, toppling him to the ground in a spray of gore. Darren and half the others in his squad released a volley of frag grenades with practiced precision. The grenades exploded at the feet of the servitors, scrambling their targeting matrixes. They fired wildly, one even managed to gun down its brother in a wild spray of bullets. The Stormtroopers took pot shots at the armored hides of the servitors, the hot shot rounds pierced the armor and gangrenous flesh of the lobotomized slaves. After less than a minute of combat, the Stormtroopers had managed to secure the landing site.

“Casualties?” Cullen asked.

“I’ve got two men down, both dead,” replied Sgt. Herdor of the second Stormtrooper squad.

“Bren is down! He needs aid!” Shouted Darren.

‘Frak’, thought SGT Dmitri Cullen, ‘seventeen men and a transport down already; unacceptable losses so far.’

“Darren, tend to Bren, the rest of you, swap power packs with the dead,” ordered Sgt. Cullen.

Darren knelt by Bren as he clutched what was left of his leg. He was screaming with pain. His blood was draining quickly into a vent on the airship's surface. Darren swore that the ship itself was drinking from Bren's lost vital fluids.

“Ah, my fraking leg! My fraking leg!” cried Bren.

“Just hold on Bren. Sargeant, he’s hurt bad. What do we do?” Darren calmly asked.

Sergeant Cullen stood grimly above the pair. He looked at Bren’s leg, seeing the white bone protrude from the fleshy stump of the leg. The SGT could barely contain his horror at the sight of orifices emerging from the deck to sup the fluid streaming out of Bren. Dmitri knew what had to be done, why there was only one solution to this problem, and it wasn’t an easy one.

After a long breath he said “Stormtrooper Bren is no longer an asset and is now a liability to the mission.” Sgt. Cullen put his hand on Darren’s shoulder and silently ordered “Give him the Emperor’s mercy,” then walked away.

Darren felt his heart sink; lower than when he was forced to silence civilians during the infiltration mission on Duran; lower than when he had witnessed the exterminatus of the shrine world Tharces. But what had to be done had to be done. He was a Strormtrooper; one of the Emperor’s finest. We would smite anything that would get between him and his objective. Right now, that thing was Bren.

“Sorry Bren,” muttered Darren as he leveled his Hellgun at his comrade’s face.

“What?” Bren’s look of anguish turned contorted with fear, “No! Not like this. Darren please! He put his hands up in an attempt to block his face.

Bren started screaming, the pain of his leg and the fear of death combining to form a blood curdling wail. Then Darren pulled the trigger; the hot shot round blasted through Bren’s hand, entering and exiting his skull in a fraction of a second. His screaming stopped. A bizarre silence was left in its wake. Even the massive ground battle below seemed to go silent. Darren looked up from Bren’s corpse, smoke gently rising from the neatly punctured hole in his head, to face the blank stares of the other thirty six members of the strike force.

The thirty seventh member stood atop the swollen hide of a slain servitor. All eyes turned to him “Men, this is no time for sentiment. What happened to Bren had to be done. He would have either been captured by the enemy or slowed us down. Both of those outcomes would have compromised the mission. Let's not forget why we are here; we have a city to save. Now, squad Herdor, you are to escort squad Kammer to the cockpit of thi nightmare. My squad will escort squad Reaves to the reactor chamber. Once you reach your objective, set the Melta-charges to a five minute timer and vox my squad. Synchronize chronometers, we only have thirty seven minutes until the Revege reaches Correnburg. Move out” Cullen ordered.

Without another word the four squads organized into two units and each set out towards separate areas of the airship; Herdor’s unit towards the bow, Cullen’s towards the stern. Darren knelt over his dead comrade and exchanged his power pack with a fresh one still in Darren’s webbing. The Revege was not far from finishing the grisly duty of completely absorbing his friend. Only a quick, silent blessing could be uttered to guide his commrade to the God-Emperor. At the conclusion of Bren's last rites, Darren saw the faintest of glimmers shine from Brens neck; a glimmer that prompted Darren to snag yet another item from the corpse, lest it too be claimed by the great destroyer. He closed his eyes knowing that his nightmares would never escape this night.