# You Are Astartes



## greywulf (Dec 21, 2009)

This is an in-progress 2nd person experiment, documenting an attack on a heretic outpost.

Comments are extremely welcome


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## greywulf (Dec 21, 2009)

The drop pod quakes around you, shuddering from the violence of punching through the atmosphere. You can hear the ceramite and plasteel warping and howling under the pressure, a sound familiar to you after the countless drop insertions you and your battle-brothers have performed together. But the noise still causes your hearts to race, pumping battle stims throughout your augmented body to prepare you for combat.

“The Emperor guides us, my brothers.”

Harnessed opposite you, Brother-Sargeant Nelix calls over the vox, looking to you and your brothers as he holds a ceramite-clad fist out before him. You mirror his gesture, adding your clenched fist to those offered by your battle-brothers. Pride swelling in your chest, you look around the circle of power suited Marines, knowing that beneath the visor of their helmets the face of each is wearing the same expression of determination as your own battle-worn features.

“The Emperor guides us,” you intone, as the voices of your brothers echo in your ears over the vox.

You snap your outstretched fist back, smacking the ceramite gauntlet against the Aquilla set across the centre of your chest plate in salute to the God-Emperor. The crack of ceramite on ceramite echoes over the scream of retro jets as the machine-spirit of the pod begins to slow the crafts descent as it nears the planets surface.

Runes blink across your visor, informing you that your journey is due to end.

You feel your harness tighten before impact, bracing you for the impending violent landing. You welcome the jarring shock of the crash, knowing that it signals the beginning of another mission for the glory of the Imperium. 

The drop pod strikes the surface of the planet with a resounding clang, releasing its exit hatches mere moments after impact to discharge you and your brothers.

Charging from the confines of the pod, bolter raised in readiness, you roar a challenge towards the enemy stronghold as you run in to the oncoming lasfire with your battle-brothers beside you.

You are the Emperor's fury.

You are the might of the Imperium.

You are Astartes.


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## greywulf (Dec 21, 2009)

You charge through the smoke of battle, the filters of your helmet stripping the acids and poisons from the air but leaving the tang of blood and fire to tease your nostrils. The smell excites, filling you with anticipation for the impending combat.

Brother-Sargeant Nelix calls for the squad to engage the entrenched former guardsmen ahead, and you add your own affirmative to the chorus of voices on the vox as you move with your battle-brothers to assault the traitors’ position.

Three heads raise above the lip of the trench ahead, the crazed expressions on the faces revealed perfectly visible to your augmented eyes. You grit your teeth in angry hatred as you witness the taint of Chaos made flesh in these once faithful soldiers of the Imperium. You offer a prayer for their eternal souls before you release them from their torment.

A trio of barks from your bolter reduce the features of the men to nought but mists of blood, the weapon bucking in your strong grasp with each squeeze of the trigger.

Reaching the ditch, you step in to the deep furrow, crushing the lifeless troopers in to the mud beneath your boots as you do so.

You find yourself amongst the crouched forms of the enemy, traitor guardsmen scattering like rats as they realise their position is no longer safe. Many try to flee over the trench and in to the ravaged wasteland, only to be stopped by the bolters of your fellow Astartes as they descend on the traitors like the wrath of the Emperor.

Placing your bolter on your hip, you unlatch your chainsword and raise the weapon high, gracing the turncoat guardsmen with a moment’s respite before you thumb the massive toothed sword in to life.

The shriek of the spinning saw blade drowns out the screams of the dying as you stride forwards, ready to lay in to the enemy with the deadly chainsword.


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## greywulf (Dec 21, 2009)

You rend through flesh and bone, the mechanized teeth tearing through the guardsmen with ease. Blood spoils the polished sheen of your armour as arterial spray splatters over its ceramite plates, the seams of the powersuit pooling with the gore.

With one last swing of the howling chainsword you slay the last of the traitors before you, sending him to a painful end by separating his body from his legs, smoking entrails tumbling from the terrible wound.

Ignoring the spilling viscera you clamber from the trench, your battle-brothers striding with you through the sucking mud of the battlefield. The armour of each one of you is marked with blood and the burns of lasfire, a testament to the futility of standing against the might of the Emperor’s chosen.

Exchanging weapons, you raise your bolter in readiness of the assault upon the nearby outpost. As you join your brothers in a distance-eating jog, further drop pods rain from the sky, each metal cylinder containing more of your Chapter’s forces to join the attack. With a prayer for their safe arrival, you turn your attention to the outpost and its defenders. 

The building is a squat block of permacrete and plasteel wedged in to the sludge of the planet, once a symbol of the will of Imperium, now only a blight amongst the mud.

The fire of the Emperor’s wrath must lance this boil.


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## greywulf (Dec 21, 2009)

The first volley from the traitors stab towards your squad, lasfire filling the air as you near the structure. The ceramite of your armour resists the barrage, though warning runes blink across your vision as the seals of the suit are compromised by the energy blasts washing over you. Rockets howl from the heavy emplacements mounted on the parapets of the outpost, as the defenders seek to drive back the armoured Marines charging in the direction of the building. 

Geysers of boiling mud erupt as explosive missiles impact the ground, sending great eruptions of sludge in to the air. Those rockets that do strike true amongst your Chapter brothers send to a violent end, leaving nought but lifeless bodies for the apothecaries to harvest precious gene-seed from. Those brothers still combat effective roar their defiance at the enemy before lending their efforts to the assault, though many are mortally wounded and near death. For as long as the Emperor still gifts him with breath and beating hearts an Astartes never stops, for each knows that the needs of the Imperium outweigh the needs of its servants.

Brother-Sargeant Nelix leads you and your brothers to provide assistance to Devastator squad tasked with knocking out the nearest heavy emplacements, in preparation for the arrival of the armoured vehicles being deployed from orbit.

As the rocket launcher-wielding Marines kneel in the muck to steady their aim, with lasfire stabbing towards their unwavering forms, you return fire towards the outpost, joining your brothers as they lay down covering fire for the heavy weapon specialists.

Your efforts prove effective, as missiles are sent screaming towards the outpost to impact on their targets, ripping great chunks from the permacrete and weakening its structure.

The heavy emplacements tear from their lofty positions as the damaged wall collapses beneath them, both men and weaponry tumbling to the ground in a shower of charred metal and permacrete clumps.

With a prayer of gratitude to the Emperor, you look up to the heavens in time to witness the majesty of the descending vehicle pods as they punch through the black clouds swirling over the battlefield, retro jets belching as they work to slow the rapid descent.


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## greywulf (Dec 21, 2009)

The vehicle pods land behind the line of you and your fellow Astartes, the impact shaking the ground under your feet. You know that within moments the might of the Chapter’s tracked armour will be unleashed to destroy this traitorous station.

You feel a throaty roar reverberating in your enforced bones as a Land Raider powers past you, demolishing the crude barricades of razor wire and girders erected around traitor building with its dozer blades before heading towards the outpost.

Your squad joins the efforts to pin down the enemy as the Land Raider roars towards the building, the vehicle taking heavy fire as the traitors attempt to repel the attack. Their pitiful efforts fail and the transport rams through the barricades rimming the outpost’s entrance way.

The front assault ramp drops to allow the Land Raider’s passengers to disembark.

A squad of Terminators stride from the vehicle, their mighty armour striking fear in the traitors. They run from the massive warriors, only to be cut down by their heavy bolter fire. As blood soaks in to the permacrete beneath their boots, the Terminators advance like a wall of righteous death in to the entrance of the building.

From your place upon the battlefield you can see Rhinos punching through the makeshift girder barriers before halting to unload those squads tasked with the honour of providing assistance to the brother-Terminators already unleashing the Emperor’s fury upon the traitors within the outpost.

“Come, my brothers. We are need elsewhere upon this tainted rock.”

Brother-Sargeant Nelix’s voice resonates over the vox, and you turn from the outpost to join your brothers in clambering in to an awaiting Rhino. You take your seat within the cramped vehicle, securing a crash frame over your pauldrons in readiness for the journey over the hostile terrain.

Your bolter and blade are needed at some other battle in this war.

You must go where the Emperor commands.

You are one of his angels of death.

You are the Emperor's fury.

You are Astartes.

And none may stand in your path.






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End


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## toffster (Dec 13, 2009)

An interesting experiment, not sure if it worked that well. In my senses with the second person theme it seemed more poetic.

All the same good try, and an original idea! +rep


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## shaantitus (Aug 3, 2009)

I was a bit skeptical of how it was written at the start but it think you pulled it off. I reall enjoyed it and wanted more when i reached the end. Well done.


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## toffster (Dec 13, 2009)

Is there a possibility of a second one? Something like "You are Da Boss" for orks...
Actually thats a good idea *suspicious looks*.


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## greywulf (Dec 21, 2009)

I did have in mind "You Are Dreadnought", but have yet to find time.
I have several projects on the go, including Sturms Spectres, and not always a lot of time to focus on my writing.

BUt hopefully I can do something else, and maybe start a whole "You Are..." series.


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## toffster (Dec 13, 2009)

That would be good yes. I would keep your work on spectres at the moment, it's probably the best story i've read on here yet.


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