# The living tide, my 40k story



## when in doubt shoot! (Oct 19, 2008)

Hey, this is the beginning of a stry I started a while back but never got round to finishing. I won't say any more about it to ruin the story. enjoy!


The living tide

Staff sergeant Johanne Tatago of the 12th Mordian Spat on the hot, greasy metal grille he was standing on. It had been a long night for him. This was the job he hated most about being in the Regen IIV planetary defence force. Guarding the extensive warren of promethium refining tunnels. Ever since a space hulk infested with ‘stealers had to be purged from the emperors divine sight at the space port planetary governor Lukas Alexander put the guard on high alert.
Suddenly there was a thud and the crack of a lasgun being fired, then a loud shout and a curse round the corner of the wall, the terrified trooper grabbed his weapon by the strap and rushed round the corner, slipping on the metal floor, as he turned the corner he sighed. It was only private Diaz. He had dropped his lasgun and it must have fired itself. The bewildered trooper bundled his weapon onto a crate and prepared himself for the scalding he was about to receive. He stood to attention and smoothed down his tunic. 
“I’m sorry sir, it, it just slipped! The walls haven’t been damaged at all, I checked sir!”

The sergeant took a deep breath and began his angry rant; 
“WALLS? WALLS? DO YOU THINK I GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE BLOODY WALLS? YOU COULD HAVE ME SHOT FOR LEAVING MY POST, YOU FLOGGED FOR WASTING AMMUNITION AND FLOGGED AGAIN FOR IMPROPER CONDUCT, EMPERORS SAKE LADDY, USE THE STRAP!”
He thrust the strap of his lasgun into the privates face and shook it violently in front of his eyes. 
“No sir, please, no sir! Don’t report this! I am so close to being promoted, Van Hoss himself is going to be bumping me up to corporal!” The trooper cried. 

The sergeant took a deep breath and looked around. 
“Alright, listen. You’re the company’s Q.M. in training right?” He said under his breath.
“Yeah, I can get amasec, cigars, extra ammo. Anything, why?” he said, not fully realising what the sergeant was suggesting.”
“Good. Now I’m a reasonable, good natured man, and as you know, every reasonable good natured man likes his little home comforts, eh?”
The private nodded. 
“Get me two bottles of Amasec and some o’ those cigars, the nice ones, with the valkyrie fuel in them and we’ll forget all about this little incident. O.K.?” 
He said, politely.

“O.K, whatever, can I go now? My shift ended five minutes ago, in fact, my relief should be here by now.” 

“hmm, late eh? That’s a punishable offence. Can he get me any little home comforts?”
He said sneakily.
“Dunno, don’t know him, he’s called Richten, I think.”

“Right then, let’s go find him. I’d better be going too. Officers mess will be gettin’ lonely without me, eh lad?”

The young soldier smiled and looked at his officer. He may shout a bit too much, but he was a good leader and an excellent judge of character which was one of the most important aspects of being an officer. It doesn’t matter if you can handle a lasgun if you cant tell who’s a timid pacifist and should never have joint the guard or a crazy idiot who would get his whole squad killed. You need to know the men in your command or you’re all dead before you step out the chimera. 
As they stepped round the corner, Diaz just happened to look into a dark corner of the sub station, to his right. The sub station was to be a rallying point for the sentries. If an attack was discovered the sentries would pull back to the sub station and make their stand against the threat until help arrived from the other sectors. The sub station was an easy facility to defend and would hold an enemy attack up for several hours. But what Diaz saw was not to his liking. He keeled over and vomited on all fours.

The sergeant immediately looked down at the soldier and shook him.
“What? What the hell happened? Are you ok? I’ll call a medic!” 
The soldier heaved and pointed over to the sub station perimeter wall. There were the dismembered bodies of Richten and what was meant to be Johannes relief. 
Johanne looked and gagged himself, but regained control of the situation, and took his lasgun and walked warily over to the bodies while Diaz recovered from his trauma.
The First body, of Richten was slumped up against the perimeter wall his arm had been ripped clean off and his head was hanging on to its neck by a thin piece of bloodied skin. His Glazed over eyes looked back at Johanne and he felt a shiver run down his back. He turned to the unnamed soldiers’ body who was meant to be his relief. He had a feeling this man wasn’t going to be very relieving at all. He noticed the deep claw marks down the soldiers’ chest plate and the white ichor over the bloody bite marks on his limbs and then it hit him. 

The space hulk. The Ichor. The savage bite marks. There was only one creature who could do all this. He turned back to Diaz who was wiping vomit off of his fatigues. 

“What is it sir? What could have done this?” The young trooper exclaimed, tears welling up in his eyes.

Johanne frowned deeply, anger in his eyes and spoke; 
“Genestealers!” 

“Stealers? Here? No way! They must have came off that infested space hulk! But how did they get through?” He said, terrified. 
“No idea, but we’ve got to let the others know, get out of here and warn above ground.” He said gravely. 
“Come on soldier! We are leaving!” shouted the sergeant. He picked up his lasgun and hauled Diaz towards the exit. 
As the two were running so many questions were streaming through there heads. If Genestealers are here where is the rest of their force? How come we haven’t seen any yet? Does anyone else know? What will happen? Only one planet has ever survived a tyranid invasion and that was Macragge, the ultramarines stronghold. They reached the first security door that would take them to the lift shaft that would lead to the surface and, hopefully, safety. 
The two soldiers slammed into the door and Diaz furtively looked behind them. 
“You know the code?” he enquired.
“Yeah, yeah, just a minute” Johanne shouted, agitated. 
He fished out a small worn, textbook with a battered green cover.

Just Then the pair heard a scream and as Diaz turned around He seen a beleaguered Guardsman, his armour ripped to shreds and blood streaming from cuts on his face, legs and torso. His weapon was nowhere to be seen. 
Diaz looked at him in amazement wondering what was happening.
“Soldier!” He shouted. 
“What’s happening? Get here now!” 
The trooper glanced behind him, terror in his eyes.
“THEY’RE COMING! HELP! HELP ME!” 

Just then a Genestealer ripped round the corner and launched itself off of the pipes attached to the wall and collided with the man, dragging the soldier down. He erupted in a mass of Gurgled screams as the genestealers claws raked across his head. a plume of blood shot from his neck spraying across the walls, his head separated from his body and his lifeless body slumped to the ground. The Genestealer looked up and spotted the pair.
Johannes looked at the Genestealers’ cold black eyes. It hissed and began advancing towards them.

“Open the door! Open it now!” he bellowed. The Genestealer advanced just as the two heaved the huge security door open and ran through it. Just as they closed the door The Genestealer forced its head into the crack before they could close the door fully. The force of the Alien monster hitting the door knocked Diaz off of his feet and he fell on to the floor with a bang. Johannes was still trying to keep the door shut. Diaz was lying on the floor, stunned. 
“Shoot it! Shoot it Quick!” 
Diaz came round and realised what was happening. He grabbed his lasgun, turned it onto full power and pulled the trigger. There was a crack and a whine, then the smell of burnt flesh. The flash was blinding in such a confined space and when Diaz focussed his eyesight He could see a puddle of blood, the security door ajar and the dead Alien. Its head had been completely vaporized and its limp body was lying on the floor awkwardly, twitching every now and again. Johannes was slumped against the wall, hyperventilating over and over. His hands resting on his heart. Diaz ran over to him and held him up. 
“Are you ok sir?” He said, worried that he might have hit him. 
“Yeah, I’m fine, ‘Stealer was a frisky one eh? We’d better keep moving, close the security door, it’ll buy us some time, we’re gonna need every second.” 
“Ok let’s go.” Diaz agreed. He threw over the lasgun to his sergeant and took his own.
Then there was the sound of scrabbling on the other side of the door and the thud of something slamming against it. The door shuddered.
The blood spattered sergeant looked through the reinforced window and cursed.
“Come on, lets move!” 
The two soldiers started to run, slinging their weapons onto their backs and sprinting to the next security door. The two ran straight into the door and Johanne immediately started hammering the security code into the access pad. There was the sound of an awful howl and a group of Genestealers appeared at the bottom of the corridor. Diaz looked round as Johanne fiddled with the door and tried to heave it open.
“Sarn’t! More coming! What’ll I do?” The soldier cried. 
“Bloody hell, that was quick! These doors are made of reinforced admantium! What’ve they got? Det packs? Shoot ‘em lad, aim for the neck!” 
He needed no more explanation. He flicked off the safety catch, pointed the gun at the Genestealers that were tearing down the corridor towards them and squeezed the trigger for about four seconds. The red laser beams shot down the corridor and caught a Genestealer square in the chest, the shot bounced off its bright blue carapace and it carried on regardless. 
“Door’s open, Get through, I’ve got ‘em” Diaz nipped through the door and looked through the window.
Johanne took his lasgun and sprayed fire down the corridor. The alien monsters were racing down towards him; they would be on him in seconds! He tore the webbing off of his pack which held his grenades and pulled out the pin of the one he seen first. He threw the tangled mess of webbing and grenades down the corridor landing at the lead alien’s feet, as it continued running it stood on the webbing and crushed it underfoot. There was a tremendous explosion as the dreadful tyrannid was blown to pieces. The shrapnel ricocheted around the corridor catching another in the arm, tearing it clean off. More shrapnel tore through the high pressure pipes on the side of the walls, spraying noxious gases onto the two aliens that were left. They fell to the floor, their limbs flailing wildly as the yellow steam bore through their flesh. Johanne didn’t wait to see the conclusion. He slammed the door shut and turned away. They were nearly at the surface and he couldn’t wait to watch the whole promethium refining complex be incinerated, the genestealers with it. As He turned around to make sure Diaz was alright his jaw dropped down as he saw a stray Genestealer pinning Diaz down to the floor, gruesome tentacles hanging from where its mouth should be, crawling over Diaz’s face trying to feed on his brain! Diaz let out a scream before he shut his mouth abruptly to stop the feeder tentacles from slipping into his mouth and into his skull Johanne scrabbled for his lasgun but dropped it in the confusion. Suddenly everything went into slow motion as Johanne Unsheathed his bayonet from his boot scabbard. He descended on the writhing mass in front of him and dived in, bayonet in hand. Te Genestealer let out a piercing scream as the knife sliced its way through the tentacles, slopping down onto the floor, Diaz squirmed to avoid the purple liquid dripping down from the stumps of the Genestealers face, knowing the blood would almost certainly be detrimental to his health if it touched him. In response, the aliens instinct drove it berserk. In one huge movement it thrown Johanne off of its back and turned to him. Diaz jumped onto his feet....


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## when in doubt shoot! (Oct 19, 2008)

Any criticism, feel free to comment, I didn't spend a lot of time on this, so its not my best story


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## surreal-mind (Oct 11, 2008)

nice, i always love nid stories =D


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## LVix (Oct 18, 2008)

Being a 'Nid-girl I usually root for the big aliens... but you made me care about the poor little guard. Well done! :wink:

It could be doing with tightening up the action a bit but I'm no author myself so I couldn't say exactly what you need to do. Great for a quick short story you wrote down. Well done.


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