# Revenant Part 1



## Unknown Soldier (Oct 24, 2008)

Well, here we go again boys and girls, another Space Marine story from Unknown Soldier. This first part is a biggy, but worry not, I've filled it full of 'Bolter Porn' to help satiate the more blood thirsty amongst you.

As always, I hope you enjoy it. So without further ado -

Revenant Part 1

From orbit, the planet looked untouched.

‘Dispatch a satellite, I want to see what’s happening on the ground.’ Captain Brin commanded, frustrated at the lack of intelligence for this mission.

Two weeks ago, the Imperium lost all Astropathic ties with the Hive World of Drogan. Every attempt to contact the Planetary Government, both telepathically and more conventionally had failed. The Angels of Vengeance were tasked to investigate this mysterious lack of communication.

‘Satellite away sir, we should be receiving telemetry any second now….Geosynchronous orbit established, we’re receiving images from Heartland, the largest population centre.’ Reported the diligent Communications Officer.

Live pictures from the planet’s surface filtered through onto the view screens dominating the command deck of the Astartes Cruiser Barbican. With a few deft twists of the imaging toggle, the real time footage jumped between increasing magnifications, until the overhead skyline of Heartland, Drogan’s primary Hive City, filled the main viewer.

‘What is that?’ Brin exclaimed.

Amidst Heartland’s dark gothic spires, sat an alien structure taller then the highest towers and similar in width. It’s smooth stone sides and angular edges resembled an elongated diamond with a point that tapered towards the ground. For all intents and purposes, it looked as if a colossal marble spike had been rammed into the centre of the city by some gargantuan mythical giant.

‘Unknown Captain, it’s resistant to all of our scans. I’ve cross referenced the structural dimensions of the object with the ship’s computer and there’s no record of a similar construction within our databases.’ Came the concise explanation.

‘Are you able to monitor any surface activity? Are there any vox comms, transportation movements, power fluctuations?’ asked Brin.

‘No Captain, we aren’t registering any surface activity, though power levels within the Industrial Zones and the Hive Cities are operating within normal parameters’ replied the Communications Officer.

‘And survivors, can we monitor for life signs?’ demanded Captain Brin.

‘Scanning now sir…Yes Captain, the planet is registering over sixty million life signs, spread throughout the three main Hive Cities. I’m increasing magnification on Heartland now’ The Communication Officer replied, his fingers working furiously on the imaging toggle.

The view screen flickered twice, it’s pale green hue fighting through interference and static to establish a clear image. As the frame settled down, Brin could hardly believe the vision that met his eyes. On the streets of the Hive City, twenty seven million people stood motionless and stoic in a series of perfectly spaced geometrical formations, like soldiers on parade.

‘The planet must have sustained some sort of attack. Send down a reconnaissance squad, I want answers.’ Ordered Brin.

Less then an hour later, a Thunderhawk transport carrying Sergeant Ben Corder and his squad of Space Marines set down on a mid-level landing pad in the centre of Heartland. Stepping from the deployment ramp, the city of Heartland surrounded them like a wall of jagged edges, the archaic spires, twisted towers and curvaceous arches flowing into one another without restraint or guidance, creating a mosaic of stone clad chaos, an urban hellscape of gothically absurd proportions. And in the distance, dominating the skyline was the alien spike, jutting from the bowels of the city and reaching far up into the heavens, it’s clean lines and fluid shape an anathema to the prevalent surroundings.

‘Spread out, establish a perimeter, we don’t know what we’re dealing with here’ barked Corder.

The ten man squad moved into their well practiced formation, spreading out into a perfect circle and establishing clear fire zones in every direction. Corder’s ears twitched, despite seeing action in every conceivable battlefield the galaxy had to offer, he was unnerved and unsettled. For the first time in his eighty five years of service, he was smack dab in the middle of a thriving Hive World and the only sound he could hear was the familiar whine of the Thunderhawk engines behind him.

‘Sergeant, we have civilian movement.’ Came the cry from one of his battle brothers.

Peering down the ramps from the landing pad, Corder could see the populace of Heartland beginning to mobilise. Like a choreographed wave, the previously stoic inhabitants started to congregate into new formations. Their footsteps quickening as they funneled onto the various roads and walkways leading to the Thunderhawk platform. In the space of seconds, two million men, women and children came storming up the ramps of the landing pad towards the tactical squad in a seemingly never ending surge of flesh and bone.

The eerie silence that had greeted the Marines on their disembarkation was shattered as twenty seven million voices screamed in unison. Corder’s ears exploded in pain to the sudden increase in volume as the chorus of wails echoed and bounced off the city structures. His Lyman Ear implant provided almost instantaneous relief as it filtered down the sound of the crowd to a more acceptable level, but had little effect on the chills running along Corder’s spine by the massed cries of the damned.

‘They’re coming towards us Sergeant, what should we do?’ warned Brother Elias, cocking his Heavy Bolter and struggling to be heard over the cacophony of sound.

The agitated citizens of Heartland, their skin pale and faces gaunt, began sprinting towards the startled Angels of Vengeance. Corder narrowed his eyes and tried to focus on the massed swarm of humanity approaching his squad from every direction. When the citizens of Drogen got to within three hundred yards, he could finally make out their faces and was horrified by what he saw. 

Twenty two years ago on the planet Agripa, Corder had stumbled upon the remains of a Chaos sect in the outlands of the northern continent. The acolytes had been trying to summon a daemon from the realms of the Warp and had failed badly. Upon staring into the abyss and witnessing the true horror of Chaos, the vile priests fell to the ground dead, their minds and hearts shattered by the shock and realisation of what they had encountered. Their widened eyes and gaping maws were frozen into a distorted mask of fear, regret and revulsion, the terror mirrored in their rigor mortised hands adding further testament to the horrific experience they had endured. As they lay curled in the dirt, their clutched fingers were dug painfully into their hearts and stomachs. Every citizen, Corder thought to himself, every citizen on this damned planet had the exact same expression upon their faces.

‘Sergeant?!’ Brother Elias urged, not needing to waste further words on the obviously threatening situation.

Corder quickly realised that there would be no reasoning with these people and with some regret, gave the only order he could.

‘Open fire!’

A split second later, the ten man squad opened up with everything they had – Bolters, Plasma Guns, Melta Guns and Flamers shot forth their murderous contents. Brother Elias with his mighty Heavy Bolter unleashed a torrent of explosive shells towards a screaming group of attackers, each round fully penetrating the body of the first and then exploding spectacularly into the second rank behind. The fragile human frames of his opponents offered little protection against the mass reactive shells of the Space Marine’s weapon and their weak flesh violently burst apart like over stuffed meat cushions as the deadly projectiles vomited their fury.

The Plasma, Melta and Flame Guns were having a similar carnage laden effect on the endless sea of city dwellers, the Angels of Vengeance firing unflinchingly as they burned and cooked the flesh from their enemy’s bones. Groups of casualties bundled on top of one another forming living funeral pyres on the edges of the landing platform and thick black smoke filled the air. Corder paused to reload his weapon and quickly looked behind him as the twin Heavy Bolters of their transport ship opened fire on the hysterical proletariat.

Despite their best efforts, the tide of flesh was seeping onto the platform from every direction. It would only be a matter of time before his men and the Thunderhawk were overwhelmed by the fanatical crowd. As the blood from his antagonists literally rained down upon his armour, Corder gave another fateful command.

‘Get the ship out of here! Take off now!’ Corder bellowed into his vox, knowing that the action would damn his men but save a valuable asset to the Chapter.

‘But if we leave now, you’ll be stranded…’ the Thunderhawk pilot responded.

‘That’s an order! Return to the Barbican and establish a quarantine of this planet! Do it!’ Corder shouted down the vox, his orders were not to be disobeyed.

Reluctantly, the engines of the Thunderhawk boomed into life and the bulky transport vessel lifted slowly from the ground. Before thrusting skyward, the pilot tilted the nose of the ship downwards and fired a final volley of Twin Bolter fury, carving through the throng like an explosive beam, leaving a trail of blood and destruction wherever it’s vicious payload landed. 

As the ship changed attitude towards open sky, a few desperate citizens tried to jump down on to it’s armoured hull and though most missed or bounced harmlessly off the metal plates, plunging to the ground several hundred feet below, one or two managed to hang on. No matter, they would pass out once the craft reached the higher atmosphere and if, by some slim chance, their grip did not falter, there was always the vacuum of space to finish the job. 

‘Form a circle! Back to back!’ ordered Corder, using both his vox and his resonant voice to make sure his orders would be heard.

The Angels of Vengeance closed ranks and continued to fire throughout until they were a tight circle of death, dispensing fiery destruction in every direction. The bodies of the dead began to pile up on the landing pad creating walls of corpses. Undeterred, the crowd kept surging forward, trampling over the bloodied and burning bodies of their fellow citizens towards their Space Marine foes.

‘They’re still coming sir!’ exclaimed Brother Flaxon in total disbelief, his Flame Gun roasting thirty charging citizens at a time.

‘Remember Brothers!’ Corder shouted with a slight chuckle in his voice ‘To a Space Marine, there is no such thing as overwhelming odds…only a target rich environment!’ His words of humour and confidence inspired his fellow Angels of Vengeance to even greater acts of courage and fortitude.

Well, all except one, as Brother Elias spat under his breath.

‘Dammit! We’re going to run out of bolter shells before we run out of targets!’

From his position, Corder took a moment to look out into the city. On every walkway, every road and every ramp leading towards the landing pad, he could see them. He’d faced Ork hordes and heard tales of Tyranid attacks but nothing could prepare him for the sheer scale of the task ahead. During the ten minute fire fight, Corder calculated that they had dispatched more then twenty thousand souls, barely one percent of the Hive’s population.

Twenty seven million screaming, fanatical, murderous citizens of Drogan continued their rampage towards the ten heavily armed Angels of Vengeance. It would take a miracle of staggering proportions to win this battle, hopefully the Emperor would look down upon them this day.

Part Two to follow


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## Digg40k (Sep 7, 2008)

Excellent piece of writing, can't wait to get my teeth into the next installment.


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## Shogun_Nate (Aug 2, 2008)

Excellent start to your story bud! As always, well-written and flows nicely. If I had to make a comment it would be on the background a bit. Ten-man tactical squads generally only have one special weapon and one heavy weapon. Granted, that's the standard. Your guys may be able to take more. You might want to inject a little more background into the story if this is the case heh heh heh. Still, it's a damned good story mate. I'm off to check out the next part as soon as I'm finished here lol.

Good luck and good gaming,

Nate


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## Unknown Soldier (Oct 24, 2008)

Thanks for your comments Nate, I consider you one of the best writers on this fourm, so it's always good to get a compliment from you. Likewise Digg40k.

Yep, I took a few liberties with the weaponry, but I wanted the imagery of Heavy Bolters, Plasma and Fire weapons all used on the swarming humans, so I could describe a multitude of horrific deaths.:grin:

For fluffs sake, I could have put in a little paragraph how Corder ordered his men to take with them some extra weapons, as they didn't know what they would be facing.


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## Shogun_Nate (Aug 2, 2008)

Or they could be a devastator-like unit with the ability to take both multiple heavy and/or specials weapons. It's not unheard of and wouldn't too far out of line with fluff. Your stories have got me thinking about posting up a thread discussing weapons/items/various bits and bobs for the different races so that writers have a 'database' of information to take from when it comes to writing. Also, discussions over different races and how the work. Sigh..more work for me! LOL

Good luck and good gaming,

Nate


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## zboy234 (Dec 29, 2007)

Good story no complaints here, who cares if marines go a little gun crazy, their genetically enhanced, sociopathic killing machines with a sense of humor:grin:

Nate sounds good , a database here on Heresy will save me time going to Lexicanum all the time.:biggrin: 
Cheers,
Zboy234


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