novelraw Chapter 156: Death from Above
Chapter 156: Death from Above
He was falling in his dream—
But Adeptus Astartes rarely dreamed.
Recalling those bizarre memories, he saw himself standing upon an arid plain, beneath a sky choked with dark clouds.
In the distance, he could see a jagged, barren mountain, its peak hollowed out to form a vast basin.
Sunlight pierced through the cloud cover overhead, illuminating a rain of iron and blood.
Countless corpses rained down from the heavens into the mountain.
People fell from the sky continuously like raindrops, smashing against the mountain's peak and filling the valley with flesh and blood.
They shared but one commonality: all were Astartes.
Black, purple, grey, white—
And, somehow, he knew he was among them.Soon, the atmosphere of this planet named Isstvan III ignited into flames. He could not see the horizon; he could only see a firestorm billowing upward, enveloping the entire atmosphere.
His armor's integrity and high-temperature alarms had ceased minutes ago. He could feel the freezing cold spreading across his flesh. He was breathing in smoke, yet he could not smell it.
Despite being wreathed in flames, he felt as though he were shivering.
He understood what that meant. The air—within his lungs, his nasal cavity, his throat—was burning him from the inside out.
The flames were seeping in; he was being roasted alive within his own armor.
He was dying.
He had failed, that much was clear.
Besieged, betrayed, and hopelessly outnumbered, yet they had still managed to bite back.
He should have anticipated how they would respond. He should have deployed differently. He should have—
He should have died in the first volley of virus bombs.
This was the ultimate reward earned by his weakness. Yet, if he were to perish here, it would merely be the result of him proving his weakness once again.
Suddenly, Soshyan's voice pulled him back to reality.
"One minute remaining, brothers. Amidst the fires of war, our resolve is absolute."
"Our resolve is absolute."
Sol's mouth moved automatically, echoing the Battle Brothers around him—even though his own brothers had long since perished or twisted into monsters.
"We descend from the heavens, plummeting straight into hell."
"We fight until death."
The warriors chanted.
"So long as we draw breath."
"The Chapter Lives On!"
Sol turned his head and looked at Soshyan.
He stood alone, his head bowed. His face was somewhat obscured by the projection of the crimson drop bay lumen, save for his resolute eyes, which gleamed brightly.
Soshyan's armor-clad hands maintained a tight grip on Heaven's Fall, the mighty master-crafted power weapon.
Like his brothers, war had bestowed upon him his resolve.
At that moment, a rumbling thud echoed through the hull; Sol realized the Thunderhawk's dorsal turret had opened fire.
Moments later, a familiar vibrational hum indicated the Thunderhawk's autocannons were also firing.
Subsequently, the sharp crack of metal tearing signified that not all the incoming fire was their own.
Before turning his attention to his own wargear, he cast a glance over his squad, their faces hidden behind their helmets.
A fully blessed and anointed bolter was mag-locked to his side. His armor's auto-senses were on standby, ready to interface with the weapon the moment he grasped it, while the icons monitoring his vitals displayed a steady rate.
He brushed a hand over his restraint harness, satisfied with the security of the connection.
"Our primary objective is the elimination of the greenskin chieftain."
Soshyan looked up and spoke. Sol met his cold, dark eyes and nodded in response.
There was no time for further words.
The pitch of the engines began to rise, and the turbulent shaking indicated they were hurtling toward the landing zone at maximum velocity.
The restrained harnesses automatically retracted with a shudder. The warriors stood shoulder-to-shoulder, unlocking their bolters and disengaging their magnetic boots in preparation for the final moments.
Sol offered one final prayer to his ancient sword, while his armor's auto-senses synchronized with its targeting systems and ammunition counter.
They were still falling.
Over the sound of the retro-thrusters, the noise outside was audible—unquestionably the hammering of the forge of war.
The thunderous roars of the greenskins served as their martial accompaniment. The enemy outnumbered them by hundreds if not thousands.
They, however, were striking directly at the heart of the invaders, delivering the Emperor's righteous judgment with brutal authenticity.
"Brother."
The word sent a painful hum shooting entirely through his body, causing the lingering echoes of the Isstvan dreamscape to dissipate from his mind.
The next second, the assault ramp dropped.
Sol gripped his bolter tightly, his lips reciting the oaths of battle.
Before him, shrouded in a hazy cloud of dust, a horde of greenskin Boyz was charging toward the Thunderhawk.
Even sealed within his power armor, the fury born from the threat of attack enveloped him, surging through his nerves.
As the startled greenskins attempted to launch a preemptive assault, the only greeting the Thunderhawk offered its enemies was a relentless barrage of heavy bolter and lascannon fire, delivering death to those within point-blank range.
After the Thunderhawk descended and obliterated over a hundred enemies, the remainder began to scatter in fear.
Soshyan was the first to leap from the troop bay, and also the first to open fire.
The nearest greenskin fell, blasted to pieces by a hailstorm of bolter rounds. Not even their obnoxiously resilient green bodies could withstand the holy firepower of the anointed weapons wielded by the Astartes.
The warriors fanned out in a skirmish line on either side of the Chapter Master, deploying around the Thunderhawk to secure the landing zone.
Above them, the Thunderhawk supported their advance with thunderous firepower.
The unquenchable fury of the Battle Brothers forced the roaring greenskins to fall back.
"Push forward."
Soshyan's voice echoed over the squad vox-channel.
The chieftain of the vanguard Ork horde was nearby, easily identifiable by its sheer size—looming over its minions a mere hundred meters ahead of the landing zone.
As Soshyan reloaded, the Ork chieftain bellowed a challenge and led the charge toward the Space Marines.
It was common knowledge that greenskins could not resist two things: a challenge to their authority, and a fierce battle.
The Astral Knights were more than willing to oblige the beasts.
"Hold the line."
Soshyan's voice resounded across all channels.
The next second, the space between him and the Ork chieftain was once again saturated with bullets.
The greenskins endured the assault and returned fire. Crude rounds hammered relentlessly against the Astartes' armor, the air instantly filled with dry dust and screaming, hissing shrapnel.
The vital monitors of three warriors in the squad indicated minor injuries.
Completely surrounded and exposed, it was impossible for them to maintain their small skirmish line for more than ten minutes.
They had to maneuver at the opportune moment.
The Thunderhawk's engines roared toward the sky as its sponson weapons swiveled to engage the Ork horde pressuring the first squad.
Not far away, the Ork chieftain and its bodyguards shoved and kicked their way through the Boyz blocking their path, cursing their subordinates with thunderous roars.
The Ork chieftain itself was a behemoth draped in dark green muscle and clad in layered, heavy yellow armor plating. Its small, round eyes glared at Soshyan with murderous fury—clearly, it had recognized the leader of the Humies as well.
It shoved and trampled its kin out of the way, charging relentlessly until it stood before him. Roaring a challenge, it swung a massive mechanical klaw toward Soshyan's head.
"Fall back first."
Soshyan dodged the strike and retreated from his initial position.
He fired continuously, turning the greenskin bodyguards flanking their chieftain into Swiss cheese, shifting from one target to the next with seasoned, effortless precision.
The rest of the warriors held the line, unleashing their ammunition into the ever-swelling, irrepressible green tide.
Only Soshyan fell back.
And only the Ork chieftain followed him into the squad's encirclement.