The whole point of the exercise was to work around the "Don’t use Space Wolf gene-seed for your chapter" rule on the Bolter and Chainsword forum. My idea: The Wolfbrothers Chapter survives and remains loyal to the Imperium, but due to a change of name (and other reasons detailed in the story), the Space Wolves are the only people who give a damn about this discrepancy.
> WOLVES OF CATACHAN
> A 'Warhammer 40,000' story by Sidewinder (aim9snake@hotmail.com), 2009-2010. Based on the franchise created and copyrighted by Games Workshop.
It is the 31st millennium. A single lifetime ago, the Horus Heresy tore apart the Imperium of Man, as the Warmaster broke and ruined the Emperor's material coil. With His ascension to the Golden Throne-- once key to the Great Plan, now a life-support system for the half-dead Emperor, never to open a door to the better future He envisioned-- the loyalist forces set out to reclaim worlds and rescue Imperial subjects from the Traitor Legions' tyranny, or destroy those they judge beyond salvation. Spearheading these efforts are the Space Marines, men-turned-demigods by genetic and cybernetic enhancements of the Emperor's design.
The loyalists are greatly diminished, not only by betrayal and civil war, but by their own hand. To deny any individual the awesome power the Warmaster Horus used to kill planets and turn entire star systems into celestial tombs, the Marine Legions were divided into Chapters of 1000 men each. With these diluted forces must the Imperium challenge Chaos Space Marines; men of the Traitor Legions, granted powers that corrupt even a god's soul and sanity.
To be human in such times is to fight or die; to live in fear of what tomorrow will bring, never knowing who to trust. Peace is no hope-- what use is negotiation when the Great Enemy speaks only in lies, to better betray the peacemaker? Progress is measured only in blood-- what purpose is saving a life if this allows the Dark Gods to reap a thousand more? In the grim darkness of the future, there is only war.
Last edited by Sidewinder on 2010-04-15 03:49pm, edited 1 time in total.
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
Death hid its face behind life's vibrant greens. Waist-deep water offered little respite from the sun as Bjorn Firewalker walked upon the riverbed to avoid leaving tracks, careful to remain at arm's length from the mangroves flanking it; the deceptively harmless trees would discharge a breath of poison gas if he approached. The poison wouldn't kill Bjorn, a supersoldier with genetic and cybernetic enhancements, but it would blind him for three or four seconds; time enough to die, as he learned when a waiting serpent tried to exploit his temporary disability, a strike sure to kill an non-augmented human.
His shame was more poisonous than anything on the planet Catachan. If Brother-Sergeant Jurgen Thunderwolf saw him cower like this, the Space Marine veteran would execute Bjorn for cowardice; he deserved no less. But Jurgen-- who trained Bjorn as a recruit in the Space Wolves Legion of the Adeptus Astartes, led him as a Blood Claw, named him "Firewalker" after a berserk charge on a volcanic world, and recommended him for promotion to Grey Hunter in the newfound Wolfbrothers Chapter-- was dead. Bjorn cursed the relief he felt when Jurgen fell two days ago...
>
The gas giant reflected a dying sun's light into the cockpit as the Wolfbrothers Landing Craft exited a ravine on its lifeless moon. Rocky ground seemingly within his reach, failed to terrify Bjorn. The steel storm greeting the spacecraft as she zigzagged towards the landing zone-- laser beams, artillery shells, missiles and rockets scoring her armor-- failed to paralyze Firewalker.
"Any difficulties?" Jurgen asked as he stood beside the Landing Craft captain, looking out the windshield.
"No, Brother-Sergeant; I can navigate this gauntlet with my eyes closed," Bjorn replied. "The Thousand Sons need offer more resistance, or I'll fall asleep."
Laughter escaped the sergeant's lips. "Allfather willing, we'll see that soon." Jurgen turned to address his command. "Stand ready for Russ and the Emperor! Five minutes!" he began counting down. At "Zero!" the sergeant led the charge, his boots touching ground before the ramp did.
The Wolfbrothers howled as one, their battle cry audible over the Lander's roaring engines and thundering guns; then the spacecraft soared over the landing zone, covering the debarked Marines. The Wolfbrothers' vox network fed Bjorn the screams of traitor men-at-arms, some praying to the Chaos Gods as the loyalists' might broke them in mind and body; her captain wished he could forsake the Lander's awesome firepower, and join his brothers on the ground, smelling an enemy's fear as they crossed swords.
Jurgen's nose caught the stink of Chaos-taint, before his eyes caught the tainted one's silhouette. "Finally, someone worth killing!" Bolts-- rocket-propelled, armor-piercing, high-explosive shells-- reached from the sergeant's gun, promising death and destruction to anything it touched.
The bolts never reached the target; a psychic wall rose before it, distorting space-time and reality itself to shield a Chaos Marine of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion.
"Thank you for the gift of close combat." A chainblade motor echoed the taunt as Jurgen prepared to skewer the traitor upon his bayonet.
Instead of drawing the sword at his side, the Thousand Sons Marine's arms spread as if to embrace the charging Wolfbrother. "!" No human ear could define these syllables, but the speaker's voice-- choking the air with wrath and malevolence, stronger and darker than any incense-- made its meaning known.
"Ahhhh!" The boltgun fell to the ground, where the attached chainblade pulled it as a horse pulled a chariot. Jurgen knelt, his head hammering the ground before the Chaos Marine, mad with pain now tearing him inside out.
"Brother-Sergeant Jurgen!" Bjorn pushed the throttle. "Target, Thousand Sons Marine, 12 o'clock!" Lascannon turrets traversed, locking onto the designated target as the Lander accelerated. "Fire when--"
A sudden wind sent the spacecraft tumbling down; the nose cut a groove into the ground before the Lander's machine spirit recovered. Firewalker's head struck the instrument panel, painting both with his blood. "Frak!" he cursed, forehead burning as torn skin mended itself. "Status--"
His elevated position provided the answer to a question repeated in a hundred vox-casts, though it rent Bjorn's twin hearts like a ravenous wolf. Wulfen's Curse fell upon Jurgen, transformed the sergeant into a creature neither man or beast, made him turn and slaughter his own battle-brothers to sate his bloodlust; then the sergeant drowned as the Thousand Sons' sorcery flooded the field with ectoplasm.
"Fall back!" "Help!" "We can't abandon...!" "We need evac, now!" A rout followed; then a race, the terrified Wolfbrothers trampling each other in their flight. None could halt them; because no Marine would lead from behind like the Imperial Guard's cowardly generals, all Wolfbrother leaders fell to the Thousand Sons' sorcery, from Great Wolf to sergeant.
Landers, Thunderhawk gunships and transports descended; ramps lowered to admit the fleeing loyalists; guns thundered to buy a moment's peace from the pursuing traitors. A Thunderhawk became a fireball, knocking untainted Wolfbrothers off their feet, some into the line-of-fire of weapons protecting them a split-second ago. A second gunship exploded, halting the evacuation effort as the pilots faced a new threat. "Daemon!" Entire companies of loyalists were abandoned as blazing runes appeared on the ground, forming passages from which the Warp's spawn materialized among the landing spacecraft; fiery talons tore apart man and machine alike, rending armor designed to resist battle cannon strikes, as if the daemon's touch changed hard metal into supple meat.
"Noooo!" The desperate cry thrust at Bjorn's hearts, sharper than any spear, but the Lander captain steeled himself to fly beyond reach of friend and foe alike; if he stayed to save one more, he'd doom the Wolfbrothers already aboard the spacecraft.
The remaining loyalists scattered in all directions. Some continued their flight. Some turned to die with honor before the enemy. Some lost their minds to the beast within-- unable to bear the price of superhuman speed and strength, the strain the Canis Helix forced upon them-- and fell as their leaders did, becoming Wulfen and slaughtering those who were their brothers. Some knelt, begging for mercy as a daemon and its Thousand Sons summoners neared...
>
'We should've recognized the enemy actions as a lure, and the chosen battlefield, a trap.' The blazing runes reappeared before Bjorn's eyes; he heard his brothers' screams again, lost to past memories like one with dementia. 'How many years-- decades, even centuries-- did the Thousand Sons spend preparing the moon for...?' He noticed the blaze and the screams growing closer.
'Raptors; Traitor Legion jump infantry.' Fear rose, tide-like, threatening to drown the young Marine's mind; with it, the wits he needed to survive the next few minutes. Bjorn donned the helmet hanging at his waist, submerged under a mangrove's shadow, and hoped the water flowing overhead would neutralize the poison; the only motion he risked was his fingers' walk towards the bolt pistol at his side.
"Baa, baa, Space Sheep, have you any wool?" "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" the Chaos Marines sang as they circled like vultures, their jump packs-- and flapping wings, which infrared sensors outlined for the surprised Wolfbrother-- keeping them clear of the entangling branches. "You're only delaying the--"
Thunder rolled across a cloudless sky, followed by a shriek of pain. 'A bolter?' Bjorn thought, hoping another Wolfbrother was nearby. Then he remembered where he was; Catachan, a death world where venom dripped from fanged flowers. What he thought were coconut trees shot poisoned needles at the Raptors, the colorful fruit bursting to sow its seed in Chaos-tainted flesh; power armor offered no protection against this.
The curious needle-seed pierced a fuel tank; despite the rain of fire, Bjorn's unexpected allies didn't relent until they sensed the mutilated bodies were no longer a threat. Worms, brambles, or some monstrous amalgam of flora-fauna crawled away from the fire-- or towards it to consume the corpses before the flames did.
'There goes dinner.' Bjorn wanted to laugh, but held his tongue. The jump pack engines roared once in defiance, and then died; the surviving Raptors fled from a jungle that preyed on them as they once preyed on others. The Wolfbrother surfaced, exhaling with relief as his hearts slowed their beating.
'I'll live,' Bjorn considered the possibility. 'We-- the Wolfbrothers Chapter, proud sons of Leman Russ and loyal vassals of the Emperor-- will live.' Hope swelled in his chest as he surfaced to continue the journey.
Despite the Grey Hunter's concerns, the fire quickly died; and with it, a beacon guiding the enemy to him. Bjorn later learned the trees, veterans of a struggle as fierce as any a Marine faced, secreted a flame retardant from their bark. Fortunately, the Wolfbrother was born on another death world; he was better prepared for what challenges were found on Catachan.
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
The river vanished beneath a sheer cliff, forcing Bjorn to put his feet on solid ground, which he studied the before each footfall. The knowledge he was as vulnerable to Catachan's mad environment as the Thousand Sons, made each step near-torture; thus the journey continued for minutes perceived as hours, and hours perceived as days...
>
The scent was like a forgotten dream, both familiar and not. Bjorn struggled for a second; then he identified it as another Marine, one with the Canis Helix shared by all sons of Leman Russ. 'I'm not alone.' He cautiously followed the scent, staying downwind in case the enemy was using his battle-brother as bait.
Tactile sensors let him feel the thorns entangling his foot. Bjorn risked a glance. 'Thorny Strangler,' he identified the flowery vine struggling to force the points through his armor. He grabbed the vine at its neck, slowly, carefully uncoiling it from his leg; then he threw the strangler, before it entangled his arm.
A shrill cry filled the air; the Wolfbrother's auto-senses drew his attention to a winged beast-blossom-something swooping down to capture the strangler, only for a branch to capture and feed both creatures to a tree. Bjorn searched his augmented memory-- information the Legion's tutelary engines imprinted in his brain-- to identify the flora-fauna native to Catachan, but found few facts among the countless labeled "UNKNOWN" there.
'Here there be dragons,' the young Marine recalled the tribal elders' description of uncharted waters too dangerous to navigate. 'Literally.' Bjorn continued his slow approach, wary of other surprises Catachan's flora-fauna had in store; this almost allowed a human to catch him by surprise.
"Ah-woo!" The chainsword motor's shriek was near-inaudible over the Blood Claw's battle cry. Bjorn barely raised his own weapon in time; roots and worms crawled away as the whirring teeth sent sparks in all directions.
The swordsman parted, changing stance to prepare a counterattack; then the fight ended as it began. "Brother Bjorn?" the Blood Claw called as he lowered his weapon.
"Well met, Brother Donner." Bjorn glanced back, seeing phantom enemies everywhere. "We must leave before traitors come to investigate," he whispered.
"Ha!" Donner Red Eagle didn't bother to lower his voice. "Let them come and taste our blades; let us hold our heads high when we meet again in hell."
"You fool!" the senior Wolfbrother scolded.
The junior one bristled, his chainsword rising to avenge the insult; then an earsplitting shriek near-shook the weapon from his hand. "What in hell...?" Donner breathed.
"Daemon." Bjorn shivered. The warpspawn need not cry to make its presence known; a sense he could only describe as "wrongness" washed over him like a tidal wave.
The insult forgotten, Donner whispered, "What do we do?" with fear and confusion he'd never admit before now.
Firewalker donned his helmet; he hated its claustrophobic confines, but Bjorn needed the integral auspex, a sensor more accurate than those implanted in his eyes and ears. An orange rune marked the space-time distortion in the daemon's wake, data he relayed to Donner. "Watch our flanks; the shrieking is likely intended to herd us into a trap."
"Wilco," will comply. The Wolfbrothers moved with agonizing slowness, as wary of the ground they tread, as they were of the daemon and its summoners.
They near-missed the warning sign, leaves shaking in a nonexistent wind. Bjorn and Donner slowly, silently lay prone, ignoring the ants now swarming their bodies as the Wolfbrothers aimed bolt pistols at the threat. The sense of "wrongness" grew stronger; the Marines need not hear the daemon know how close it was.
The attack took everyone by surprise. The auspex outlined the Catachan Devil, a scorpion-like creature as large as a battle tank-- known to attack tanks that trespass its territory-- otherwise invisible behind the trees. Devil fell upon daemon, meeting its namesake with lashing stinger and slashing claws. Blue-and-gold crests flashed between the branches as the Thousand Sons rushed to the daemon's defense, only for a second devil to flank them.
Bjorn put his hand over Donner's pistol, stopping Red Eagle from shooting.
"Ahhhh!" The Wolfbrothers felt the ground shake as a Chaos Marine was impaled, the devil's stinger piercing ceramite and adamantium like a needle through cloth; screams of pain, rage, and even fear were audible over the roaring guns.
"Morkai's teeth!" Donner cursed in the name of a two-headed wolf, mythical guardian of Death's realm. "This planet is reaping more traitors than we ever did!"
"Hush."
Red Eagle prepared a retort, but it died when he caught a foul scent. 'What...?' An ant crawled over his eye; Donner bit his lip, silencing a growl when the insect stung the eyelid. His vision blurred as his enhanced immune system neutralized the venom; he near-missed the sound of disturbed vegetation.
Bjorn anchored two fingers from his sword hand to the ground; grass and fallen leaves slid against his cheek as he looked to the side, his pistol seeking a target. "Chaos Marines," he identified those who lay in ambush before the sorcerers' plan was aborted.
Donner faced the same direction as Bjorn counted the approaching infantrymen; his eyes widened when space-time was torn open, admitting an armored vehicle with a prow-mounted Demolisher cannon, before the rift was mended. 'Morkai's teeth!'
"Vindicator, one, ten o'clock." Firewalker barely heard his voice over his heartbeats as the siege tank charged its flesh-and-blood counterparts. The Catachan Devils' spawn joined the fray, preventing the Thousand Sons reinforcements from noticing their prey.
'The Thousand Sons grew soft on Prospero's sorcery,' Donner thought of the Chaos Marines' homeworld, which the Space Wolves destroyed when their treason was exposed. Though smaller than its parents, a devilspawn could sever arms and legs whenever its stinger found a joint, as the Thousand Sons regrettably learned.
An idea came to Firewalker. "Await my signal; prepare to attack."
"Wilco."
The Vindicator commander fired a pintle-mounted combi-bolter; the beasts were relentless despite the damage inflicted. Bjorn's belt dispensed two grenades as he waited for the Chaos Marines to eliminate the adult devils, which required the Demolisher cannon's use; then he threw. The tank commander started when the krak grenades bounced off his back, down the hatch; then the anti-armor weapons ignited the onboard munitions, changed the tank into a fireball, and forced the devilspawn to flee.
"Now!" Bjorn charged the decimated Thousand Sons squads. A bolt detonated upon Bjorn's shoulder, near-shaking the pistol from his hand, but Firewalker was already close enough to bathe his sword in tainted blood.
Bjorn was also close enough for the Thousand Sons to spit him like a roast pig, but Donner shot the Chaos Marine before Bjorn received a stab in the back. "For Russ and the Emperor!" "Ah-woo!" Each Wolfbrother delivered a blow before immediately moving to attack the next enemy. Rapidly closing the distance, forcing the traitors to risk fratricide with every other shot, their superior close combat skills neutralized the Thousand Sons' still superior numbers.
Seconds passed; blood and gore were shaken off chainsword teeth; a tally was taken. "That was satisfying." Donner smiled as he counted the Thousand Sons' dead.
"Don't get complacent; there are thousands more where they came from." Bjorn began searching the traitors' bodies for munitions.
"Good; my blade need not rust from disuse." A hungry Red Eagle considered butchering the dead Catachan Devils, but Chaos-tainted weapons rendered the meat necrotic and toxic. "What's this?" He raised a tube of paste; it resembled the semi-liquid rations at his belt, but was colored the dark red of dried blood, not the bone-white of reconstituted nutrients. "Gah!"
"What happened?" Bjorn followed Donner's finger to the red tube writhing on the ground; then ants consumed the traitor rations. "Strange; the taint failed to mutate the creatures."
"I suspect they're already too unnatural to mutate." Red Eagle sighed as he gathered a handful of grenades and bolter magazines.
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
I didn't think the Thousand Sons were retarded enough to go to Catachan.
Good of the Wolves to pursue their old prey even here!
"The 4th Earl of Hereford led the fight on the bridge, but he and his men were caught in the arrow fire. Then one of de Harclay's pikemen, concealed beneath the bridge, thrust upwards between the planks and skewered the Earl of Hereford through the anus, twisting the head of the iron pike into his intestines. His dying screams turned the advance into a panic."'
