Fanfiction: Chaos Bane.
Created | Updated May 28, 2002
WARNING! This Story is still Under Construction, but feel free to read it anyway. 
Remmond hit the ground hard. His head was swimming from the ringing explosions around him. He scrambled through the sludge, hugging cover whenever possible, until he reached the edge of the library building grounds. He lay panting behind the low brick wall and began to clean the mud and dirt off his sights. In this brief moment of respite he could take stock of his situation. Up ahead was an enemy gun position, Heavy Bolters by the sound of it. He was cut off and alone, with no support near him. If he could only find the rest of his platoon...
His thoughts were interrupted by a burst of Bolt shells. Shards of brickwork explode around him. Remmond ran, but before he could reach any solid cover, he felt a sharp impact in his side...
"Damn! Shot..."
He fell flat on his face into a drainage ditch. His side was screaming at him, he was face down in water, and his legs were numb. He wondered why there was so little pain. Bolts explode on impact, turning infantry inside out and spraying them across the battlefield. Maybe all his nerves were burned out, and only a memory of impact remained. He closed his eyes, and waited for death...
It never came. Remmond felt someone grab his collar and haul him out of the murky water. He looked up into the face Nicholas Faeger, an old man of about sixty, and a brillaint medic. He was always ready to help. Short sightedness, crooked knees and an appauling firing accuracy, he still insists on coming into battle, where his skills are needed most. He looked over the groggy Remmond and smiled.
"You're a lucky lad, aren't you?" chuckled Faeger as he extracted a chip of brickwork that had been blown into the young solider's side, "I bet that scared you prety bad, mmm?"
Remmond simply gased at him, and the bloody chip that he held in a pair of surgical pliers. He couldn't find any words for how he felt. He felt full of energy. He felt alive again. Faeger knew the look, and nodded appreciatively.
"Well, I'm just glad you're okay." He cleaned and put away his tools, then pointed a wagging finger at Remmond. "And don't you go getting anymore nasty nicks, mmm? Or worse!"
Remmond clutched his lasgun tight to his chest. He suddenly felt deserate to prove himself, to show that he wasn't some boy who thought the girls would like the uniform. That he was a man. A soldier. A Guard.
But as he looked up into that gentle face, and those deep, caring eyes, Remmond knew that Faeger was thinking exactly the same thing.
The tranquil scene was broken as three Chimeras slid up to the ditch. Thirty men deployed into cover with well-drilled ease. Fourteen men dropped into the ditch system with Remmond and Faeger. Two were dead, one was badly injured. Private Niiks was shot in the groin, and bawling like a newborn. Faeger ran to his side.
"You, Private, get over here!" Remmond crawled down to him. "He's badly hurt. He probably has serious internal injures." Remmond looked down at the screaming soldier. There was an ugly black clot where the las-shot had cauterised his skin. However, Faeger had cut open the wound thick, red blood gushed out uncontrolably. Faeger cursed.
"His main arteries are burst! Find the ends and hold them together so I can seal them." Remmond did so. But before Faeger could begin, Niiks was dead. He'd bled out with Remmond's hands still in his body.
There was no time to mourn. The army was in position. Fireseed was laughing and joking with Varlen, a young sergeant with a chain-fed Bolter. sergeant Hunt, a veteran of countless battles and leader of the Armoured Fist squad, was tracking targets with his lasgun. He used Hot-Shots, energy bolts with more power, but they burnt out the power packs, and the lasgun barrel. Hicks, the Armoured Fist plasmagunner, was sipping from a whisky bottle. Reckeridge was scanning the horizon through his magnoculars, and Palpatine was nearby, polishing his missile launcher. Next to him was Lieutenant Haines, a fourty year-old with the strength of a man twenty years younger. A soldier dropped in next to Remmond. His name was Criid. He was from a Hive world, and before joining the guard he'd been part of an underhive gang. He wasn't popular, but he was skilled in both ranged and unarmed combat, and took an almost sexual pleasure in killing.
"Scared yet Remmy?" Criid sneered.
"Shut up Criid! Go get an education!"
Criid smirked at him in reply. "Ya'll never make a soldier! You're scared a' killin'! Ya' s**t ya' sel' when the fightin' starts! Ya' got no-"
"Shut up Criid! Or I'll smash your tatooed face! Get me!?" Haines was on him in an instant, Haines won the regimental wrestling championship seven years in a row, and was looking good for the next years.
"Pukk! I mean ... sorry ser."
Haines made no reply. He knew what 'pukk' meant, and he didn't like it.
It took a little under ten minutes for the 175th to breach the Chaos fortifications. The Valkyries had sent in Marauder Destroyers to blow open the defences, and the 19th Galaxian artillary had made short work of the frontal fortifications. Now the infantry were storming the Chaos from the front. Remmond lay behind a pile of rockcrete at the mouth of the breech. The thump of shells was deafening, and he winced whenever one impacted close by. The noise of the Earthshaker cannons was physical, as if someone was punching him in the face with every blast.
