To those familiar with W40k I will be taking many liberties with what you see here, adapting it to a one-planet situation if you will - no 40k races are used directly, I'm mixing a few of them together or rather taking some of the more interesting units. Thanks to everyone for the reviews, if you think this is complicated then you have never read some of the good 40k stories…those get wild. Anyway I want to ask you guys something as it was mentioned to me that the story hasn't gotten the attention it deserves - not my words, so here is a question for you guys. When you look at the little description things of a story, what draws you in? Makes you want to read it, you know.
Contact
Unnerved, Exodus continued their trek through the blasted city, the further they went the more destruction they saw. It wasn't just ruined buildings and upturned cars or some scattered bodies, no this was far worse. Bodies covered everything, civilian bodies, ripped to shreds by an unknown foe, it was impossible to tell whether they were cut up or shot, for it was impossible to tell one body from the other, it was a of sea gore, appendages sticking out, seeming to grasp at the sky. And then Exodus came upon a sight that chilled them to their very core. At what would have been a main intersection in the city was a pile of blood caked bones that dominated the entire junction, rising like a mountain six stories high. And it wasn't corpses piled one on top of the other, there could have been reason behind that, there was no reason in this. Something had brought the bones there, collected them and then washed them in a tide of blood.
Stalker crawled through a building, moving like a shadow, soundless and efficient…he heard it a second before it was on him. The wall he was crouching against erupted as something leapt through, sending him tumbling against the opposite wall, bits of rumble coming down on top of him. A split second later it pounced again, coming at him from the wall. Instinctively Stalker spun around and brought his feat up before him, connecting with the six limbed creature's body he used it's own momentum to send the creature flailing down the corridor. He flipped onto one knee, gray rubble sliding off him as he fired his pistol at the creature. The first shot hit it in the shoulder as it began a spin in the air to correct its trajectory. Sinking its muscle bound legs into the tilled floor and pounced again. The second shot missed its head by millimeters, it was big and it was incredibly fast, its four limbs outstretched Stalker caught a glimpse of the thing's massive red claws and fired again blowing one of them away. The shot managed to throw its trajectory off by a bit as only one claw connected, slicing through his chest armor as if it were made of paper and sending him reeling to the ground once again.
Flipping itself onto the wall it lunged again with blinding speed, giving Stalker barely enough time to brace himself as it came down on top of him. As the thing landed Stalker brought his long bladed knife into its arm, impaling it at the shoulder he hooking his feet into its ribs as the thing flailed wildly trying to get at him with its smaller secondary talons. Then it opened it razor filled maw and a bright pink tongue shot out almost imperceptibly fast. Like a small needle it drove a half inch into his chest before its head exploded as a Turbo Penetrator round sailed through and then past another few dozen walls. Purplish green blood oozed from what remained of its pink head and the wounds on its pinkish white body, the whole time its unnerving black eyes seemed to gaze at him with an animalistic malevolence.
Before he could catch his breath the wall nearest to the outside exploded, he sighed in relief as Destroyer's barreled in, his fearsome gun seaming to move with a life of it's own as he scanned the corridor.
"Thanks for the save there Snipe." Stalker got up shakily, pushing the dead creature's body off him.
"What in bloody hell happened?" Sarge swore.
"I don't know Sarge. One second I'm going through this place and then the next this comes out of the damn wall." He pointed at the dead creature. "Let me tell you though I am extremely lucky to be alive, you have no idea how fast that thing is."
"He got your armor pretty good." JJ inspected it closer. "More then good, this is a perfectly clean slice. This armor can stop an AK forty-seven round no problem at the vital areas like the chest, shoulders and so on. The joints obviously aren't as well protected but that's the trade off for maneuverability."
"So what you're trying to say is that…" Snipe spurred him on to his conclusion.
"This thing could have sliced through our tank back there."
"It might be able to but it didn't. One of the puncture holes was as big as the size of the things head, if not bigger." Pyro interjected.
"Why didn't you have your motion sensor on?" Sarge asked.
"I did, only picked it up when it was already on top of me." Stalker explained.
"Well the good news is that it didn't quiet reach your body, minor wound nothing major." JJ interrupted them. "Lets see if this thing works." He took out what looked like a glue gun and held it close to Stalker's armor. Pressing the trigger a sparkling white substance floated out and began covering the exposed area, sealing the armor. "Gotta love it when magic and technology work together, nanites work while the magic gives them all the resources they need. Beautiful."
"You know what we need now do you?" Bulldog asked the group. "Some weapons."
"You alright there bro?" Snipe waved his rifle before him.
"No, what I mean is close combat weapons. You saw what happened with Stalker; he barely got three shots off." He took out his combat knife. "This is not going to cut it."
"Sure thing mate, I'll call the Hive up for you right this minute…Oh wait, we're on a different planet."
"Shut it Joker."
"You both have a point." Sarge broke up the argument, they were getting nervous, edgy. Things had always been too easy, and now was their first real test and they were worried. "Bulldog is right we need something, but if those things can slice through armor plating as if it were nothing, then there isn't anything that we can hope to find that will do little more then make us feel good. From now on we stay together and go down the middle of the road. Whatever is out there can see us coming, the best we can hope to do is keep as much distance between us and a possible ambush…which means anything. Bulldog and Pyro take flanks, Destroyer cover our rear and all of you stay loose." Sarge ordered them.
And so they continued on, they guessed that it was nighttime when the temperature fell and the rain turned into a sort of dark smudgy ash. They jogged for a few hours, coming upon more and more similar sights, brutal massacres, pitiful barricades, everything was destroyed or mangled beyond recognition. Their only hope of finding out anything was the power station, if it still gave power then there had to be a computer running it and if there was a computer running it then they could hack in and at least find some sort of information. They talked and joked, but not like they did back at home, here they knew that they were very much stoppable, that were no reinforcements, no other options. But finally they got there and their efforts paid off.
A block down they saw lights, and they heard sounds, machinery moving, garbled voices that they couldn't make sense of. Sarge didn't have to give them any commands, Snipe broke into the building that presumably overlooked the power station. Climbing the long set of stairs he picked a floor near the top, the buildings in this area were relatively intact, both sides who had fought for this place wanted to keep the area intact, not knock down any vital power line. Carefully Snipe crept through the building, assault rifle out and ready. Making his way through the building he was careful not to make a sound, each footstep he took was carefully positioned, he listened for anything, anything at all that might give away something's position. He opened a room and peeked in, the windows were gone and burnt furniture littered the room. What remained of a computer stood on a desk, a pile of fused wiring and bits of metal. He continued on, stepping carefully over the bodies on the floor, he closed the door and knelt by the window to take his first look out at the enemy.
On the other side of the street was a blackened moderately sized building with the word `Unoka Power Station' barely visible through the soot. And then he saw them, they had been human, but they resembled daemons more then anything. Their bodies were twisted and warped, mutations having sprung out creating pincers, and scythe like protrusions. Their armor seemed to be fused to their bodies, like it had grown into them, become a part of them. Blood seemed to trickle from various orifices on their bodies, tubes and wiring writhed under their skin, their eyes popping out, connected by strands of metallic tissue. Some of them didn't have arms, drills, guns, blades, chains, and clubs made of bone grew out of them. There were a few big ones commanding the rest, these guys had heavy armor, spikes sticking out of their bodies, multiple limbs and an assortment of blood soaked weapons. There were small ones who Snipe guessed to be the technicians, they like naked thin humans who had cables growing out of their backs, their hands ending in servos that flailed about through the air as they scampered between the station and the vehicles that seemed half alive and half organic. The two trucks had flesh keeping some parts together, guns swirling by themselves, there was no cabin but there were eyes and then a sort mouth…
He felt the thing before he saw it, a giant creature that looked like a bloated giant came out from a large wall in the building, fat and oozing rusty liquids, thick armor covered it's entire body. One of its arms had two giant spiked drills, electricity crackling down the length, pieces of dripping body parts slopped down onto the ground as it moved it heavy bulk around. Its head was a mix of a dog and some sort of lizard, a red tongue flickering out from between yellow pointed teach, a helmet was actually the things head, it all melted together. The thing's left arms was a giant three barreled high caliber gun, by the ammo belt that literally came out of the creatures back and into its weapon Snipe guess that it didn't fire often, but then again with barrels that size he doubted it need to. It roared at something, and then yelled some unintelligible commands.
"You seeing this Sarge?" Snipe asked him as he fed what he was seeing to the rest of the team.
"Spread out around me and get ready to fire." He walked back from the wall and they stood beside him, three on each side. "Now concentrate on me and appearing over top that manhole cover that's on the edge of Snipe's vision. Snipe cover us" They did so without question.
"Sarge! You see that gun, those drills on that thing!" Snipe, took out his sniper rifle and readied it for use.
"Ya, I see his gun. And mine is bigger." Suddenly Exodus apparated to a mere few feet from the abominations, weapons at the ready.
The big giant thing that was presumably the Boss did not even have to process that something had changed in it's vision before a bolt of bright blue plasma disintegrated its upper body, the plasma bleeding out on the wall behind it. Nothing was prepared as the atrocities were greeted with a hail of fire, Destroyer's minigun unleashing a stream of fire upon the creatures, ripping apart flesh and armor with equal ease. Pyro let loose with a wash of flame, incinerating everything as his brother put a few well placed grenades under each of the trucks, blowing them sky high into the air. With the help of infrared imaging Snipe fired through walls at enemies that couldn't even be seen, taking them out in rapid succession, his rate of fire more akin to that of an assault rifle then a sniper rifle. One of the creatures lunged at Joker, only to have a small round go neatly through it head, the thing skidded to a bloody halt at his feet as blood gushed out of its head. The firing stopped just as the burning wreckage of the trucks hit the ground, bits of burning shrapnel bouncing harmlessly off Exodus' armor.
Switching to his shotgun Bulldog led the way as Snipe's helmet computer composed a rough 3D outline of the building and the rooms inside. Nothing was spared as they systematically went through the few rooms in the building, each time Bulldog's shotgun would sound and another masterpiece of gore would decorate the walls. They easily reached the control room, all of the guards had been outside, it was only the small crippled creatures that had gone inside to check up on the systems. Not wanting to damage any of the equipment they killed the half dozen pitiful creatures with their bare hands, snapping their necks and then putting a shotgun round through each of their bodies for good measure.
"Snipe do a check around and come down here, we'll set up perimeter. JJ get working on those consoles. Destroyer take the front door, the rest of you go through the building and permanently seal all doorways, look for anything that might be useful." Sarge ordered as he started scanning the bodies, trying to figure them out.
"Hey thanks for the save there Snipe." Joker thanked Snipe as he looked for something useful in the building.
"Say what?"
"For saving me from that one thing that took a dive at me."
"I never shot at anything outside."
There was silence for a second as they all stopped what they were doing; one word ran through their heads. Sniper.
Snipe cursed in Russian, reloading his rifle. Turning back to infrared he took a glance out the window and scanned the nearby buildings, sure enough, on a floor above his in the adjacent building was a clear, red human form, one that would have seen them coming and seen them apparate. "Looks human." He awaited Sarge's instructions.
"Give it a warning shot, tell it we know its there." He responded.
The thing was that Destroyer wanted to do some more shooting, so that seconds after Snipe put a round inches above the things head Destroyer took the liberty of stepping outside and unloading a few hundred rounds around the thing's form. Through their advanced optics they could see the thing crouch in terror.
"This means we know you're there!" Destroyer hollered as his minigun cycled in another cartridge with a few cold clicks and snaps.
"The word sublime mean anything to you?" Snipe asked him.
"Naw."
They watched as whatever was up there grabbed a few things and then putting its hands up made its way down through the building. In the meantime Snipe ran down through the building that he was in and went across the street to stand in front of the door from which the Sniper was to come out of, hold his rifle steady he yelled. "Try anything fun and you're dead, nod if you understand."
The thing nodded, carefully coming over to the door and opening it slowly. She sobbed as she stepped out, trembling from fright with her hands up in the air. She wore a simple light armored vest, with baggy ragged torn clothing concealing an insulated black leather one-piece suit. She wore a fully enclosing helmet with a clear glass plane so that her face was easily seen through the glass, some sort of air filtration unit was built in, two small tubes ran from either side and into a pack on her back where a sniper rifle also hung.
"P-Please. Don't hurt me. I mean you no harm." She begged, a small trickle of blood ran down her arm.
"What are you? Wizard, muggle?" Snipe asked, slightly lowering his rifle as Destroyer took point at the power stations entrance.
"I-I'm-m not a wizard, I c-can't-t do magic. I-I'm a muggle." She mumbled through her words.
Lowering his rifle Snipe took out a small cylindrical device and popped a switch, causing a needle to jut out. "This might sting a little, but I promise it will not harm you." Slowly he walked up to her and took her trembling hand, pressing the device into the area near her wound and stepped back.
"Human, muggle. No infections. Shows signs of possible stress." His computer told him, he turned it on so that it was audible to her.
"Come on, everything will be okay. We won't hurt you I promise." Snipe put away his rifle and held out his hand comfortingly. Slowly, cautiously, she took it, her hand cold and trembling. "That wound, what caused it?"
"Shrapnel, from the minigun." She answered, holding back a sob.
"Okay, here I'll heal it for you." A small vial popped into a slot in his pack so that he could reach it. Uncorking the small vial he poured a drop of the liquid onto her wound, healing it instantly.
She gasped at the warm feeling, her body feeling the rejuvenating effects of the potion.
"Bring her into the building Snipe, JJ has something. Destroyer set up a sentinel." He loved the fact that they could carry so much equipment with them; magic and technology working together produced truly amazing things.
Snipe led her into the power station, past burning wreckage and dead creatures, into the main control room were Exodus had gathered. "What's your name?" He asked her softly.
"Maya." She responded, the tears gone but the fright and uncertainty still in her voice.
"My name Snipe." He didn't have time to go on as Sarge sealed the door to the control room and began casting some sort of spell, his hands glowing bright yellow with some sort of substance on them. After a moment all of their HUDs read the air safe to breath. The room itself had been cleaned up of all gore and nasty bodily entrails, it was the first cleanliness they had experienced on the planet. With a small hiss their helmets came off and Maya saw that they were not daemons, but humans.
"You are human." She gasped.
"Yes we are." Sarge answered her, his eyes seeming to burrow into her soul; she felt like all of her being, all of her traits, her faults, were open like a book for him to read.
Snipe squeezed her hand. "Don't worry, he's a good guy." She looked up at his short dirty blond hair and handsome features and couldn't help but think him cute. She looked down, a small barely noticeable blush creeping up on her as she took off her hood and helmet, revealing strikingly beautiful long black hair, and eyes that were full of wonder and determination.
"Right, so here is what I got. It's not much but I've been able to do some tracing, and it will get us somewhere, plus we have a native." JJ informed them as he hungrily bit into a food pack, apparently Sarge had told him that it would be safe to eat and so he was all ready to go.
The others immediately took out some food, it was far better and more delicious then standard military rations. Maya watched them eat, realizing her own hunger.
"Here." Snipe handed her a silvery plastic bag. "Hold that button, think of what you want to eat and enjoy." He smiled, conjuring up a chair out of thin air, the rest of Exodus follow suit, and none of them even realizing what they had done.
Warily Maya sat down in the chair and did as instructed, her bag fizzled and expanded, and when she opened it she found a fork and knife inside, with delicious creamy pasta that smelled absolutely heavenly.
"Right, so. The charge did come here, we know that for certain because it fried everything, but something else also happened. At first I thought the charge stopped here and don't go anywhere else, then I checked some readings that these creatures were checking and it seems like something leeched the power, mainly a bigger station. There is no Internet or anything like that, but I pulled up the data that this station does have and found that there is nothing in the area that could have leeched it; all maps and records show that everything comes here. But the power did go somewhere, because there was an output reading." JJ flicked through a few screen as he talked. "So I sent a tracer signal and it pinged back."
"I never knew you could do that." Said Pyro.
"We can, no one else can." JJ smiled.
"Do you know what the power went to?" Sarge asked.
"Not a clue, but its big and it can handle a good surge. As the plasma charge went down the lines it dissipated bit by bit, so that by the time it left here it was reasonable power."
"Anything else?"
"Nope, none of us got anything, all burned or trashed."
Sarge turned to Maya. "So who exactly are you?" He looked at her and again the same feeling invaded her body, one of utter helplessness.
"Maya." She swallowed hard.
"And who are you?"
"A human."
"Yes we know that or otherwise you'd be dead by now."
"My name is Maya Fantura, daughter of Dimitri Fantura. I live at Haven Four." She answered as calmly as she could.
"Ease up on her Sarge." Snipe told him.
Suddenly the feeling of utter helplessness left and Maya relaxed a little, still tense and unsure, questions ran rapidly through her head. Hesitantly she spoke. "Who are you? Your weapons, your armor, your technology…I have never seen such things, who or…what are you?"
"We are Exodus." And here eyes went wide with awe.
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