The History of the Rough Raiders

Somehow it was very comforting for Private Fred Benton to have a tight grip around the handle of an assault cannon. It made him feel safe. Though with a bunch of Grey Knights on your heels, you never were safe. An open battle would mean certain death, and the men hiding out in the burnt remains of a forest knew that, they had seen the Space Marines fight. It was tough to see your former allies turn against you, especially if the allies in question are the Imperiums finest warriors. They had armor with which you could swim through a lake of lava unharmed, and guns that could tear apart a building. They were the gods on the battlefield.

That was why the remains of the 42nd Sauvagian wouldn't give them a battlefield. Rather a forest full of booby traps and desperate soldiers. The Knights had suffered even more causalities then the Sauvagians, only a handful remained. A hundred Guardsman could beat a handful of Grey Knights, Fred thought, provided they got the time to set up an ambush. And they had gotten that.

Finally the waiting was over, Dogbreaths vox told them. So Sarge Kurz had managed to get the Greys on his heels. The plan was for Kurz and his squad to attract their attention and lead them towards the barrel. The barrel had once contained gas, but now 3 demolition charges, half as dozen meltabombs and a igniter controlled by a remote control filled the insuspicius piece of metal, half obscured by branches and mud. Kurz' men were past it now, still far ahead of the foe, running south. Freds team hid a few hundred meters west of the barrel, the other team east of it, and the Inquisition was coming for them from the north. Kurz had tried to make sure that the shortest route for his hunters would lead them over the barrel, but they were too far of anyway. Judging by their current route, they would pass some 100 meters east of it- the detonation would not harm them too badly. They had to be led near it....

Fred knew what he had to do. He made sure that the ammo-chain was in its place and the tripod of his assault cannon was properly adjusted, before he switched the six barreld monster on. It began to turn faster and faster, gaining momentum. The sound it made turned from a slow hollow humming to a high-pitched whine, and that told Fred he could pull the trigger. When he did, he thought he'd turn deaf. The gun roared like hell as the ammunition chain raced into its side, and white flames exploded out of the muzzle. He could not see anything, but he held it leveled at where he thought the foe. After near a minute, the barrels were bright red and steaming, and the bullets had run out. The air was full of biting somke, but he could see them. They were alive but for the one who had'nt worn a helmet. Fred knew better than to imagine how his face looked now.

But he had succeded. They were coming for him now. Bullets were tearing apart the trees around him, but he lay on his belly and didn't move. Then came the detonation. The shock wave pressed the breath out of his lungs, and it was so loud he thought the planet itself was be torn apart. A few moments after the echoes had faded, rubble, earth and other things started raining down on them. When they finally dared to rise and look at the place where the barrel had been, they knew they had won. There was nothing to be seen. A huge crater marked the place, filled with ashes and molten stones. There were no more Grey Knights who could harm them now.

As the others danced and hooted happily, firing shots in the air and hugging each other, Freds thoughts were on he battlefield of yesterday again.....

They had been all laughter and jokes when they had marched into the belly of the gigantic Space Hulk, which had been there bring them to an unknown destination. They had been boausting about how many foes each of them would kill, and how the Imperium would praise their victories. That was different now that they had arrived, because battle was no fun at all. Especially not against the vile servants of Chaos, who could take on ten man each with horrifying ease. Instead of laughter, the cries of the wounded and dying now filled the air, and the jokes had given place to pleas for mercy.

But the warriors of Khorne would have none of it. The word „yield“ was all but unknown to them, and nearly all men in the regiment knew that. Yet some fools still hoped to be spared for throwing down their weapons, but they learned otherwise in a manner of a few seconds. Others were smarter and hugged a grenade when the red devils piled into their trenches, taking one or two with them with a small but powerful detonation, but that required a kind of courage only few possessed. Those who tried to fight in melee, clumsy lasgun trying to parry the blows of leathal hellblades and diamond-toothed chainswords, lost their lives as quickly as those who fled the trenches and were seen by a Comissar; incidents like these were marked by the loud barks of bolt pistols.

This war against a small host of Chaos Space Marines, wich were supported by the even viler Deamons of the warp, was worse then a nightmare. The planet which they were on had to be defended against the invaders. The enemy objective was not to win the planet, nor was it anything with reason. It was merely to cause fear and terror, death and destruction.

The man were being wasted defending hopeless positions, and the Generals in their backfield-trenches would not hesitate to send a hundred poor souls to a certain death, if that action had the chance of maybe killing a handful of the ones on the other side of the battered and damaged defense-lines; In the HQ-tent you didn't count the lives of men, but of platoons, and many soldiers knew that now. Morale had hit rock bottom weeks ago, and it seemed as if someone had brought a jackhammer, because it was getting worse all the time.

The only chance you had to kill one of the bastards was to shoot them while they ran towards you from afar, and even then it took the fire of a dozen lasguns to bring one down, shots bouncing off the thick iron hides of the deamons and the admatium suits of the Space Marine traitors all the same. One man was worth nothing in this war, and they were very well aware of that. Fancy guns, on the other hand, could actually waste a few of the suckers before they reached you, if you knew how to use them. Every man had been trained to use all different kinds of lethal contraptions, ranging from simple grenade and missile launchers to deadly meltas and extremely dangerous plasma weapons, which often malfunctioned and turned the wielder into boiling puddles of gore that looked just like the foes who were hit by it before the weapon overheated. But as much as every man wanted to carry a „special“ gun, or be put in a weapon team to man the really big ladies, the supply was very limited. Only those few who had proven themselves worthy were given the rare honor of wielding one, and they were the ones who saw to the enemy causalities, few as they were.

But those chosen soldiers died all the same when the enemy reved up their chainsaws and jumped into the trenches, and that left the odd grenade launcher or Boltgun owner-less. That was how Fred got his assault cannon. The comissars did not care who was responsible for the heavy weapons, and taking them from the fallen without permission was about the only crime you didn't get shot for. Because it required at least two pairs of arms to carry it around, the Platoon commander had attached another man to the cannon, a young chap called Carl. He was a coward though, so whenever it came to actually firing the gun while enemies were around, he curled himself up and waited until the battle was over. It was a miracle that he hadnt been shot for that jet.

He was hiding and shivering again now, while Fred put on his earmuffs. A Vast horde of Deamons and Chaos Marines was closing on them, and death hailed on their evil from all sides. It was not enough though, and Fred knew that his six-barreled friend wouldn't make much of a difference. Somehow he wasn't afraid of death right now. At least he would take some of the fethers with him, he thought. But as he fired up the cannon and began to send some deamons back to the warp, a metal Gunship flew over their heads and landed right in the middle of the approaching tide. Out of it jumped Space Marines, but Fred couldn't quite tell from which chapter they were. They wore bare metal armor, and he didn't know their insignia. As a child he had learned a lot about the Space Marine chapters, so he was confused now. They began slaughtering their way through the deamons the same way as the deamons were about to do it with him and his companions, but then, a huge monster erupted from the ground. It looked suspiciously like the other ones, save the fact that it was over 30 feet tall. It seemed to Fred that Khorne himself had simply adjusted the odds. It fell on the Marines with a booming war-cry, swinging a huge sword of molten iron, and began to play with them. It cut three man in half at once, squished another one under his clawed foot and ripped of the heads of two more. At the end of the fight, only 6 of the Marines remained of the 20 that had come. A hit in the face with a gigantic thunder hammer had put an end to the giant Deamon, and the rest of the horde was dealt with with ease. One after one, the Marines closed the invisible warp-portals that had been sending waves after waves of Deamons at them, supported by the Sauvagians. The endless battle was finally over; The marines had accomplished in a few hours what a full regiment of Guardsman had failed to do in weeks. Now the regiment was down to a quarter of of strength, the rest killed in the numerous battles.

Later that day, the leader of the Knights questioned their Commander. A handful of servitors wrote down all the words that were said, and the questioned man seemed more than uneasy. Fred was watching from the distance, and he couldn't quite understand the words that were said. He did however get one sentence, because it was delivered in a loud, commanding voice. „We are done here, brothers. Purge this regiment!“

At first he failed to understand the meaning of that, and then the Grey Knights opened fire. They harvested their one-time allies like weed, cutting them down with their murderous guns one squad at a time. In the end, only Freds platoon had managed to escape. They went into the burnt forest....