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Post by Darko on Jan 15, 2023 22:56:45 GMT
The research outpost on Boros IV was doomed. This much was obvious to anyone with eyes. The last time Commissar Caleb Castor checked, roughly half of the remaining imperial troops still had at least one eye. As a result, morale was six feet under. He stared over the outpost's ramparts into the swirling sea of red chitin massing on the horizon. This would be the third wave in as many hours. Each time, they came in greater numbers. The Tyranids were consuming all biomatter on this world and they already had more bugs than they had ammunition. Commissar Castor, his greatcoat exaggerating his stature, stalked his way across the base toward the comms building. "Vox team, any word on evac?" He asked. "No sir, we can't get through to command." "We're on our own then. Keep trying." "Yes sir!" Answered the weary trooper. Castor backed out of the squat building and surveyed the outpost. Everywhere, soldiers dying, crying, calling out for their mothers. He saw one man cough up something that looked like his own kidneys behind the latrine before putting his laspistol to his temple and pulling the trigger. Pathetic. "On your feet! Every man, woman and child who can hold a rifle, get on the firing line!" He bellowed to anyone who would listen. He unholstered his bolt pistol to make his point, his free hand resting on the pommel of his sheathed power sword. He had no idea if any officers were still alive, or which regiments these guardsmen were from. Some even looked like civilians. The entire front line had been routed by tyranid beasts and all that was left were the stragglers who managed to fight their way to this outpost. He walked past the makeshift triage area, the groans of the dying like some form of macabre chant. "All for this miserable backwater... What in the name of the Emperor could be so important?" He grumbled rhetorically to himself, dismayed at the mass casualties. It was so far above his pay grade he'd been laughed at for even asking. He really hoped it was weapons. ------------------------ Welcome to The Last Stand, a laid back 40k RPG about a bunch of doomed guardsmen, sisters of battle, mechanicus, space marines, inquisition or whatever else takes your fancy try to survive a starship troopers outpost 29 type of situation. There's no GM for this game, anyone can add to the story or come up with new things! Just keep it fun and respect each other's characters. In the unlikely event of conflict between characters, simply work it out OOC and collaborate on a little post. Keep posts short and simple.
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Post by Darko on Feb 2, 2023 21:39:52 GMT
Sergeant Stone finished zipping up his new boots, liberated from the generous officer now lying face down in the muck behind the latrine. Stone hawked up a large globule of spit onto the side of the dead officer's face as he wrenched his catachan fang from the corpse's neck, wiping the blood on the body's fatigues. He stood, retying his red bandanna across his shaven head as he trudged through the mud back into the camp proper, whistling innocently as he looked around for the others. The incessant screeching of the xenos scum barely caught his attention. What did, however, was the tall commissar barking orders at anyone who would listen. Stone heard familiar heavy footsteps approaching and didn't look, keeping his eyes fixed on the political officer trying to assume command as he lit a lho-stick. "Not one of ours," said a gruff voice. "How d'you figure?" Stone replied, turning to look at the towering slab of meat known as Jack. He was holding a heavy bolter the way a normal man carried a lasgun. At least a dozen ammo belts were draped over his shoulders. "All ours are dead." "Heh. That they are," the sergeant smirked between tokes of his lho stick. "Where are the others?" "Ash and Starke are, err, they're negotiatin' with some cadians for their rations," Jack laughed. It was low, irritating sound like a Leman Russ with a broken tread trying to advance. "I'll have to pull some medals off these piss-brained troopers to give to them. We're gonna need all the supplies we can find if we wanna survive til they send valks to get us. Mark my words, Jack, this place is gonna turn ugly real quick when the food gets short and morale breaks for good." "What about the fancy hat?" Asked Jack. "We leave him for now. I ain't catchin' a bolt round to the back of the head for desertion. Sooner or later, he's gonna run out of ammo and have a lot of hungry, scared people looking for someone to blame for this gak show." "So... what do we do boss?" Stone grinned. "We do what we do best. Just another bug hunt, Jack." "If you say so, boss. They got more bugs than we got bullets." The sergeant flicked the butt of his lho-stick aside and unstrapped the las carbine on his back. "In that case, don't miss." "You seen how many are out there? I ain't gonna miss." He slapped Jack on the shoulder as hard as he could. The big man didn't even react. "Come on. Two packs of smokes says I kill more than you!" "Hah! Alright, you're on sarge."
The dour-faced commissar turned towards them. "You two! Get on the line now." "Yes sir, captain commissar sir!" Stone shouted back with a mock salute. The pair of catachans broke into a jog over to the outpost's walls, running up the metal steps and pressing their guns over the wall. A few other troopers had listened to the commissar's order and joined the line. Cadians, Vostroyans, steel legion and others Stone didn't recognise. The swirling horde of alien beasts looked like the waves of a crimson and black ocean crashing over the plateau towards them.
"By the Emperor, we'll be overrun!" Cried a young cadian with a white stripe on his helmet. Stone's mouth curled downward in disgust and he knocked the conscript off his feet with a backhand. The trooper dropped his rifle, reaching a shaking hand up to his cracked lip. Stone crouched, pulling the laspack from the fallen lasgun. "I need this more than you do, kid. Go find a hole and stick your bayonet through your throat. You ain't gonna make it." "B-but I--" the conscript stammered. Stone's features hardened like a chiselled rock and he stared directly into the boy's eyes. The young soldier crawled backwards on his hands and then stumbled to his feet, running away. A few seconds later, the unmistakable bark of a bolt pistol echoed through the outpost. Stone stowed his extra ammo on his belt and raised his carbine to eye level. A Vostroyan with a thick well-oiled moustache, holding a baroque wood-carved lasrifle, gave him a disapproving look out of the corner of his eye. Stone ignored him. Ash and Starke appeared, filling the gap the conscript had left. Ash was still chewing on something even as she loaded her long-las, her thin figure a wisp of bone and lithe muscle underneath a flack jacket. Starke was a short, stocky man with more scars than anyone in the regiment. He looked at Stone with a thin smile, revealing his few remaining yellow teeth. With practiced efficiency, the grey-haired hunter flicked shells into his shotgun and racked the slide. The Tyranids were closing. "Hold! I said hold, you bastards!" Stone shouted down the line. "Wait til you can see their eyes and then give 'em hell."
Chittering, screeching horrors scuttled ever closer. Lumbering bio-beasts the size of tanks stomped through the midst of the swarm. "Hold..." Said Stone.
The Tyranids were only a hundred meters away now. "Fracking fire! Kill 'em all!" A hundred guns boomed at once. The snap-crack staccato of lasguns backed up by the bass rattles of heavy bolters and stubbers. Somewhere, a missile streaked through the air and exploded in the middle of the horde. For every ten they killed, fifty took their place.
Commissar Castor stalked behind the firing line, pistol and sword drawn, held high for all to see. "It is better to die for the Emperor than to live for yourself! Not one step back, you dogs! Purge the xenos!"
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Post by Darko on Apr 6, 2023 20:29:51 GMT
The sky darkened with unnatural, baleful clouds the colour of mucus heralding the beginning of the end for Boros IV. Thick, interconnected fleshy towers burst through the ground covered in teeth. They seemed to wheeze and twitch, convulsing as they processed all biological matter fed into them by the endlessly ravenous horde of gnashing ripper beasts devouring all plant life, rotting corpses and screaming stragglers alike. There was a sickening melody to the endless cacophony in the air: millions of screeching Tyranid creatures, all connected, all feeling the collective sustenance of a world being eaten alive. Sergeant Stone could barely hear the snap-crack of his lasrifle over the discordant songs of the feasting xenos. His only measurement of time under a sunless sky was by the number of empty ammo cells at his feet - six. Firing at a rate of one las shot per second every second, give or take a few to reload, that meant they had been fighting for a little over six minutes. The ground around the outpost was camouflaged by a sea of ichor and twisted alien bodies. The stench of charred meat permeated the air, already thick with spores. They must have slaughtered hundreds of the xenos and yet the horde did not relent. The vostroyan next to Stone sagged onto his knees, wailing in agony and clawing at his own face as the burrowing beetle projectiles fired by termagants wormed their way through his flesh and bone. It was a harrowing, wordless noise of absolute terror. The man was tearing at his own eye sockets as the vicious living ammunition ripped their way through his eyes in a viscous spray of white, milky blood. Stone blinked to avoid the muzzle flash of Starke's shotgun and ignored the warm, wet fluid now soaking his left thigh. The two catachans exchanged a glance. 'The time comes, do the same for me,' was all Starke said. Stone nodded. 'Carnifex!' Ash called from beside Starke, crouched behind the wall as she reloaded. Stone looked across the massing, writhing ocean of teeth and chitin. Three of the battle-tank sized monstrosities were charging directly towards them, las shots fizzing harmlessly off their armoured exoskeletons. Jack pulled another belt of .70 calibre shells from over his shoulder, fed it into his heavy bolter's chamber and racked the slide with the practiced speed of a man who had made his weapon an extension of his being. With one hand placed over the top to force the weapon to stay on the wall despite the recoil, he pulled down on the trigger and did not relent until every shell was spent. The nearest carnifex, a screamer-killer with four scything talons raised high over its ugly sunken head, felt the wrath of the imperial guard. Dozens of rocket-propelled, high explosive rounds tore across its right flank, each detonating and blowing chunks out of the vile creature. Pain did nothing to slow its charge. It only fell when its right leg was torn apart by the sustained barrage. When it toppled over, a dozen screeching hormagaunts were caught underneath and crushed like insects beneath a boot. An expanding pool of purple paste dribbled out from underneath the writhing carnifex, its thrashing talons impaling the underside of its twin rampaging forward. The second carnifex did not stop even as its unnatural entrails spilled onto the ground and were trampled by its own hooves. It did not slow, the unseen, unknowable power of the hive mind itself driving it on. Even as the limbs of the first were wrenched from its sockets, still embedded deep into the body of the second, it lurched closer and closer until finally it collapsed at the base of the wall. Scores of hormagaunts scuttled up and over its hulking corpse, their long legs propelling them high enough to land on the cusp of the wall. 'Bayonets! Fix your bayonets and kill them!' Ordered Commissar Castor, yelling so loudly that he tasted blood at the back of his painfully dry throat. His hoarse voice was drowned out by the relentless gunfire and the slashing talons of the swarm began to overwhelm the guardsmen further down the line. A hormagaunt scraped its way over the top of the wall and he cleaved its head in half with a single overhead swing of his power sword. The thrice-blessed steel blade, wrapped in the semi-transparent powerfield that gave it its name, cut through the bony exoskeleton with ease. Castor placed his boot against its chest and kicked it away, back into the churning abyss of its kind below. Another filled its place immediately and he dispatched it with two shots from his bolt pistol, bursting first the adrenal sac on its back and then its skull with the second shot. He grimaced at the vile smell of gore piled at his feet, feeling his disgust and contempt for the loathsome xenos grow with each passing second. He swept his sword in wide arcs over and over as the endless tide spilled over the walls, hacking them apart two or three at a time. One leaped so high that it passed right over the parapet and barrelled into him with enough force to knock him off his feet. Castor fell onto his back, his sword arm pinned against his chest, barely holding the snapping jaws of the beast inches from his face. A flash of light blinded him for several seconds and he felt the struggling weight above him go limp. His eyes darted across the firing line where he saw a crouched catachan, long-las aimed in his direction. He shoved the carcass over his head and sent it tumbling down into the interior of the base below. His pistol was lost and he could not see where he had dropped it as he rolled onto his front and pushed himself upright. The plasteel floor where he had been lying just a nanosecond ago burst apart before his eyes. Bent metal plating and rebar shattered like twigs under a cavalry charge as a pair of crustacean-like claws as wide as a battle tank shell tore through the wall. The dust began to settle and the beady, glowing amber eyes of the third carnifex appeared in front of Castor. The men and women around him scattered, their morale shattered by the arrival of the unholy abomination as their defences crumbled under their feet. Castor was no ordinary man. He was made of sterner stuff. Weak emotions as pedestrian as fear had been bred out of him since he was old enough to say his own name. He gripped his sword with both hands and swung it like an axe into a tree, hacking deeply into the exposed neck of the carnifex. The blade bit deep and the monster's head sagged dumbly, held on by the thin sinuous strands of tissue and muscle of its throat. Castor did not hesitate and brought the sword down a second time, decapitating the carnifex. Its head rolled across the broken ferrocrete floor, eyes twitching in their sockets and its teeth reflexively biting down through its own hooked tongue. The hulking body spasmed, arms thrashing wildly in its death throes as the muscle memory of a creature that existed only to destroy kicked in for several seconds until, finally, it realised it was dead. Castor stepped down from the line and planted his feet atop the fallen carnifex. He stared directly into the thousands of Tyranids ahead, certain to reach him in seconds. With a deep breath and a sense of peace in his heart, he held his sword - his truest ally through all the wars he had fought - close to his face. Today was a good day to die in the name of the Emperor. With his left hand he reached into his greatcoat, retrieving a small, golden amulet inlaid with High Gothic scripture and a glowing ruby centrepiece. He felt comforted by the blessed artifact, a refractor field of remarkable craftsmanship. With eyes closed, he kissed the amulet softly and then pulled the lace of the necklace over his head. The amulet rested over his heart, both equally resolute and indomitable. 'Come! Come and taste my vengeance!' Castor bellowed at the top of his voice. The first Tyranid reached him, dual talons lunging towards his chest. The shining golden force field burst into life and the xenos' bladed limbs evaporated on contact. He drove his sword upwards through its chest, flipping it onto his back and driving the blade through its back. The inevitable wall of teeth and talons closed on the breach, certain to crush him with its weight. A volley of bolter fire shredded them by the dozens. Packed so close together, each shell obliterated one from the velocity of the round and a second when it finally exploded. Castor looked over his shoulder at the colossal mountain of muscle wielding a heavy bolter in the way he'd only seen the holy Adeptus Astartes manage. The man grinned wolfishly. Three more catachans stood around him, the next largest barely up to his shoulders. 'You've got baneblade-sized balls, Commissar!' Jack laughed. 'Almost as big as mine!' Commissar Castor allowed himself a wry smile. 'The Emperor is with us this day.'
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