"Alos it is worthless resisting me, give him over now," yelled Captain Hrong of the World Eaters. His voice echoed through the helmets of all the Astartes in the maze of streets and ruined buildings.
There was no answer but the rattle of bolter fire.
Hrong's men had moved through the rubble in the building they were in and emerged in a plaza.
Chaplain Alos was well out of range with his plasma pistol but kept firing shots off in the hopes that the discharges would give confuse the sensors in the World Eater's helmets or give them a target to fire at.
He said over the com system to his own men, "Pull him back. Get him out of here. It doesn't matter how many of us die, we need to get a message to any other Legion, the World Eaters have rebelled against the Emperor."
Armoured hands closed around the robes of the Enginseer and dragged him back through the ragged crater and smashed parts of a launch that had crashed there.
Alos stood, making himself a target of the enemy fire.
His men fell back as directed.
"Tyler, keep your team up with me. Cover the retreat of the rest of them," Alos said.
The marine with the missile launcher nodded even though he knew the Chaplain couldn't see him.
The four marines fired at the oncoming rebels while the rest of the group moved away, if they could make it to the entrance to the subway system only two blocks away it seemed likely that they would be able to elude Hrong.
Their fire pinned down the first group of marines to emerge but a second fire team moved up and splitting their fire between the two reduced the volume enough that the enemy could start making pretty accurate shots even at the range they engaged at.
Soon Alos was wounded in the thigh and had his right hand blown off by the explosive bolter rounds. He was on one knee but still firing. His pistol was getting hot in his hand but he kept firing until a bolter round hit him in the side of the head blasting his helmet apart and dropping the Chaplain.
The enemy used the opportunity to surge forward.
The dreadnought moved quickly ahead of the men who moved up using it as cover. Bolter rounds were bouncing off of it, the man inside, nearly insane with rage felt something that must have come from a rocket launcher ricochet off of his hull.
Despite being tough he was not invulnerable. One of the marines he was pursuing left off pulling the Enginseer back and ran forward with his melta gun. The heat weapon fired and a section of armour was instantly reduced to slag on the metallic monstrosity.
The dreadnought returned the fire with contempt and the man was melted to slag.
Hrong's men pressed up and started to get behind their targets who, leaderless, continued to fall back.
Tyler was doing his duty, the rocket launcher was barely pausing in its fire, explosions ripped through the ranks of the World Eaters pursuing him. A shot ripped off another big pieces of the dreadnought's armour.
Enough of the armour had been damaged now and a flurry of bolter fire concentrated on the machine was enough to down it, some essential circuitry being damaged the massive mechanical beast stumbled and them fell heavily to the ground. The inarticulate scream from inside could be heard even through the armour and over the rattling of bolter fire.
The marines behind the behemoth had now pressed up and fired on Tyler's team as well as the last marine escorting the Enginseer away.
Tyler kept up a steady fire with his rocket launcher. Explosions in the midst of the men were causing havoc all over the rubble strewn streets.
Eventually it was just Tyler and the Enginseer who was running alone now.
Hrong turned the corner of the building. His first shot smashed into Tyler's face plate, exploding and stunning the space marine. He fell dropping his missile launcher.
Hrong's second shot hit the Enginseer just before he went around the corner and to relative safety. The shot hit him right in the lower back sending him to his knees.
Soon three space marines were surrounding Tyler. As he recovered himself he looked into the barrels of their bolters and they each pulled the trigger, the explosive rounds all detonating on his chest, shattering the armour and the man inside.
searches for a better way to store his starships.
