Post by EmperorMyric on Dec 16, 2017 19:03:52 GMT
Planet Algolus.
One would have to wonder what insanity had compelled the powers that be to declare this planet a vital military target.
From the strategic perspective, the planet was worthless. Far from the major trade routes, no indigenous population, no cities, no resources worth exploiting, hell, not even any water.
Yes, that’s right. Not even any water.
Thousands of years before the first traveler had laid eyes on the dirt-colored marble in space, the planet’s original inhabitants had apparently developed Nuclear weapons.
The result seemed inevitable, in light of the concentrations of empty silos discovered. It was once said you could get Rad poisoning simply by thinking about the planet.
In the millennia since, the planet has slowly recovered from the radioactive effects.
Slowly.
What was once lush forest has become trackless desert, punctuated here and there by clusters of petrified stumps. Rock concentrations spit out crystalline growths of radioactive minerals, which would be beautiful if not for the fact that mere contact with one ensured a slow, agonizing death from radiation poisoning. Here and there the remains of armored vehicles lie like the skeletons of Ancient beasts, gun barrels poking from the sand like the macabre fingers of the undead.
The old settlements, long since annihilated by the blasts of Nuclear war, sit only as massive craters, with only scattered debris to indicate the existence of civilization.
And everywhere, no matter where you look…not a single sign of life.
The planet itself is so foreboding that event he scrap pickers avoid it.
But above all the structures that once filled this planet, once home to lush, green forests and high mountain peaks, stands a facility that gazes down from upon high, like the wizened old eyes of a wizard…or the malevolent eyes of a demon.
Crenelated walls, pockmarked battlements, combat scarred towers all carved into the living rock. Age-worn barrels of cannon reaching out like dark fingers. radar towers and observation platforms stating like headstones.
Deep within the structure, arsenals packed with heavy weapons, automatic cannon, rifles and mortars and munitions. Books preserved by the dry air fill libraries that could swallow a division.
Power generators, elevators, blast doors and turrets large enough to swallow a battleship and lose it, all awaiting the careful hands of maintenance crews, their bearings seized by Sand and Neglect.
Below the worn gates of the structure, below the miles of barricades, rusted concertina wire, landmines long since rusted into uselessness, collapsed pillboxes, Belgian gates, Dragons teeth, and rotten sandbags, stretched a wide valley which once served as a means of defense.
Now filled to the brim with the petrified skulls of the planet’s population.
All with the tops sawn off.
HerzeHaus.
And it was here that the 3400 men of the Spartan 274th Heavy infantry, Under general David Macar, were ordered to make their stand.
3400 went in.
One came out.
what was left of him, at any rate.
One would have to wonder what insanity had compelled the powers that be to declare this planet a vital military target.
From the strategic perspective, the planet was worthless. Far from the major trade routes, no indigenous population, no cities, no resources worth exploiting, hell, not even any water.
Yes, that’s right. Not even any water.
Thousands of years before the first traveler had laid eyes on the dirt-colored marble in space, the planet’s original inhabitants had apparently developed Nuclear weapons.
The result seemed inevitable, in light of the concentrations of empty silos discovered. It was once said you could get Rad poisoning simply by thinking about the planet.
In the millennia since, the planet has slowly recovered from the radioactive effects.
Slowly.
What was once lush forest has become trackless desert, punctuated here and there by clusters of petrified stumps. Rock concentrations spit out crystalline growths of radioactive minerals, which would be beautiful if not for the fact that mere contact with one ensured a slow, agonizing death from radiation poisoning. Here and there the remains of armored vehicles lie like the skeletons of Ancient beasts, gun barrels poking from the sand like the macabre fingers of the undead.
The old settlements, long since annihilated by the blasts of Nuclear war, sit only as massive craters, with only scattered debris to indicate the existence of civilization.
And everywhere, no matter where you look…not a single sign of life.
The planet itself is so foreboding that event he scrap pickers avoid it.
But above all the structures that once filled this planet, once home to lush, green forests and high mountain peaks, stands a facility that gazes down from upon high, like the wizened old eyes of a wizard…or the malevolent eyes of a demon.
Crenelated walls, pockmarked battlements, combat scarred towers all carved into the living rock. Age-worn barrels of cannon reaching out like dark fingers. radar towers and observation platforms stating like headstones.
Deep within the structure, arsenals packed with heavy weapons, automatic cannon, rifles and mortars and munitions. Books preserved by the dry air fill libraries that could swallow a division.
Power generators, elevators, blast doors and turrets large enough to swallow a battleship and lose it, all awaiting the careful hands of maintenance crews, their bearings seized by Sand and Neglect.
Below the worn gates of the structure, below the miles of barricades, rusted concertina wire, landmines long since rusted into uselessness, collapsed pillboxes, Belgian gates, Dragons teeth, and rotten sandbags, stretched a wide valley which once served as a means of defense.
Now filled to the brim with the petrified skulls of the planet’s population.
All with the tops sawn off.
HerzeHaus.
And it was here that the 3400 men of the Spartan 274th Heavy infantry, Under general David Macar, were ordered to make their stand.
3400 went in.
One came out.
what was left of him, at any rate.