Editing 97th Conglomerate's Tyrannic War (section)

=== Part 2: Planetfall ===
Samson was startled awake by the sounds of confusion and commotion. The bunk room for Omega Squad was a bustle of noise and ruckus. Klaxon alarms blared into his ears as he fell out of his bed. He jumped up and began throwing on his fatigues. The Krieger, Hanz, stood him up and straight and helped him clamp into his carapace armour. Every man was doing so as well, helping each other hurriedly strap into the medium red plates of armour, mostly dulled from years of combat, use, and wear and tear. The Grenadier slapped Samson’s pauldrons, letting him know he was good to go. Each man grabbed their packs (which they slung over a single shoulder, in a hurry) and ran out down the corridor that the bunk room opened out into. 

Samson found himself in corridors he no longer recognized, bodies crowded into the narrow space. The lumen strips were still darkened; it was still early by the ship’s chrono. The noise and confusion created a dangerous sense of anxiety in Samson. It took him a minute to realize he had lost the rest of his squad. He wanted to turn back, but the crowded guardsmen simply continued surging forward. Samson would’ve had to fight an unstoppable river of men flowing towards the hangar. 

The first volley of fire almost shook him to the ground. Men stumbled as the ship rumbled violently. The macro-cannons of ''Gravity’s Union'' had begun firing, and every man was struggling against them. Samson almost lost his autogun in the confusion, damn near dropping it with each thunderous boom of fire. 

He finally pushed out into the massive hangar. The whole expanse was a maelstrom of confusion and yelling. He craned his neck desperately looking for the sergeant. He could see several Commissars and officers of various ranks standing atop Chimeras and Leman Russ tanks, piled ammunition crates and shipping containers; they all barked orders and directions, coordinates and assignments to whomever was the relevant audience. As he shouldered his way through the mass of armoured bodies, he bumped into a rather short guardsman. He was about to yell at the bloke before he realized it was actually Natasha in her full combat gear. 

“Samson, thank Emperor I found you.” She sighed relief, grabbing him and almost hugging him. He still felt weird that he and his superior were this casual with each other. She wore a red sergeant’s patrol cap instead of a helmet, opting for something actually more feminine than she normally would. She pulled her face from Samson’s chestplate and looked up at him with those light eyes that contrasted with her dark hair. He almost completely forgot about the chaos (BLAM, HERESY) around him before she spoke. “Samson, come on! We gotta get to the lander!”

She grabbed his free hand and pulled him along behind her. She was actually minimally equipped compared to him. Her chainsword hung lazily from its hook on her belt’s right side, and on the other side was an almost vicious looking autopistol in its holster. The two of them pushed their way through the crowded hangar; enormous landing craft, Valkyrie troop carriers, and Vendetta gunships whirred their engines to life. The craft hovered into a massive airlock in squadrons. The ship continued to rock with every volley of macro-cannon fire from its main battery, unleashing salvo after salvo of Imperial Justice upon the threat that Samson barely understood. 

They finally reached the loading ramp of a massive landing craft, capable of carrying an entire platoon and a half. Both levels were visible; the first level was loaded up with 6 Chimera APCs, and the second level exposed the guardsmen stowing their gear and prepping for hot drop. Each of the Chimeras’ dozer blades bore the name of the Machine Spirit, crudely written in white paint. Names like ''Target Practice'', ''Crazy Train'', and ''Contents May Vary'' hinted at the cynical, dark humor possessed by most members of the 97th. 

The rest of the squad was already on the second level, being seated nearest the loading ramp on their row. Natasha led Samson up the ramp, between the Chimeras, and to the grated stairs leading up to the second level. She released his hand and pushed him in front of her, hurrying him to seat himself. He dropped his backpack into the wire mesh basket under his seat. His autogun was placed into a holding rack to one side of his leg as he sat down. He fumbled with his security harness, hands trembling with a mix of fear, nerves, and adrenaline. 

As he finally secured himself, he looked around the relatively empty troop compartment of the lander. Only about 6-7 squads of men, clad head-to-toe in carapace armour, were geared-up and ready to go. Natasha seated herself directly across from Samson, her eyes just as full of fear as his were. The ship shook a couple more times; another round of fire caused tremors throughout Gravity’s Union, the salvo’s vibration rolled through the ship like thunder through a storm. A red light blinked on, a warning buzzer belched, and the loading ramp of the lander shuddered slowly upwards, finally closing the platoon into what could easily become their coffin. Samson felt his stomach drop as the craft lifted off the hangar deck. He imagined the hangar deck becoming less claustrophobic as several of the landing craft rose into the crowded airspace, ready to deliver 1st Company to Terragrad Hive. 

He felt the momentum in his guts as the craft and its brethren hovered into the airlock. The door to the hangar shut ominously like a crypt; but all of these things Samson only imagined and visualized, as there were no external windows on the lander aside from the cockpit. A moment of still silence in the dimly lit hull took hold, revealing the tension inside as everyone felt a mix of excitement and absolute terror. Only once the Catachan broke the silence was the tension cut. 

“Hey!” Pyro yelled at Samson with a wicked grin. “You a dead man?!”

“No!” Samson replied, only realizing the joke after he had already spoken.

“You will be!” Pyro said with a chuckle that the rest of the squad – save for Natasha, Samson, and Hanz – shared in. 

The rumbling of the external airlock doors groaned for a moment before that sound completely ceased; the vacuum of space stole away any sound that might’ve come from outside the lander. Samson sat in his seat, but only in a figurative sense. Gravity had ceased as the craft shot straight out of the airlock chamber. The lander rolled on its back (in relationship to the planet’s surface) and dove straight down. As they descended, the metal craft began to shudder, atmospheric entry shaking their cargo almost violently. Samson’s teeth began to rattle, having terrifying flashbacks to his first hot-drop. His attention was snapped back to the present when the platoon commander bellowed a PT cadence over the racket of the tin can as it burned its way through atmo. 

“Guardsman, Guardsman, how you going to Hell?!” He barked to an unheard rhythm. The ship shook in a different way; an explosion of xenos anti-air batteries throwing the formation into disarray. 

“Feet First, Feet First, that’s how we fell!” The platoon replied with gusto and enthusiasm. The formation had breached the stratosphere; an explosion bit cleanly into the side of one of the landers.

“Now Guardsman, Guardsman, have you heard tell?!” The commander versed. The damaged lander lost control. It barreled into the next nearest craft, which knocked the side of the platoon’s lander. The ship took minimal damage, but at such speeds, it was enough to send the craft spinning out of control. The craft flipped and rolled, its structure crying in protest to the strain being demanded by its pilot. It took a long moment for the platoon to reply. 

“Yes, the Emperor Protects with lasbolt and shell!” They triumphantly reply, feeling the lander begin to stabilize. 

The first craft to take a hit had descended uncontrollably, now smacking into the ground with an enormous explosion. Another of the landers had to barrel across the ground, smashing through shelled-out buildings, most of its hull heavily damaged. The platoon’s lander pitched upward as it reached ground level. Its nose pulled upward in rapid deceleration, the embarked troopers’ stomachs lurching with the sudden change in momentum. It slowed down to the ground, its landing feet extending and bearing the weight of the lander. 

There was a moment of almost unsettling silence; every man’s veins were flooded with a mix of adrenaline and hormones preparing them for the unprecedented violence of combat. The red light blinked green, an alarm belched once, and the loading ramp began to open slowly, the grinding noise of it near-deafening inside the metal box of the hull.