OOC
The roaring thunk of bolter fire blossomed across the pitted, scarred and scorched, burning landscape of Ullanor Prime. Fiery rosette detonations of rockets intermingled with the concussive puffing explosions heralding a shell explosion. Artillery streaking the sky in mighty barrages while great warmachines worked their way amid the blackened plains, brown hills, and ruined ork settlements of Ullanor Prime. Unleashing fierce cannonades kept on target by the unceasing lanes of tracer fire. Accompanied by the rolling thunder of strategic carpet bombing offenses punctuated by the wailing cry of a tactical dive bomb strike.
Over one-hundred thousand warriors clad in ceramite fought their way forth across the ruined landscape of Ullanor Prime. Itself the culmination of an arduous campaign across a half dozen star systems to lay the overlords of this dominion low. The savage Greenskin menace was making it's last, if one was courteous to say organized, stand. For thousands of star systems and even more worlds had been liberated or conquered from their feral grasp through bolt and blade.
Amid these legions of plate and transhuman prowess came eight million regular human soldiery. Themselves delivering a sweltering barrage of ever advancing las and ballistic fire. A tidal wave of humanity was rolling through the last of the Greenskin strongholds. Over them flew wings of the Imperialis Armada and the hulking mass of warships delivering pinpoint ship to ground fire support. Betwixt them the thudding, ground shaking, strides of the Collegia Titancus moved forth. Their dolorous pace of one hundred Titans of the Legio Mortis leaving more than twice their number of ork constructs smoldering as massive towering chimneys of smelted steel to mark their passage.
Leading them all? The golden clad warriors of the Legio Custodes who worked through the sea of green before them like painters whom only used red. Their ranks interspered with silent warrioress and the bodyguard formations of four demigods. They themsleves paling in comparison to a single golden warrior whose fury was like a thousand Suns.
The day was won, for a single sweep of the golden warrior's fiery blade and the final Ork warboss' head had been relieved of its body, and the remaining Greenskins were unceremoniously purged.
The Triump of Ullanor, the high watermark of the Great Crusade is what followed this carnage, and at the behest of the golden warrior, The Emperor of Mankind, those who could attend this momentous occasion made the journey. There, in honour of Mankind's soldiery and all that Humanity has achieved, was the grandest of processions. There, the seeds of Heresy were sown...
602.000.M31
Stellar Cartographae Designation: 13-81
"Coronid Deeps Sector"
Alkiada X
<<Check fire, twenty degrees to the right, incoming fire.>>
<<Affirmative Brother. Dispatching target.>>
<<This is Captain Tiberias, we've taken the Preceptorium. Enemy forces incoming.>>
<<Message received Brother-Captain. 15th Company moving to reinforce.>>
The methodical rhythm of thudding footfalls of heavy ceramite boots masked the desperate pitter-patter of heavy steel reinforced boots. Clunking along despite the rubberized sole between the mag-lock capable steel rims of the trundling individual's environmental suit.
<Keep Pace Remembrancer>
The person in the EVA suit wheezed as they swung their laden arms forward. Pic-caster spinning to record live video footage of the environment around her, for it was a her, as she blew a strand of blonde hair away from deep blue eyes.
Crash
A section of wall just ahead crumbled as a rocket propelled grenade impacted it. She instinctively held her arms up to her ears. Only that she couldn't actually touch them given the bulbous helmet she wore. Almost not even realizing that her face was moments away from striking the lower backpack of the person before her.
A person in painted red armour and a leopard pelt cinched to his right pauldron. A person who dwarfed her size by a considerable margin. Astartes. The Marine side stepped to let her pass. The auto senses of his suit registering her presence even though he wasn't turned to face the young woman coming up behind.
A pair of Marines were tossing debris from themselves as they stood up amid the rubble that now spilled into the hallway. The pale blue sunlight of 13-81...Alkiada X...casting everything in crisp glow.
The sounds of open warfare outside could be more easily heard now. A marine with a veterans laurel knelt to peer out the opening. The woman coming up gingerly. The marine held out a hand,
<Stay there, Remembrancer, you will get your picture in a moment.> The metallic monotone voice of the Astartes communication coming through her helmet's speakers always gave her an ominous sensation. She shuffled on her feet. Lungs burning as she finally caught wind.
The problem with Astartes, she thought, is that they often didn't need to communicate verbally. Internal vox frequencies and battle-sign replaced much verbal communication. It made the act of editing all of this data all the more harder in that she had to piece together audio, request logs which were heavily censured, and typically delayed publication by days to weeks. But, how many people could say they got to be a Imagist for the Sun Angels? In the same Expeditionary Fleet as the Emperor's eldest scion no less! She thought back to the gold plated award for best Pict-Cast displaying the triumphant Sun Angels and their Primarch raising the Imperial Banner on Kollistus Tertia but a Terran month prior.
Movement, a Marine bearing a sniper rifle moved forward and knelt down, and not even raising the scope to his visor fired once with a crack-flash of a bolt shell launching. The Captain nodded and waved behind him. The human woman carefully stepping over rubble to come up beside the captain who while kneeling was still as tall as she.
The scenery before her was one of organized violence as columns of Sun Angels supported by Predator tanks and Fellblades advanced between ruined buildings. She zoomed in on a Predator coming to a stop as marines engaged a heavy weapons emplacement in a burnt out second floor apartment block. At least, it seemed to be an apartment block? The tank's main gun swivelling to fire a high explosive shell directly into an open window. Flame and dust exploded out of the second floor as a Marine slung a grenade with pinpoint accuracy onto the third floor while a trio entered the building with combat knives drawn.
She panned to the left as organized companies and squads in lightning fast movements typical of the Sun Angel's surgical method of warfare moved along terraces, boulevards, and high rises. Flights of jump pack equipped marines crashed along roof tops and along half demolished balconies.
Panning back to the right, to the South, the mottled grey-black figures of the enemy returne fire. Humans who had rejected the Imperial Truth and Compliance and now brought their guns against the Imperium in defiance. A grey painted squat vehicle, a tank, trundled from behind a building and took aim. Opening fire with puffing boom of its main gun. The round striking a Predator tank. The latter saved by the angle of its frontal glacis plate. A Sun Angel hefted a Lascannon and fired twice. Striking the tank in the treads and were its turret met the main hull. A second strike from a plasma cannon that she didn't see the origin off struck the rear of the tank just enough to cause it's fuel to ignite. Surviving crew trying to jump out only to be reduced to red paste by a flurry of bolter fire.
She checked her counter, video was good and fifteen separate stills taken, she nodded to the Marine Captain and they continued forth. Finding herself once more sucking air into her lungs as she sought to keep up with the murderous pace of the Space Marines. Only gaining respite in the form of being able to stop and put her armoured hands on her kneecaps as the 15th Company, also arriving from opposite hallways and floors, surged onto a plaza. A pair of Marines blocked her way and she knelt behind them as they scanned the scene from behind their helmet auto senses.
Poking her image caster around their bulk to try and see. What she saw was slaughter. The 15th had surged into a melee across a two story pavilion complex. Hundreds of enemy soldiers and their hulking crap like automata fought at close range with the one hundred Astartes of the 15th Company. A shrieking wail as a squad of assault marines crashed into the fray. Chainswords whirring and bolt pistols barking. A cylindrical device sailed through the air to land on one of the crab like automata as the flash of plasma slagged half the machine to molten orange-yellow metal.
"Can? Can we get a better spot?" she said into her vox speaker. The Marines didn't turn to her but a reply came regardless. This time verbally, even though whatever tone was deadened by the Astartes' helmet grille.
"To dangerous, Remembrancer."
"But.." she rose on her feet to th tips of her toes as she tried to gather footage. A man being bisected by a marine came into view and her stomach lurched.
"Best to swallow it, Remembrancer," continued the Marine, or was it the other one? She couldn't tell. Solemn advice considering she'd be merely vomiting in her own helmet. The marine on the left hefted his bolter and fired a single shell. Her caster whipping around just in time to catch a human life pulverized into red chunks. It sickened her, the reality of war, but she had a duty to record and catalogue.
A pair of intact road blocks rested on the Northern side of the plaza's second floor which they had emerged out on. "Where, where are we? Can we go over there?" She reached forth to point at the road blocks. Possibly trying to convince the marines that she would have some cover.
"We're at the Northern entrance to the Preceptorium. An important government site for the planet's locals." came the voice of one of the Astartes again. The Marine on the right rose to his feet and began to move. Slower then typical. Moving towards the road block he came to crouch behind it after a dozen steps. The marine on the left turned back to her, "You will keep your head down. You don't, you die. Do you understand?"
She nodded within her helmet and the Marine held his stare. At least it looked like staring. The Marine waved for her to follow as he rose to stand. She kept close to him as the Marine trained his boltgun around at the dying carnage as this brothers swept the plaza clean of enemy resistance. The marine was effectively a moving shield for her as she picked up the pace to come crashing beside the the already awaiting Astartes.
The second marine peered over the lip of the impact pock marked stone railing. The arm of her pic caster joining his gaze to catch a Sun Angel's sergeant directing his squad across a street to a row of squat buildings adorned with pockmarked frescoes. Their art long marred by the battle.
A pair of land speeders zipped by overhead to the South.
"Come. Remembrancer. The way is clear now." said the Marine looking over the edge as the trio moved across the plaze to enter the Northern spaces of the Preceptorium. Wooden furniture and stonework was marred by gunfire, grenade shrapnel, and the stench of spilt entrails. Stepping over four corpes and a bolt shell riddled automata crashed half into a room she entered the partially collapsed dome of the main Preceptorium.
A series of human figures in togas ringed the room with raised dais and chairs for what was likely a Senate of sorts. Dozens of Astartes manned positions and entrances. Captain Arpad of the 15th was standing before another Astartes officer. The other officer had his helmet off and resting in the crook of his arm. It was an Astartes that she had not seen before. His head had short blonde hair and a scar along his left cheek bone. Eyes of faint green with his red armour chipped and pockmarked from enemy weapon's fire.
Beyond them there was activity as marines came and went.The roaring sounds of weapons discharges interspersed with the swishing hiss of lascannon discharge, gouting of flamers, and the brilliant snap-hiss of plasma. Beneath one of th statues to the right five marines were laid out with an Apothecary kneeling as he tended to wounds and injected combat medicines. The Remembrancer followed her pair of guardians as they approached the pair of Captains. Arpad turning his helmeted face to her while the helmetless marine ran his eyes across her.
"This the kid?" said the helmetless marine nonchalantly.
"Apologies, Imagist, this rude Brother of mine is Captain Tiberias of the 8th Company." The helmetless marine smiled and nodded to the Remembrancer.
"No offense taken, Sirs!" She swiftly attempted a respectful bow to the Captains. Tiberias returned the respect with a decline of his head to his collar guard.
Tiberias spoke, "The Western and Eastern approaches are clear. They keept hitting us from further South if you wish to take pictures. The Southern approach still has enemy stragglers that the 11th is moving in to intercept from the North-East."
The marines guarding the remembrancer nodded and moved her to the Eastern gallery were she was just in time to see the rapid advance of the 11th Company as they maneuvered through burnt out buildings and half collapsed structures amid rubble strewn alleys. Crossing to vanish from view to the direct South. In the distance several bulk landers of the Imperial Army were making planet fall.
They moved to the opposite side now looking to the West and the frontline was advancing as rapidly as ever. The Sun Angels assaulting across a small river and partially destroyed bridges. A brilliant flash and heavy masonry fell into the river as the enemy tried to blow a rail-bridge a kilometer down river. A pair of Thunderbolts conducting a low altitude attack run lit up something below the roof tops in the distance.
A shrill cry. A gauntleted hand gripped the Remembrancer and flung her inside, landing on her back as concussive waves hit her gut.
She gasped as she rolled to her side. The weight of her pressure suit straining her lithe frame.A marine hauled her up with whirring servors in his arm delicately hoisting her up. The other marine was firing off into the sky at something out of her field of vision. It was then, looking around, she saw the flurry of activity as marines swapped positions and both captains were shouting orders. Something trailing blossoming red-orange-black ruin crashed into the first floor of the building.
"We need to move Remembrancer. The enemy has this building ranged by artillery and air controllers."
"B-but!"
"No arguing!" The Marine maglocked his bolter and manhandled the remebrancer into his arms as he launched himself back the way they had come. Arriving back into the crisp sunlight she spun the arm of her Pic-caster to see the flurry of weapons fire erupting from the Preceptorium and beyond as the Sun Angels pressed to hold the large building and continue the advance beyond the river...
603.000.M31
Bridge of the Vengeful Spirit
The ride back to the Vengeful Spirit had been one of intense turbulence until the Stormbird carrying various remembrancers and several wounded marines broke into the void. Sliding gracefully into one of the vast vessel's hangers and being screened by awaiting crewmen before being allowed to remove their EVA suits. They were being directed to the bridge to review helmet feeds and witness the final struggles of this world. Something that was deemed boring and disappointing save for the beautiful face which turned to meet them. Vasilissa Sanguina who had been directing the battle gave a friendly smile.
The resistance on 13-81 surrendered four hours later.