False Gods: A Warhammer 30k Roleplay (IC)

[Imperialisium]

False Gods

OOC

I was there. I was there when the beginning of the end came.-Sergeant Raldoron, Triumph of Ullanor

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.

[Revlona]

An Incoherent Voice
800.000.M31

28-44, False Terra, that damned place. In all of Eyrians years of dutiful warfare, he had found the fighting on 28-44 to be some of the worst he had experienced. Not from the brutality of the combat or the gross amount of civilian casualties, no it was because the so called Imoerium had fought tooth and nail for their homeworld and had thought themselves in the right the entire time. From the moment that Eyrians delegation was slaughtered and his ships fired upon, he had been disgusted by the place, and it was this disgust that drove him to the dark thoughts of orbital bombardment as he stared down at 28-44 for the second time in two years.

Two years ago the world was in compliance, Eyrian had seen to it himself. But now, now the world was in anarchy. Well over half of the planet below was under the control of a resurgent faction led by a entity calling itself Samus. They had originated from a last stand in the feral mountains of the planet, had beaten back the Imperial Armies attacks, and had successfully counter attacked, reportedly thanks to this Samus. In the two years since compliance the rebel resurgence had grown exponentially. Mostly filling up with former military members of the False Imperium who were hellbent in restoring said Imoerium.

Cries for help had been sent out through the warp 6 Terran months before and had fallen silent two months later. It was a matter of Duty that the 8th Legion were the ones to respond to the cries, 28-44 had been forced into compliance by the eighth and apparently they had left the work unfinished, it was a stain on their legion that needed to be cleansed.

That was why a full 6 Great Companies of the Eighth Legion hovered over the planet, it’s orbital defenses long silenced. It was an unprecedented number of astartes for one target, the Grandmaster himself rarely went to war with more than two Great Companies, and never before with six. It spoke volumes for the Grandmasters mood, the enemy below had made fools of Eyrian and so he had responded in kind. He would wipe them from existence, history would tell of what occurred to those foolish enough to force the Grandmasters hand, the remeberancers of the fleet would make sure of that.

“Grandmaster, I apologize for being so forward, but our duty is to eradicate the enemy below with our own hands. Not the risk the civilian population in an orbital bombardment.” The Lord Castellan of the First Great Company and Eyrians oldest comrade, Arvil Fremnial said.

Eyrian turned to the red headed astartes lord behind him and allowed a smile to play across his lips, “My friend, what makes you believe that my thoughts lay in that direction?” The Grandmaster said, his voice cool and calm as he let the question hand in air.

Arvin paid no mind to the warning in the Primarchs voice as he answered the question, “Your posture sire, you were stiff as a board and were staring lasers into that ugly planet below us, it was an easy assumption,” He said.

“Hmm, if you say so Arvin,” Eyrian said, turning away from the Lord Castellan of the first and back towards the planet below. “If you must know, yes I had put thought to incinerating that rock, but to do so would be to betray our oath to protect the imperium. For however foolish those citizens down there might be, they are still the imperium, the true imperium.” He said.

Arvin said nothing. The man was massive even out of his armor, nearly 8 feet tall thanks to the genetic modifications of the astartes. His red hair was braided so as to fit easily in his helm and his facial hair was groomed with military precision.

“No, we will dirty our hands as is our duty.” He muttered to himself. The Grandmaster then straightened and assumed the form of lord and commander as he turned and spoke to Arvin, who himself straightened into attention. “Ready the 1st, we will pinpoint this “Samus” and drop right upon him. I will personally dispatch him and end this war. 2nd and 3rd will drop with us while 4th, 5th, and 6th drop outside amidst their main advance. Auxilia are to land among the loyal army units to mop up and resistance that is left of their advance.” Eyrian said, his orders coming naturally, the hallmark of a old hand at warfare.

Arvin nodded once, slammed his clenched fist to his chest and said, “At once sire,” before turning and exiting the bridge from the door he had entered from. Already he had keyed the handheld box he kept on him even when unarmored and had begun relaying the Priamarchs orders.

False Terra had known true warfare once before, what was coming next would leave the tales of the legion two years before in the dust.

[Lunas Legion]

Uriel Febua, Primarch of the Brazen Beasts
World Designate Six-Three-One-Nine, Segmentum Pacificus
3.791.000.M.31

Uriel roared as he slung his lightning claw to the side, sending the corpse impaled upon his lightning claw flying off out of the trench. He turned, looking up and down the muddy trench for more enemies, but saw none, the squad of terminator armour-clad marines that had followed him into the trench having cleared it from the red-brown water that collected in pools in the bottom of the trench and the corpses littering it.

“Worthless.” Uriel said, turning to look out over the other side of the trench. He could hear the distant sound of the Brazen Beasts’ artillery, the whistle of shells overhead and the crashing roar of explosions in the distance.

This wasn’t a campaign, it was more of a slaughter. They could have just levelled it from orbit, but there wasn’t anything here that made that a reasonable course of action. Six-Three-One-Nine. There were no abominable xenos entrenched into the planet’s crust, no ancient archeotech defences that made the planet impossible to land on, let alone conquer, no strange or alien phenomena.

Uriel looked out over the other side of the trench, towards the walls of the city. The natives called it ‘Precipice’; why, Uriel didn’t care. What it was was the largest city on the planet, the only one with proper spaceport infrastructure, and the core of resistance. This planet wasn’t worth his time to conquer, so he would destroy that city, and then be done with this world. Most of the Brazen Beasts would follow him, some would break off, some would remain to pacify the world, to recruit to replenish their numbers.

“Trench line Q-1 secure.” One of his marines said.

“Onwards, then, brothers.” Uriel said, climbing out of the trench. The trench system, were it facing non-marines, would have been quite sophisticated; a zig-zag line of trenches, with heavy weapons emplaced evenly with overlapping fields of fire, supporting artillery batteries further back…

Against marines, they might as well not have bothered.

Mud squelched beneath Uriel’s armoured boots as he advanced across the empty muddy plain between trench lines. Las weapons flashed in the distance, red spots barely visible, but they didn’t so much as pause in their advance. His yerminators raised their storm bolters and fired back, las bolts harmlessly glancing off their unpainted armour.

The las bolts stopped coming as they stormed over the next trench line. It looked much like the first, red-brown water in pools at the bottom, limp corpses thrown back against the back wall of the trench, bloody scraps littering the bottom. They didn’t stop only pausing for the squad’s heavy flamer to pour a burst of flame into a tunnel that led down to who knew where.

“Trench line Q-2 reached.” Uriel said into his helmet’s vox, reporting the advance of his unit as they prepared to climb back out of the trench, and resume their advance..

“This is Brother Thraius, we have reached trench line R-1 ahead of you Brother Febua.” The marine sounded almost proud to have reached the trench line ahead of his Primarch, but Uriel wouldn’t begrudge him that. He was their Brother first, their Primarch second.

“This is Brother Axar, requesting support from Brother Uriel. Trench line Q-2, east from your position.”

“Roger that Brother, diverting.” Uriel said. That was how they operated; there was no shame in requesting support from one’s neighbouring units during an advance; the Brazen Beasts command structure, if it could be called that, was a horizontal thing, where units next to each other in the line would support one another as needed.

The squad turned, and made their way down the trench in single file, the muddy trench too narrow for them to advance any other way. Uriel was in the middle of the line as wooded trench boards disintegrated under the weight of terminator armour.

He heard the brief roar of storm bolter fire from up ahead, but they didn’t stop moving forwards, the only sign of the resistance that had been attempted being a corpse crushed into the mud. Uriel heard bone break as he trod on it, unthinking in his advance.

They emerged from the trench into what had once been an artillery nest, the rough square of the emplacement dominated by the smoking remains of a vehicle that resembled a Basilisk. Two marines were crouched next to the weapon, a third by the edge of the emplacement, looking towards the walls of Precipice.

“You asked for support?” Uriel said as his terminators fanned out across the emplacement, surveying.

“Yes, Brother.” One of the kneeling marines turned, his arm shifting to reveal an apothecary’s Narthecium. “Less combat support, more advice.” He stepped backwards, revealing a motionless marine lying on the ground, facing upwards.

“Brother Varl’s armour is unbreached, yet he is catatonic. He retains normal brain activity, and all other biological signs are within normal parameters.” The apothecary-marine said, the other watching and observing the prone marine.

“You believe it to be some weapon?” Uriel asked.

“Po-”

An artillery shell exploded behind them, spraying dirt and metal over them. No one flinched.

“Incoming.” One of the marines stated. Bolters roared as the Brazen Beasts facing the city fired at… Something, Uriel couldn’t see exactly what from where he was standing. Other terminators climbed out of the trench, storm bolters roaring fury.

When the sound of firing continued after a few seconds, Uriel moved away from the prone marine, still being looked over by the apothecary and his apprentice marine. What were they shooting at for it to survive longer than a few seconds, a tank? Some xenos war-beast, now unleashed upon them?

It started to rain as he walked, hearing it pitter-patter down on his armour.

There was a burst of bright, blinding light, and one of the terminators dropped down to a knee, before falling forwards.

Uriel roared in response, breaking into a sprint and leaping out of the trench onto the muddy ground, eyes looking around for the enemy that had dared to fell one of his brothers, but he saw nothing. There were marks in the dirt, small craters where his marines had been shooting, but there was nothing there.

“Where are they?” He roared, looking around, head lashing from side to side as he started to prowl forwards, storming through the mud. He flicked through his helmet’s vision modes, searching for their assailants, but he saw nothing. No sign they’d even been there.

Light blinded him again, and he felt something crash into him. Nerves twitched and scrambled and Uriel let out a roar of pain as his body burned. He stormed forwards despite the pain, teeth clenched tightly together.

He could see their assailants now as the light faded, four figures in sodden brown robes, their faces shrouded behind long hoods, standing in the middle of the muddy field, barely a few meters from him. They turned towards him, hands rising-

Uriel lunged forwards, rage spurring him on as he crashed through the mud, a second bolt of blinding light ignored as he impaled the offending psyker with his lightning claw.

He heard bolters roar again behind him, and saw why his marines had been unable to deal with them; one of the psykers stretched out a hand in front of him, and the bolter shells simply stopped in midair, visible clearly from the rocket trails behind them.

Uriel threw the first psyker off of his lightning claw as he rushed the second, kicking up mud as he charged. He heard bones snap as armoured ceramite met flesh and the second crumpled to the ground, dead.

He whirled around, hunting for more prey, but he saw nothing, the remaining psykers having pulled the same vanishing trick they had earlier.

He let out a cry of rage towards the reddening sky, kicking the crumpled corpse of one of the psykers. He hated enemies that ran and hid, cowards that he would rather one of his siblings have to fight

He heard a second cry of primal rage meet his own from behind him.

What in the Emperor’s name was happening back there? Uriel didn’t run back, and the lack of bolter fire seemed reassuring enough, until he stood on the lip of the trench and looked down into the artillery emplacement.

The previously catatonic marine was standing now, with his back to the ruined artillery piece, chainaxe in hand. The apothecary-marine lay on the ground in front of him, the Narthecium embedded into the eye-socket of his helmet with shards of flesh and bone and armour hanging off of it.

“What is the meaning of this, Brother?” One of his terminators asked, the Brazen Beasts forming up in a circle around Varl.

Varl roared, and Uriel felt everything darken slightly, as if the light had been… Sucked out of the world.

“One of the psykers must have mind-controlled him.” Uriel reasoned. “We are Astartes. Varl will shake it off soon enough.”

Varl roared out again, and slashed forwards, chainaxe revving. The marine stepped back, bolter rising and slamming into the chainaxe’s hilt to block it, but Varl’s other hand grabbed the marine’s combat knife and plunged it into the gap between the marine’s helmet and chestplate.

Uriel dived into emplacement, slamming to the ground and sinking into the mud. “Brother!” He bellowed, Varl turning towards him with chainaxe in hand.

“Fight them!” Uriel cried as Varl started to circle him, gripping his chainaxe with both hands as Uriel moved opposite him, the remaining marines and terminators forming a circle around them.

Varl just roared in fury in response, and Uriel saw tiny flickers of light move across his power armour, like lightning.

“You are a Brazen Beast, not some puppet!” Uriel shouted as Varl darted forwards, a swing of the chainaxe met with a lightning claw catching the handle, slicing the blade clean off. Varl looked at his now-headless chainaxe and roared again, headbutting Uriel’s chestplate before Uriel wrapped his arms around him in a bear hug, restraining him by holding him against him.

“Fight them.” Uriel ordered, pulling off Varl’s helmet and revealing the crazed, frenzied look in his eyes. Varl spat back in response, the acid hissing as it impacted Uriel’s armour. Uriel didn’t flinch, just restraining Varl and staring him down.

Varl struggled, but Uriel was a Primarch. As strong as Varl was, he was nothing compared to Uriel, and he could barely move, not even able to turn away. Varl roared out in fury and frustration, and his skin cracked in front of Uriel’s eyes, small spikes of horn emerging.

Uriel didn’t hesitate, moving his lightning claws just a little bit more so they slid through Varl’s power armour, shredding his chest as Varl screamed his defiance into his Primarch’s face before his head flopped to one side.

Gently, Uriel knelt, setting Varl’s dead body down as the sky darkened.

“All units, this is Brother Uriel, one of my brothers was catatonic, and awoke in a frenzied state. I suspect mind control, having encountered enemy psykers. Advise digging in if possible to consolidate forces. Isolate and restrain any other of our brothers who had gone catatonic.”

“This is Brother Anaxes, we have two catatonic brothers. Restraining them.”

Uriel frowned. Anaxes was one of his legions remaining Terran veterans, and was at the far end of the line. If they could use the weapon on both sections of line at once… That did not bode well for this campaign. His mind drifted away, not processing the reports of other captains as they reported one or two marines that had been subject to the weapon. He would be on Six-Three-One-Nine for longer than he thought he would, it seemed, but it would not be long enough to become problematic.

---

It had taken around an hour for the vox-network to be set-up. Not from the issue of not having the equipment, but the simple difficulty of getting hundreds of Vox-casters to pick one another up in an active warzone. The weather had taken a turn for the worse over that hour, the thunder of distant artillery guns replaced by the roar of actual thunder and rain, the planet dark but for the occasional flicker of distant lightning. The mud in the artillery emplacement was a sodden muddy mess now, not that mud would hamper them.

"Report." Uriel said simply, and a cacophony of noise followed.

"One at a time." Uriel said, and the cacophony silenced. Commanders began to report one by one, their name, their section of the line, their number of affected. Again and again.

Uriel scowled, counting to himself. Three, five, ten, twenty, fourty... It kept going up. Seventy-three, eighty-eight... All along the line, with no abnormally high concentrations anywhere to indicate where whatever weapon had been used might have been located. By the end of the count, almost a thousand of his Brazen Beasts were in the comatose state. Each had three other members of their force watching over them, ensuring that if they awoke like Brother Varl had, they would be dealt with swiftly.

"Continue the advance at your own discretion." Uriel said. He was not one to give orders, merely to advise; the leaders of each force would know their on the ground situation far better than he did.

Thunder rolled in the distance.

Red lightning lit the sky for a brief moment of brilliance, before the world was darker than it had been before.

"We go forwards." Uriel said, looking over his terminators and the squad that had requested his support. The Apothecary had been their force leader, apparently, and so they would now follow him. It was a very flexible system, and one that made the Brazen Beasts impossible to truly decapitate. Every one of them could lead, if they had no other choice. He didn't know how many other forces had lost their commanders; as much as he would have liked to know all his marines by name, there were simply too many.

He started forwards, climbing out of the trench, his terminators trailing behind him in a wedge, the regular marines in a second wedge line behind them.

No gunfire or lasfire met them as they advanced towards the next trench line.

As they reached it, they saw it was empty, abandoned; there was no sign that the enemy had even held this at any point. Most likely using the pause in their advance to fall back into the city, but even from this distance he could tell that the city's defences were formidable. Sufficient surface to space weaponry and enough void shields to deter simply staging a drop pod assault directly into its midst.

They climbed over the empty trench line, and continued their advance. The rain seemed harder, more intense now, clattering off their armour like it was hail rather than rain. The city was barely visible, a black wall in the darkness. They encountered no resistance this time either, but where one of his siblings might have worried about why, Uriel pressed onwards. The walls should have been closer, now, but they seemed to be growing more distant as a fine grey mist settled over the battlefield.

The sound of artillery had stopped, which was disconcerting. Maybe they were manoeuvring into better firing positions for the city? It wasn't hard to hit, but getting closer would mean they could deal with the defensive emplacements that did need accuracy to hit.

Eventually, they reached the final trench line. Empty, like the last two, but the city walls seemed no closer.

"We'll wait here." Uriel said, climbing down into the trench. Some commanders would elect to wait, some would elect to continue, to probe at the city's defences. Information would be found, relayed to other commanders next to them on the line. Battle plans would be formed and put into action. "We'll advance at dawn." They didn't need to, they could fight just as well at night, but they would need to wait for artillery to move into position. Then, it would be the end of the beginning, and he could be off this world onto battles more deserving of his presence.

[Antimersia]

Adalon Cyprus

The bridge of the Oasys is calm. Adalon slowly wraps tape around his forearms and wrists as he waits for communications to be established. A rebellion of a hive world known as Apocraphon Alpha, led by a foolishly prideful man has garnered the attention of the Imperium. And thus, Adalon and his Umbral Hornets were called upon by the Emperor to resolve the situation and take the world back in the name of Mankind. Adalon was at first, sympathetic to their anger at the Imperium. Warp space fluctuations made the planet inaccessible for some time. The world has been ravaged by famine since. Adalon's initial attempt at a solution was simple, feed the hungry. He escorted a massive shipment of provisions, more than double the amount of provisions the planet would have imported during the course of their famine. All of which was at his own expense.

But, Adalon's offer of peace was rejected. They took the provisions. The hungry could never pass up such a kindness. But the moment their bellies were full they used the energy to load their weapons and continue their rebellious foolishness. Adalon was not so kind in his second attempt at pacification. He ordered his Tillers, a formation of marines in terminator armor, as well as several dozen companies of astartes down to the planet surface. They spent weeks dealing structural damage to the over a dozen hives that dotted the planet's surface. The marines were under strict orders, harm no human that does not fire on you first. An order the marines followed perfectly. In the weeks they spent on the surface, only one thousand human casualties were reported. Each one was that of a member of this rebellion that made the mistake of opening fire on one of the Umbral Hornets.

And now, today, as the marines of the 15th legion have all returned to their ships, Adalon awaits contact with the leader of this rebellion. A picture appears on a large screen in the front of the Oasys' bridge. A spindly old man stands in a gilded office. He scowls at the camera, seeing you through a screen of his own. Adalon turns towards the screen, his bare barrel chest glistening with sweat, his bald head shining. He speaks, the low boom of his voice carrying immense weight with each word.

"Grastus Caul. It is a pleasure to speak with you again." Adalon says politely. He shows now emotion on his face. The polite wording being only a formality. His duty as a representative of the Imperium compelling him to act civil whenever possible.

"Do not patronize me with your false pleasantries you lab grown reprobate. I do not know why you are contacting me, but if you are hoping that I will see the holes you made in my hives and quiver in my boots, you will be sorely unsatisfied." Grastus snipes at him. His voice is high pitched and weaselly, with more than a hint of smug superiority on the surface.

"I am contacting you to inform you of the situation you are in." Adalon's tone remains nonchalant, almost jovial. "Those holes that my legion carved into your hives are far worse than you anticipate. My legion has created structural weak points in every hive on the planet. An orbital bombardment would collapse every single one of your hives within days. I have come to give you your last opportunity to surrender." Adalon was bluffing. But he was not showing even a hint on his face or in his voice. Even with the damage it would take much longer to bring down the hives. But Adalon firmly believed that Grastus would not know that.

"This is lunacy! You are a primarch! You are sworn to defend mankind! You would hold billions hostage so easily?" Grastus asked, shocked.

"Oh so now I'm a primarch? Because I was under the impression that I was a lab grown Reprobate." Adalon jabbed. "Let me set something straight Grastus. I am not holding anyone hostage. I fed these people. I offered them a home among the Imperium once again. It is you who is holding these people hostage, willing to let them die in the name of some selfish rebellion that you claim is about protecting them. When we both know it is just about some feeble grasp at power."

"They will never believe you. You will be a monster in their eyes!" Grastus screeched, grasping at straws.

"I assure you they won't, Grastus. Because they are watching, as we speak. This conversation is being broadcasted to every screen and speaker throughout the planet. The people are all listening, and seeing just exactly the type of person you truly are. So before you refuse my offer to surrender, I have to ask your opinion. Who do you think will reach your office first? My marines? Or them?" a faint smile grows on Adalon's face as he watches fear overwhelm Grastus.

"I.... I surrender." Grastus says weekly, dropping to his knees and out of frame. The transmission ends and the screen turns black.

"Send a company to the surface. Collect this traitor and bring him in so he may face the Emperor's justice." Adalon says as he turns and heads out of the bridge. One of his marines stops him to ask him a question before he exits the bridge.

"My primarch!" The marine saluts and awaits to be addressed.

"Yes, how may I help you marine?" Adalon asks warmly.

"I was curious, sir. Would you truly bombard this planet and end all of those lives?" He asks, sounding shameful.

"Of course I would marine. Something my father taught me when I was young, is that a man has two hands. One must be soft. A hand to offer people in need. And one must be hard. A hand to fight those who take. Always offer the soft hand, but never hold back the hard one." Adalon smiles, patting the marine on the shoulder before continuing on. The marine stands there, starry eyed and full of motivation from Adalon's words.

[Aserais]

Collab between Aserais, Parcia, Ormata, and The Empire of Tau

603.050.M31
Segmentum Obscurum
In orbit above Hive World Falluja
Gloriana-Class Celestial

The world below her felt like an open wound. A festering, putrid, disgusting pit in the Warp, occasionally interspersed with bursts of incomprehensible whispering and muttering rising from its surface to reach her senses like so much toxic fumes from its vile depths.

Angeline raised a hand up to her head and pinched the bridge of her nose, silencing the voices by continuously repeating prayers in her own mind. Her Daughters stood in silence around her, their impassive faces betraying nothing of the battle they themselves must have been fighting to drown out the constant stream of filthy Warp-noise that was assailing them from the surface of the hive world.

The first attempt at hailing the hive world had been met with several simultaneous responses, all equally incomprehensible gibberish praising something named Khorne and warning them that they would drink their blood and take their skulls. The planet below, which should have been bustling with the activity of a world with a population over 18,000,000,000, was currently bathed in an orange glow as great swaths of the planet-wide structure were burning.

It was a hellish world, beyond even the wanton destruction caused by the Orks on Ullanor. At least there, there was a general sense of order insomuch as all of the Orks were focused on killing as many “‘umies” as they could. Here, the destruction was simply general, as if those committing it didn’t have a goal in mind beyond creating as much death as they possibly could.

“Brother… can you feel that?” she asked, turning to look at Clause.

The younger primarch stood, slightly slouched over a data slate as it seemed to be infinitely scrolling through a data stream. It wasn’t even in Low gothic, it was in Machine code. Angeline’s voice seemed to lift him out of his inner thoughts and after a few moments, he answered her. “The melody….the whispers...there is a presence about this place, one that I have grown to dislike. If this did not represent a considerable chance to further our knowledge of whatever in our father’s name is going on down there, I’d recommend glassing it from orbit.”

He sighed and closed his eyes, switching off the data slate and storing it in a small pouch along his belt. His two bodyguards, a pair of veteran Astartes in Cataphractii armor and a single solitary contemptor dreadnought, seemed to take this as a signal that their primarch was getting up to leave. “If you will allow me to, I’d like to take a small team down to the surface to collect some samples, basic readings, and a few specimens. After that I’d advise we make good on my comment about glassing this world.”

Angeline shook her head in response to her brother’s suggestion, resting her hand upon the hilt of Dawnbringer at her waist.

“We were ordered to bring this world into compliance, Clausewitz. I would not defy our brother’s will in this unless we are given no other option. I have 125,000 Astartes with me, and your Iron Guard to support. If we have to burn down this world, we shall, but I see no reason to not at least attempt to fulfill our orders,” she responded, reassuring her brother with a beatific smile that had caused more than one warlord to surrender and pledge loyalty to her.

“Besides, there is… something about that whispering. It makes me uneasy in my soul, and I must learn more about its source than a few samples can give us,” she admitted, her glowing eyes turning back to the planet below them. She certainly cut a stunning figure--a halo of pure white light shone from her head, bathing her daughters in an unearthly glow and glinting off of the golden armor that she was clad in.

“And that name, Khorne… I know not why, but it sets me to unease. Can you not feel it?”

Samael, who was currently not there due to being in a campaign within Segmentum Ultima in which he was clearing out a rogue human nation, had sent out a small detachment of 1,500 marines along with 30 Mastodons, 10 Fellblades, 4 Hades Breaching Drills, 50 Predators from his 1st super-heavy tank division and other formations. In command is Lieutenant General Tacllous, a space marine veteran encased in Cataphractii Pattern Terminator armor.

He nodded. “The nature of incorporeal feelings is normally below me...but this?” He cast his own gaze down upon the world, though he was not gifted with his sister’s ethereal glow. The readings he was observing from his data slate was alarmingly comparable to those he observed from recent experimentation.

“I can not put my tongue to this, so to speak, but... staying up here and listening to the inane rambling of senile feral worlders will do us nothing. If not a small scientific team, then allow me to muster my guard and we shall begin the initial landing once preliminary bombardment ceases. I will have the Wrath begin to target the origin of those transmissions and atomize them. At the least it will throw off their command structure.”

“I cannot believe there is a command structure. But do so. If nothing else, it may disorganize them further than they already are. I will join my Astartes in dropping to the surface, in what appears to be the former capitol complex. It will be the easiest to fortify and coordinate from,” she said as she turned to her daughters and waved her hand, signaling them to depart and prepare their transport. The white-haired maidens did so wordlessly and as one, already knowing what to do without Angeline having to say a word.

Before leaving, he stopped and turned. “Dear sister, did you happen to take time to consider my request?”
Angeline turned to face her brother and gave him a grin. “Of course, brother. I believe that the Order can spare ten of its Battle Sisters. We’ll go get them after we’re done here. And while you’re picking them up, I can show you my homeworld. You might even like it,” she teased him, before her eyes turned back to the world below the Celestial.

He nodded. “I thank you, good sister.” He would leave, humming the ethereal tune that played in his head.

The Void

Among the various gilded forms of the Lightbringer’s warfleet, the noticeably less glittering mass of the Arethusa’s Wrath moved into position, its escorting battleship and lance cruisers forming up as well. She was unique among her sister ships, being considerably rebuilt and even larger then the Celestial if only by a single kilometer.

As they moved into high geosynchronous orbit and gave their broad side to the surface of the hellish world below them. Even as the world burned below them, a few stray macrobattery shells and high powered laser blasts reached up into the heavens, only to smash into the considerable void shields of the Wrath and her escorts.

Atop the spine of the titan the triple barreled lance turrets began to turn and their guns elevated until the origins of the transmissions, as well as sources of the poultry ground fire and for a moment they sat silent.

Then, a blinding flash of light as the powerful, almost arcane weapons systems began their firing sequence. Each flash formed a great beam of destructive energy that instantly hit their targets. Their accuracy was precise, pinpoint accurate as it impacted the ground. Metal melted, organic matter was flash atomized, the beams would seemingly phase through all irrelevant matter until hitting the ground beneath the hive’s lower foundations, turning ancient stone and dirt into radioactive glass.

Perhaps the sole drawback of such a use of the Godsbane batteries was the inordinate amount of collateral damage, as the weapon’s effect left a deeply drilled hole nearly a 3rd of a kilometer wide. As the signals were erased, one by one, an interesting effect would take place. The beams burned hot enough to even separate oxygen molecules into their base parts, effectively burning holes into the lower atmosphere and allowing for great gushes of wind from the upper stratosphere to quickly fill in the holes and effectively stifle most fires still burning while also throwing up great walls of wind and debris.

Once the transmission sites and ground batteries were gone, nothing more but smoking, glowing holes in the ground, the drop pods began. Normally the battle brothers of the Burning Scrolls deployed into Stormbirds transports, however the rapid nature of this mission required them to deploy in their more rapid transports. First were the Deathstorm pods, interesting developments; They would land in contested drop zones, but instead of deploying marines, their doors would open only to reveal assault cannons that would begin to track targets and open fire on anything their augors didn’t deem friendly.

With LZ’s largely clear, the first round of Pods actually carrying Astartes would land, accompanied by Valkyrie dropships. Escorting them would be the 12th Legion’s Xehpos fighters, ducking and weaving, alongside their slower and less agile thunderbolt and fury cousins.

The Iron Guard deployed along the edges of the hive world, deploying with sealed void suits and masks, with instructions to treat this world as if it was a death world, one fully lethal to the largely normal humans. Clause did not know the true nature of this world, but did not wish to endanger his children any more than needed.

Most of the Guard would deploy on their own, two and a half million was far, far too few to put down any sizeable hive world, but Clause honestly thought this world would either heel before he needed to call for reinforcements, or the world would burn in one giant pyre, his brother’s protests be damned.

As he and his guards deployed, he would run the numbers in his head, that ethereal melody playing out as well. The pod rumbled as its boosters fired and it began to slow. With a final bang, the doors dropped and his Guard rushed out, their Volkite guns at the ready. Following their lead, he stepped out of the pod and looked out upon the burning hellscape before him. While his men secured a perimeter, Clause leaned down and removed a sample kit from his belt, flipping open a leather pouch and revealing the kit to his men. This would have been outright suspicious to other astartes, yet to the Burning Scrolls this was normal, as their Primarch had gathered soil samples on all the worlds they visited.

This place was different, it felt different, the melody began to change and alter, it’s notes becoming more forceful and violent…

Beyond the fleets of the Lightbringers, the Astartes of the Twelth, beyond the star’s periphery the Warp churned and boiled as yet another came upon the system, upon the battle and the work. The first to exit was a moniker, the Fusilis herself, a unique class for a unique Legion, before the bulk of the fleet laid bare. As it slowly emerged from that tear in the Warp, hull gleaming with the highlights of red which marked her as Mars’s, the mass of a station emerged. Running lights a wreath of stars, her augur antennae spears thrust into the midnight black, and the vast cathedral upon the center of that craft marked her as the Filii Vetustissima, as the capital of the Void Tyrants, as the seat of power for Creatrix itself. Her engines were engines of stars, missile batteries opening their ports, and astride that city among the stars came the fleet of the Twentieth. Smallcraft mustered about each of the vessels, their wings and formations but fireflies in the midst of a sea in light, and the fleet began to come about on a course to the planet itself. The frigates and cruisers assembled themselves in their own squadrons, each of them a time-tested tool of the Imperium.

They were very much like anything else in use by the Legion.

The bridge of that vaunted ship was silent. Clicking and whirring of monitors was the only sound present as Tech-Priests stood about each console, administering to it in faith, incense rising in slow, lazy wisps. The lights were dim, casting vague shadows wherever a figure might stand, and in the greater distance one could hear a choir of Blessed Binary. Figures moved here, there, while at each door stood an impassive, armor clad figure. Among that clutter, among the smoke and weak flame, was a dais. It was simply made, something akin to a Mind Impulse Unit of a Titan, though no such wires connected the occupant. Upon that central seat sat an individual who dwarfed that crew only by one factor. Green lenses peered forth upon the bridge, peered forth upon the fleets there and the planet there. Creatrix sat, in some ways satisfied that it would be able to reform the Hive World that lay forth. Already Angeline had laid her siege, already Clausewitz had moved his forces onto the planet’s surface, and already he himself had landed. There was no eyes narrowing, however, only that blank mask and Mechadendrites laid to rest, only still arms. Unblinking, silent, a metal skeleton seated. Creatrix felt it in the bones, in the heart, in the soul. It was a wonderful feeling, a cold and calming thing as the intangible coiled about the lap, as the unreal settled down and was content. The Filii Vetustissima was unique, in the Primarch’s opinion, as having a singular, powerful machine spirit. It was calm, happy in the inner workings it possessed, happy in the master it held quietly. One metallic arm grasped out at that feeling upon the lap, seeing nothing at all. The machine spirit was content, lacking the usual words it might say to proclaim otherwise.

Creatrix could hear something else, though. There was dissonance in the greater distance, upon the planet, the frenzied vox messages exulting in pure, raw emotion. They spoke of little worthwhile, though it could make out the prayers to Khorne, prayers of blood and bone. It was of little value, save that it was a clear demonstration that there was something else at play.

In any case, the communications began to the Celestial’s bridge.

++POTESTAS OMNISSIAH, OMNISSIAH VULT++
++[I]THE TWENTIETH LEGION STANDS READY TO ASSIST[I]++

A large number of Imperial transports move down to the outside of Hive City Sima, unloading the Azure Rain detachment of marines and warstuffs. The deployment of the Mastodons, Fellblades, and Hades Breaching Drills is a fickle and time consuming process, having to be careful in removing them from their transport or else they’ll be damaged. Within a few hours, the heavy equipment would be unloaded and the Imperial transports heading back to orbit. Tacllous, the commanding officer of the Aure Rain detachment, looks upon the hive city and nods to himself as he moves into one of the Mastodon to use its vox-caster.

“This is Lieutenant General Tacllous, start to bore into Hive City Sima.”
Meanwhile, as the XX Legion came into the system, Angeline stepped out of her own drop pod. Her twelve daughters stepped off the pod with her, raising their bolt pistols and quickly dispatching several screaming fanatics as they ran up to the drop pod, armed in a few cases with nothing more than simple kitchen knives.

Angeline was saddened to see her father’s children laid so low, and muttered a quick prayer for their souls as she drew her own blade and held it aloft as several other pods landed around her, allowing her Astartes to disembark.

“The Emperor protects, my children! We have been ordered to bring these wayward children into the light of the Emperor, and so shall it be! Imperator Vult!” she cried, receiving a resounding cry of “For the Emperor!” before her Astartes took off and began clearing the immediate area

Angeline’s personal guard stayed near her as she strode into the city, taking pot shots at the gibbering cultists that screamed and charged her position. The bodies of those cultists burst into flames, the immolator rounds of the battle sister’s bolters turning their forms into so much ash. Some of them had a circular symbol carved into their foreheads or painted on their bodies, and screamed “Skulls for the skull throne” before they were summarily executed by one of her Daughters.

The Azure Rain detachment started the process of boring the base-walls of Sima with its Hades Breaching Drills (after a few hours of prep beforehand). The loud noises produced by the intense episode of drilling would likely inform anyone or thing within the underhive of something is coming, if every other thing that was occurring did not alarm the inhabitants of the underhive that Sima was under assault. The drilling process was not a fast one, having to grind through layers of metal, rubble, debris, and concrete. Each drill, in which there were 4 boring into Hive City Sima, had 300 marines and 4 Predators behind it. It took hours to get into the base of Sima and its underhive, likely the only place that has more culists than the whole of the hive city itself.

After a few hours of drilling…..

“This Tacllous, we have almost bored into the underhive,” he said over the general comms.

“Understood, General. Anyone who does not immediately surrender is to be shot. Do not assume that anyone is a non-combatant. This order comes from Primarch Angeline Alpharia.” Chapter Master Jean-Pierre Gustav responded, turning away from his Primarch to respond to the Lieutenant General over the vox. They had set up a temporary command in a squat, solid building constructed of stone and metal, which had been a nest for former members of the planet’s defense forces.

The final layer of wall broke down as the first Breaching Drill (Drill-A1) made it way into the underhive. The teeth of Drill-A1 stopped, its job done. The first 300 Azure Rain marines poured out into the opening, entering the Sima underhive, boltguns in hands. The only thing that greeted the maries was the eerily sound that was the crippling infrastructure. The normal cramped and tight nature of an underhive that one would normally find was not present for the small assault legion of Drill-A1. A sizable yard was present as marines carefully monitored themselves. The commanding officer leading Drill-A1 is Lamesius, who was adorning a white helmet. Drill-A1 marines started out to screen the area, their auspex sensors detecting nothing. A few minutes later, something was off…

“Captain Lamesius, auspex sensors are monitoring multiple waves of movement arou-” the marine was shortly cut off by chants and yells afar.

Lamesius looks towards the unnamed scout marine. “Call all the drills onto this location,” Lamesius stated in a calm voice, as the scout marine headed back to the Hades Drill.

“Marines, form a perimeter defense!” Lamesius yelled out into his comms.

Auto-gun and lasgun fire poured from every direction towards the Azure Rain marines of Drill-A1 as they were forming up a defense circle around Lamesius. The Azure marines returned the favor with a hail of boltgun fire into the general direction of the enemy. In short-time, the marines would not have to guess their shots as waves of cultists and mutants were running their way towards them, firing haphazardly while they sprinted. No matter how many the marines killed so far, the damn cultists kept on coming - getting ever closer.

“This is Drill-A1, we’re currently being overwhelmed by enemy forces. All drills converge onto this location. I repeat, we are being overwhelmed.” the scout marine stated over general comms, who was back with the Hades Drill that had a more powerful vox-caster to broadcast his message.

Gunfire, chanting, footsteps, yells of panic and death, and as such, echoed throughout the yard. A new sound would also join into this choir as warmachines soon filled the air with their sound of engines and tracks. Scrap-tanks, scrap-trunks, and anything else that the cultists could have attached an engine to, quickly made their stage-entrance - firing off massive volleys of super-inaccurate shots of various mounted weapons like lascannons, large-tank rounds, and what have you. Most of this vehicle fire mainly missed their target by miles off, blasting off pieces of walls and pillars. However, some did meet their mark, either by luck or skill. The injuries varied from marine to marine with some just having a big dent into their armor, to some having multiple tank rounds lodged into his body, or worse.

The 4 Predators with Drill-A1 shortly made their way onto the yard, shooting off round after round towards the scrap-tanks and trucks cobbled and jerry-rigged by the mutants and cultists, destroying one after another, but still no amount of Predator-fire could stop the stem of them. Hell on Earth has arrived for the poor Azure marines as no matter how many bolt-rounds are lodged into the cultists, more and more just are coming without stopping.

This truly was a woeful world.

Clause and his personal guard made their way from their initial landing zone some miles outside the hive city to the perimeter the Iron Guard had begun to set up. The soil was burned red, almost like the ancient depictions of the surface of pre-colonized Mars, though if through a high iron content or perhaps stained with the blood of the poor people of this world.

As they neared their line they started to pick up the tell tale flashes of rifle fire and plasma bursts, the blue-green sickly bolts of ionized energy lancing out and melting in coming traitors and savages, those that were quick enough to either juke the marines rather slow firing weapons were cut down by accurate auto rifle fire from the attached guardsmen.

The primarch and his terminators soon linked up with this advancing line of men and steel and began to close up the holes in their perimeter while cutting down what seemed like an endless stream of crazed savages wielding anything from sticks and clubs, to ramshackles fire arms and stub pistols.

Clause could have sworn he even saw a bow and arrow. Over the vox, he heard tell of the one of the drills of the Azure Rain Astartes being pinned down, and made his voice heard. “Captain Jak, take your terminators, venerable brothers Schmidt and Ericson, and reinforce the Azure Marines at Drill-A1, take the 13th Regiments Panzerinfantry with you.”

He got a curt “Affirmative, my lord”. From Orbit, yet another cluster of pods would drop, this time a pair of much larger, bulkier pods followed by a pair of Stormbirds carrying the terminators of Captain “Mad Jack”s 6th company, followed slowly behind by a quartet of Valkyrie drop ships.

The large pods landed first, their large doors falling down to reveal the Venerable brothers Schmidt and Ericson clag in shining golden Contemptor dreadnought armor. They were among the oldest of the Burning Scrolls, both terran born astartes who suffered considerable injuries during the Subjugation of Phalon V.

They formed a perimeter at the entrance of the bore hole until the Stormbirds and Valkyries landed. In a rare case, half the marines chose to take Tigres Pattern Boltguns instead of their plasma rifles, the close nature of this environment calling for it. The Terminators deployed first, the two dreadnoughts forming the center of their formation of men and marines delved into the dark bore hole and making rapid progress even with the noticeably slower Panzerinfantry.

In the darkness, the eyes of the marines, the dreadnoughts, the Panzerinfantry all glow a dark blood red.

[Parcia]

Clausewitz Parsarian
Primarch of the 12th Legion
The Burning Scrolls
Hive World Falluja

The ring was closing in, despite surprisingly stiff resistance from the inhabitants of this world. They had the fighting spirit, but the notes in his mind told him it was something other then blind faith.. It was violent and chaotic, and becoming rather annoying if he had to say so. The Guard were making good progress with the numbers they had, though still taking losses.

Clause was multitasking as he always did. A part of his time was spend at a make shift command post, coordinating and commanding various units of the Iron Guard along side the attached Field Marshal. He normally led from the front, as his siblings often did, save possibly Idrania. There was something about this world, a certain...sound about it that he disliked. The Melody, the voices, the whispers were all in full effect and while he could easily keep them contained, their suddenly lively nature was concerning.

When he was not giving orders and occasionally sallying forth to aid his men at key points, he was working in a field lab of sorts, nothing more then a collection of field scientific tools, he was gathering an alarming amount of anomalous data and he planned on sharing most of it with father. Then, a Vox operator would run up to the primearch, saluting before handing him the vox...

Strike Force Beta
Mad Jack and the 6th Company relief force.
Drillhole-A1

They were making good progress, cutting down any fools the came across in quick order and taking note of the strange scribblings and glyphs written in to the walls of the tunnel, all fresh, all with blood. They recorded everything and kept moving. Soon enough they seemed to come to a large chamber, with the sound of weapons fire and hollering and screams. By this point they had been trailing the Azure Marines drill through the hole in to the deeper under-hive for some time and were a bit hesitant to find them self facing what had to be thousands of savages that hard surrounded the drill.

Taking the advantage of not being noticed just yet, they quickly formed a firing line. The Dreadnoughts both carried conversion beam cannons, with the terminators taking a mix of assault cannons, actual plasma cannons, and Plasma casters, while the Panzerinfantry readied their heavy stubbers. They were out numbered, out gunned, and their allies on the edge of breaking...such was life.

With a deafening roar the line of men, Astartes, and dreadnoughts opened fired. Streams of red tinted stub fire, blue-green plasma and dark purplish beams of arcane dark mater destruction ripped through the hoard as they began to swarm the Azure Marine's drill, soon to be joined in by several other relief teams sent by the Azurmarines them selves. Seeing this, the Strike Force Beta would begin to employ walking fire, forming a loose circle around the dreadnoughts, who would largely stop to use their Conversion Beam weapons on the various scrap tanks and armored vehicles, while the terminators and Panzerinfantry would cut a swath through the madness.

Back at the Entrance of the tunnel, 5 more storm birds would land, disgorging their Marines along side Clause. Having seen heard the vox reports of Strike Team Beta's situation, he had martialed 250 men of the 1st Company to go support his favored captain. This was looking to be an interesting battle if nothing else.

Aboard the Arethusa's Wrath...

The sound of rhythmic thumping and electrical machinery as the hold form began to rumble awake. A low, rumbling voice like gravel would echo through the dark halls. "Why have you awakened me?"

A single techpriest, a women, spoke. "Your Primearch has asked for you to awaken, Old one."

[Morrdh]

602.000.M31
Stellar Cartographae Designation: CAL-319

My Dearest Evelyn and Rowan,

Long years and the unfathomable depths of the void may separate us, the pair of you are never far from my thoughts.

I trust and pray that you've both stepped up to the challenges of joint rulership, though I wish I could be there to guide your hands through the complexities of statesmanship. Gervase, my most trusted advisor, will have to be adequate enough in that role.

Must admit that I'd be amiss if I did not admit that there is not a day that goes by that I wish you were both by my side, seeing the wonders that the vast void has to offer. Alas, the fates have commanded that it be this way and I can only hope that I shalt return to dear old Calbernia in due time.

Your Loving Father

Gaelin Rodarch sighed, placed the quill beside the parchment and sat back in his seat. There was so much more he could've said which he deliberately left out, chiefly the darker things that lurked in the galaxy. Nightmares during warp travel, horrific xenos creatures and other strange and terrifying things. It was enough to break the minds of some of the men under his command, so he opted to spare his twinned daughters these dark and grim tidings. He wondered how both of them were, they'd been blossoming into womanhood when he departed for the unknown depths of the great void some twenty to thirty years ago. There was certainly no shortage of suitors, especially for a pair of young women who ruled over an interstellar empire. He could only trust that Gervase followed his instructions on the matter.

With another sigh he rolled the parchment, dripped some wax onto it before stamping a seal into the wax. It was archaic, especially given dataslates and astropaths, but Gaelin preferred a written communique for it's more personal touch. It would be entrusted to the captain of the fastest ship in Gaelin's fleet to be carried back to Calbernia, it would take months and had it's fair share of risks but it was on par with an astropathic message. No doubt the vessel would bring back news from the planet of his birth in addition to supplies, a proverbial lifeline for the other ships in his flotilla. Admittedly, his ships did loop back every often towards Imperial space to take on extra supplies, replacement crew and to patch up damage before plunging once more into the great unknown.

Right now the bulk of his flotilla was in a relatively non-descript system, a gas giant and a few rocky planets that showed some promise for mineral wealth. Some of his ships had been sent to scout out nearby systems, seeing whether there was anything of interest and to help him chart his course. Whatever decision he made, it would ultimately influence the course of the Crusade forces following in his wake. He was effectively a trailblazer, forging a path across the stars as he pierced the darkness for the Terran Crusade to reclaim mankind's birthright. Rogue Trader Militant was both his rank and title, empowered to make contact with various societies in whatever matter he saw fit and then report back his findings so that worlds could be brought under Imperial Compliance. He's encountered a wide range of lost worlds of Man that ran the gauntlet from open hostility to wary acceptance, he'd also encountered a number of xenos that have tended to be firmly in the hostile camp. Though his experiences would benefit the Crusade for which he acted as vanguard.

[Revlona]

The Voice Speaks
803.000.M31

Samus had been located relatively easily. It seemed that the leader of the rebellion enjoyed leading from the front. Reports from loyalist forces spoke of the Leader being spotted leading a push for the second largest city on 28-44. That was where Samus was so that was where Eyrian and the Eighth were going.

An abrupt and intense orbital bombardment came and went in the blink of an eye. Dozens of pure beams of light slammed into the planet below, incinerating anything unlucky enough to be subject to their wrath. Hundreds of the enemy were killed in seconds as the bombardment took them by surprise while they lounged in their camps, awaiting the next push during the night.

The follow up blow was meticulously planned out to the second. Hundred of drops pods slammed into the earth and vommited out thousands of the greatest killing machines the galaxy had seen in millennia. All of whom were lead by perhaps one of the greatest warriors in the history of the galaxy, a primarch had come to wage war.

Devistator marines laid down intense fire into the rousing enemy forces as they stepped from their endless tents and scurried to make battle. Heavy bolter rounds turned countless rebels into red mist as they all but evaporated their fragile bodies in contact. Yet even this devastating firepower was not enough to stem the tide of bodies that flowed towards the astartes. A seemingly endless wave was coming towards them, Las and Auto guns blasting away ineffectively.

While most legions would have stood their ground and let the enemy break themselves on a barrier of overwhelming fire power, those legions were not the Eighth. Terror appeared in the eyes of every bear sane rebel as 30,000 silent warriors rushed forward in a countercharge. Their pistols, be they plasma, bolt, or volkite, dealt a grievous wound to the enemy before they had even completely closed the distance. Grievous wound aside, the true death blow came to the rebels when 30,000 astartes lead by their primarch slammed into the bulk of the enemy forces and laid into them with the awesome skill of the Knights of Calmora.

Those rebels that weren’t broken and tossed aside by the charge of the Astartes were torn to pieces by the sheer skill and ferociousness of the Close Quarters Battle they had so foolishly rushed into. In mere minutes thousands lay dead and thousands more lay dying, and so began the route.

“This was to easy father, where is this Samus?” Captain Arvin muttered into the Vox, the words being heard only by the select few in the command channel.

“I am in agreement. My sons, the battle is not yet won, the Enemy commander is yet to join battle with us, stay vigilant.” The Primarch said.

That was of course when they heard the screech, it was the most horrid sound any of them, including their primarch, had ever heard. It was a screech of many emotions, a scream of pure rage, ecstasy, excitement, and amusement all at once.

“That must be Samus..” Eyrian muttered to himself as he looked in the direction of the scream.

[Ormata]

XX LEGION, VOID TYRANTS
PRIMARCH CREATRIX
HIVE WORLD FALLUJA, SEGMENTUM OBSCURUM

++LANDING ZONE ALFA-ALFA-DELTA TWO-THREE-SEVEN HOT
+REQUEST FIRE SUPPORT PACKAGE TWO-TWO
+TWO ROUNDS, NO DELAY
+CONFIRM?++

++CONFIRM
+FIRE SUPPORT PACKAGE TWO-TWO, TWO ROUNDS, NO DELAY
+STANDBY++

The Filii Vetustissima was a heavy shadow over the hive world down below, and activity could be seen about her heavy form. Two turrets, each bearing the stub nose that marked a Bombardment Cannon, turned to face that planet below. They were pieces of ancient war, the likes of which seldom seen in such quantity as upon that giant vessel, and yet two were more than sufficient for the tasking at hand. Servitor-guided loading rails brought the massive plasma-based shells into place, all while the incessant whine of linear accelerators became louder and louder. The targeting arrays activated, rad-domes peering down and down under the careful control of Tech-Priests, ensuring that the rounds would land precisely where they should. To fail at such a task would be, very likely, the complete deletion of allied units. Those casualties would be unacceptable, both to the forces and to the machine itself. It was a disgrace of the operator, by extension the machine. It could not be allowed. They prayed all the while, the incantations of Blessed Binary weaving into the razor-sharp focus of the mind and machine. All things would be done in accordance to the Omnissiah’s will, his grace, his power. He could not be denied, not by mere man, not by mere traitor. Their cursed blood would flow, just as it should, just as it had in past centuries.

The heavy barrels and turrets turned, ever so slightly, accounting for the planetary rotation and for the data constantly streamed to those operators. They settled, eventually, in those little rotations, like twin half-spheres in that ethereal sky. The Binary cants did not cease, omnipresent within the great halls and centers of the warship, and that order was given. Electric shivers coursed through the priests, their ministrations finally coming to fruition as the sheer majesty of the Machine God was unleashed before them. The two cannons fired, their rails giving speed to that almighty charge as it coursed through the air down and down and down to the planet’s surface. They wrought down, through cloud and sky, each of them breaking that sound barrier far before ever reaching the surface. Twin comets, unseen by all, hurtled down and down towards the target. Such weapons were rare, rare to be used and rare to be found, though the Filii Vetustissima held a choir of them for which the symphonies of war might be conducted, and such weapons were as deadly as they came.

++STANDBY
+ORDINANCE INBOUND
+APPROACH AUTHORIZED
+CONFIRM?++

++CONFIRM
+APPROACH AUTHORIZED++

Beside them flew, down and down through the flak and fire and flaming debris, down and down through the broken clouds of smog and soot, a fleet of the Imperium. They were larger transports, each one heavily armed, armored, and carrying with it a retinue of spawn. The cog of the Mechanicum emblazoned upon their wings and hulls, they followed the twin shells down and down, jets blasting even as the traitor artillery began to find it’s mark among the clouds. Among the vast legions of dropships and landers, some would be hit among the wing, their flight systems failing as fire trailed behind the craft as though a cruel cloak. Others would be hit in their main hull, gutting the craft with a shell as only just that plummeted to the ground below. Pilots there and Tech-Priests above viewed those positions, those artillery posts and their likely directors, and such simple retribution was commanded. The missiles were launched, each one falling a short distance from it’s host before activating the jet engine. Thin trails of exhaust weaved their ways down, down and down to their own independent targets. With some few detonations, the distance lit by their exultations, the artillery targeting those very landers were silenced either by death or by their crews moving.

++ALL UNITS, ALL UNITS
+ADVISE COVER
+ORDINANCE INBOUND
+REINFORCEMENTS INBOUND
+POTESTAS OMNISSIAH, OMNISSIAH VULT++

Chapter Master Jean-Pierre Gustav's eyes widened as he received the communique, before he quickly relayed the message to the rest of the detachment in the area, mentally cursing the timing of the 20th Legion's orbital bombardment. They had just deployed the last of their Legionaires into the AO, and several Valkyries were awaiting clearance for takeoff. He turned to his Primarch, who towered over even his Terminator-clad form.

"I know, Chapter Master. Take cover. I will provide what shelter I can," Angeline responded, before she strode forward to stand in the middle of the squadron of Astartes and her daughters that had advanced further into the City. They were currently exposed on a street, without much in the way of real cover, and so Angeline had to improvise. The Primarch raised her hands and focused, causing the glow around her form to grow nearly incandescent as she projected a psykik shield around the entire group. The gold-clad form spread her legs wide and braced, preparing to block the shockwave from the orbital bombardment.

They landed. Artillery had been firing there, cultists running from their dug-in magazines to ferry shells up to the positions. Lascannons were blasting away, behind their armored gunshields, taking aim at anything that might possibly be a Marine or light vehicle. Behind rubble, cultists fired off their inaccurate weaponry or lasguns, peeking in and out of cover. Farther behind the lines, they were mustering for a massed infantry charge, ready and willing as another exhorted their aim, their blood, their skulls and slaughter and death. They were chanting, roaring out their prayers to what was never truly known, roaring out their victory so that the very heavens might shake when they finally would knock on those doors and burn that holy place down, too. They were there in force, strong and willing to die.

They never even felt it.

In the distance, twin suns erupted into being, two massive hemispheres of blind death. Near the impact, everything and anything was simply wiped away from existence. Steel turned to wax and bodies to soot stains, the ash whipped away by the sheer force of it all. The shockwave shattered glass and rockcrete, the damaged buildings collapsing into great heaps of rubble. A wall of fire followed, hotter than Promethium jelly, baking and charring everything in its path before finally dissipating. It passed over the troops, in some ways harmless to those allied forces which laid outside the immediate range of death and destruction, though the eager and foolhardy did not exactly survive. Armor did not save, nor did faith always provide, and the Omnissiah’s wrath was absolute in its efficiency and lethality. Those below had been judged.

The smoke and soot obscuring the destruction, fire and flame having melted the worst of it, the troops finally landed. Landers didn’t linger long, their troops disembarking with eagerness, with the machine’s speed and man’s joy, moving forward with little pause. Sicarian Ruststalkers were the first off the transports, sprinting off into the wastes to fulfill their names in packs, servos whirring and whining all the way. Then came the Skitarii, moving forwards cover to cover to cover. Rifles snapped off shots one by one, their Alpha Conqueror Imperatives giving blessed reactions to destroy the foe which lay before them. Their speed, their reaction, was pure, a machine in clockwork order. At such close ranges, one simply could not miss the foe before them. Rattling abominations of armor came against them before being wiped from sight, Transuranic Arquebuses snapping off their own shots.

The Cult Mechanicum had arrived.

[The Empire of Tau]

The Battle of Drill-A1
Hell in the Underhive

The ongoing battle for Drill-A1 was chaotic as Strike Force Beta of the 12th Legion with their Imperial units, Astartes, and Dreadnoughts, opened fire with their respectable weapons of choice (conversion beam cannons, assault cannons, and heavy-stubbers), cutting down the coming hordes of mutants and culists. Strike Force Beta had set back the horde a few miles of distance as the incoming fire towards the horde had done its work of making the cultists lose ground to the mounting casualties. The horde appeared to thin-out as Azurmarines and Strike Force Beta unleashed a fury of energy and bolt fire. There was now breathing room as before Strike Force Beta, the horde was approaching with a few hundred meters left of distance before the mutants and cultists could close into close quarters combat. The 4 Predators with Drill-A1 had done a wonderful job of clearing out the scrap-vehicles that the horde had, killing off the main enemy-threat that could better harm a space marine with a lucky shot with its lasguns and battle cannons. The large chamber that Drill-A1 had found itself in, had hundreds of corpses and parts laying around on the floor. Arms, legs, organs, heads, bone, ammo shells and pieces, blood, bullet holes, blown out vehicles and dents into the walls and pillars, marks the large chamber of Drill-A1. The azurmaries had casualties on their hands, but nothing too heavy. Ten marines dead and fifty injured. The ten azurmarine corpses were dragged out and the injured moved out for medical and equipment maintenance. The call for aid was also arriving as Strike Force Beta had the 1st Company coming, along with two other Drills of Azure Rain, Drill-B2 and Drill-C3, bored its way into the large chamber - 600 more maries and 8 more Predators joining. Everything appeared to have now calmed down...Sadly that was a false flag.

Auspex sensors showed another wave of movement, a much bigger force than the last. The roar of Basilisk-artillery fire would open up the next phrase of combat as their shots hit their mark way off from their wanted target, creating craters at the walls and floor, throwing up rubble and debris from their huge HE-blast. The chamber was big, very big, housing a very high ceiling and open-wide area, with support pillars and small pieces of cargo here and there. This must be some kind of cleared out zone for some purpose, but one can’t think too much on it with shells and gunfire approaching their way. The damn cultists have come for another round, but with bigger guns and more people to waste. Yelling, mass-footsteps, gunshots, and artillery fire filled the air, defying anyone without proper hearing protection. Out in the distance, the muzzle-flashes of multiple, more than ten, Basilisk-artillery pieces could be seen. The cultists likely planned to kill the men and women of the Imperium here with overwhelming force and firepower. Azurmarines, bolstered by their forces at hand with two new Drill units and with the 6th Company (Strike Force Beta) coming, began their new fight once more with the hordes of the underhive. Strike Force Beta Dreadnoughts with their various weapon choices that ranged from the conversion beam cannons, assault cannons, plasma cannons, and Plasma casters, had their fun of eviscerating the enemies of the Imperium with ease. The azurmaries had the pleasure of feeling the smooth thump of their boltguns shooting a few miles downrage towards the raging hordes with Astartes accurate-placed shots. The Strike Force Beta Panzerinfantry also likely enjoyed the amount of ammo being used to mown down the cultists with their heavy stubbers.

The Basilisk-artillery is the most pressing matter with the cultists raining down shells down towards the Imperium side with super-inaccurate shots. Yet, the cultist artillery crews appeared to be adjusting their aims ever so slightly with every shot, zoning in closer. One of the Basilisk-artillery pieces was even used as a makeshift AT-gun with a shell managing to hit two of the Predators with a direct HE-shot to the front armor, forcing the two Predators to move aside and retreat due to internal crew and tank damage. The other Predators opened fire onto the artillery pieces, destroying as many as they could before being forced to focus their attention on incoming cobbled together Macharius Heavy Tanks (in where there were four), still somehow running. Out in the distance, the sound of Medusa siege guns could be seen with their bigger muzzle flashes and firing sound. Shit, the cultists were bringing a lot onto this zone. Drill-A1 must have bored into an area in which a whole army unit was moving in the underhive. The 10 Predators left kept on their fire of rate, destroying any vehicle incoming and focusing their fire on the Macharius Heavy Tanks and artillery pieces. There were only so many Predators and too many targets to kill, things were getting more snobby by the minute. The worst has yet to come for Drill-A1 for strange unknown xenos are coming.

The minutes pass as the forces of the azurmarines of Drill-A1, Drill-B2, and Drill-C3, and Strike Force Beta continued to unload their guns, murdering an unholy amount of cultists and vehicles. Lamesius, the commanding officer of Drill-A1, who is joined with the other Azure Drill officers, have come to understand that they’ll need bigger guns. The call for more aid has not been left unanswered as Tacllous has sent out 5 Fellblades and 10 Mastodons to the Battle of Drill-A1. Their arrival will take time as moving those monsters of war is no easy task in tight tunnels and as such. The first true battle of Hive City Sima has started, within the underhive of Sima. News of the engagement would reach everyone in the operation of the hive-world. Reports of strange xeno entities are quickly shared in the vox chatter between various members. They are not the normal mutants that one would find in an underhive. Those things are tall, bright red, big horns on their long-shaped heads, wielding massive bronze-coloured blades, tongues sticking out. Whatever they are, they’re sure to be on the next list of targets for the brothers and sisters at Drill-A1.

[Parcia]

Angeline Pattern Heavy Tank
"Emperor's Benediction"
Tank Commander Wilhelmina Van Clase

The tank rumbled as it rolled off its transport's loading ramp, the turret swiveling around and in to it's proper position as the heavy tank's commander flopped open the commander's hatch and turned out. They quickly rolled down the quickly cleared dirt road the field sappers had cleared through the radioactive muck. They blew past the field staging zone, their fuel tanks already fuel and the Benediction's weaponry already loaded and ready to go.

She kept her binoculars on the battle as it unfolded before her, the distinctive blue and green plasma fire, red stub and autogun fire, and the occasional white hot beam of orbital lance fire lighting up the night to an almost day light level. Then, a Message came over the voxnet and was relayed to her by her Vox operator. "Ma'am, commands telling us to turn in, bombardment strike inbound!" She cured in Parsarian low gothic and quickly dropped out of the hatch, closing it and sealing it. As she did so, she saw the impact as the two rounds impacted the cursed hive city.

The flash lit the world, momentarily blinding those not wearing protective lenses and causing Mina to shield her eyes through the commander's auspex. The driver momentarily lost his nerve and let the heavy tank roll to a halt. "Status?" Her crew rang out. "All fire control auspex were on low light, most of the lenses are flash blinded, we'd need a few moments to re-calibrate them." The Attached Admech enginseer rang out as he went about resetting the low light sensors and allowing the gunners to see.

What type of hell was this? to call for orbital Godsbane fire and Mechanicus bombardment cannons...

Clausewitz and the 1st Company

He and his men had accelerated to nearly their top speed down the hole, seeing the remnants of the enemy his Strike force had come across. With the sound of basilisk fire and bolter rounds, as well as the unmistakable banshee whale of conversion beam cannon fire. He turned a corner and found a worrying sight. Enemy artillery had been introduced, and while inaccurate, it was getting better. "Sargent, take 50 brothers and take the enemy artillery, these savage's weapons will do nothing to your armor. Once you de-crew the guns, destroy them, but record everything."

With this, he mustered the other 200 Volkite weapon armed Astartes and gave orders. "Cut through this swatch, reinforce the Azure marines and bother Jack, relive the Panzerinfantry so they may reload fresh belts." He received a affirmative from his marines before taking a few steps back and launching forward. He was fast for his siblings, and considerably faster then his astartes, so he registered as a red blur among their various Auspex as he took up his spear in a proper combat stance and leaped forward in to the air.

Sailing through the air for a short time, he rolled through the crowd before coming to a stop and twirling the spear. Such was his bulk and speed that he had inadvertently crushed several savages in doing so. Seeing a crowd starting to form around the new comer before attempting to swarm him. Thus begun his intricate dance of death, using large sweeping swings and his immense strength to effectively mulch the humans as they attempted to swarm him. He cut them down like they were but wheat in a field, and they bloodily fell like chaff in to the dirt.

His marines would use much more mundane, though still as effective tactics to cut a swath through their enemies, using their vulkite rifles and boltguns to drop them as easily as their primearch melted in to the enemy and they melted around the burning scrolls. The 50 man formation of marines would rapidly advance towards the enemy artillery, mowing down their enemies with a combination of vulkite fire and bolt rounds, with the occasional combat knife being drawn.

The Broad situation.

The Noose was closing in, the ring of two and a half million Iron Guardsmen and almost the entire Burning Scrolls legion were deployed in taking the city and had finally fully secured a 360 degree perimeter around the hellish hive. The Wrath and her escort force still carried out orbital lance and macrobattery fire as needed, often cleaning up areas around the city and breaking up hardpoints too dug in for the Guard to break them selves.

[Revlona]

The Beast

"Captains, ensure this route continues, do not approach Samus, he is mine." The Primarch said, cold authority inherent in his voice as he slid Duty from its sheathe and strode towards the coming beast. What it was could only be described as Xeno, it was wolf like in body other than the fact that it was red and missing all fur. Both of its hands were clawed though it held a great shimmering blade in its right hand.

"You are the one they call Samus, Xeno?" The Grandmaster inquired as he sized up his opponent, he knew its great size was probably hiding even greater strength but he hoped that such size would also slow its movement. The blade it held shimmered, though not in any coherent pattern. It hurt Eyrians mind to watch the blades form move so he tore his gaze from it to the beasts face as it opened its jaws to speak.

"So you have returned, spawn of the false-emperor? I was so sad when last you were here and didn't come to see me," The beast said, its voice somehow managing to be a smooth mocking tone while also sounding like a snarl.

Eyrians eyes narrowed as it spoke. So the Xeno knew what he was, so be it, it would only make the battle more challenging. The Grandmaster thumbed the activation key on Duty and raised the blade in a guard, the creature before him seemed to smirk in amusement as it too raised its blade. But in comparison to Eyrians disciplined and smooth movements the beast seemed to move the blade lazily.

Eyrian came at the beast in what the watching Astartes described as a flash of light. Blade met blade two dozen times in the span of a two seconds and already Eyrian knew he had met oe of the few creatures that could challenge him in combat. His eyes narrowed further before he launched another blinding array of attacks at the thing before him.

To those watching Astartes, some would remember this fight much like they remembered the duel on Castagia III between their Primarch and his sister Angeline. That duel had lasted two and a halfs
terran days and had left no clear victor. Yet it was still burned into the memories of all that bore witness to it. This would be the same.

"Your Imperium will fall by the way, would you like to know how?" The creature said, amusement evident in its snarl as it met the Primarchs blows and forced the Demi-God to block as he sent his own counterstrokes.

Eyrian ignored the beast, his great mind going through dozens of different tactics with which he could kill the thing before him. The tactics were analyzed and discarded in milliseconds, all while the battle still raged in real time. Finally one tactic caught his attention and he accepted it without question, begrudgingly aware of the cost it demanded from him.

"Why, you will be the one to bring your precious Imperium crashing to the ground, with one fell swipe of Duty and it all will end," The beast said as it seemingly began to force Eyrian on the defensive, its blade and voice rising to a screech as it rained blow after blow onto the Primarchs slowing defense.

The end came instantly and without warning. The Primarchs guard broke and the Things blade plunged into his belly, sliding through the armor the Demi-God wore as if it were nothing. The thing snarled in triumph, triumph that was cut off mere moments later as the unchecked edge of Duty removed the snarling head from the snarling body.

"Owe, that really hurts," Eyrian said before slumping to his knees, his unconscious body held upright only by Duty.

[Krugmar]

Indrania Stratia Megasa and Atlas Mathano
Xenobia, Segmentum Ultima, Eastern Fringes
3.801.000.M31
Collaborative post between Lunas Legion and Krugmar

The Orrery never failed to impress Indrania. It was a vast, domed room set deep within the Thalassa’s hull, ringed with holographic projectors that could project an image of the known Galaxy as recorded by the Administratum, or at least the part of the Administratum where she was in the Galaxy.

Not that she needed to look at the entire Galaxy, or even a Segmentum for once; Indrania Stratia Megasa was on campaign, rather than remaining within her own domains, to oversee the progress of her Legion from an overviewing perspective. In this case, the Orrery displayed some thirty systems, their names and designations and worlds laid out next to them in minute lists that could be zoomed in on with a gesture towards it, picked up by the room’s servitor.

Someone with more experience might have better known what to make of the Interex. They seemed peaceful enough, and they were most certainly human despite the large, bat-like ears on the sides of their head and the centaur-like appearance of their warriors when armoured.

But when contact had been made between the 444th Expeditionary Fleet, her own, the accompanying 30th Expeditionary Fleet of Atlas Mathano of the Steel Men, and the Interrex, there had been… Troubling observations. Their incorporation of xenos species, for one, and automated drones smarter than any autonomous machine had the right to be. Anacharis Scoria, the representative of the Lords of Xana II with the 444th, had all but demanded that they raise the Interex to the ground and take their technology for the Imperium, even if by that they both knew and understood he meant for Xana II and Xana II alone.

It was a troubling question, what to do next, and not one someone as indecisive and inexperienced as Indrania could answer.

A small buzz alerted Indrania to the fact that she was no longer alone. Walking towards her in simple grey Stirian robes was one of her siblings. She had only seen him in person a few times, and only in the presence of her other siblings. She felt a strange shiver down her spine as she gazed for a second into his right eye, a golden glare known as his ‘Baleful Eye’. She had asked some of her siblings how he had lost his other eye, and though they deigned not to tell her, she knew they did not know either.

“Indrania.” He said, a great smile upon his lips. She understood why some of her siblings did not trust him, there was a strange sadness hidden behind the smile, reflected only in his eye. It was not something a mortal would pick up upon.

“Atlas, I did not know you had entered the Thalassa. I would have come to greet you.” She replied, wondering why none in her legion had alerted her.
“My legion and the Phalanx have fought together before, several times. Some great friendships were made, some of which still endure. I had thought it best to avoid the pomp of a visit and sneak on board. Our legionaries will always respect our privacy, but the mortals have a different view.” He said, as if reading her mind.

Atlas began toying with some of the holograms, until he had centred it upon a world known as ‘Xenobia’. He gazed at it for a few seconds.

“Uriel would go in guns blazing, Angeline would set every world aflame for consorting with xenos, and Titus would create a vast fortress on one of Xenobia’s moons before deciding what to do.” He mused, a thin smile curling upon his lips.

Indrania shared the smile, she had not had Atlas’ two centuries to spend with her siblings, but she knew enough to know what he said was true. “What would you do?” She asked.

Atlas’ smile disappeared as his fingers curled up next to his mouth, “I would wonder why they showed us respect, even as my legion pranced around like headless orks on Murder, and what their relationship with those xenos are. We will accept their parley.”

“If you are so sure.” Indrania said, examining the world on the Orrery. Consorting with xenos did not sit well with her, even if they were xenos under a human heel. “I admit to having my doubts; my liaison from Xana would have been salivating over some of the technology they have displayed, if he could do so.”

“Them and Vasilisa both, but we are not them. There’s more of a chance of recovering the technology if those who use it are alive. Capturing thirty systems without firing a single shot would be a great feat to send to the new Warmaster, as well.” Atlas replied.

“Forgive me if I do not particularly care for the Warmaster’s opinion of whatever small list of feats I may achieve.” Indrania said. “But, suppose that the Interex are not as inclined to join the Imperium as we believe? What then, brother?”

Atlas smiled, “Then we fire that shot, and all hell breaks loose.”

“So be it.” Indrania said, frowning. Violence was not something she savoured or welcomed. “We will meet with them, and see what their terms of unification are.”

---

Xenobia was the capital world of the Interex, and its capital in turn had been given the rather unimaginative name of Xenobia Principis. It did not cover the world like some hive cities, but was instead a metropolis of white steel, silver and glass, beautiful rather than imposing or impressive like the Imperium’s architecture.

They had landed by Stormbird gunship, escorted down by a pair of flanking Interex drone-fighters to the planet’s main spaceport. Diath Shehn, the Interex who had contacted them over Murder, was recognisable to Indrania as she stepped out of the gunship, Atlas close behind her. Diath was flanked by four of the Interex centaur-warriors carrying bow-like weapons that appeared more ceremonial than practical.

Neither of them bowed; to do so would be to acknowledge the other as a superior.

“Lady Indrania.” Diath said, his voice more like a song than speech . “Lord Atlas. Although you both no doubt wish to get to negotiations as soon as possible, I believe it would be beneficial for both sides if you had more understanding of the Interex than what one abbrocarius can provide.”

“If you believe so.” Indrania said, looking at the city around them as Diath turned away, the four Interex warriors remaining where they were at Indrania and Atlas followed after their host and falling in behind them, their own bodyguards following in turn.

The city reminded Indrania of her homeworld, to a degree; the pleasant weather and lack of open industry, the distinctly different style to what she had seen of the rest of the Imperium, but it also felt… Off.

Maybe it was the Interex, who watched them from a distance as Diath led them through the spaceport and then the city’s streets, with the occasional xenos among them. Maybe it was how quiet it all was, how it didn’t truly feel lived in and didn’t seem to move, save for the occasional whine of one of their automated drones as it passed overhead on some task or another.

“To understand a society, you must understand where it came from.” Diath said, stopping in front of a building that was not glass, but white stone, with no doorway visible. “The Hall of Devices, in Gothic.” Diath gestured to the building, stone blocks sliding back to allow them access. “A museum of our technology, and our history.” He said, leading them inside.

The interior was more of a vast hangar bay or warehouse to Indrania than a museum; vast shelving units stretched from end to end, each housing some implement or another.

“We keep weaponry from all those races we have bound, as we did to the Megarachnids on Urisarach.” Diath said, leading them down the lowest level of one of the shelving units, elevators and gantries providing access to higher levels.

Indrania didn’t recognise any of the technology on display; most of it looked to be of xenos origin, strangely shaped firearms and bows in a variety of materials and colours. There was something that resembled a bolt pistol, if smaller, and a weapon of black metal that glowed with a dull green light.

None had anything that identified them, a strange, constantly changing low music playing in the background.

The firearms changed to swords, the first being a crude axe that looked as if it had been made from scrap, a white lance carved with runes, a sword with a flint blade and a golden hilt. Nothing quite like Indrania’s pistol, much to her own disappointment.

“That blade, a golden hilt upon flint. Something ceremonial?” Asked Atlas, trying to ascertain any potential religious views the Interex may hold.

Diath shook his head, “Not that we are aware of, though I cannot answer for sure. We confiscated it from the Kinebrach, but they were unaware of its origin or purpose. What we do know is that it is able to mortally wound any person, or any thing.” He said, with a strange emphasis at the end.

“Interesting.” Said Atlas, momentarily glancing at his equerry Evenios, before returning his attention to Diath.

“Quite. We are not quite sure how it is, but we believe it to have a means of designating a target, although again, there is much we simply don’t know about the weapon.” Diath said, moving to lead the group further into the Hall of Devices. He wouldn’t show them the whole thing, it would take an entire day or more to do so, but enough so that the pair would, hopefully, be sufficiently impressed.

It wasn’t clear how much time had passed by the time that Diath led them back out of the building, the doors once more being hidden behind the walls.

“If you would mind, my superiors have invited you both to a feast, so that you may meet informally before any further negotiations are carried out.” Diath said. “Of course, you may return to your ships if you so wish. We will not take offense.”

Atlas spoke before Indrania could, “A feast would be excellent. Evenios, return to the Star and gather the Ekhroi.”

Indrania was silent for a moment, before nodding. “Even if I did refuse, it would look poor to have just one of us be in attendance.”

“Very well.” Diath said. “It shall take some time to set up yet, but we can take a longer route to the Dabata. There would be performances of aria beforehand, but neither of you are Interex, so the subtleties of the music would be lost.”

---

The feast hall was, like most Interex architecture, glass and white steel; thin, graceful arches holding moulded panes of glass have a view of the setting sun over the city. Long tables stretched down the room, with nothing else present bar the strange food and drink atop it, as the Interex preferred to eat standing, and to mingle.

Indrania was used to such feasts. They had been common back on Vulkana Prima, a place where one could prove one’s superior learning over others in a socially acceptable contest. Diath had kept her and Atlas company, and had done the best he could to describe the food provided, but it was difficult to do so when so much of it was, quite simply, something Gothic as a language had not been meant to speak about.

Eventually, she’d found some form of bird meat that wasn’t too objectionable in how it tasted, and had settled down to observe the Interex. It was one thing to see their city and their history, another to see how they actually were.

Atlas had not partaken in any of the eating or drinking, his mind clearly still taking in the bizarre Interex cuisine. “You spoke earlier, Diath, of a grave threat that the Imperium is blind to. I trust you will not leave us in the dark?”

The atmosphere became tense, as the conversations in the background became more hushed. Diath looked somewhat nervous, glancing around the room a bit before clearing his throat. “We do not like to speak of it outside of the correct settings, but it is only right you should know.”

He moved away from the feast, and beckoned for the Primarchs to follow alone, just out of the earshot of the other guests. “I must say I am surprised you are unaware of the true dangers of what you call the Warp, for what you have told me of your Emperor he must be aware of its true nature, but has not deigned to tell you.”

“Tell us of what?” Indrania asked.

“Kaos.” Said Diath, a grimace coming upon his face. “An insidious force that corrupts all it touches. We were gifted this knowledge by an elder race, and we decided that the best way to combat it was as a united society.”

“We are well aware of how dangerous the Warp is.” Indrania replied.

“The Warp is only the beginning of the danger, inside lurks Kaos. I fear that if your Emperor is concealing this from you, then your Imperium is doomed. The Four-” Diath continued, though he was interrupted as several Interex soldiers burst into the feast hall.

One of the soldiers made his way to Diath, and they conversed for a moment in their strange language. “You! It is clear that you are servants of Kaos. Thieves, deceivers! Kill them all.” Diath shouted. Diath opened his mouth to bark more orders, but found his neck enclosed by Atlas’ hand, and his life snuffed out in less than a second.

Out of one of the glass windows Indrania could see a building in the distance burning, but did not have time to take in details. The Interex soldiers began firing, and it was clear their ceremonial crossbows were anything but, with several Astartes falling with searing marks gouged into their armour.

“Astartes, form up! We must get back to the Stormbirds!” Shouted Atlas, as the firefight began to dwindle with the last of the Interex soldiers stomaching Imperial lead.

“Would it not be easier to await reinforcements by drop pod?” Indrania asked, her comparatively small nanyte blaster held in a gauntleted hand as the throne room rapidly emptied of Interex fleeing for their lives. “The Stormbirds are across the city.”

“We must keep on the move, if we remain here they will overwhelm us. Antemion, send word to begin selective orbital bombardment and surgical strikes. Establish a foothold in the spaceport.” Atlas replied, taking the Aetos, his power axe, from Azrael, the captain of his bodyguard.

Indrania said nothing, but nodded. This wasn’t her legion’s style, these shock and awe tactics, but the situation would have to be made the best of.

“Order Myrmadon Agrathia to have her marines to drop into a defensive perimeter out the city.” Indrania ordered, turning to one of her marines. She only had one Mora, a thousand marines, with her, but one Mora of the Golden Phalanx was more than enough for one planet. “We move.”

Indrania turned away, nanyte blaster held ready as she led her bodyguard out of the feast hall. It would be a long march back to the spaceport, and through a hostile city no less.

[Revlona]

An Awakening

860.000.M31

Eyrian didn’t dream, he had never dreamed, not once in his life. He had always merely closed his eyes at night and had opened them in the morning. That was just how his sleep had always been and that was how it would continue it seemed. For Eyrians eyes opened, lazily viewing the world around him as his superhuman mind pieces together his last memories in an attempt to realize just where he was and what was going on. He was in his private quarters, that much was obvious. Though the new decoration concerned him, plastered to the wall where half a dozen apothecaries stared at him with unblinking eyes.

Eyrian turned his head towards them and watched as they jumped in surprise. “Well, will I live?” The Primarch asked, his humored tone meant to put the men who had tended to him at ease. A flurry of nods answered his question even though he already knew the answer. He could feel that his already closed the wound on both his back and stomach and that most of the internal damage was healed. All he needed now was an amount of bed rest.

“Yes Lord father, your wounds healed Miraculously and—“ the apparent spokesperson for the group of Apothecaries said, telling the primarch what he already knew. He didn’t mean to ignore his son as he droned on, but something was wrong, a feeling of unease sat upon the shoulders of the Astartes before him and he could almost see the worry that poured from them in waves.

“What has happened my sons? What worries you so?” The Primarch asked suddenly, cutting off the apothecary. Sudden doubt seemed to clutch at the throats of the sons before him, every one of them seemed to be terrified to answer the question. By the looks on their faces they seemingly thought they were delivering a signed warrant of death to the person they loved the most.

“M-my Lord, 28-44 burns beneath us, it has been subject to Exterminatus.” Another apothecary said from where he stood against the wall. For a fearless Space Marine he looked as if he wished to sink into the wall rather than face the anger that he believed was to come due to his words. But the way he said the words struck oddly with Eyrian, and as he digested exactly what they meant he promoted them once more, “and..?”

Finally it seemed like one of the Apothecaries has decided to seize the initiative. A young and bold looking astartes stepped forward and stared the Primarch dead in the eye, “Sire, the Exterminatus was carried out by the First Great Company at the orders of 1st Castellan Fremnial. He says the orders came from your lips, however, 2nd Castellan Berry claims being heard no such order and has all but accuses the First Castellan of Murder. Both Castellans have retreated to their portion of the fleet and have secured allies among the remaining four, a stalemate has occurred as neither side seemingly wants to risk your wrath once you had awoken by starting a true conflict between brothers.” The man said, his monologue quick and calm, as if no matter his boldness he wanted to words out now.

The room sat in silence for several long seconds as they awaited their fathers reply. Eyrian was known as a calm and collected man, yet at times his emotions got the best of him and he erupted in violent fury, though this was always directed at his foes. The half a dozen apothecaries waited now to see if such fury would finally be directed at his sons.

“I see, bring me my arms and armor, and order both factions to stand down, inform them that the order comes directly from my lips.” Eyrian said as he began to leave the massive bed that sat centered in his quarters.

The bold and youthful apothecary spoke again, panic entering his voice, “Wait sire, to move about and armor yourself would be to risk—“ he began before balking as the eyes of his father met him once more and he viewed the silent and barely contained rage that they held. Knowing to argue now would be foolish, the man instead bowed and said, “At once sire,”

[Aserais]

Primarch Angeline Alpharia, Hive City Sima

Overhead, two Tempest-Class Strike Frigates had descended into the atmosphere above the hive city and begun blasting battle hymns, recorded on her homeworld by the knightly order that had raised her from childhood. The sound seemed to drive the cultist into further psychosis, as the ones who had attacked her and her men had been near naked, covered in blood and screaming nonsensical curses and oaths to a blood god.

Two massive, lumbering beasts called Faithblade Tanks rolled along the steel streets, accompanying the Cohort of Astartes that were slowly making their way into the center of the city. So far, they had yet to encounter any significant resistance--more than likely thanks to the Asure Rain Astartes drilling down into the underhive and likely drawing a large amount of the resistance to themselves. But still, the city was quiet... far too quiet for Angeline's taste, and she was beginning to sense a disturbance in the Warp.

Something was wrong.

Angeline held up one fist to gesture for the line to halt, causing the entire formation to grind to a halt. The Primarch's glowing eyes swept the street and looked up into the towering buildings that made up the hive, only for her to ignite the blade of her sword and cry, "Take cover!"

Some kind of xenos literally phased through the wall of a nearby building and leapt down at her, a long, forked tongue slavering as it let out a high pitched scream that caused even her Daughters to wince as they felt its malice and sheer wrongness through the warp. It's head was grotesquely elongated, and its curving horns and baleful yellow eyes harkened to the old myths of her homeworld of demons. Still, when she lashed out with her blade and bisected the beast, it burst into flames all the same at the power of her warpfire. The ashes seemed to shimmer for a moment before the thing simply ceased to exist, without even a single cinder remaining in the materium.

A horrid wailing scream leapt up as further down the street, a legion of these monstrosities and a horde of cultists began pouring out of the buildings, mixed with men wearing flack armor and wielding proper weapons. Apparently, the forces had abandoned the outskirts of the city when the orbital bombardment had begun, instead opting for the relative safety of the towering spires of the hive.

Not that it would save them.

"Open fire!" she roared, causing the line of 500 Astartes to open fire with their Celestia-pattern bolters, causing quite a few of the cultists and Xenos to explode into a fine mist of blood and flame as the immolator rounds delivered their promethium charges and burned the foul creatures into cinders. Meanwhile, the two Faithblades began to produce a faint whine for just a moment before their Vulkan Mega-Bolters began to spit hot munitions in a deafening cacophony that nearly drowned out the sound of the hymns blasting from the escorts overhead.

"IMPERATOR VULT!" Angeline cried out as she held her blade aloft, watching the raging tide of cultists and xenos get turned into a fine mist. Still, despite the fact that the air was filled with the deadly fire of her troops, it couldn't hold back all of the thousands of cultists and xenos that were charging their position. Those with guns began to return fire, only to have it blocked as her daughters began throwing up psykik shields to block the rounds. Angeline frowned--she needed a way to thin their numbers fast... and she had just the thing.

Angeline's voice rose above and into the orchestra of the hymns and gunfire, singing a tune that was old when the universe was young. Her aura began to flare brighter and brighter as she did so, any stray shot that made its way towards her being turned to slag and stopped by her shields before it ever reached her body as the air around her began to waver from the heat. Angeline began to run forward as she sang, bringing the focus of the enemy upon her, before she reached out and grasped the immaterium with her mind. She wrenched and tore open a hole in the materium, allowing her body to disappear before reappearing in the middle of the sea of cultists and demons.

Many of them turned, weapons raised and ready to fire upon her, just before her singing hit a crescendo and her aura rapidly exploded. The auspex sensors of the Astartes were momentarily overloaded, and those not wearing helmets were forced to look away as a novae of warpflame erupted in the center of the ravening horde. The bodies of every enemy caught in her Sunburst were immolated entirely, leaving behind nothing but a carbon shadow upon the street where their forms once stood. The fire of the tanks and her own men ceased for a moment as they took time to adjust to the momentary blindness, and the charge of the enemy was disrupted as they desperately attempted to regain their sight.

Their number was significantly reduced, and among them in the center of a massive, blackened circle was the Primarch, her eyes blazing white and her flaming sword held aloft.

"Charge, men! For the Emperor!" she cried, garnering a hearty roar from her Astartes before they began running forward, their bolters spitting and feet pounding as they began to tear through what was left of the cultists. Her Daughters joined the charge, teleporting through the immaterium to join their Mother before all thirteen of them rushed forwards with their blades held aloft.

Meanwhile, on the Celestial, the Astropaths had been ordered to send a message through the Warp to any nearby Imperial vessel, asking for assistance to be rendered, describing the terrible conditions that they found themselves in: outnumbered by both xenos and hostile humans that were working with them.

[The Empire of Tau]

The Battle of Drill-A1
The Cleanup

The horde was getting close, only a few more hundred of meters left before close quarters combat would be the norm. The second wave was a near-nevering end swarm of cultists and mutants as tens of hundreds of them lay dead on the floor, their body parts utterly torn apart by bolter, stubber, and beam weapons by the Azurmarines and Strike Force Beta. The shelling has yet to stop, pounding the Imperium forces with shell after shell. The casualties are mounting as more and more enemy vehicles start to pour in from the depths of the underhive. The lure of battle and its sounds has attracted even more cultists to the ongoing battle of Drill-A1. Ammo was quickly running out with Azurmarines and Strike Force Beta having to use up a gross amount of ammunition to keep the horde at bay. The call for aid was coming, but time was not on the side of the Imperium, needing to push supply, tanks, and troops through a single drill-hole.

The strike force was not quite without allies. They were silent, save for the crack of shot and the whine of transonics, silent without the battle cries or roars or vast chants. The Skitarii charged, their speed of advance unmatched by mere mortal flesh, advanced with blade and rifle. Ruststalkers galloped into combat, unheeding of death, their razors flensing flesh from corrupted bone. Against even the strange xenos, they held little fear in their digital hearts. Here and there they leapt for the kill, often caught in mid-air before the massed rifle fire of those Skitarii that followed put the foolish xenos down. They were hard to kill, true, but many a thing was before it faced dozens of well-placed shots, each one intended to kill armored vehicles. The Skitarii Rangers moved with fluid grace and speed, darting in and out of cover, taking their shots before fading away behind safety. They charged into the ranks of the friend and into those of the enemy, a swirling mass of blood and steel.

Some ways behind them, a Skitarii bearing the half-cog of Mars above his helm approached, it’s posture commanding compared to the hunter’s grace of the soldier. It nodded with some satisfaction.

By the will of the Omnissiah, the mutant, xeno, and traitor will not live to see another day. A wave of Ruststalkers rushed forwards ahead of the front-firing line of everyone else, making their way close to the enemy - skillfully and masterfully murdering down groups of cultists and mutants with clear cuts with their transonic blades emitting a low buzz - as the Skitarii unleashed showers of radiation-bullets into the horde, inflicting mass-rad-sickness upon anyone or thing. The more taller and red(er) kinds of xeno, the ones with horns and massive bronze swords met their match with the Ruststalkers and Skitarii. Stabbed, shot, and focused upon, the strange bright red xenos fell, overwhelmed by sheer firepower and melee damage. Once those creatures collapsed, the horde started to thin-out. The Battle of Drill-1A is almost over as more Imperium forces started to pour into the drill-home. The 6th Company had arrived not too soon to join into the fun and the Azure Fellblades and Mastodons had also managed to get into the battle.

The aftermath of the battle had the chamber filled with stacks upon stacks of bodies, gore and flesh that had to cleared out or else vehicles could be clogged down. For the time being, there will have to be a quick cleanup of the battle and scouting missions deep into the underhive to locate anything of interest.

“This Lamesius, Drill-A1 has been held. Once we get resupplied and our numbers counted, we will go deeper into the underhive to clean out the rest of the cultists and mutants.”

[Antimersia]

Adalon Cyprus
603.000.M31


Apocraphon Alpha had been restored to order in the name of the Imperium. The last vestiges of the rebellion were given the option to lay down their arms, or perish. Very few chose the latter option. It was mere hours before life in the hives of the world returned to order. People were fed, homes were repaired, jobs were regained. One might even be skeptical that a rebellion even occured on the planet. The only proof remaining is the damage to the outside of the hives. Damage that would soon be gone as well, as the very marines clad in terminator armor that created the damage, are now in the process of restoring the hives to what they once were.

Grastus Caul, the architect of this rebellion has been captured and brought aboard the Oasys. Adalon believes wholeheartedly that all deserve to speak in their own defense for any crimes they committed. Even if Grastus has nothing he could say that would relieve him of his guilt, it was a principled gesture that Adalon was firm on happening none the less.

The elderly man sat on his knees in the center of the room. His hands bound behind his back. His head hanging low in defeat. Adalon stood before him, looking down at him and feeling perplexed. He wondered how this man could ever convince an entire planet to follow him against all of mankind. He knew fear was his tool. But, Adalon knew this man held more fear in his heart than most. He is curious how he masked it and deceived so many. Adalon hoped that Grastus' defense would enlighten him.

"Grastus Caul, you are charged with treason against the Imperium, and all of Mankind. Do you have any words to say in your defense?" Adalon spoke with solemn authority. The tone you would expect to come from an executioner with a conscious.

"We were abandoned. We were forgotten. Left to die as famine ravaged us. I did not defy the Imperium, We were a planet of people pleading for some sort of aid. When none came, the leaders told us to keep waiting. I provided another solution. If there is no food, we must eat those who are to blame instead. Then you come, and finally aid us. You arrive with food we are owed and act as though all is forgiven? No. I will not accept the cruel boot of the Imperium stomping through my world. Not when you are all to blame for the horrors that befall it." Grastus said through crazed tears.

Adalon chuckled to himself quietly. He saw right through Grastus. False platitudes and self righteous acting. All in an attempt to shift blame and grand stand in a feeble attempt at saving himself.

"You slaughtered your fellow man. You cannibalized them. You took our aid and refused to stay loyal. And yet, we are to blame? Did we create the disturbance in the warp that made access to this planet impossible? Did we force you to kill? Did we force you to become monsters and eat one another? No, we offered our aid, our food, and our warm embrace. You took the first two and spat on the third. You have no ground to stand on. You are a monster. You will die, a monster. By the power I wield, as primarch of the fifteen legion. In the name of the Emperor, I sentence you to die." Adalon response sternly. He steps away and walks towards his father's scythe. He grips the cold titanium handle. The tape covering his palms protects him from the chill of the metal. He holds it in one hand as he approaches Grastus. He crosses his body with the scythe and rests the blade on Grastus' shoulder. The sharp metal pressing against the elderly man's neck. It takes nothing more than a quick pull of Adalon's arm to pull the blade through Grastus' neck. His head falls to the floor with a powerful thud as blood erupts from his neck. Adalon's body and pants are stained as the arterial spray coats him in blood. He takes a deep breath before turning away and heading out of the room. He turns to a marine that is standing by the door. "Dispose of the carcass. With the planet pacified I wish to leave soon. I'm sure the Emperor has further instructions for us."

Adalon leaves the chamber and heads to his how room to clean the blood from his body. But first he tends to his blade. He washes it free of blood before placing it down beside his bed. He always tends to it and keeps it close. It is Adalon's most cherished item in the world. He would hate himself if he allowed it to be stained with blood, let alone from someone as lowly as Grastus. But, with that he showers. He cleans himself, both physically and mentally of the execution. Killing his fellow man has always taken a toll on Adalon. Duty is a weight so great, that only a primarch can bear it. Or so he tells himself.

[Segmentia]

The Bulwark, in orbit of 17-76 'Rusliv'

The world of Rusliv, as the inhabitants had named it, was a beautiful world or greens and blues, with three decent sized continents and a vast amount of islands. The most advanced of the civilizations on the planet was early industrial. Compliance had come easily to the vast majority of the planet, though there were still some city-states and other small groups that were resisting. Not openly hostile, so Titus was content to let the civilians deal with bringing them into the fold, with the Imperial Army garrisons already established, if things did get hostile they would bring them into the fold the hard way.

The Bulwark held a far orbit from the world, surrounded by the rest of the core Imperial Warden fleet like scavenger fish around a shark, while the occasional non-Warden ship would enter the system and go in to land on Rusliv, or take up an orbit and detach shuttles down to the surface. The 17th Expeditionary fleet was preparing to move on with its own segment of the Great Crusade, however, delaying only to take on additional supplies.

Titus Ironborn, Primarch of the Imperial Wardens, appointed Warmaster of the Great Crusade, made his way down the Great Hall of Imperial Triumph, one of the grand halls that lead to the Bulwarks main command center. The purpose of the Great Hall was to be a showcase of the conquests and glories of the other Legions, something that Titus had thought might be prudent now that he was Warmaster. Artisans and craftsmen were still making the final touches, and already there was space aplenty for picts, trophies, and whatever else the other Legions and his sibling Primarchs might wish to be put on display, minus a spot for the Wardens however, for obvious reasons.

Titus entered onto the main command center, a sprawling, vast space that was filled with the hum and din of machines and voices. Acknowledging the guards on duty, and a few other officers, Titus made his way to the upper most level of the command center, and from there into his private office and study. He greeted the Warden guards before he settled in behind the over sized desk, his personal cogitator flicking to life. Titus sorted through a small pile of data-slates and actual paper documents. His steward had sorted them in list of priority. Scrolling through the highest priority data-slate Titus quickly read up on the events of the Sons of Calmora and his brother Primarch Eyrian on the world of 28-44, which had him leaning forward in his chair.

Titus vaguely recalled 28-44, the Sons had brought it to compliance around two years ago, after a short but decisive battle. The fact that it had risen in rebellion was worrying, though Eyrian responded correctly. The Exterminatus however, and the conflicting reports were troubling. One report claimed that Eyrian declared the Exterminatus, which was within his authority to do, but very unlike Eyrian, and would have been the first hos brother would have ever ordered. A second report, by Second Castellan Berry claims that Eyrian had been incapacitated in a fight against some foul xenos on 28-44, and that First Castellan Fremnial had ordered the Exterminatus and simply said the Eyrian had ordered it. Titus was standing now, rereading the reports for a third time.

“Hakael!” Titus called, and from the antechamber came one of his honor guards. The Astartes bowed his head. “Yes, my Primarch?” Hakael asked before approaching the desk. Titus quickly wrote out a note on paper. “Have Katheranz send this, and then burn the paper.” Titus said, handing the paper to Hakael, who simply covered the folded paper in his grip and bowed his head again, turning and marching from the office. Katheranz was the primary astropath of the Bulwark, and although Titus distrusted psykers, they got along quite well.

Taking the data-slate, Titus marched over to one of the secure vaults within his office, entering a number of codes to open it, and placed the slate inside before sealing it again.

Eyrian, I won't ask how the campaign on 28-44 went, I've read the reports of Exterminatus. However there are conflicting reports about how this was carried out. Did you order the Exterminatus, or has one of your Legion officers grossly overstepped their authority?

Titus

Once Hakael reported back that the message had been sent out, there was nothing else to do but wait for a response. It was a few days before something else interrupted the normal going-ons of the Bulwark, a distress call from Hive World Falluja, where a campaign had been launched by four Primarchs, Angeline, Clausewitz, Samael, and Creatrix. The report of hostile xenos and humans was nothing knew, but what sort of xenos or humans could hope to put four Primarchs and portions of four Legions into such a state?

Regardless, a distress call was put out, and it would be answered. Titus gave orders for the fleet to prepare to depart early. A message was also sent out to the Sun Angels and Primarch Vasilisa Sanguina, Titus' dearest sibling.

Vasilisa, I have received a distress call from our siblings on Hive World Falluja. I do not know what force can hold against the might of four of our sibling Primarchs, but I am bringing my main fleet to Falluja. You are ordered to do the same with whatever forces you can muster and at all possible speed.

Titus

[Parcia]

Angeline Pattern Heavy Tank
"Emperor's Benediction"
Tank Commander Wilhelmina Van Clase

"Target front, 800 meters, scrap tank." Wilhelmina activated her commander's override and swung the turret towards the large ramshackle tank as it spat autocannon rounds at them. Most missed, such was the nature of its un-stabilized main gun, those that hit simply ricochet or outright shattered upon the Angeline heavy tank's front plate and turret. Her gunner snapped to the target as soon as she designated it and after a few moments, squeezed the trigger and launched the shell. It sailed out and impacted the scrap vehicle almost dead center, melting a hole through its pitiful armor and causing a internal detonation.

No one made it out of the vehicle. Her bow gunner, manning a lass canon, opened up on something that she couldn't really make out. It was red, angry, and moving as fast as an astartes. She turned out and reached for her heavy stubber. Racking the charging handle back and chambering a round, she steadied the sights and tried her best to track the target as it sprinted at her tank. This thing, what she gauged to be a xenos of some kind, ran at her and seemed accelerate when it saw her turn out.

She let out burst after burst as it neared, sending more and more lead down range only for it seem to have little effect. She began to feel the signs of panic blooming in her mind as she watched it dance around her shots. Her Hull gunner opened up with this lass canon, the two side gunners did with their heavy bolters, yet the damned daemon wouldn't die!

The thing leaped and in slow motion she watched it fly towards her tank, with a crimson blade in hand...only to be shrouded by the muzzle flash of the Benediction's main gun as her gunner threw his lot in and fired his loaded AP shell. Whether by sheer luck, or perhaps through her silent prayers to the Angel, his aim was true, the round impacted the beast mid air and seemingly cut the thing in half. Its legs went one direction, its upper body fell upon the front of her tank.

The beast lay there before snarling and reaching for her as she stood in her commander's hatch. More so reacting out of instinct then anything, he swiveled the Stubber down, leveled it's barrel on the beast's face and held the trigger down. There was a shower of gore and viscera before the gun jammed after firing most of its belt in to the beast, leaving it s pile of mush and tissue that made her nearly vomit in her sealed mask. More so out of fear then anything, she drew her stub pistol and emptied its 12 rounds in to the mass, only to watch it and the the gore simply vanish before her eyes.

She reloaded her pistol and turned in, not even bothering to unjam the stubber.

Just what the hell did she just kill?

[Revlona]

Duty

A world burned beneath him. 28-44 burned beneath him. False Terra burned beneath him. Nearly 5 billion souls burned beneath him. He had broken the only oath he had ever sworn, to expand and defend the Imperium. He had failed to defend those people below him, from himself. What did it matter that he had slain Samus, what did it matter that the traitors were put to the sword, all that mattered now was the words he had spoken and the cost the extracted from his soul.

“I spoke these words?” The silent and somber voice of the Primarch said to the two men that kneeled before him. The Astartes in his left was armored in splendid Terminator armor, it’s worn surface gleaming from extensive polish and care. Arvil Fremnial, 1st Castellan of the Legion, raised his bowed head and met his Primarchs gaze. His eyes spoke of a great grief, Arvil was a first among equals when it came to doing his duty. The duty which had forced him to sign the death warrants of billions.

“It was your voice Sire, I did not see your lips move but it was your voice, I swear this upon my honor and life sire,” The First Castellan, Eyrians oldest friend, said. Eyrian forced himself to harden his heart to the grief that threatened to overtake his friend. He believed him, he knew Arvin had heard those words, Eyrian just couldn’t remember speaking them and could not imagine doing so in any circumstance.

“Did you hear them Ervin?” The Primarch asked, beseeching him to say yes while hoping he said no. The Legions Second Castellan and it’s greatest warrior obviously heard the message in the Primarchs words and knew his duty. Yet for the first time in his life he struggled to do it. He had not heard the Primarch speak the words that had seemingly doomed the planet. He had stood beside Arvil, his friend, as they watched the Primarchs battle in awe. He had rushed to their fathers side with his brother yet had not heard the words.

Eyrian knew what he asked of his son, he knew that it would hurt him badly to do his duty and say the words, but he knew that they must be spoken and so did Ervin. “I heard them Sire, I heard you condemn the planet to burn,” he said, a single tear slipping down his cheek as he lied to himself.

Eyrian stepped forward and placed a hand upon Ervins shoulder, he willed his son to have strength, or knew what he had just done was difficult. “Thank you my sons, you have made things clear to me, now stand,” He commanded.

Both astartes rose as one, their faces upon their father. It was a subtle thing yet Eyrian could feel the tensrion between the two. “Ervin, you named Arvil a murderer when the..exterminatus was carried out, do you still hold to this charge and wish to face him in Juris Macto or will you retract your charge and stand as brothers once more.” The Primarch asked.

Ervin turned Arvil and met the grim faced mans gaze. He grimaced once as he prepared to wound his own pride, yet he knew it was the dutiful thing to do. “Brother, I withdraw my charge and beg your forgiveness for laying it at your feet. I acted without proper thought when I spoke against you, will you take me back as brother and friend?” Ervin said.

Eyrian knew that the two before him were close friends but what had transpired between them could crack even the closest bonds. He wondered if Arvil would take the olive branch completely. “Of course brother, what I did wounded us all. My heart cries out for those that perished in the flames. I did not question my duty, yet we all know duty is a harsh mistress, sometimes to harsh I think,” he said before stepping towards his brother and embracing him tightly.

Eyrian nodded once, a grim smile crossing his face as the immediate problem of fracture in the tanks healed itself. Now the next one presented itself.

“Sire, a message from the Warmaster..” A squire spoke from behind him, holding out the information to him in one hand.

The Grand-Master knew what it would say, it would condemn him and his legion, they had broken their oaths, they were less than nothing now. He didn’t even need to read it to know the words they spoke.

“Dispose of it at once,” Eyrian said, his time giving the squire pause, he knew not to linger thought and bowed at the waste before departing to do his duty.

“Arvil, Ervin, we are going home, all of us. Every son is to return to Calmora at once, May they be in combat or on Terra, we are withdrawing from the crusade. Let it be known.” He said sadly, turning as they bowed to him so they didn’t see his grief at the words.

[Imperialisium]

A Most Unsettling Foe
Hive World Falluja

The resistance of Hive Falluja on many occasions was one of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of half mad scarred humans of both sexes and of most ages hurling themselves at the Imperial forces with reckless abandon. Most armed with nothing but a blunt or sharped instrument. Others carried stub guns and pistols. Yet, that was not all. Warbands of better equipped, experienced, and one might say trained enemy soldiery. If soldiers could be a term applied them that is beneath their blasted iconography that forced even the most stalwart of Imperial Army troopers gut to wrench and faces to to contort in nausea. Many a veteran of half a dozen campaigns would aver theirs eyes or cry out in horror at the hellish reality around them. Discipline in many hot zones was replaced by desperation as the Imperial Auxilia formations were subject to horrible urban fighting conditions. Casualties were mounting...

<<Flight Two-Zero we got flak around the Southern hive spires>>

<<Copy that Two-Zero diverting ground-attack craft to your position. Over>>

<<This is Ma-static garbling -on Guard, 70% combat losses request medi-vox static, respond?!>>

<<Hang tight contacting nearest assets to asset.>>

The Hive itself was gradually being reduced to a battle scarred ruin. Not that it was much better before hand. The Battle for Drill-A1 was one of many tactical victories being achieved. But else where Imperial advances were slowed if not bogged down by the sheer tenacity of the foe. The chaotic warzone that Tank Commander Wilhelmina Van Clase found herself in exemplified that most spectacularly as the fighting gradually devolved into small assault teams duking it out amid the megastructures and habitation blocks. Lone battalions using companies to inch forward through manufactoria and what various Imperial forces could only surmise as Temples.

"Incoming!" Someone yelled off to the right away from Wilhemina as the plume of an rocket fired from a sixth floor balcony struck her tank in the left track. A man hole cover was kicked up and a head poked out with a stub gun and opened up on full auto. Striking down two infantrymen to her left as the rest of the squad returned fire. One lucky shot kicking the ambusher back as a round smashed through his skull.

Else where the fighting when not attack and counter attack was one of cat and mouse. Deep in the lower hives levels Imperial Army and Astartes units would find themselves suddenly beset by enemy weapons fire. The Astartes with their auto-senses generally were able to make best of the situation. Yet, amid the urbanity and the sheer number of heat signatures and sounds even their auto-senses had trouble picking up clever ambushers in the warrens of the Hive.

<<Brother down! Apothecary!>>

Became a frustrating and somber vox transmission that every Terran day which passed became all the more common. Even more so when the demonic warriors emerged. Coming from nowhere and everywhere to ambush lone patrols and battlegroups. Reaping a fearsome tallies as frantic Army and surprised Astartes formations voxed for immediate support in a half dozen fronts throughout the Hive City. But that was not all...

Else where ship augurs were picking up movement. Mass formations numbering at least eighteen million combatants were surging towards Hive Falluja. What was worse is that other Hives had ground to space defenses. As the Imperial ships in orbit found out by the sudden strike of orbital defense lasers and what Imperial Tacticians assumed were the equivalent of Macro-Cannon guns. The supply ships, slower and less maneuverable, had the worst of it. Wreckage of several such supply ships circling the planet as they were slowly brought down as fiery rain by the planet's gravity well.

675.000.M31
Stellar Cartographae Designation: 13-81
"Coronid Deeps Sector"
Alkiada X

The Compliance Action of 13-81 had been achieved over the course of a few Terran days. Ending just before 604.000.M31. But the 13th Expeditionary Fleet had lingered as Vasilisa coordinated and organized the Crusading fleets operating in adjacent regions. The 12th, 2256th, 4120th, 11213rd and sixteen others spread out just over one hundred light years all began moving through nearby star clusters to explore, catalog, and if need be bring worlds into Compliance. The Remembrancers for the most part had gleefully spent hours upon hours collecting, collating, cataloguing, excavating, and transporting back to the waiting logisticae vessels which had been coming and going in system for over two Solar weeks. Titus and Terra would have many new samples, specimens, artifacts, and records to be archived on the glories of the Great Crusade. Ship Astropaths spending hours, running shifts even, to send massive amounts of data back to Terra and Mars.

She was due to leave this system soon. The first colonial settlers to help assimilate the people of this planet would be arriving in mere days. Along with a host of orators, writers, Arbites, and Administratum functionaries to properly absorb the world into the machinery of the Imperium. Rushed foot falls sounded off in the distance as the ships Astropath of The Vengeful Spirit, Adara Koestroen, shambled on spindly legs forward. Using her staff as an almost humorously overlong walking stick. Huffing as she clutched a small missive in her hand. Eyes locked on the Primarch.

Vasilisa turned, "Lady Koestroen? So rare do I get a delivery in person?" Her tone polite, if not actually friendly, as if she had known Adara for decades. In truth she has.

Koestroen's snow white hair bobbed in a pony tail as she bowed meekly and held out a gnarled hand. "Highest level. Even my eyes have not seen what my Cogitators have transcribed from what I received from my brethren in the Empyrean."

Vasilisa gingerly took the missive and broke the stamped seal. Reading over the content and raising an eyebrow. She lowered the missive quickly, "I thank you for your due diligence Lady Koestroen. Was there anything else?"

"Just rumours, My Lady. Fragmentary emotions and confusion from the Conduit. Your brother Eyrian, something has happened to him and the War-."

Vasilisa raised a hand, "We will discuss in private later, notify The Bulwark that the missive has been received and I make for the aid of my brethren. Then you are ordered to rest."

"Yes, Your Grace," bowed Lady Koestroen as best she could before walking off the bridge, her pace much slower and weary now.

"Helms!" shouted Vasilisa."

The helmsman running the shift looked up quickly with eyes frantic to not miss any detail of an order, "Helms at the ready!"

"Break orbit. Signal the Fleet. We make for Segmentum Obscurus!" Vasilisa spoke the coordinates in a lowering tone as she strode along the bridge. Passing the dais of bridge crew and servitor banks. Activity increasing as servitor and crewman rushed to fulfill their duties with redoubled efforts.

830.000.M31
Bridge of the Vengeful Spirit
2 Terran Days after leaving Assembly Point

"What do we know?" said Vasilisa to the assembled officers, Astartes and Human, hand picked to be a member of the Sanguine Court. An informal council of officers. The Fleetmaster of the 13th Expeditionary Fleet shuffled a pair of data-slates as he cleared his throat. Krisztoff von Tisza und zu Solaire spoke with precision and enunciation, "Hive World, named Falluja, which as best can be garnered as a reference to some Ancient Terran battle of little note, was discovered not long ago and this was the first major Imperial force sent to claim the planet. Astropathic communication logs and inquiries by our own personnel state that initial reports and tranmissions showed rather horrifical descriptions of the world and the inhabitants." The officer pressed a rune on the table and a pic-screen blinked to life at the end of the room with data and descriptions running along the screen.

"It is alarming that such a massive Imperial response was sent in the first place, and now requests even more aid, I can only imagine what has befallen our cousins," voiced the form of Arkidamus. The commander of the Athanatoi as he sat in an oversized chair built for Astartes bulk. He, like all the Astartes and even the Primarch, wore simple togas and gown.

"Indeed, but as the saying goes. If Father, or now my brother, wants something done right then you send us." remarked Vasilisa with a wry smile. Drawing grins and chuckles from several people in the room. "Current disposition of our forces?" continued Vasilisa.

"We have marshalled the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 8th Grand Companies. 38,642 Astartes at last count. Euthanatoi have been gathered as well. Dark Seraphs and a Tagmata from the 14th Grand Company are also converging from their mission on 165-6 in the Kommenor Cluster. Adding 6,443 Astartes all told to the count."

"Exercitus?"

This time an officer in the regalia of the Imperial Army spoke, "Head count at six million, eight hundred thousand, and sixteen personnel."

Vasilisa nodded and continued to look down at the table as a man in the uniform of the Collegia Titanica spoke, "Legio Vulcanum is ready to walk upon this...world."

A whirling mechadendrite as Zephar-Mul, mutually picked by Kelbor-Hal and Vasilisa to accompany the 13th Expeditionary Fleet and respresenting the Adeptus Mechanicus with the official rank of Arch-Magos spoke in cold monotone, "Legio Cybernetica and Skitarii forces are prepared to drop when ordered."

"Excellent. We are due to arrive in 15 Terran Days and three hours. We will be exiting at the closest Mandeville point. Current Void Asset count?"

The Fleet Master once again cleared his throat, "The Vengeful Spirit, 4 Battle Barges, 8 Strike Cruisers, 24 Escorts from the Sun Angel Fleet. The 13th at 220 battle ready vessels. The 44th, 57th, and 1202nd Expeditionary Fleets have been rerouted with the 404th mobilizing from its resupply point on Theta-Ganimar which will bring total Armada assets up to 2,406 combat vessels."

"We make for the Hive World at all possible speed. Dismissed."

[Parcia]

Angeline Pattern Heavy Tank
"Emperor's Benediction"
Tank Commander Wilhelmina Van Clase

The Tank rocked with the impact of a krak rocket to their left track, causing the Benediction to roll to a halt as it through the remnant of the track. "Cogmen, status?" the tuned voice rang out, "Left Primary track damage, separated, vehicle immobilized, machine spirit wounded." This was a bad situation, they were stuck in a veritable kill zone for armored vehicles. Mina barked orders, "Get on the Vox and request some support, Cogmen, turn out and fix the fuckin track ASAP!" Getting an affirmative from the enginseer, she opened her hatch but kept low, keeping the hatch partially over her head and chose to keep a Crew issue auto-pistol carbine ready to return fire, her heavy stubber having been blown off earlier in the battle.

She could see the Guardsmen around her tank take cover and return fire, stub rifle meeting accurate burst of autoguns, a few heavy stubber teams, and the occasional stick grenade. Snipers were met with in placed counter sniper teams, or otherwise met with heavy fire support. A rumbling behind her alerted her to the presence of an attached Malcador Defender leading a platoon of guardsmen escorting a Chimera APC.

She gave the rolling bunker tank a wave and it motored past her, just barely scratching by between her tank and the nearest wall as it and its 5 heavy bolters began to spit rounds in all directions, sans at friendly troops. It stops for a moment and she watches at it's demolisher cannon elevates, steadies it self, and fires a HE charge at a stone housing building they were receiving stiff fire from. The Round does it's job and completely demolished the building before moving on. The Chimera moves on past and stops a few meters forward, spitting autocannon rounds and auxilia lass bolts in the directions of enemy fire. They stayed and covered her and her Cogmen until he had welded the track back together with the aid of a passing tech marine.

Soon enough the tank was rolling again, though Mina kept low in her seating with just her head peaking over the ring of the hatch.

[Lunas Legion]

Uriel Febua, Primarch of the Brazen Beasts
World Designate Six-Three-One-Nine, Segmentum Pacificus
3.799.000.M.31

Uriel wasn't sure how long he'd been stuck on this planet. Their chronometers said it was barely any time at all, but it felt like an eternity. They'd attacked the walls of Precipice three times, and what had once been the rearmost trenchline, now the Brazen Beasts' frontline against the city, Uriel could see the end result in the no man's land that spanned the distance between him and the city.

It was a warzone, strewn with the wrecks of the Brazen Beasts' Vindicator and Rhino tanks from one of their earlier assaults. Moonlight glinted off the armour of fallen Astartes, faint lights in the sea of churned-up mud that stood between the Brazen Beasts and the walls of Precipice.

Or what was left of them. They might have been grand, once, but now all that was left were the shattered foundations, improvised barricades and sandbag positions. Even if their assaults had been repelled thus far, Uriel was confident the enemy was running out of bodies to throw at them as well as ammunition and working weaponry. He wasn't one of his siblings who dealt with the arithmetic of war, but that didn't mean he couldn't do a small amount himself.

He walked along the trench line, occasionally looking out towards the improvised defences. They'd been turned back thrice by the defenders, but it wasn't the defenders themselves that were the issue at this point in time.

Lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the battlefield, and dark shapes in the sky.

They'd named the strange, xenos beasts Screamers from the shrieks they made as they dove towards their prey. The damnable things would flock together and then mob a squad of marines, tear them apart and then soar back skywards. Bolter fire would bring some down, but they were inside Precipice's void shields so they couldn't unleash their own aircraft to hunt the things down. There were more psykers too, shrouded figures in robes that walked among the defenders with tomes, chanting in some foul-sounding xenos tongue. Some of his marines had tried to use sniper rifles to take them out, but they always seemed to miss or the bullet would find some unforeseen obstacle between itself and its target, normally one of the defenders of the city who was promptly turned into a bloody mulch.

He passed his marines as he moved along the line, and they glanced up from where they were cleaning and checking their weapons, preparing for what he deeply hoped would be their final offensive.

This hellscape of a planet had cost him enough already. None of the marines that had been rendered catatonic had recovered, instead awakening into enraged states that required them to be administered the Emperor's Mercy. He could see his breath steam in the cold, feel heat of rage inside him at what they had done to his brothers, what they had made them do to them. They would pay for that, and he would find out how they did it, and ensure it would never happen again. Whatever damnable technology they had used would be destroyed.

Uriel stopped, climbed out of the trench, and charged.

Mud squelched and metal crumpled beneath his charge, the whip-crack of las-bolts surrounding him and scratching the paintwork on his armour. He could hear the sound of bolters behind him as his marines climbed out of the trench, following him in the same maddened surprise charge. No preparation, no warning, no orders given out.

Warfare in its purest, most unrestrained form.

He was halfway across the battlefield when the first bolt of lightning lashed out from the defences towards him, but it shot into the mud, the ever-present rain making it harder to aim something like lightning through it. A second lashed out soon after, but not towards him.

An artillery shell exploded in the distance. Evidently they'd caught onto that he was attacking from one of his marines communicating back to them. Uriel saw the dark shapes above them turn towards them, slowly growing larger. He stopped, turning, following the shadow as the air was filled with a shrill scream as one of the shadows dove for him, dark blue and black and streaked with silver. He roared in response, and slammed his lightning claw through the middle of the creature, shredding it in half before it disintegrated into ash, blown away by the wind.

Another Primarch would have questioned it. Uriel pressed onwards. He didn't turn, to look back at the marines following him as he sprinted up the rubble pile, more shots bouncing off his armour as he reached the top, and he scythed through one of the defenders unlucky enough to get in his way. He roared out in triumph, and charged onwards into the city.

---

It was over shortly after that, the Brazen Beasts carving through the city with bolter and chainaxe as if gripped by a maddened rage, led by their Primarch. Defenders were slaughtered, as were the robed psykers whenever one could be found, but they did not go down without fighting to the last with bolts of ethereal lightning. The city burned around Uriel as he stormed up the main street of the city, towards where a white tower loomed over the city.

He met no resistance on his march up the road towards it, nor as his lightning claws carved through the doors and he pushed inside, to be met by an empty, if vast, room. He stepped forwards, and found he could look up the inside of the tower, the walls of the tower covered by vast rows of books accessible by balconies that ringed the room, doors visible leading away from the balconies who who knew where. A ritual circle, obviously religious in nature and covered with odd runes and what appeared to be powdered gemstones and human remains.

Someone else might have examined the library, or the ritual circle.

Uriel turned away, walking out. His brothers would know to burn it, rather than to bother gathering the books up.

After Action Report
Legion XIV: Brazen Beasts
Location: World Designate Six-Three-One-Nine, Segmentum Pacificus
3.800.000.M.31

Capital city designate 'Precipice' neutralised as of 799.000.M.31. Other major planetary population concentrations surrendered soon after. Establishing garrison of one hundred and twenty seven (127) Brazen Beasts on planet to ensure Compliance and to provide future recruitment ground.

Unknown xenos warbeasts and weaponry used to defend planet. Unknown origin. Believed to possess considerable psychic powers. Nine-hundred and forty-four (944) Brazen Beasts rendered comatose by unknown means, suspected xenos bioweaponry or psyker attack, upon waking subject to rampant mutation, murderous rage. All 944 Brazen Beasts afflicted given the Emperor's Mercy. Weapon believed to spread by psychic vector: majority afflicted marines previously displayed psychic power to greater or lesser degree.

Vehicle losses minor. Other casualties negligible.

94th Expeditionary Fleet will continue to campaign rimwards unless otherwise ordered.

Primarch of Legion XIV 'Brazen Beasts', Uriel Febua

[Krugmar]

Indrania Stratia Megasa and Atlas Manthano
Xenobia, Segmentum Ultima, Eastern Fringes
3.857.000.M31
Collaborative post between Lunas Legion and Krugmar

Deep in the bowels of the Star of a Waning Summer, in decks rarely used and largely forgotten about, stood the equerry Evonios, the bodyguard Azrael, and Ulysses and Achilleus of the Ekthroi. Scattered around the room were various corpses, pungent and rotting despite being freshly slain.

Azrael held a strange blade, one of flint with a hilt of gold, an alien and unsettling design, with a purpose far more sinister than its image. It was dripping blood, and its victim was still gasping for air. He clawed at the wound, now gangrenous, and hurled voiceless insults at his murderers.

“It’s taking a lot longer for him to die.” Azrael bluntly stated.

“You should show more respect, Rossas isn’t some mortal, he was one of us once.” Replied Ulysses.

Azrael shook his head, “Anybody who would call Atlas a liar is not one of us. He is not fit to be an Astartes, let alone of the Steel Men.”

Ulysses quashed his desire to argue, and weakly nodded. Their former brother before them began to twitch and convulse, before ceasing all movement. Ulysses moved forward to check him. “He’s dead. What now Evonios?” He asked.

Evonios could not take his eyes from the blade. “We tell him it works. We tell him that it will work.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Asked Achilleus.

Evonios peeled his eyes away, looking towards the now decaying body of Rossas. “Then the galaxy burns.”

---

The name of the now embattled planet had been unknown, the Interex never able to provide the information. Before the campaign to capture it had begun, it had been known as 114-06 , but was now known as Kinov, in honour of Captain Aleksandr Kinov, the first of the Imperial Army’s officer corps to land on the planet.

Kinov had never been a central part of the Interex’s fledgling empire, it possessed few population centres, material worth, nor was it particularly strategic. It was now, however, the last Interex stronghold and where their loyalists had chosen to stand their ground. They had hastily constructed fortifications where they could, some out of scuttled transports. Victory for them was a hopeless endeavour, now all they wished to do was bleed the enemy who had destroyed everything they had held dear.

Most of those still fighting were of the Interex’s Second and Fourth Army Groups, as far as Indrania and Atlas had been able to classify and understand their enemies military structure. The First Group had been crushed on Xenobia, their remnants hounded at Onia and Honus. It was in the RG1X system, rechristened Gnoth, that the Interex had pooled their resources. The three worlds of Gnoth had been heavily fortified, packed with refugees and conscripts. Indrania had been trusted to crack the system, given command of the majority of Atlas’ Steel Men as he set about harrying Gnoth’s supply lines and securing Indrania’s siege of the star system.

Gnoth had been a long and bloody affair, and after that the Interex had been unable to muster any meaningful resistance, fleeing planet to planet. Now from their forward positions in Vaccagua City, Atlas and Indrania planned the destruction of the last Interex bastion.

By Indrania’s reckoning, it would not be a particularly difficult fight as she studied the holographic map of the city, projected markers scattered throughout to indicate the locations and disposition of their own forces, and those of the Interex. For all their technology had appeared to be superior to that of the Imperium, it was less effective at the art of war.

Their centaur-like armour was more mobile than power armour, but traded that improved mobility for a lack of protection. Had they been allowed to fight a war of mobility and skirmishes on the offensive, they might have fared better, but the Imperial Navy had swiftly taken control of the Warp lanes, and they had been able to defeat the Interex in detail.

“We could just leave them to starve.” Indrania said, flicking the map so it moved. “The Phalanx’s siege lines can contain anything except an all-out counter-offensive if my estimates of their remaining forces are correct.”

“I will defer to your judgement, sieges are not my speciality.” Replied Atlas. Despite being the senior of the two by almost two centuries, he had largely left both strategic and tactical command to Indrania. He had seemed distracted, often taking leave to consult with his Philoi, commanders, and various Imperial officers in private.

“I would hardly call them a specialty of my own, at least on this side of the siege line.” Indrania said, zooming out the holographic map. “Although your confidence in deferring judgement is appreciated, given you’ve had rather little input on the progression of this campaign. Not that I mind the experience. You may take the 30th elsewhere on another campaign if you wish, my own 444th can handle what is left of the Interex.”

Atlas smiled, though it was neither friendly nor jeering, but melancholic. “Yes, there’s not much an army but an armed rabble left holded up here.” He said, gazing at a datapad for a few moments. “Very well, I will take the 30th onward. The Crusade never rests, and neither can we.”

He took a few steps away, before turning back. “You have spent eleven years fighting for His dream, but I am curious, what is your dream?” He asked.

“Peace.” Indrania answered simply. “Were it not for the realities of the Galaxy, I would have been content with Vulkana as a domain to rule. This, someday, will be over, the Crusade will end, and then… We shall have peace, and I can return home. Perhaps not in triumph, but such is my luck to have ended up at the edge of the Galaxy.”

Atlas smiled, perhaps the first genuine sign of happiness she had seen since first meeting him. “Peace, true peace, is a difficult and, unfortunately, finite thing. A quest that never ends. I look forward to our next meeting sister, hopefully in better times.” With that he left the headquarters, and before long the Steel Men began to be relieved from their posts.

Indrania said nothing, watching in silence as Atlas left before turning back to the map.

“If we advance the lines here and here…”

---

Assembled in the Agora, a spacious meeting hall on the Star of a Waning Summer, a great many Astartes and Imperial officers had been gathered. All of the Philoi present with the 30th Fleet were there, while Azrael, Evonios, and the Ekthroi flanked Atlas.
In his hands Atlas held a peculiar object, a blade of flint with a golden hilt. He toyed with it as more gathered into the hall, almost mesmerised by its alien beauty. Then the doors shut, and his eye snapped back to those gathered before him.

“For near two centuries we have fought proudly for this crusade, the Emperor’s Great Crusade. Many have died under the Imperial banner, far more have perished facing it. But a Warmaster has been named, the Emperor has returned to Terra, and the work is almost complete. We have done well, and expect peace and prosperity to come.” Atlas said, handing the blade to Evonios.

Many of those gathered nodded, some smiled at the thought of peace, or of their future roles. “But that is a lie.” He continued, and saw the smiles vanish.

“We are soldiers, honed for a singular task. During my time on Terra I learnt a terrible secret. The Thunder Warriors, heroes of the Unification Wars, did not die to a last man fighting the Emperor’s enemies. They died to the last man fighting the Emperor’s forces. Their crime? Their task was complete.” He noted a few looks of horror, and among his Philoi a few grimaces.

“The Emperor has returned to Terra, and given command of the Imperium to weak-willed nobles who have never even strayed past Luna. He has named my brother Titus Warmaster not to honour him, but to inflame passions between my siblings and have us destroy each other. He keeps us blind to the true nature of the Warp, and a depraved religion worshipping the Emperor as a god begins to spread, with little action being taken towards it.” They no longer looked shocked, but flashed anger.

“For near two centuries I have carried this burdensome secret, hoping that I was wrong, that it was a lie. But recent events have proven me right. All of what we have worked for will be in vain if we do not act. We may have been a part of His Great Crusade, but it is Humanity’s Dream that we have fought for, bled for, died for!”

He calmed himself, and managed to bring about a small smile. “I am going to topple the Emperor of Mankind from his throne, and reclaim this Imperium for humanity.” He looked at their faces, drinking in the shock. He savoured it for a few seconds, the moment his life of lies had come to an end.

“You are among friends and brothers here, those most loyal to the ideals of humanity and of our Imperium. What we do is momentous, of great magnitude and importance, and not without extreme peril. But we have an advantage.”

“An advantage?” Queried Captain Kinov.

“None know this secret but me, none know our plans but those gathered here. The Warmaster’s position is weak, few of them love the Emperor, and the bonds that bind us are weak. Most shall rally to us, once I speak with them, and when they know of our cause entire sectors shall join our banner.”

He took the blade back from Evonios, and thrust it forward. “And with this, I shall slay the Master of Mankind, and free us all.”

[The Empire of Tau]

The Sima Underhive
Cleansing the Cultists

It has been a few days since the Battle of Drill-A1. In between those days, a major cleanup effort was in effect, removing the various corpses, blown and knocked out cultist vehicles, and anything else that would limit the building of a forward operating base in the large chamber, which was renamed to FOB-1. More time was afforded to build FOB-1, setting up ammo dumps, repair stations, and prefab facilities. The plan is to slowly cleanse the Sima Underhive, dislodging any cells of culists, bases, supply depots, and headquarters. A task that requires a careful approach and a lot of time. Once FOB-1 was built and forces reorganized, the Sima Underhive campaign started. Strike Force Beta, now renamed to the 1st Reinforcement Group, led by Clause himself, had the 1st Company of 250 marine veterans, 800 Panzer-infantry, a group of 10 terminators, and 2 Dreadnoughts. Angeline, the Primarch of the Lightbringers, has sent the 2nd Chapter Celestial Cohort, consisting of 500 Knight-Astartes and 3 Faithblades, all led by Chapter Master Jean-Pierre Gustav. Lastly, Azure Rain had the 1st Battalion, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Battalion, 300 marines and 4 Predators in each (although the 1st Battalion only had 240 marines and 2 Predators, and the 2nd Battalion had 290 marines due to the aftermath of the Battle for Drill-A1.) A small detachment of 5 Fellblades and 30 Mastodons, belonging to Azure Rain, would also be sent out to various forces as needed as the situation demands it.

The Sima Underhive campaign starts now. The traitor, the cultist, the enemy of Humanity, rejectors of the great ideal of the Imperial Truth, shall see no mercy from the Agents of Humanity from the Great Imperium. The Sima Underhive is vast, filled with twists and turns, tunnels that lead to five other tunnels that may loop to single tunnel or a different one that was visited ten minutes ago, a deadly maze as every turn can hold a base of cultists or mutants that lay in hiding, ready to fight, or be unexpectedly ambushed by marines while asleep, or likewise. There would be little breaks or rest for the marines involved, unless it was to resupply its warstock, dislodging the cultists and mutants piece by piece, wiping out any bases, destroying supply depots and local cells, etc, etc. The space marines were effective, but the vastness of the Sima Underhive cares not, taking up weeks to slowly remove traitorous elements from the Underhive. The mapping of the Underhive also took weeks, needing to figure what areas had been cleaned out, and what left was needed. The 1st Reinforcement Group, tasked with cleaning out the south-sector of the Underhive, joined with the 1st Battalion, had made good progress onto its timetable, ripping the cultists a new one with every rackshale base built with scrap metal and wood, burned down to the ground and their questionable inhabitants shot dead with a boltgun. The 2nd Chapter Celestial Cohort, who also had the 2nd Battalion with them, had a harder time in the east-sector, meeting heavier and more well-trained cultists with bases and supply depots more well planned out and thought-out then in the other sectors. In the north, the lonely 3rd Battalion meet little to no cultist or traitorous elements, instead ungodly mutants, large beasts, and their nests would be the norm. Given time, don’t know how much time as the Underhive seems to be a never-ending hell of urban combat, the Sima Underhive was very slowly brought “under control,” or in other words, lacking certain inhabitants.

The sixth week in, a group of Azurmaries in the east-sector had managed to find something interesting. A massive borehole with abandoned mining equipment. Auspex scans showed distant movement and energy signals deep in the borehole, althrought scanning it from here was hard due to how deep the hole was. A few days later, a couple of Knight-Astartes from the 2nd Chapter Celestial Cohort found multiple massive tunnel ways going deep down into the Underhive. Ventures into those tunnels by scout marines and their collected info from their scans and diaries from dead cultists revealed a center of activity known simply as Khrone’s Pit, or the Hell Pit. This must be the main Sima Underhive HQ for those cultists. Later reports of scouting shows that large groups of cultists and vehicles are constantly being moved out of those tunnels, the ones leading down to the suspected center of the cultists. The assault on this center would have to wait a bit, needing to reorganize forces and count the battlefield casualties so far.