It is the 41st millennium, across the vast galaxy, Humanity battles for survival against threats from within and without. Alien forces and Chaotic horrors chip away at Humanity's defenses, always marching ever closer to their goal: Holy Terra.
But forces from far in the past have been found, and their expertise could very well prove to be the key to saving the Human race...
...Or dooming it forever.
Shavv IV, Corinth Hive, one month since Ork invasion
Shavv was burning.
The planet was typically a drab brown waste outside of the domed hive cities, but now the air was choked with flame and ash, and the ground surrounding the hives was crater filled and running red with gore.
The cause of this devastation came two months prior, when a typical meteor storm held something far from typical, and instead quite deadly. Hidden away inside the space rocks, Orks by the hundreds of thousands were unleashed upon the world, and within a day had taken over Cavrin Hive, and within the week had built a force of war machines to wage mechanized terror upon the world.
Of course, such an assault did not go unnoticed by the Imperium, and within the month the 366th Manglev Regiment of the Astra Militarum were deployed to hold back the tide. For the past month, the Orks and Guard have pounded each other, the conflict turning into something of a stalemate as both sides fortified their respective positions, by the time the 366th under the command of Colonel Recardo had gotten their cordon set up around Hives Brakkus, Hegon and Minule, the Orks had already swept over Hive Corinth, Drafus and Belmint.
However when they charged Hive Brakkus, perhaps believing they would wash over the pitiful defenders like they had so far, they were instead torn asunder by concentrated fire from the Guard's second most potent of weaponry.
For a solid day artillery pounded the Ork charge, and when they came close enough to engage the Guardsmen in combat they were driven back by concentrated minefields and well dug positions.
Feeling confident after routing such a force, Colonel Recardo, often seen as a glory hound, ordered an immediate counterattack on Hive Corinth, and so, it was thus that swathes of Guardsmen, overconfident and zealous due to their earlier victory, charged recklessly into the Hive.
Undeterred by the light resistance they faced, the Guard forced their way into the great Cathedral.
Large enough it could have fit tow Baneblades across and tall enough that two could be stacked atop the first, the Cathedral had been rightfully chosen as the place for a massive statue of the Emperor in all his golden glory. Four storeys tall, it bore witness to the massacre of His subjects as the Orks rigged the building to explode. Packed in as they were, most of the Guardsmen were killed instantly, incinerated by the force of the blast. Outside the Cathedral suffered little better, many were killed by falling rubble, while others were turned to pulp as the explosion's shockwave reached them.
The rest of the survivors rallied around Lieutenant Bautmann, his Lemun Russ tank having somehow survived the chaos, and the few hundred survivors dug in and waited, and waited, until finally, as the sun began to set the Orks charged.
The battle, if it could be called that, was quick, and the grounds soon was littered with dead. To their credit, not all who perished wore the grey fatigues and armour of the Manglev's Guard Regiments, some were the greenskinned monstrosities of Orks, but despite their valiant effort, all of the Guard fell.
As night passed over the remains of the Hive, and the three stars that Shavv owed for it's light illuminated the destroyed Cathedral the golden radiance of the Emperor's statue looked out upon the bloodshed silently,as if it were mourning the dead.
On the rubble strewn ground below, a quartet of Orks milled about, idly scavenging the dead of both sides, and, hidden away in an overturned Chimera was perhaps the only survivor of the assault.
Guardsman Cawel Abrikos, gripped his Lasgun tight and murmured prayer after prayer to the Emperor. He had watched the patrol of six Orks all night, and knew the largest of them, a Nob with a looted Powersword, had killed the Company Commissar, Levions, just before the explosion, it was how he had looted the sword, and then had proceeded to cleave through a squads worth of Guardsmen with ease.
Cawel had no illusion he was likely, nay, certainly going to die within the next few minutes, but as he set his Lasgun to "high-power" stuck the barrel out of the ruined hatch of the Chimera and uttered a single, silent prayer of deliverance and a request for his aim to be true, knew it don't matter in the slightest.
He sighted on the Nob's head, calming himself like his father had taught him all those years ago when they had gone hunting together.
Just as his finger rested on the trigger a brilliant flash from the sky blinded his vision and likewise disoriented the Orks.
When he finally regained his sight and looked up he saw the smoke trails of what could only be drop pods just a block away. THe Orks had seen the trails as well, and with a shout from the Nob made their way towards the site.
Cawel wasn't sure what to make of the information. He hadn't managed a good look at the pods, but he knew of only a few groups in the Imperium who utilized them. At the very least the Orks wouldn't, all their forces were planetside, and they had no void-craft on or near the planet, which meant it had to be Imperial.
With the Orks gone he left his hiding place and made for the landing site, maybe he could link up with whoever it was, at least then he might very well have a chance to leave this Hive in one piece.
So he made his way carefully, slowly, down the rubble strewn street, past dead Guardsmen and tanks, past fallen Orks, and past the carnage of war. He did his best to avoid looking the dead, and instead kept his eyes facing forwards down the street.
As he turned the corner he caught sight of the drop pods, and their occupants. To ensure the Orks wouldn't spot him he hid behind an overturned Chimera APC, but peeked out to get a look at the quintet of armoured figures that had stepped out of the pods, weapons drawn.
The Orks seemed just as confused as Cawel, for the figures looked like nothing he had ever seen before. They had exited their pods and had fanned out, taking cover along the side of the street likely to avoid snipers. Evidently, they sighted the Orks, because they paused and seemed to hesitate, that is, until one of the Orks fired his looted Lasgun towards the closest figure.
Cawel wasn't sure what he expected, if he was being honest with himself, perhaps he thought the scarlet beam would go right through the armour, cook whatever was underneath, or be like the hallowed war-plate of the Adeptus Astartes or Sororitas and and simply singe the metal.
He certainly didn't expect to see a golden, shimmering shield appear around the armoured form, like some angelic force field.
This seemed to surprise the Orks as well, as none of the six Orks fired, the armoured figures, all five of them now, began to move. Cawel watched as the figure closest to the Orks raised a short barrelled autogun carbine to its shoulder and fired off a burst at the Lasgun toting Ork. The other figures were moving with incredible speed, and Cawel found it hard, if not impossible to track them as they spread out around the ruined street.
The burst from the figure's autogun hit the offending Ork centre mass, the rounds walking up along its chest, cutting through its tough skin and leaving messy impact craters behind as the five rounds pierced organs and its neck. The Ork fell, dead before it hit the ground.
Finally reacting to the movement three of the other Orks decided to engage in their most favoured of pastime's, a brawl. They rushed the quintet but were cut down by the newcomers auto guns before they could reach melee range.
The last gun toting Ork fired for all he was worth, but every shot he hit simply brought up more shimmering barriers, no matter which of the five he hit.
The Nob decided to succeed where his smaller companions had failed, and, with a bellowing war cry raised his sword above his head and charged.
Clara-G136's head hurt. It felt like augmentation all over again, except this time she was awake.
She still wasn't sure what had happened, but her initial guess was the drop had gone awry. Not unexpected, but she still had no idea where she and the rest of Glaive had ended up.
What she did know was that her Fireteam had found itself in the middle of a battlefield in an urban sprawl, or at least the remains of one. She had seen that much before Joan had been hit by a laser of some sort by the big green aliens, which implied, at least somewhat, a potential first contact, and misunderstandings were bound the happen, except she had seen the human soldiers lying dead in the street, and had quickly put the pieces together.
She didn't use TEAMCOM, as the group were supposed to be radio silent, instead, she simply raised her MA5K and put five rounds into the offending alien's body.
By that point things had begun to happen fast.
Glaive spread out, and quickly dispatched the smaller aliens, but the final one, a large, imposing brute that looked as tall as a Hunter ran towards her, a sword crackling with energy in his hands.
Had things been different, she might have fought the massive alien in hand to hand, but with so many unknowns she simply fired her MA5K on fully automatic, pummeling the beast with armour piercing rounds. It took more of her magazine than she would have liked, and, after emptying a third of it, plus, she noted, the rest of Glaive pitching in with short controlled bursts, the hulking thing finally died, it's face turned to pulp.
She fired one round into it's skull for good measure, then turned to look at her team.
"Glaive report in, injuries, bruises, threat assessment." She already knew how her team was doing, she could see on TEAMBIO that aside from elevated heart rates and the obvious signs of adrenaline none of them were hurt.
"I'm fine, curious as to why you're breaking mission parameters, but fine." Joan-G235, Glaive 2, reported as she hefted her own MA5K, sweeping it around the area,
"I can't say I blame her, I an't make heads or tails of this and nothing broken here boss." That was Lilia-G316, Glaive 3, the Spartan was crouched next to a dead alien, assessing it.
"This isn't Mallom, I can tell you that. much, and I've never seen aliens like that, reminds me of Brutes, but somehow uglier." Danielle-G057, Glaive 4. She was recovering gear from her pod.
"Nothing's as ugly as you Dani, thankfully," Laura-G016, Glaive 5, muttered as she swot her eyes over the rooftops, her BR85 shouldered and ready to fire. "I've got nothing from STARS, boss."
Clara blinked and realized she hadn't registered that the STARS wasn't online. Of course, considering everything else, it made sense, but it was still unsettling.
"Glaive, check for STARS uplink, then run a diagnostic on armour, it could be a suit glitch, the GEN2 armour was still finicky after all, but four simultaneous suit malfunctions was unheard of.
One by one, Clara received red acknowledgement lights, and the headache only seemed to increase. This mission had gone from textbook to FUBAR faster than she could blink.
Glaive's original mission had been a long term scouting mission on the Remnant held moon of Mallom in preparation for a larger UNSC assault thus the team had all forgone specialization in favour of uniformity. The quintet had armoured themselves in the newer PATHFINDER variant, and after a month Slipspace journey to test the suits and get acquainted all five members of Glaive were in love. They all looked identical in the armour, the entire fireteam having decided, after much debate, on a dark gray colour scheme and golden reflective visors. The differentiation and individualization came from small touches, a knife sheathed on a shoulder, a TACPAD on a wrist, a Sensor on a helmet, or an armoured rucksack attached to the small of a back.
"2, 5, secure a perimiter, 3, start policing bodies, 4, keep stripping gear, rotate with 3 when finished. use comms sparingly, stay on SQAUDCOM and keep it brief, no conersations," Clara ordered, giving herself a small smack on the head to clear her headache as her team sent Green acknowledgement lights her way.
"ROE?" Joan questioned as she kept her MA5K aimed squarely down the street.
Clara paused, their original mission claimed they could use anything and everything at their disposal to eliminate and disrupt Covenant Remnant units, and as they were presumably going to be on a purely alien held moon none of Glaive had complained.
But now?
There were so man unknowns, who or what were the green aliens, what was the status of the human forces here, and most importantly, where had Glaive ended up?
"As soon as we grab our gear and supplies we'll see if we can find anyone still alive, our first priority now is to link up with UNSC forces and lend a hand. If you see an alien target, eliminate it."
"Acknowledged." Joan replied with a nod.
For a moment, things settled into an unnerving quiet, until Clara noticed a blip on her motion tracker. She saw it was coming from behind the nearby overturned APC, and sent a silent ping to Joan over TEAMCOM to get her attention, then a flurry of hand signals so quickly that only a Spartan could follow them.
One unkown ahead, behind the APC.
She raised her MA5K, and saw Joan converging on the vehicle from her right. The contact started to move, and by this point, all of GLaive was sweeping the area for threats. One lone contact didn't mean there weren't more.
Clara braced herself for the worst, an alien waiting to jump her, or some kind of bomb or trap, but as she rounded the corner of the APC and brought her carbine to bear she saw only a single person, a dust covered, tired looking human soldier.
He stared open mouthed at Clara, utterly in shock. "By the Emperor."