Immortality's Birth
Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other troops
+++ Attributed to Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists +++
"We are ready, brother" said the black armored figure kneeling before me. Yes, I thought, we are ready. Ready to fight a pointless battle against deluded fools. I looked around me at the kneeling warriors, seeing the hunger for battle that stirred in their eyes. A pointless battle this may be, but a battle it is nonetheless.
With a smile I raised my crozius arcanum, the sacred weapon of my station, and I began the prayer.
"Lead us from death to victory, from falsehood to truth. Lead us from despair to hope, from faith to slaughter. Lead us to His strength and an eternity of war. Let His wrath fill our hearts. Death, war, and blood; in vengeance serve the Emperor and the name of Dorn!" My brothers prayed with me and we raised our weapons to the ceiling as we shouted the name of the Emperor and our beloved Primarch. The room echoed and shook with our war cry and I saw the fires of hatred burning in my brother's eyes. They were ready for war – ready to slaughter those who have turned from His light.
They put their helmets on and each squad dispersed to its assigned pod. Ten of my brothers followed me in one of the pods and we grabbed the handholds as we waited for the countdown. My brothers checked their weapons, making sure the holy bolters were clean and their machine spirits awake and hungry for war. Some checked that their combat blades were sharp or that their chainswords were secured to their wrists by the thick chains. I did not feel the need to check my weapons in order to pass the time. I closed my eyes and patiently waited.
My eyes closed I examined my feelings and I smiled as I felt hatred burning in my heart. Good, all is as it should be. Hatred and rage must always burn within me for I am of the Adeptus Astartes, a Space Marine. We are the Emperor's wrath, his Angels of Death. We have been created for war, to protect humanity against the darkness of this galaxy – to cleanse the unclean, to purge the unholy, crush the corrupt and impure. We are Death Incarnate to the enemies of the Imperium.
Such enemies we have fought, from the barbaric hordes of the orks to the disturbingly agile eldar. We have fought our entire lives and we shall fight until we die in battle, for that is the only way we shall end. It is a life of hate and fury, of destruction and annihilation and it is glorious for we fight in the Emperor's name.
But even glory and the xeno enemies we must crush are as nothing compared to the foe we have recently battled. Goge Vandire, High Lord of Terra, Master of the Administratum and the Ecclesiarchy – foul traitor to the Emperor. Just thinking about it fills me with loathing and disgust. I hate the xenos, the mutant and the heretic for they are unclean and need to be purged but they have never known the glory of the Emperor.
A traitor on the other hand.
It fills me with such disgust when I think about traitors. To have known the glory of the Emperor and to have turned away from Him. There is no crime more foul, there is no thing as wretched and hated in all the galaxy as a traitor. A heretic can be shown the error of his way and be granted the Emperor's Peace but a traitor … a traitor deserves nothing but the most severe punishment we can inflict.
Five thousand years ago nine Legions of Adeptus Astartes turned their back upon the Emperor and waged war upon their brothers. The conflict, known as the Horus Heresy, ended on Terra, after a long siege of the Imperial Palace. Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists, our Primarch and founding Legion, defended the Palace against the Great Enemy. Now Vandire had forced us to besiege Holy Terra. Such heresy was unspeakable. I only wish he had been granted a slow death instead of the fast blow that he had received. He deserved to have been thrown to the Interrogators of the Inquisition for his crimes.
And now a troop ship filled with Guardsmen loyal to Vandire had entered the system. They refused to surrender and the Navy was loathe to destroy the ancient troop ship. I had volunteered to lead five squads of my brothers and capture the ship. We'll be fighting Guardsmen, mere mortals who cannot stand before the might of the Astartes.
This will be no fight. This will be a slaughter.
Just as I thought that, a monotone servitor voice announced imminent launch. How lifeless the voice sounded and I briefly found myself wondering if I ever knew the wretched thing when it was still a man. Probably not. Chances are it was either a criminal or some lackey of the Adeptus Mechanicus that had failed in his duties. In the end it matters not and I crushed my brief curiosity like I would the skull of a xenos. Curiosity is a poison that serves to turn one from the Light of the Emperor and lead one to damnation. I would have to perform the Rites of Castigation when I return to my cell on the Holy Flame, our Strike Cruiser.
I braced myself for the kick as our pod was shot from our Strike Cruiser like a bullet from a gun. The force of the kick would punch a mortal man off his feet and rip his arm out his socket even in the dim case that he managed to hold on. We barely budged as our enhanced bodies and the holy power armor we wear kept us on our feet. I opened the vox link to my brothers and listened as they prayed to the Emperor. They asked for slaughter and bloodshed and I silently nodded. Good, their minds and hearts were filled with rage and hate. All is as it should be.
The journey was short and we felt the pod shudder as it breached the hull of the troop ship. The noise was incredible but we ignored it as we prepared our weapons and waited for the pod's nose to open unto a scene of devastation. At last the pod stopped and the noise died down. I smashed my fist upon the rune of opening and the pod's nose split open like a flower. If it was a flower then it was one that brings death as I led my brothers unto a ruined corridor. Smoke filled the passageway but my helmet's senses can easily pierce such a flimsy obstacle.
"No Fear! No Pity! NO REMORSE!"I yelled and my brothers voiced their agreement. We marched down the corridor, passing the bodies of those crewmembers that were unlucky enough to have been nearby when the pod breached the hull. I noticed one man, his back covered in burns and his legs broken, trying to crawl to some imagined safety. As if there is such a thing for the enemies of the Emperor. I fired my bolt pistol at his back without even looking. The .75 caliber bolt with a diamantine tip, mass reactive detonator cap and depleted deuterium core had about the same effect on the unarmored body as a autocannon would.
"This is Brother Gunther" said a voice over the vox "we are making our way to the Engineering deck now. Resistance is light. Expect to secure the deck in twenty minutes."
This was followed by the other squads reporting in. Brother Konrad was heading to the bridge, brother Gottfried was taking the hangar bays while brother Dusemer was hunting for the ships' astropath. I choose to lead the squad that was to hunt down the Guard regiment aboard this ship. Fifty Astartes to take a ship with a crew of over six thousand and who knows how many thousands of Guardsmen. It was overkill.
Just as we rounded a corner we saw two squads of Navy troopers approaching us. They were wearing green carapace armor and were armed with shotguns, perfect for the cramped fighting conditions aboard a ship. The lead trooper barely had time to open his mouth and yell a warning when my bolter barked and his head exploded in a gory mess. The rest of them opened fire and I laughed as their shots bounced off my power armor. I left my external vox open and my laughter emerged as the booming thunder of a god, causing the mortals before me to cower. My brothers opened fire and the sound of our holy bolters drowned out their cries of pain as the explosive rounds penetrated their armor and shredded them mercilessly. We gunned them down before they could even think about retreating.
"This is Chaplain Bernhard, we have engaged the enemy. I estimate sixty minutes until resistance is crushed" I reported. The navy troopers had no chance against us and I led my brothers forward. We met several more squads and they died just as fast before our guns. Soon they began retreating when they realized we were near. I chuckled to myself at this and my vox emitted a sound like gears grinding together.
As we neared the barracks deck, we encountered crude barricades in our path and we smashed through them without slowing down. A squad of Navy troopers threw grenades at us before closing the heavy door into the next part of the corridor. The grenades exploded at our feet and I grinned as a few pieces of shrapnel pierced the joint of my left arm and I felt what I dimly remembered as pain. I signaled to my brothers to follow me and headed toward the heavy metal door. I dropped my bolt pistol, letting it hang from my wrist by the think chain securing it there, and grabbed my crozius in both hands. With a might blow I crashed the eagle shaped head of the maul against the door and it tore through it with the same ease it would through the body of an enemy. A few more blows from my crozius and the door was shattered. I kicked it out my way and was greeted by a barrage of fire from Navy troopers.
With a snarl I leaped at them and swung my crozius at the nearest man, taking his head off his shoulders in one blow, the energy field surrounding my weapon boiling the man's blood. I took a step forward and the crozius killed another man as I casually slapped another trooper across the face, my gauntlet shattering his skull.
"Cleanse! Purge! Kill!" I yelled as I butchered the enemy. My brothers joined me and I heard the roar of chainswords cutting through armor and flesh. Several of the troopers tried to run but I quickly raised my bolt pistol and gunned them down. My senses were overpowered with the stench of fear rolling off these mortals and I felt nothing but disgust fighting them. These men were not worthy foes. They were not defenders of the Imperium. They were sheep, waiting to be slaughtered and nothing more. Several of them dropped their weapons and raised their hands but we were the Black Templars and we show no mercy to the foe. We slaughtered them and moved on. I wished to finish this fight and find more worthy foes.
It did not take long until we reached the barracks of the regiment transported by this ship. Along the way we killed more Navy troopers and crewmembers but I hardly noticed as we cut our way through them. They resisted but it was pointless. They even tried gassing us as if that would work. I heard that they opened all the hatches in the hanger bays in the hope of spacing my brothers there. All it did was kill their men and secure the place for us.
As we entered the barracks we found it empty, much to our surprise. Normally this ship would carry up to twenty Guard regiments but currently it carried only one. In truth I was amazed that the Guardsmen had not attacked us yet for this regiment had a reputation for fanatical fury. Yet they were nowhere in sight. Either they wanted to ambush us somewhere else or their reputation was overblown. Nonetheless we proceeded forward, hunting down the Khazdor 707th Death's Head.
We eventually found them and the encounter confused me. They attacked us with fury and hatred in their hearts, like any Imperial soldier should, and they fought and died well but their positioning was all wrong. Their heavy weapons were aimed the way we were going, not the way we were coming as would be logical. Their special weapon troopers were at the back of the formations, as were the officers and vox troopers which was wrong. They barely had any warning before we began carving our way through them. They reacted quickly, I'll give them that, troopers charging us with bayonets to buy time for the heavy weapons to redeploy but even so they held back over half their numbers and pointed the wrong way. I voxed my brothers, to see if any of them were making their way toward us but they weren't.
This was most intriguing. Could there actually be loyalist troops still aboard? Another Guard regiments perhaps? If so then it meant they have been besieged for the last two months, when the regiment announced it would return to Terra to protect Vandire. How could any force last that long against the Death's Head? The regiment that broke open two heretic planets in campaigns brutal enough to match ours. The regiment that halted an ork waaagh until Astartes reinforcements crushed it completely. The regiment that wiped out all life on five planets that turned against the Emperor. What kind of warriors were being besieged in there to have survived so long?
As we fought our way through the Death's Head we began to notice their much reduced numbers and the number of wounded soldiers facing us increased as we pushed forward. Their priests, more than any regiment has ever fielded, fought with all the zeal I expected of them. It was not enough. It was never going to be enough. Even so we took casualties while fighting the Death's Head. Brother Othmar fell when a plasma gun disintegrated his head, brother Claudius died beneath the bayonets of sixty Guardsmen, brother Ludolf perished when a wounded trooper triggered a demolition charge and the rest of us all bore multiple wounds. My primary heart was skewered by a Major wielding a power sword and my left arm had been blown off at the elbow by a melta gun.
But we were the Black Templars and we fought through the pain and slaughtered them all. Eventually the other squads joined us and we annihilated the Khazdor 707th Death's Head. I stood over a pile of bleeding and broken corpses in a corridor filled with smoke and the stench of blood and loosened bowels. Before me was a battered door, reinforced with sandbags on this side. I noticed air vents on the wall and all of them looked to have been blasted with grenades, flamers and melta weapons several times over. In fact the entire corridor looked to have gone through a long, grinding battle and most of that damage was not done by us. Beyond that door, then, must be the forces that withstood the Death's Head all this time.
I approached the door and swept the sandbags aside and kicked the door open. Before me was a giant room that served as one of several mess halls aboard this ship. The entire chamber was marked by blasts from every weapon imaginable. Bodies lay strewn about in various stages of decomposition. Bodies wearing the uniform of the Death's Head regiment. In the middle of the mess hall I saw an improvised fort made out of dead bodies, tables and scavenged furniture and equipment. Several heavy bolters tracked me as I entered the chamber and I raised my crozius in greeting.
"In the Emperor's name" my voice thundered "lower your weapons and come out! This vessel has been secured by the Adeptus Astartes and all traitors aboard have been purged!" Several seconds passed by and I began to wonder if whoever was in there would come out or if I would be forced to drag them out. As my brothers entered the chamber, the besieged troops finally emerged.
Straight into the sights of our raised weapons.
"What is this?" I yelled as the wounded Guardsmen approached us. I saw no fear in their eyes, only weariness, and I was taken aback. The men approaching us, no more then one hundred, all wore the black uniforms of the Death's Head.
One of them, his insignia marking him as a Captain, stopped in front of me and made the sign of the Aquila, completely ignoring the weapons aimed at his head.
"Captain Geyer, of the Khazdor 707th, 10th company" he said, an insolent smile playing on his lips.
"You are part of the Death's Head" I said, my crozius less than five inches from his face, it power field purring menacingly. Geyer smiled and I felt irritation building within me.
"We are the Death's Head" he said.
"We killed the Death's Head" I replied and at this the man laughed. I admit I was very tempted to smash his head off his neck.
"What you killed, honored Chaplain, was a bunch of traitors to the Golden Throne. What you see before you now is the remains of 10th company, which never turned its back upon the Emperor. "
I lowered my weapon and asked him to tell me how they have managed to fight off their regiment and the Navy troopers for more than two months. With the same insolent smile he had greeted me with, Geyer told us how their faith in the Emperor sustained them and how His Light guided them in their struggle.
Out of curiosity I had looked in on the 707th from time to time and what I heard convinced me they had the Emperor's favor. Geyer and his men had been integrated into another regiment but two months later the regiment was wiped out by orks. Only Geyer and his men survived. They were integrated into two more regiments, which were both destroyed with the exception of Geyer and his men, before the Inquisition took an interest in them. After a thorough investigation that killed several of the Guardsmen, the Inquisition found them to be clean and possessing a strong faith in the Emperor. They were sent to Khazdor, where Geyer was given permission to select men for a Guard regiment. So were born the Khazdor 707th Immortals, a Guard regiment that has attracted the attention of the Inquisition more than once and which has been rebuilt around a solid core of veterans more times than one can count. For them not even in death does duty end, for they will not put down their weapons as long as the Imperium endures.