The salamanders of new Vegas
Prologue.
It is a little known fact that as well as the source of a Psyker's power, the warp is also the backdrop of reality. From its chaotic madness, all universes flow, from the smoke chocked terra of the 41st millennium, to the ravened earth of 2281, all universes flow in and out of this dream world.
And if someone was to become lost in this vast hellhole, then let's just say they would be in for a very strange ride...
Scribe Markus Invictus, declared heretics M41.5
Vulcan's wrath, the warp.
Brother Sergeant Ba'ken made his way slowly to his quarters, his normally huge frame bent over, lost in his thoughts.
It had been a year since the events of the invasion of Nocturne, and the death of his close friend, Dak'ire.
While he had grown to accept his brother's death, he still mourned him, even if a long-range Vox from an unknown vessel stated he had been put down after turning hereticus.
A sudden jolt knocked the giant to his feet, and out of his mind, his augmented body automatically ready war.
A siren blazed into life, and the lights dimmed.
The ship shook, and pieces of the deck fell into an abyss below, a serf sliding down a collapsed panel clawing, before he fell in to the darkness.
"All units," the voice of captain Agatone rang through the Vox, "the ship has been critically damaged by the warp, abandon ship, I repeat abandon ship. The emperor protects."
Ba'ken sprinted to his quarters; while the bulk of the marine's weapons were stored in the armoury, all salamanders attended to their own gear, and personal weapons were kept in lockers next to their bunks. Ba'ken was no exception.
Grabbing his bolter, bolt pistol, as well as the chain sword he had been loaned while his piston-hammer was being repaired, he ran to the escape pods: reinforced drop pods, with enough supplies to last a month. Seeing his squad boarding one, he ran in.
"Brother Sergeant" his special weapons trooper Si'ka noted.
Ba'ken nodded back, and then asked "is everyone here?"
The occupants nodded
"Then let us leave this wreck" Ba'ken decided bitterly; strike cruiser's are extremely powerful, and can take decades or even centuries to build. The loss of one was a sad blow to the chapter. Hitting the launch rune, the pod speed away.
Through fate or design, the explosion of the crippled vessel speed up the pod, and buffered its unknowing occupants from landing on a world dedicated to the gods of chaos, where they would have met a glorious, but unknown, end. However, fate intervened, as the escape pod shot past, into the abyss of a new world.