Dark Deliverance
Chapter 1
When the divine Emperor of Man looked to the future, he saw the need for heroes. Against the forces of the daemons of the Warp, the hordes of Xenos that threatened humanity, and divisive threats from within, the Emperor decreed that there should be shining examples to fight against these dark terrors that plagued the Imperium. These men would be transformed by the Emperor and his sons. They would transcend mere humanity and become the Emperor's own angels of death. On wings of fire they would descend from the heavens and wreak destruction on those who sought the ruin of the Emperor and the Imperium of man. They would bring blessed retribution with chainsword and bolter. Clad in ancient armor, these warriors would grace the faces of countless worlds of the Imperium as the Emperor's own Space Marines.
The world of Neraphim burned. Orks, riding noisily through the streets of the Imperial world, set fire, crashed their wagons and bikes into walls, shot up Imperial shrines, and desecrated the very streets themselves where once proud legions of countless Imperial Guardsman had marched in time to hymns of the Ecclesiarchy. In a matter of weeks, the tide of Orks grew and grew and grew. PDF regiments were slaughtered. Tanks were left to burn and bodies left to rot where they fell. And the people of Neraphim were broken. It was this world that held the most complete records of the Ordo Xenos for the Segmentum Tempestus. It was a devastating blow to lose the world to Orks. But all hope had not been given up.
The Ork Space Hulk had been looted for parts. Its orbit decaying, the massive ship was falling in a cataclysmic rain of fire and molten steel as it bombarded the planet, chunks breaking off of the massive cobbled together ship. It was this single occurrence that allowed the Ordo Xenos to even consider what they were about to attempt.
Shortly before dawn came to the largest continent and their destination, Captain Elemiah of the Deathwatch awoke in his chambers aboard the sleek Inquisitorial cruiser, Purge of Xenos. It wasn't often that Space Marines slept for more than a few hours. Their incredible physiological makeup rendered more than two to three hours of sleep unnecessary, even over the span of several days. The Dark Angel had been a veteran among the Deathwatch for decades now. As much as he missed his battle brothers, he knew that his life was destined to be one of sacrifice. Of all the chapters of the Emperor's Space Marines, the Dark Angels were the most secretive, and the chapter most closely watched by the Inquisition. He was more than an obligatory nod to the Inquisition. He was the chapter's sacrifice. A battle brother who had agreed to serve as a lasting testament and living proof of the Dark Angels' commitment to the Imperium of Man. A dull red light flashed at the terminal in his quarters. They had emerged from the warp, their destination was in sight, and the Deathwatch were on alert to begin preparations.
Elemiah stepped to the drop pod in the launching bay along with Inquisitor Tolan Prin. The short human stood about a meter and a half in height. His lanky build seemed almost disproportionate to his height. His jet black hair and a thin handlebar mustache dominated his features and contrasted his cold crystal blue eyes.
"You understand your orders then." Tolan said sharply to the rest of the Deathwatch strike team that was heading down to the Surface.
"Go in, find the cogitators beneath the Inquisitorial headquarters, and begin a secure up-link to the Purge of Xenos. Then we call for extraction via Thunderhawk from the roof of the Inquisitorial fortress if not, we find some other suitable location and await extraction." Elemiah repeated the orders as he stepped up. He didn't like Prin. There was no love lost there and neither of the two men made any attempt to cover it.
"Yes. Precisely." Tolan said in an irritated, clipped tone. His upper lip twitched and his mustache seemed to curl a bit as he looked to the Deathwatch strike team.
"Good luck. I expect a communications blackout between now and the time that you call for extraction." Prin reminded them before turning on his heel to stalk away from the drop pod.
Elemiah watched the irritating little man walk away and stalk down the corridors of the Purge. Snorting, he shook his head and stepped into the pod with his brothers in the Deathwatch.
"If I didn't know any better. I would say you agitate him on purpose." Said Trax with a certain amount of pluck to his tone. His long blond hair flowed out over his black armor and he shot a grin to the Captain. A member of the Imperial Fists, his yellow-gold pauldron contrasted with his black armor as much as his attitude and his golden locks did.
Elemiah gave a small half smirk at the youngest member of the Deathwatch squad.
"He does do it on purpose... But the Inquisitor has it coming... For being a pompous arse." Grunted Wulfgar, the hefty devastator Marine. Checking over his plasma cannon once more, he snorted as he spoke.
Elemiah fixed Wulfgar with a stern gaze. The two had rarely gotten along and had a tenuous peace at best. The Space Wolves and the Dark Angels had a long history of animosity, and more than a few times their anger and distrust of one another had boiled over into bloodshed. Wulfgar fixed him with a dark gaze in return. He didn't like Prin either. But he only barely trusted Elemiah over the Inquisitor. And neither man had the Space Wolf's respect. The black ragged haired space wolf went back to checking over his plasma cannon to prepare for the drop.
The other members of the team dropped into relative silence as they neared the drop site. The pre-programmed flight coordinates would intermittently fire the stabilizer rockets as the drop pod was dropped through the debris path of the space hulk as it broke apart in orbit and rained down from the sky. With any luck, they could land unnoticed a few kilometers from the fortress, make their way in without being noticed. The hope was that without firing their weapons, they would be able to gather all the data they could from the fortress cogitators and make their way to the rooftop for extraction without firing a single shot. Extraction was another matter altogether, but it was hoped that by that time, the Orks would be caught off guard and would be unable to mount a defense to shoot down the Thunderhawk gunship that came to rescue them. They'd be out of orbit if not out of system before the Orks could scramble any anti-air defenses and find out that anyone had even been on the planet surface that didn't belong there.
Elemiah disliked letting the Xenos live. They had the blood of innocents on their hands. The blood of humanity had been shed by their despicable kind, and he longed to make them pay. It was small comfort that by completing his mission that the information they retrieved would help plot out actions by the Inquisition and other groups against Xeno threats throughout the sector for years if not decades to come.
The doors on the drop pod sealed shut and each brother stowed their weapons. Elemiah's bolter was securely strapped around his torso and his power sword was slung at his side. The safety harnesses came down over each of the twelve as they sat back and quietly waited while the countdown sequence began.
"From the lightning and the tempest..." Began Elemiah.
"Emperor deliver us." Responded his eleven brothers of the Deathwatch. Rote memory of the Fede Imperialis, a prayer said before battle imploring the Emperor's divine protection, echoed from 11 other voices as the Dark Angel captain led them in their prayers.
"From the begetting of daemons..." He continued.
"Emperor deliver us." They responded once more.
"From the blasphemy of the fallen..." Elemiah intoned.
"Emperor deliver us." The unit responded as one. One group. One faith. One purpose. That was what the Deathwatch survived on. Despite their disparate origins and the animosities and mistrust that their chapters might have had for one another, the Emperor's own Space Marines were brothers in faith above all else.
"We go now into the jaws of death itself. May the Emperor watch over us all. And those who do not return shall go to his side knowing they have died to perform their duty to him." Trax said quietly, quoting from one of the holy texts of the Imperial Fists.
The Purge of Xenos hovered over the target area and a moment later the pod shuddered as they were launched out over the planet. The pod jerked and shuddered as they hit the atmosphere and the jets worked their ever so minimal work to ensure that the pod would be likely mistaken for a piece of falling debris.
The pod plummeted to the surface of Neraphim and nothing was fired up to greet them. Their ruse had worked. As it came to a large building, the retro-rockets fired and the pod slammed through the roof of the building and several floors before the pod came to a halt, each jarring impact sending a shock through the pod and their occupants. The doors splayed out as the pod came to a halt and the safety harnesses lifted. Elemiah and the others swiftly moved out, careful where they stepped as the pod had undoubtedly weakened the floor even where it came to rest.
"All present Brother-Captain." Wulfgar reported before Elemiah even asked for the report. He nodded a bit.
"We move through the building. Quiet. Check your corners. Trax. You're up first." He ordered. Trax nodded and hefted his bolt pistol and slipped his chainsword from its magnetic lock on his thigh. The young Imperial Fist stepped out of the room and they followed, quietly. Finding a set of stairs, Trax took a good lead, stepping down the stairs with practiced ease as if the power armor itself had no weight to it. The Fist checked his corners and nodded back up the stairway. The Deathwatch company appeared to have landed without being noticed. Through the walls they could hear other pieces of debris falling into other chunks of the hive spires and the habitat blocks. To a normal human, this would deafen the sounds of any ambushers or scouting parties coming to find out what had struck the building. But for the Space Marines of the Deathwatch chapter, their biological modifications overcame this problem. Each of them had far sharper senses than the normal human. They continued down farther and farther until the stairs led them down no further. Street level. Trax held up his fist as a warning to his brothers. The Imperial Fist warrior peered into the darkness as his brothers moved silently down the stairs. Trax's thumb hovered over the activation rune of his chainsword, ready to bring the weapon roaring to life.
When Elemiah and the rest of the brothers of the Deathwatch squad stepped into the open alcove of the hive's street level entrance, they saw it. The hunched forms of a dozen Orks digging through piles of refuse and debris from the strikes that had weakened and knocked down chunks of the hive spire. So intent on their looting were the Orks, that they didn't even notice the Space Marines fanning out behind them. Elemiah raised his hand and each member readied their weapons. Sighting down his own bolt pistol, he dropped his hand.
A torrent of fire ripped through the Orks, felling over half of them as the rest jerked about and looked up in surprise, wondering what had happened while they simultaneously took cover, fumbling for their own weapons.
"End this." Elemiah hissed. Trax charged forward and a moment later Elemiah sprinted across the open alcove's expanse to close with the Orks who were now roaring in indignation and firing across the expanse wildly.
"FOR DORN!" Trax hooted gleefully as he leapt over the pile of detritus they'd been scavenging through, and his boots collided with an Ork on the other side, crunching down and snapping the brute's ribs even as Trax thumbed the activation rune on his chainsword and brought it down in an arc to slice open the greenskin's throat.
Elemiah followed suit, drawing his power sword, which flashed as it activated, crackling with energy as he drove it into the open roaring mouth of another Ork. With a snap of his wrist, the top of the Ork's head disconnected from its lower jaw. The remaining handful were unsure if they should retreat or fight back. Their hesitation cost them their lives, as Elemiah's brethren fired off carefully placed rounds and cut them down. The bolt rounds exploding on impact as the mass reactive shells hit the Orks. The bodies fell and the Deathwatch squad regrouped.
"None escape the Deathwatch." Wulfgar said proudly as he surveyed the carnage. His yellow almost canine eyes glinted with battle lust as he looked over the dead Orks.
"And good thing. We do not need to draw further attention to ourselves." Elemiah cautioned. Wulfgar snorted at him, but said nothing. Elemiah knew that Wulfgar hated sneaking around. He was a Devastator Marine. He wanted nothing more than to put that plasma cannon to work burning holes through the Emperor's foes. This sneaking around that they were doing, was not to his liking.
"Move out. To the back. Come." Elemiah ordered in his short, clipped manner as he deactivated his power sword and reactivated the magnetic lock that kept it at his side. Bolt pistol in hand, he ordered Trax to once again take point as they stepped from the hive spire and into the underhive. They stepped from darkness and ruin, into hell itself.