STAR OF IPPICRUS
1
THE AMBUSH WAS SUBLIMELY ORCHESTRATED. Timed to painstaking precision.
If Veteran Sergeant Raphael of Dark Angels 7th Company had been given more than a few seconds to ponder the assault he would have delighted in the pure audacity of the enemy troops involved. It would have taken weeks of preparation for any lesser foe to accomplish such a task. As it was, Draznicht, traitor marine, Champion of the Fallen, nemesis of the Dark Angels, had devised his plans faultlessly - and they spelled certain doom for the ragged remains of Sergeant Raphael's tactical squad.
They had been walking single file across the red sands of the Bleeding Sea for eight, gruelling hours when the trap was sprung.
The crashed Valkyrie was a sharply defined criss-crossing of wreckage at the top of the sand dunes. A stark silhouette against the burning twilight. It's dark bulk of metal beams and ribbed hull, the crucifix shape of its snapped tail boon, backlit by the fiery red wash of the horizon.
Raphael's auto-senses had already taken readings. The wreckage was cold, abandoned. Thirty meters within their field of fire.
It was there within that wreckage that the Star of Ippicrus awaited. The ancient relic Librarian Brother Turmiel had brought Sergeant Raphael and his squad all the way across Segmentum Ultima to recover, all the way to this blistering moonworld of rusted sands. All for the glory of simply rising in the eyes of Ezekiel, the Dark Angel's mercurial Chief Librarian. Sergeant Raphael had seen many a young Librarian and prospective Captain come to a grisly end for engaging upon such trial quests. But it was not for him to question such commands, or to doubt the Librarian's wisdom - or lack thereof.
The vanjileen spikes shot up from the red sands and bit into the young Librarian's leg. Turmiel screamed aloud and toppled forward. It happened so suddenly that it caught every marine in the squad unawares. Even Raphael wondered for a brief moment if it was not one of the moonworld's deadly fauna risen up to devour them. But then he caught sight of the rusted metal pincers fastened about Turmiel's ankle, the claws punctured deep inside the man's power armour.
Before the veteran sergeant could scream out a warning the once quiet desert of the Bleeding Sea erupted into malevolence.
At first it seemed as though the ambush was purely of human planning.
Half way up the dune toward the crashed Valkyrie the sand shifted and twenty figures emerged howling, brandishing pistols and close-combat weapons in their fists. They were dressed in the red and bone vestments of the Blood Kin - a nomadic tribe belonging to the region. But as the howling barbarians descended upon his squad Raphael could see the ruinous glyphs and tell-tale marks etched into the Blood Kin's flesh.
These were no ordinary tribesmen. These killers were Chaos bred.
Then the veteran sergeant noticed movement atop the crashed Valkyrie. Targeting reticules in his visor bracketed the ponderous shape of a heavy stubber gunner. Raphael drew breath to call out his warning but the heavy stubber opened up immediately and sent him toppling backward into the sands, damage readouts scrawling up the edges of the tactical display on his vambrace as the heavy caliber rounds glanced off his chest plate and gorget, narrowly missing his bared face.
The other marines fared no better. Aramon, their heavy gunner, shifted his plasma cannon upon the dual axis vernier tethers attached to his upper armour. The plasma cannon roared, but the bolt shot into the darkening sky like a fleeing sun as heavy stubber rounds screamed off the large marine's helm and pouldrons. Beside him brothers Vestes, Brinn and Tars rolled across the ground.
Great geysers of red sand shot up into the sky, marching around the sprawled marines like dancing wraiths. A vanguard to the onrushing horde of Blood Kin. The Chaos tribesmen fired their pistols as they ran down their prey.
Brother Vestus was flung backward as heavy stubber rounds and small arms fire stitched a deadly path across his helm, shattering his eye lens. His bright augmetic blood sprayed the air along with his dying shriek.
The rage blossomed inside Veteran Sergeant Raphael. How could this happen? How could this barren landscape turn upon them so easily? How could mere cultists have fooled them?
Turmiel in his pain and desperation flung out his hands. The telltale stomach flop of the Warp tainted the world in a broad circle around the Librarian as he drew upon his gifts to smite the onrushing horde. But the Librarian's misaligned witchfire flickered over their heads and into the air, as useless a tool as if it had never been.
The remaining five Dark Angels attempted to return fire as the Blood Kin rushed upon them.
Tars fired his plasma gun and one of the cultist's burst into fleshy ruin, showering his kin with smoking chunks of meat. The rest of the space marines had barely enough time to raise their weapons.
Then the heavy rattle of boltguns shattered the twilight - but its source did not come from the Dark Angels.
Brinn's arm was ripped away and his chest plate sundered open. His corpse fell backward, the dark stain of his blood spreading out beneath him as the red sands lapped it up like a starved dog.
Raphael howled aloud his grief. He caught a brief glimpse of five huge figures shuffling into position atop the Valkyrie before he drew his chainsword to confront the charging Blood Kin.
The five armoured figures were much bulkier than the stubber gunner. Almost eight feet tall a man. Even from here, at the base of the dune, Raphael could see the sharp ridges of horns, the shrieking skulls and flickering tongues protruding from their abhorrent armour.
The sergeant's heart thundered with rage and sorrow, almost igniting his reserve heart into wakefulness.
The ambush was complete. There was little chance left. Up there atop the crashed transport stood none other than five members of the Fallen. Draznicht a Chosen Champion and four of his Ravagers. The Dark Angels had faced them upon many worlds, fought against them in many battles. Draznicht was renowned for his strategic aptitude upon the field and his skill with his deadly, power maul. Raphael had seen the creature kill many of his brothers with that shimmering, hateful weapon.
The boltguns of the traitor marines ripped the skies with fury and flame as the cultists fell upon the four remaining Dark Angels. Cruel laughter echoed from above.
For Raphael and his brothers there was little else to do but fight to the end.