CHAPTER 2: First Strike

"To usher in a new kingdom, the old must be thrown down."

- Magnus the Red, Arch-Traitor of Humanity.

Any war has the same beginning. One single shot.

Historians may debate for years, decades, or even millennia on which shot was the first in a particular war.

Sometimes, the first shot in the first battle of the war is merely apparent, having been preceded by decades of preparations, secret backdoor dealings, shadowed meetings, all ultimately leading to the predicted and desired outcome.

For me, though, the first shot will always be the one which marked me for all life.

We had been sent, alongside the Sons of Horus, the Ultramarines, and the Imperial Fists to the world of Ancalimon Prime. A real backwater world if ever there was one.

Discovered by the 2143th Expeditionary Fleet, it was a Feudal World, without even gunpowder technology. It was divided between several kingdoms, each trying to gain primacy over the others, without success, leading to a state of constant, but limited, war. It had settled in such a state for more than two thousand years, without any outside interference to imperil its social structure.

In a week, the 720th Solar Auxilia Cohort shattered it all.

The inhabitants fought with swords, pikes, iron maces and shields…against Volkite Guns and Leman Russ Tanks. Brave. But futile.

They entered Imperial Compliance and became a Civilized World. An exemplary one in this desolate, backwater region of the Eastern Fringe.

The White Scars even recruited some young men from the planet. A rare honor given out by the sons of Chogoris. A perfect example of what Mankind could achieve through the Imperial Truth.

Until 455.005. M31.

A Sons of Horus Light Cruiser had received reports of a revolt on Ancalimon Prime. The local governor—a former Captain of the Solar Auxilia-was dead. The world was in the hands of the " Ancalimon Democratic State". Why normal people have to invent such complicated names for rebellion, it will forever elude me.

Upon hearing of it, Warmaster Horus chose to make Ancalimon the example of the Imperium's policy towards rebellion.

He ordered four Legions to deploy there and crush the rebellion rapidly and decisively before it could spread.

Here is the order of battle. I will probably remember it for the rest of my life.

- Sons of Horus: 30000 Astartes, under Captain Iacton Qruze

- Imperial Fists: 25000 Astartes under Captain Demetrius Katafalque

- World Eaters: 20000 Astartes under Standard Bearer Jeddek

- Word Bearers: 35000 Astartes under Chapter Master Hol Beloth

Additional support:

- 2 Army tank divisions (Malcador Heavy Tanks, Leman Russ)

We landed on Ancalimon using only drop pods. According to Horus, such an attack would surprise the rebels and throw them in disarray and panic.

Well, they did not panic. They were armed with standard issue Lasguns, some with leftover or stolen Solar Auxilia Volkites. That we expected, and were ready for.

But we were not prepared for the sheer madness which pushed them against us. They fired all they could at us, then they tried to attack us with fire-lit torches and rigged firebombs…which could make vehicle ops problematic, but were no use against Bolters.

Then…they began to blow themselves up. Using salvaged explosive charges from the Titanium mines on the planet, they strapped the charges upon themselves and tried to take us with them.

I have to say that often it worked. Many Marines were killed by the improvised bombers, because they had never faced such madness and were thus unprepared for it.

But we could never have imagined that the same madness, in a more subtle form, had taken root…in our own brothers, back in orbit. They were readying themselves to strike at us. This is the worst situation for a soldier. We were fighting an enemy…with a blade poised to strike at our backs.

After the battle was won, six hours after planetfall, we awaited pick-up.

What came from orbit….was a Virus Bomb Barrage. It struck the planet and began to turn any and all biological material to sludge. It was followed by a firestorm so powerful it lasted for a day and a night. The land turned rapidly to glass, and our forces tried to seek cover. Very few succeeded.

100.000 Astartes had landed on Ancalimon Prime.

97.000 Astartes were alive at the end of the battle against the rebels.

Less than 20.000 survived the firestorm.

Accurately, we were:

-Sons of Horus: 5212

-Imperial Fists: 3423

-World Eaters: 7219 (due to their emphasis on close combat, they were inside the city, where cover was most available)

-Word Bearers: 2993.

Without any means to contact outside support (even if we could do that, it would have been suicidal, due to the presence of the now-enemy fleet in orbit) and betrayed by our own brothers and fathers, forced out from an age of illumination into one of eternal warfare. If Hell existed, this was it.

Perhaps those who melted inside their own armor…were the lucky ones, for they did not survive the time needed to realize the sheer magnitude of the betrayal they had just suffered.

I was one of the unfortunate who survived. We believed that the Traitors would come down to finish the job and hammer us into oblivion, however it was not so.

They had already left. Going away to conquer vast swathes of the Imperium. To strike against those who will embrace them as brothers…and die bitten by thousands of vipers. Leaving us here, on this dead world, to die of starvation.

We survived for four long months, living upon recycled food rations or going into Suspended Animation to conserve energies, until another ship arrived and found us by chance.

It was the Echo of Justice, a Strike Cruiser of the Night Lords.

Now we are on Nostramo, the dark, sunless world the Eighth calls home. Unfortunately we could not go to Terra as the Night Lords vessel had been recalled by Lord Curze for an emergency of the gravest kind.

An entire Craftworld of Eldar -Ila'Manesh, as the xenos called it- had begun to systematically exterminate all humans in the north reaches of the Imperium closest to the Ghoul Stars. That put Nostramo and dozens more worlds, with tens of billions of people living on them, straight in the xenos' crosshairs…

And Curze, the King of the Night could not allow the worlds and the population he had reclaimed from the cold darkness to be sentenced to oblivion by these arrogant xenos. I could not fault him, despite all that had happened.

Well, no matter. To us, it will be like target practice for the real war. The War against the Traitors. These arrogant Eldar will feel the fiery wrath of the Survivors of Ancalimon Prime.

After them, it will be our Primarchs who shall feel it.

-Maloq Kartho, formerly Sergeant of the Word Bearers. Now interred inside a Castraferrum pattern Dreadnought.

From his text: The Wars in the Ghoul Stars.