Chapter One
Authors note, this story takes place in 989.M41. Some one hundred years before the present setting.
I do not own Warhammer or any of their properties, only my fan made characters and Chapters.
From one of the strike cruiser Sanguine Fury's observation domes, Captain Koro Aster watched the ships of his Fourth Company break from the warp. They accelerated hard, their engine stacks blazing brighter than suns. He watched for a near half hour, helm held in the crux of his arm, wishing to see with his enhanced vision, not that of his suits. The stacks burned brighter, slowly they formed a cordon around their lady, like an empress and her courtiers.
The domes cherub fluttered as it approached the captain. Mechanisms cracked and pistons hissed as it spoke. 'The company fleet has arrived, my lord,' said the human ship mistress Raxion. 'We are bringing them into standard formation. I note you are in the observation dome Galamedus. I will be bringing the shutters down soon, my lord.'
'Thank you, Raxion. I shall depart here shortly.' Aster said, his voice calm and strong.
He watched the ships that were now his to command, slowly coming into a crescent formation, Fury at the centre.
He turned away from the giant armour and crystalflex panels. The bottom most shutters rose up point first from their housings outside. They stopped the light from flooding out from the dome, slowly they began to crawl up the dome.
The dome opened and Brother Agorix entered. He carried himself the same way he always did, on edge, aggressive veins sticking out.
'My captain.' said Agorix.
'Yes, my brother?' Koro Aster said, not used to the new title he bore. Captain.
'We have arrived, Koro.' Agorix said with a touch of sympathy for his new captain.
'I know, I have been watching.' He said, spreading his hands in jest to the dome.
Aforix snorted a laugh. 'Just because you stand in Galamedus dome, does not mean you can show me his cheek, lad.'
Aster nodded. 'Of course, old man.'
The Sanguine Fury had barely reached the outer-system limits when the battle klaxons began to sound. They had arrived to be greeted by war. Koro Aster and Agorix reached the bridge to be greeted by Lexicanum Laernos. His sharp aquilian aspects were held by shoulder-length blonde hair, whilst his icy eyes crackled with barely contained energy. In reflection Aster and Agorix were different aspects of the primarch.
Koro's alabaster skin was sculptured with the smoothness of Sanguinius features his jaw in particular mirrored the primarchs own, his hazel hued eyes hid a rage behind there calm as his black hair was cropped short.
Agorix was a ruined cathedral. A wonder torn down and reconstructed again and again. His sun-kissed features were as much a mirror of his pilgrimages through the Mesa Gulley as they were a tail of forgotten wars.
Laernos nodded to both in turn. 'Captain Aster. Sergeant Agorix,' he said.
'What have we found, brother?' asked Aster.
The young warrior pointed to a hololith next to Raxion, it showed a pair of ships. The magnification was focused on the ships, yet some features were still disternable. The smaller of the vessels was a Dauntless-class light cruiser, a savage wound had torn asunder the starboard weapon arrays. The larger - if only just - was a stationary strike cruiser, its hammerhead prow was crumpled.
'We can prepare a boarding action at your word, captain.'
Aster nodded as information scrolled besides the strike cruiser. It is being cross-referenced with Chapter archives, both those of the Blood Knights and their Blood Angel forbearers. As a successor of such a venerable Chapter, the archives would be well-versed in the information being sought after.
'No exchange of fire,' Raxion stated.
A rune chimed besides the strike cruiser, informing the assembled host of the ships name and allegiance.
The ship is known to the Blood Angels. It was named the Herald of Barbarus, a ship of the Death Guard traitor Legion. Now, it was known as the Decay of Wrath, a vessel belonging to the Warband of the Gore-Flies. Once an undivided force of the Black Legion, now they served the Blood God and God of Decay. The prescenese of the Gore-Flies had been anticipated, but it was not a welcome one.
The Dauntless was named Light of Valour, a ship serving in the local battlegroup Trojans.
'What is the Light doing in a backwater system like this?' asked Agorix.
'We believe it was heading for refit,' said Raxion. 'At the nearby shipyard in the next system. We also believe that it was intercepted by the traitors on transit.'
Aster examined the vessel. 'The lifepods, have we found any drifting?'
'Negative, my lord. They are either still clinging to the hull, or they have been destroyed in the fury which took both vessels.'
Aster nodded once.
'Have we detected anything from either vessel?' asked Aster.
Raxion nodded. 'Yes, we detect energy build-up from the Wrath, most likely voids or engines. The Light is still showing signs of life, we suspect life to still be present along the port, specifically near what we believe to be a mag-lev to the bridge.'
Aster spoke after a moment. 'Very well, have the Wings of Blood prepare a full spread of torpedoes, target the Wrath, if it moves, kill it. Brother Laernos,' he said, turning to the Lexicanum. 'I will leave the inspection of the strike cruiser to you and Second Squad.'
Laernos nodded. 'As you say, so it will be.'
'I shall take First Squad to investigate the Light,' he inclined to Agorix.' If the strike cruiser moves, then make for your boarding craft brother. You will have little time to make your escape when the order is given.'
Brother Daecus was cleaning an inscribing bolter shells when the battle klaxon began to sound in his squad barracks. It was part of his pre-battle meditations. For him, as for his brothers, it was a focal point of concentration. A single item to focus his rage into an artful instrument of destruction. They stood around in rows and columns, like soldiers to be placed in their magazine transports.
The cell in which he resided had few personal possessions. He was a dour man, Daecus. He did not find comfort in the art of scholarly of his brothers, his own came in the heat of battle. A pair of lumens illuminated his cell, a glow-globe sat beside his bed and selve of data-slates. A stand held his Mark VII power armour in place.
The suit was red in bulk, the arms and both shoulder guards were white, trimmed in gold. His red helm marked him as a Tactical Marine, the white skull on the blue knee-pad as a member of Second Squad. The green blood-teardrop on his right shoulder outlined him as Fourth Company, the Chapter Badge, a black chalice, sat on the left. If he were a sergeant, his right shoulder guard would have been painted black.
When the klaxon sounded, the assembled Blood Knights in the barracks reacted with swift efficiency. Most were already fully armoured, already marching on to the designated embarkation bay.
Those who went unarmoured, like Brother Daecus, stood before their war-plate as the servitors and blood thralls assigned to them began armouring them in their ruby and snow armour, piece by piece. The armour meshed with the black carapace, bringing the armour to life as the Astartes departed their cells.
A small screen above the barrack doors had instructed them to journey to the embarkation bay. A boarding action then. Together with two of his battle-brothers, he made his way there.
He passed a small wall-shrine to the Great Angel, Sanguinius, he made the sign of the aquilia to his gene-sire, a bloom of warmth waved over him as he imagined the primarch as he had been. Then, he passed a shrine to Sangrael, the warrior-scholar that had been the first Master of the Knights. To this smaller one, he muttered a line from the Barbarossa Hymnal.
When Daecus arrived in the embarkation, he went to join his brothers in Second Squad. He noticed that only his and the First Squad were present, that none of the Company Command save his own Sergeant Oriax. His leathery skull was pierced above his left brow by a quartet of century service studs, whilst black stubble pierced his scalp.
Brother-Sergeant Agorix joined his squad, followed by Captain Koro Aster and Lexicanum Laernos
'My brothers,' said Aster. 'We have uncovered traitors in this system. First Squad shall accompany me on my inspection of an Imperial Navy light cruiser. Second shall accompany Brother Laernos of the traitor strike cruiser.'
A mutter of affirmatives echoed the young captains words. 'First Squad to the Stormraven Breaker of Tyranny, Second to the Sanguine Covenant.'
The Marine's trooped into their designated craft. A howl of engines sent the Blood Knights into the void.
The Breaker of Tyranny landed in a small bay for intra-fleet ferry ships, barely high enough to let the Stormraven enter. From there, the Knights made their way to the area which was believed to be a hold up for any survivors.
Two hundred meters into the cruiser, he opened his vox, linking it to a ship-wide command-vox-net believed to be still functional. 'This is Captain Koro Aster of the Blood Knights. To any surviving crew of this vessel, we are here to rescue you from the Traitor Astartes that have attacked you.' He received only silence. 'Brother Gendus,' he called forth a young warrior. 'What does your auspex detect?'
The young Knight came forwards, his hand-held auspex chiming as it was waving left to right as he spoke. 'At the range I can accurately examine, I am only finding small fixed life signs. I suspect them to be servitors of some form or another.'
Aster nodded and waved the young Marine back into formation. 'We will make form the bridge and secure it,' he said. 'Some one must still be alive here. Onwards.'
They jogged down the ships length another two hundred meters, halting only when red runes indicating contacts ahead appeared on Aster's helm display. The life signs were arrayed before the suspected still active mag-lev.
Aster brought his men into a spear-tip formation, Agorix at his left.
A boarding torpedo met them first, its petal-nosed barbed-tip keeping it held in place. The first bodies met them soon after that.
Human arms and legs had been torn off as if they were made from putty, heads had been pulped, brain-soup mingled with foul bodily fluids. Carapace armour had been ripped off, joints shattered. Glistening-wet organs, webbing made of veins were being played with by pudgy little creatures that stunk of death.
Yet all this, the smell of spilled vitae reached Aster. He salivated at the sight and smell, a burning desire welled up in him, both at the blood and the rage he felt at the sight of the dead and the small daemons.
'Brother Belephraen, cleanse them with your flame!' Aster commanded, calling upon the heavy flamer equipped warrior to cleanse the corridor of this foul decay. Twined flames washed over the dead and daemons, soon the corridor stunk like a charnel house.
'The Emperor knows their names,' Aster said, continuing his solemn march.
Aster pulls his ornate power sword from its decorated scabbard, the blade is old, older than even the memory of great Sangrael. It was a gift to the newfound Chapter at its founding those long millenia ago. Its spike pommel carribes a small blood-red jewel, a bloodstone mined from Baal itself.
They found the first of the Gore-Flies soon after, his neck and much of his chest is little more than gaping holes in which blood and pus have pulled. The sound of fighting is soon reinforced by a warcry from the Blood Knights.
'Brothers!' Aster shouted. 'For the Great Angel. For the Emperor!'
The cry was taken up by his brothers as they met the enemy, Aster and Agorix charging forward. The First Sergeant bore a two-handed chainsword, an eviscerator more at home with the Assault Marines than the Tactical's.
The sword-tip of the captains blade met the nape of traitor, the meat and armour had fused and scabbed over. Yet even that could not withstand the assault of the charging Marine. He decapitated the traitor with the strike, then moved to the next.
He killed another. The sword shifted in his hands to better angle his swing. The edge cut through the traitors bulbus helm, cutting down at an angle. He spun about and killed another with a flurry of short swings.
Around him, his brothers were finishing the last of the traitors of with point-blank bolter fire.
With a shallow breath, Aster curbed his thirst as best as possible.
He saw a thin, rickety barricade standing before the furthest of the dead traitors. Mortals stood in amazement at what they were seeing.
'Greetings, mortals. I am Captain Koro Aster of the Blood Knights, and I would speak with your leader.'
Afterword. So, this is just me going to have some fun with a fan made chapter. I am looking for criticism so please give me some. Aldo, I will be referencing some of James Swallows works with the Blood Angels, maybe some Annandale, Haley and Hinks along the way. Till next time, I've ben Jam/