Umbram Ignis Chapter 26
The teleportarium of Silent Hunter was a templum to the arcane mysteries of the Omnissiah, a place for reverence and devotions that had continued uninterrupted for centuries. The space was filled with mighty towers of humming machinery and strange protuberances that spat fat lightning from pylon to pylon. Cooling towers shone cherry red as they sought to keep pace with the surging energies. Everywhere chanting Mechanicus Magi moved in patterns pleasing to the Omnissiah, as they swung censers filled with blessed incense and recited binary litanies to soothe the machine spirits. The whole place resonated with barely restrained power and the tang of disaster held at bay the slenderest of margins.
In the centre of the teleportarium a group of Space Marines were stood upon a wide Adamantium plate, they were spread out in a circle with weapons pointed outwards as they tried not to stare at the bizarre rituals going on around them. Stood at one cardinal point was Captain Toran. He was holding the Sword of Thiel ready as he communicated over the vox, to his right were the brothers of his Command Squad, Furion, Bylan, Novak, Persion and Jediah while to his left was Sergeant Lorath and his assault squad. They were waiting for the signal from the ground team that the Dark Eldar had taken the bait, which should allow the infiltrators to plant a teleport beacon. It was a simple plan but everyone was thinking of what could go wrong. It was still infinitely preferable to thinking about the upcoming teleportation. As Toran co-ordinated their efforts he glanced over at young Bylan who was tightly gripping the Company Standard. Many mortals wouldn't understand why they were taking a banner into battle but any Astartes would have grasped how it would fire the courage of the Brothers and how they would fight all the harder for standing in its shadow.
Toran saw that Bylan was kneading the adamantium haft with his hands and the Sergeant asked, "Is this first time you have used a teleportarium?"
Bylan gulped, "+Yes, but I have heard the Veterans speak of it… they did not sound reassuring+"
Toran reassured him, "Quieten your anxiety brother, it will take but a moment, one second you are here and the next you are there."
Novak chipped in, "That's right, nothing to worry about you are only going to be shunted through the Warp itself, exposed to its currents and monsters without a Gellar field."
"Novak… shut up," Furion snapped as everybody squirmed but the Sergeant carried on, "Stand proud brothers and remember that this is but a trial like any other and we shall overcome it!"
The conversation was interrupted as Toran declared, "The beacon has gone active, the Smoke-Jaguars have done it, everybody prepare for Deep Strike!"
Instantly everybody tensed up and gripped their weapons tighter as the Tech-Priests chanting became frantic and the intermittent lighting flashing over their heads surged into a thunderous barrage. The noise level was incredible and strobing lights made the room seem like a scene from a nightmare. Toran looked over at the most ornately clad Tech-Priest and saw him hold up one hand with three metal fingers extended. He reduced that to two as the great cooling towers blazed scarlet and struggled to keep pace with the mighty engines while any loose items rattled and jittered from the fierce vibrations. Then the Tech Priest dropped to one finger and the gathered Mechanicus Magi raised their arms in praise to the Machine God.
The gathered Space Marines were not afraid, it was not possible for them to be afraid, but even so concern tainted their thoughts. Toran raised his voice and loudly shouted over the din, "We are the Emperor's finest warriors. Uur will is iron and our muscles steel, in war we are forged and no foe can best us in battle! We are the bulwark against the terror; we are the defenders of Humanity; we are the Space Marines!"
And as one everybody raised their voices to cry in defiance of the horror to come, "And We Shall Know No Fear!"
Finally the last finger fell and a waterfall of lightning bolts leapt down from on high to earth into the metal plate, surrounding the Space Marines in dazzling walls of blinding white light. Incandescent energies swept over the Space Marines, both burning their skin and freezing their bones at the same instant. The light penetrated every inch of them and coursed with otherworldly sensations. Those who had experienced this before would try to describe it as the inexplicable feeling of both being crushed into a tiny point and simultaneously stretched on an excruciation rack, whilst also being dropped into a bottomless pit as the universe rushed by their eyes but absolutely nobody would speak of what came next for here words failed. The eldritch engines forced the Astartes into the Warp and they experienced the terrible sensation of their very essence dissolving. For a single second they were exposed to the nightmarish unreality of the immaterium and felt the horrific things that dwelt within turning hungry gazes upon them. Each one of the Space Marines felt his mind and body peeled apart under the ravenous scrutiny and for a single moment they all ceased to exist, their lives and experiences reduced to an equation with a sum total of zero. They were nowhere and they were nothing all at once.
Then with a flash of light and searing pain reality snapped back into being and they found sanity reasserting itself around them, only now they were elsewhere. Toran's senses flooded back and his genhanced mind processed everything to tell him three things. The first was the check of his brother's status and he was relieved to see that the beacon assisted Teleportation had for once functioned flawlessly; all his Marines had arrived whole and intact. The second thing he noted was that they had arrived in a macabre hall that was large enough to hold a Warhound Titan and could muster a company's worth of vehicles, yet the walls were covered in foul runes and alien script that seemed to writhe as the eye followed it. The roof that was supported by dark arcing pillars that bore an eerie resemblance to blackened ribs and from these hung human bodies in various states of ruin but none of these were dead, they were not permitted to die until every last drop of suffering had been extracted. In the very centre of the hall was towering half-arch made of creamy Wraithbone, it sat alone and exposed, apparently serving no function save as a single mote of purity in that scene of mad horror.
The third thing Toran noted was that they had arrived in the middle of a battle. All around them were purple-clad bodies bearing sharp blades and spindly rifles that spat crystal splinters with no regard for their fellows. Mixed in among their numbers were a handful of Transhumans in ceramite coloured darkest brown and black. The Smoke Jaguars were struggling to survive as the battle surged over them and many had already fallen to the ground with genhanced blood gushing out from gaping rents in their plate. In the midst of the battle Shade-Seer Imix was spinning his Force Staff in great loops, keeping the Xenos at bay as they enclosed him on all sides. The battle must have been moments away from ending in the Smoke Jaguar's defeat, but the sudden emergence of the Storm Heralds changed all that. The flash and shock of displaced air had thrown the Eldar back and left many of them reeling, for their too acute senses were overwhelmed.
Toran wasted not a moment as he leapt forwards and swung the Sword of Thiel to slice a Wych into two, then the rest of his Brothers followed him into the fray, roaring in anger as they vented their rage upon the vile Eldar who had dared set foot upon one of the Emperor's worlds. The arrival of the Storm Heralds shifted the whole balance of the fight as a heavy wedge of armoured ceramite hammered into the Eldar and crushed anything within reach. Chainswords rose and fell in a relentless piston action and each blow cut the thread of an alien life. The warriors advanced mercilessly, taking advantage of the Eldar's disorientation and they hammered their foes like a tireless machine of war. The Xeno's individual skills and exhibitionist styles were no match for the unity of the Astartes and the Space Marines tore them to shreds in frenzy of bloodletting. This was war at its most brutal and inelegant, the sharp point of the spear being driven home and the graceful panache of the Eldar could not cope.
In seconds the Storm Heralds had slaughtered two score Xenos, but the moment could not last for a tight knot of Dark Eldar Warriors was reforming, coming together to form an effective firing line even as their kin fell to the Astartes' weapons. They rallied around a Sybarite who screamed threats and imprecations at them and in moments he turned a gaggle of broken individuals into a deadly wall of jagged weapons, a manoeuvre that the most skilled Imperial Stormtroopers could not have performed midfight. Caught in the melee the Storm Heralds could not prevent the Sybarite directing his brethren to bring their weapons to bear, disregarding the lives of their kin as they trained their weapons on the heart of the fight.
Toran saw that the looming danger was and called, "Lorath, beware the Sybarite, take him down!" Instantly the Sergeant heaved himself around and began hacking a path towards the knot of warriors, his assault squad followed him with chainswords cleaving apart purple clad bodies as they advanced. The Sybarite spotted them coming and redirected his warrior's salvo, concentrating entirely upon the Sergeant in an effort to take him down. Lorath saw the gun turning upon him and acted by stabbing his lightning claws into a random Eldar in his path and holding the Xeno up before him. Barely had he raised his meatshield when the fire came, riddling the body with lethal shards of crystal as the Sergeant ran at the knot of warriors.
Lorath snarled in anger and shook free the gory mess from his claws and then he pounced upon the warriors like a great predator upon a wounded gazelle, his lightning claws flashed with deadly speed tearing left and right to shred all he touched. All by himself he cut the knot of Eldar apart and the Sybarite was last to fall with his chest ripped to ribbons. Toran saw the Sergeant's feat from amid the melee and was about to hail him with words of thanks, but the cry died upon his lips as he saw fresh foes joining the fight. Entering the hall from a shadowy arch at the far end was another wave of enemies, warriors and Wyches leaping into battle with shrieking cries upon their lips. There were scores of them pouring into the fight and they surrounded the Space Marines with overwhelming numbers. Leading them was an Archon in shimmering blood-hued armour who wielded a long blade in one hand and a twitching whip in the other: it was Athra J'rect and he had come to claim the pleasure of the kill personally.
Toran saw the Archon sprinting into the fight was a mocking smile upon his lips and the Captain did not hesitate to act, he raised his Relic blade high for all to see and bellowed, "Forward Brothers and let us end this filth, We are the Emperor's Storm!"
As one his Marines followed him as they shouted, "We are His wrath!"