Warding Sands

Prologue

Heat bored down on the members of Olympus squad as they lay prone upon a ridge that overlooked the desert wastes of Brigannion IV. The planet was a fortress world of the Imperium of Man, a supporting part of the Iron Cage that stood as the shield between the galaxy and the Eye of Terror, a massive warp rift that serves as the home of the many denizens of the Immaterium and the traitors of the Imperium. In the waning years of the 42nd millennium, incursions from the Eye became more and more frequents, so the fortress world had to become more vigilant than ever. Thus, why the skitarii of Olympus squad were out scouting and why Alpha Biya-Ike 23 was now scanning over the dunes with her Omnispex.

A groan to her right, broke her attention briefly as her friend, Josef, shifted in the sand. "Sand in one's joints is not fun. Why did we have to pull scouting duty, Bee?" He complained quietly, earning a soft chuckle from the Alpha as she reached over and patted his shoulder reassuringly.

"Because, my dear Josie, you had to go and spill a vat of cleansing oil in front of the Magos himself." She reminded him, causing the younger skitarii to groan more as he remembered his accident of bumping into a servitor to avoid one of the fortress's Iron Warriors.

Just then, the Raptor-class Machine Spirit of her Omnispex flashed a burst of binary across her view, directing her attention to a dip between dunes, several kilometers out from their position. The spirit highlighted six heat signatures that were moving slowly through the dunes. As she kept the device focused on these targets, the spirit began showing weak points, which appeared to be similar to those you would see on an Astartes warrior. Just as she was about to relay this to her squad, the targets passed a dune and became fully visible. Her Omnispex had just identified six traitor Astartes each wearing the colors of either the Blood Angles, Salamanders, or the Dark Angels. Biya stared in some disbelief, none of these legions would ever work together, at least from the things she had learned at the fortress, but here they were, sneaking along the surface of her fortress world.

She relayed this information to her squad, causing Josef to tense up and ready his rifle, even though they weren't in range yet. She also sent it to the Iron Warrior scouts that were in the adjacent sector. They would relay it back to their commander and then whatever orders are sent back. For now, her squad remained where they were, watching the small band of traitors wind through the dunes.

—

A console beeped rapidly signaling an update from one of the scout teams patrolling the surface of the planet. Ignolls Korthis, the commander of the scouts within the Iron Warriors fortress, leaned forward to read to the update. Skitarii squad Olympus, reports sighting of traitor Astartes moving through dunes of sector 174-Alpha. Orders? Korthis blinked rapidly in disbelief. Traitor? On Brigannion? That shouldn't be possible. He then keyed in a response for his scouts. Move to confirm, then eliminate. After sending that, Korthis got up from his seat in the data center. He routed the console to give him updates to his cognitive implant and made his way out of the center and into the fortress. He didn't doubt the skitarii, especially Olympus squad, but it was better to have full confirmation on something like this before he and the Warden set the fortress on high alert.

Korthis sighed as he walked towards the main keep of the fortress. Havi isn't going to like this… not one bit. He thought to himself as he prepared his report mentally for the Warden of the Planet of Steel.

—

Biya walked down a dune towards the devastation that had been wrought less than a minute earlier when her squad and the Iron Warrior scouts had ambushed the six traitor marines and rained fire upon them. They had received the order to confirm and execute over two hours ago and had since spent that time moving into position so the scouts could hit their armor and the skitarii could land precision shots in the new openings. The fight lasted just over two minutes, the logest part being a Dark Angel that kept up its psychic barriers before the scout-sergeant came up behind it and drove his chain-sword into the soft space between its chest plate and abdomen plates and brought it down.

The skitarii alpha made her way up to the scout-sergeant as he finished his report to command and then looked at her before kicking the corpse of the Dark Angel below him. "Scouts, probably sent ahead of a larger force. Judging from the direction they were moving in, I'd say they were trying to get to the Adegan Mountains." He said and put his chain-sword back on his hip

"Which would put them in a prime position to ID the primary defenses." She said with a soft sigh. "Meaning they aren't the only scouts, and we might have a siege on the horizon…"

The scout-sergeant nodded his head before letting out a soft chuckle as he shook his head. "Suppose we'll have to take a raincheck on this week's card game?"

She laughed and gave the sergeant a playful slap on the shoulder. "Shame… I may have let you win this time, sergeant."