The training hall was spacious, roughly twenty meters across and twice that in height. One entire wall of the chamber was taken up by weapon racks; swords, axes, spears, and a myriad of every other weapon imaginable. Another side of the hall was dominated by a vertical obstacle course. Hand holds had been carved into the wall at irregular intervals, and different sections of the wall were in constant motion creating an ever-moving tapestry. A third wall was a transparent paneling, showing the barren, crater-marked landscape on the moon they were situated on. The final wall had several doors set into it, each one bearing the mark of the Imperial Inquisition. The center of the hall was dominated by a dueling arena, currently in use.
The combat servitors rushed at Verilius, approaching him in a rough half circle formation. Each of the half human-machine creations was equipped with four arms, each wielding curved hook blades. On reverse jointed legs, they rushed at him with a speed rivaling that of an Astartes, their blades flashing towards him in a brutal display of machine wrought ability. The three opponents threatened to surround Verilius if he did not make the first move, and so he did.
In a flash of movement, Verilius rushed forward across the training floor. His power armored bulk slammed into the first servitor, its hooked blades scraping at the black ceramite, unable to deliver a proper lethal blow. His right hand, armed with a chainsword came up in a quick guard against the servitor to his right, the closest of his foes. He parried several flashing cuts as he disengaged from the first servitor, bringing the gladius in his left hand up and around. Still close enough to the first servitor to prevent it from using its extended arms, the gladius plunged into the exposed neck. Sparks and ichor exploded from the wound, showering Verilius's exposed face to both.
He grabbed the dying servitor and spun it around, using it as a shield to block the blows of its two compatriots for several moments. Pulling the gladius from its neck, he shoved the servitor forward, using its body to foul the advance of the third servitor. Its arms flailed out, cutting into its dead compatriot as it tried to disentangle itself even as Verilius rushed the second servitor. This servitor was ready for him, having analyzed the combat tactics used thus far. On its stilted, back jointed legs it leaped backward. Using its superior reach and combat ability with four arms, it attempted to keep Verilius at bay. Verilius blocked many of the strikes with his chainsword and gladius, losing ground against the relentless onslaught.
The sound of the first servitor's corpse hitting the ground told Verilius his other opponent would be coming for him now. He brought his chainsword up in a horizontal slashing cut, blocking three of the servitor's cuts in one motion and throwing it off balance. He could not capitalize on this though, as he had to turn quickly. The third servitor had flung itself forward on its powerful legs, and Verilius only saw a blur of motion as he moved. Rather than challenging it head-on, a prospect that had proven difficult with the other servitor, he instead launched himself forward. A combat roll was difficult in power armor, but not impossible. His roll brought him up behind the servitor, and before it could pivot to face him, he brought the chainsword around. The servitor's right leg was severed at the knee, sending it toppling, overbalanced, onto its side. Verilius was ready, and the moment the servitor slammed into the ground, his gladius slammed into its skull. The sheer power of the blow shattered the gray-colored skin and metallic components, and Verilius withdrew his gore-covered fist.
The final servitor was beginning to move towards Verilius as he turned on his heel, and threw his gladius at its chest. A flash of its metallic arms blocked the gladius, sending it careening across the training hall floor. It did not see the severed arm of its fellow servitor, cut off by Verilius as he threw his gladius, following in its wake a moment later. Blinded by the gladius and its own defense, the servitor could not react fast enough to the curved blade as it flew through its defenses, and plunged into its chest. The force of the blow took the servitor from its feet, and it flew across the training hall for several feet before finally slamming down in a cacophony of metal on metal.
Verilius pushed himself to his feet, his eyes locked on the broken forms of his opponents before him. He began to cast his eyes about him for more targets, more enemies to kill. He was interrupted by a voice behind him, catching him off guard. "You know how difficult it is for us to replace servitors here, brother." Spinning, Verilius found himself staring down at the blade of his own gladius, held centimeters from his exposed face. Beyond the blade, Verilius's eyes focused on the shaven and weathered face of Sergeant Mitrius. Wearing his customary look of disapproval and ill humor, the sergeant held the blade against Verilius for several seconds before lowering it. He flipped the blade with a quick motion and extended its hilt first back to its owner.
"I have been trying to speak to you for several minutes, have you not heard?" Verilius turned his head, blue eyes glancing at his helmet laying haphazardly on a stack of crates near one of the weapon racks. From this distance, he could see the flashing red light of an incoming vox signal. A grimace crossed his face as he turned back to Verilius, and he shrugged his shoulders. "I apologize, sergeant. I was focused on honing my skills and ability as is our focus here." The neutral-toned response drew a grunt from Mitrius as he shook his head. "I suppose you also forgot that during live training exercises, you are required to wear your full armor. The helmet is included in that description, Verilius."
Taking a step forward, Mitrius brought his hand up and tapped the purple and gold right shoulder pauldron of Verilius's armor, a golden hawk blazoned proudly on it. "You are from a proud Chapter, Verilius. The Hawk Lords are a storied and honored Chapter with a history detailing many victories. Your traditions are valued and respected here, Verilius, but they are not the only ones." With the same hand, Mitrius then tapped the large, beautifully decorated, and inscribed silver pauldron on the left side of Verilius's armor. "Here and now, you are part of the Deathwatch. The traditions of your Chapter must be tempered with the rules and regulations of our organization."
Mitrius stared at Verilius for several seconds, clearly waiting for a reply from the Astartes. Finally, Verilius responded. "I understand, Sergeant Mitrius. It will not happen again." Seemingly appeased by this response, Mitrius nodded. "Very good, Verilius. It would be a shame to lose our best pilot in a training accident, after all. Now, I have summoned the kill team for a mission briefing. The Inquisition needs our service." Clasping Verilius's arm for just a moment, Mitrius turned and departed the training hall. Verilius slid his gladius back into its place on his back and turned to walk towards his helmet. Grabbing it, he was locking it onto his hip with maglock when he felt a presence behind him. He spun, the chainsword still in his hand revving to life with a roar. His eyes cast about him, taking in the entire training hall. His eyes told him he was alone, but he could have sworn there had been…something.
"I have been listening to Dagrath too much…" Shaking his head, he began to move towards the exit of the training hall, when the presence passed by his ear. 'He does not respect you…' Snapping his head around, Verilius stared around him, before cursing and grabbing his helmet from his hip. He pulled it on, briefly overwhelmed by the suits' systems and information flooding across his senses. He checked the auspex and other sensory systems in the artificer armor, but they all returned nothing. The presence was gone now, but the words lingered.
With a curse lingering on his lips, Verilius departed the training hall.
Watch Station Dammeos was large for an installation of its kind. The Watch Fortresses of the Deathwatch, the Ordo Militant of the Inquisition's Xenos branches, were massive bastions of power. There, entire kill-teams of Deathwatch Astartes trained and deployed for missions across wide swathes of the Imperium. The Watch Stations, in contrast, were of lesser status. Highly important the inner workings of the Deathwatch, the Watch Stations served as the forward observation posts and long-range intelligence gathering stations. Most were unmanned, automated facilities overseen by servitors and perhaps a tech-priest. Station Dammeos was large enough to hold a single kill team, but no active forces were stationed there unless a mission was being planned.
Kill-team Mitrius had been deployed to Dammeos three weeks ago. They had found the Watch Station ready for them but had not received their deployment orders as of yet then. They had been placed on standby; a fast reaction force ready to move at a moment's notice to a crisis point in the nearby Imperial sectors. Three weeks of waiting, training, and bonding had gnawed on Verilius' mind. Finally, though, it was time for action.
The Stratagem of Watch Station Dammeos was a large circular chamber. Banners of victories won by kill-teams deployed from the station lined the walls, covering the drab dull gray metal walls. Two rows of benches, one above the other, dominated the upper two levels of the room, while a third lower level held the large holographic table humming with power. The room was illuminated by bright beams of light from overhead displays, illuminating the six Astartes within.
Kill-team Mitrius was roughly average size in terms of Deathwatch deployments; only taking up half the benches in the chamber. Standing at the holographic table, Sergeant Mitrius was tapping in the final commands. His stern features were set in concentration, the blue and gold badge of the Ultramarines on his right shoulder. Dagrath stood near Mitrius, arms folded across his chest with barely controlled annoyance. The red, braided hair and wolf-like features identified him as a Space Wolf even more than the gray and gold badge on his shoulder. Superstitious as all his kind were, he often spoke of spirits that walked the halls of the Watch Station. He acted as the second in command of the kill team, though this was more out of service time within the Deathwatch than true ability to lead.
Sitting on one of the benches on the highest level of the room, still wearing his helmet, Verilius turned his gaze to look past the holographic table. Sitting directly across from him, bareheaded with flowing gold hair, was Cadareon. The annoyance etched into the man's features stood at odds with his near-perfect features, the hallmark gift of the Primarch of his gene line, Sanguinius. A member of the Angel's Glorious. Cadareon had the arrogance to match the name of his Chapter, and the black skull with a glowing halo of gold on a crimson field did nothing to dispel the distaste Verilius had for the man.
Below Cadareon, the brothers Eremis and Paxor sat in muted conversation. They were not truly brothers, but the near-perfect similarity between the two kept such jokes alive. Both warriors hailed from the bloodline of Dorn; Eremis from the Crimson Fists and Paxor from the Shadow Wolves. Both warriors kept their white blonde hair cut short around their temples, and it was rare to find the two far apart from one another. In the mismatched 'brotherhood' of the Deathwatch, it was not uncommon to forge closer bonds with those battle-brothers from your own lineage. By those standards, Verilius and Mitrius should have been close as well.
Too bad Verilius disliked the man. He disliked all of his squad mates, and for the most part, they all disliked each other. Kill-teams usually had months if not decades to train and fight with one another. Bonds were formed, and comrades forged in the fires of duty. Kill-team Mitrius had been formed less than a month before, each warrior having been drawn from other kill teams to form this new one. In time perhaps they would forge bonds together, but Verilius would have to wait and see.
Finally, the holographic projector sputtered to life, casting the room in a luminescent green glow. The brothers stopped talking, and Dagath looked up at the image with a slightly less annoying expression. Hovering a meter from the table was the glowing image of a planet. Two continents are separated by a single world-spanning ocean. Roughly temperate climate by the look of the equatorial regions, though there were signs along the edges of the forest regions that the planet experienced severe winters. All these thoughts flashed through Verilius's mind even before Mitrius began to speak, drawing Verilius's attention away and to the Ultramarine as he began the debriefing.
"Bacora Primus, an Imperial industrial world on the edge of the Nexos Sub-Sector. The planet is of negligible strategic importance; the only thing of use from the world is its location near a stable warp lane. Three months ago, the planet experienced an unexpected meteor shower lasting approximately nine hours. Most of the meteors disintegrated in orbit but a few landed in the mountains on the eastern continent. A month after this, the first reported appearance of an unknown xenos species began to crop up." As he spoke, the image of Bacora Primus began to shift, focusing on the eastern continent just above a glowing red icon. It was centered in a large mountain range, and as Verilius watched, it slowly began to expand out.
"A full investigation, led by an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos who happened to be on the world, discovered golem's in the mountains near the impact sites." As if unlocked by that word from Mitrius, information began to spill across Verilius's mind, detailing to him all the information on the golem species planted into his mind by hypnotic conditioning upon his joining of the Deathwatch.
The golems were a strange species, stranger than most in the galaxy. They were a space-faring species in the loosest sense of the world. Made from living stone, the golems traveled between worlds, seeding themselves on the planet using meteor showers before beginning to spread across the surface. They harvested the natural mineral resources of a world, using it to create more golems, before departing the world and traveling on to the next in their migration. golem infestations were rare in the Imperium and were easily dealt with by local planetary defense forces most times. It made little sense for a Deathwatch kill team to be made aware of such a threat.
Dagrath voiced this very thought. "Golems are hardly a threat worthy of Astartes attention, let alone the Deathwatch. Any farmer with an autogun can blow them apart with ease. A single tank rolling through that mountain will end the threat in a day." The others in the room nodded their assent, having come to the same conclusion from the knowledge in their own minds. "Usually you would be correct, but this migration seems to be different. This image was captured by local PDF forces, and it was of concern enough that the Inquisition put us on standby while they confirmed it." Tapping a few more commands into the holographic table, the image of Bacora Primus disappeared entirely, being replaced by a short, static-filled recording.
Taken from a top-down, slanted view, a town dominated the majority of the holographic field. Trenches had been dug around the town in three, jagged lines, filled with men and women firing autoguns and the occasional lasgun over the top of the trenches. Moving across the field in clustered mobs were golems. Nearly two meters in height, the average golem was made of connected segments of rock, appearing to have been slapped together rather than grown. They possessed no technology or true military capability, and most offensive tactics carried out by the species, if they could even be called tactics, involved advancing on a threat and beating it to death with its rock-made arms. Even Orks possessed more sense than a golem.
This is why the recording was of such interest. As the kill team watched, a golem warrior raised its right arm, and an arc of purple-black lightning shot out. It struck a PDF trooper just as he emerged from the trench to open fire, slamming into the man's face. The recording zoomed in on the man, and the assembled Astartes watched with confused interest as the man's body began to darken. The lightning traveled up and down his body in an endless wave, burning his skin to a cinder. If the recording had been able to relay audio, Verilius was certain the man's agony-filled screams would have been a haunting sound. The corpse of the PDF trooper fell to the ground, the lightning around his body finally shooting out and killing the trooper next to him in the trench before finally dissipating.
Up and down the trench line, the same scene was being repeated. Return fire from the PDF was killing several golems, but the defense was crumbling quickly under the onslaught as more golems continued to stumble into the frame. The recording came to an end as an arc of lightning shot up the hill, slamming into whoever had been making the recording. Silence dominated the stratagem for several moments as the recording began to replay before Mitrius stopped it.
"That looked like psychic powers to me." The blunt statement came from Paxor, earning a nod of affirmation from the rest of the kill team. "That is the thought of the Inquisition as well. To date, the golems have never been seen to possess psyker abilities. The Inquisitor on Bacora Primus sent word for a kill team to be put on standby while he verified the PDF reports. This recording was the final proof the Inquisitor needed before calling us into action."
The holographic image shifted once more, focusing on the mountain range where the golem's meteors had landed. "Our orders are to get to Bacora Primus and head into this mountain range. The hope is that this is an isolated incident for golems and that something on this world has caused this change in them. We are to infiltrate behind enemy lines and find what that something is, and either capture it or eliminate it. If not, then this could simply be the start of an evolution for the golem and the threat they pose to the Imperium will become permanently more dangerous. A vessel waits for us in orbit, we leave within the hour."
The holographic image terminated, and the kill team departed the stratagem. As Verilius was departing the room, he felt the presence once again next to his ear.
'Yes, come to me…'
Hello all! This is my second story on the site, focusing on another topic of interest for me. I do hope you enjoy this story, and if you find the time, go check out my other story as well! If you have a moment, I would love it if y'all could leave a quick review! Any questions or thoughts you might I would be more than happy to read and hopefully get a response out to you in the next chapter! Like always, I will not guarantee a regular posting schedule, but I do promise future chapters. Have a great day!