)))+ Further real time situational updates corrupted beyond recovery. Transcripts contained and destroyed as per commands of the Sigillite.
==== Continuing sources for this record noted from firsthand accounts of Legion Captains cross referenced under debriefing of Captain Skius Centermerius; Seventh Company Eleventh Legion Astartes. [C. 850.01.29 M 30.]
/
[Estimated Mark 81.30]
:::: Xeno's strength grossly underestimated. (Theoretical) Potentially tens of thousands of refugees had taken shelter in power plant, unbeknownst to Legion officers.
Multiple reports, of unknown madness has overtaken all noncombatants and sent them into a frenzy. -==- Auxiliary machine infantry doctrines appear to have similarly lost all discipline in execution, the synthetics have joined their masters' insane counter charge. Expanse of new behavioral patterns: (Unknown)
/[{}]\ Seventh and Sixty First company positions deemed untenable under mounting casualties [Estimated Mark 81.10]
}}}}!Vanguard Commander Centermerius orders retreat to surface.
- Unanticipated Warp interference blocking all communications with orbital forces.
/Praetor's instructions Un-received}/
Strike group rendezvousing with Diaconus Master Bruis at breach point. Investigation to commence into current circumstances.
· Intermittent contact with Colonel Kenneth. Potential reinforcements en-route, but not anticipated.
/:::::/
Thought for the day:
"The universe is under no obligation to make any sense to you."
- Neil Degrasse Tyson
We had entered the labyrinthine underground in a force five hundred strong. I was certain every precaution for entering this zone of death had been taken.
Two hundred brothers and a score of auxiliary units under gunship cover with Master Bruis remained at the surface to watch our backs. We were meticulous, taking our time descending and clearing every space we found. Never spreading out into any groups of less than two squads. Guns on hair triggers, breachers leading the way.
Arminger almost chastised me for cowardice. But I knew our casualties would have been greater had we rushed ahead not supporting one another in a vain quest to tally kills and cover ground.
Fifty brothers had fallen in this foray. Left where they had given their last full measure, and now awaited the apothecaries' grim final duty. Struck down by ambush fire, or were the unlucky who made us aware of Xeno traps. Most fell as a painful reminder of the great power the few Knights we overran still possessed.
And then they came.
The proverbial hornet's nest broken open. Wave after wave, hundreds before thousands of Ra'Chaal and their mechanical constructs rushing out of the deep darkness. Screeching and hissing blood calls in a tongue none knew but all could feel the malice behind. The alien's bodies shifting in color away from the common green into sickly red and tainted orange covered in sores and boils. Each and every one of them frothing at the mouth and screaming their lungs out as they charged.
Sheer weight and momentum forcing our line back. Bolters scythed down constructs and creatures by the dozen. But the cramped spaces short distance and I am not ashamed to admit it, the surprise struck in us by this tactic mitigated the effectiveness of our first volleys.
And they were upon us. Like a swarm of ants stabbing their hands with frenzied unnatural strength into armor joints and soft patches even as they were beaten down and cut apart in melee. Their machines detonated themselves on top of brothers buried beneath alien bodies. Squads were overran within seconds.
I moved through the battle brothers not yet engaged. Ordering them to pull back and head to the exhaust shafts where we could mass and make a stand. Sending runners out to find the others hidden in this underground making my way back to the control room we had breached.
There in the dark metal corridors outside I found Captain Arminger, laying into the horde with his axe. Forced to use his shield more as a second club, covered head to toe in alien gore while his assault marines ripped their chainblades through foe after foe.
Their latest skirmish was practically won by the time I found them. But still I leapt into the fray to do my part.
Alien blood washing away the traitor's coating my claws.
I stood by my second as the last fell, but I still heard the howls of another wave approaching. Swallowing the sounds of bolters trying to shoot them back in the distance. I had no trouble convincing Arminger to fall back.
He too saw the dire auspex scans.
Scans which showed potentially no end to this horde, even as we kept killing them by the thousands encircled on the ramparts of three major exhaust vents.
Flamers spewed promethium, heavy bolters and frag grenades sent up sprays of purple mist more than fire and shrapnel. Such was the number of aliens and machines coming for our blood.
How many more brothers had fallen during our retreat I did not know, though judging by the numbers I counted present in our positions. I could assume the number was not insignificant.
So I made the only logical choice.
We could stay here until all our ammunition had been spent and we were slowly dragged under by what I was beginning to theorize could be a million aliens.
Or we could not.
I did not feel any relief coming out of that abyss to stand beneath the churning skies.
Our auxiliaries had more precise explosives with them. They were the ones who sealed the tunnels as Astartes fired over their heads to slow the horde. Demolishing the entire hub building for good measure.
It was eerily quiet now. This phenomena overhead giving no crackle of thunder nor rain like a mundane storm. All around us the vehicles were powered down and none of the intermittent vox crackles across our force that were always present sounded. The half murdered city was quiet, no sounds of industry or clashing armies echoed in the distance. Mortal and Astartes kept their eyes away from the burning sky and held their breath, waiting for something to break this deathly silence.
Without any order from myself or Arminger the men immediately slotted themselves into the encircling defensive formation. A ring of Predators, Rhinos and the new Chimeras that had been issued to the army. Anchored by eight Land Raiders facing outward, most of those venerable bronze beasts had already been deployed to where they might have found better use on the surface. And in the makeshift network of barricades made from rubble in front of those vehicles. Fortifications maybe fit a mortal and only for a short time at that.
Captain Arminger and I made straight for Master Bruis, his last acolyte and Sergeant Ryder holding our standard high.
"Master Bruis," I began with half a bow in respect, "Do you know what has happened?"
He gave me nod of acknowledgement, statements of the obvious left silent, "No Commander. Have you any communication from Praetor Vaurion?"
"No Master," I told him. Arminger shook his head in denial as well.
Bruis let out half a snarl in frustration, "We've had intermittent auspex readings. Potential incoming from every direction. Though I believe I saw orbital incoming from the south east bearing one oh five half an hour ago. And I nearly raised Colonel Kenneth on the vox at the same time. He knew our objective, perhaps he has taken initiative."
"Perhaps," Captain Arminger said.
Bruis nodded, agreeing to the sentiment, "More so, where is Sergeant Vallo. I would have words with our psyker."
Arminger shrugged, a noisy motion in his armor, "I do not know. I ordered him elsewhere and haven't seen him since this escalated."
He then turned to me expecting an answer.
One I was very reluctant to give,
So much that my pause was sensed by our Diaconus. Bruis turned his head to me.
"Where is Vallo Skius?" He asked me.
I quickly composed myself and spoke, more defensively than I anticipated, "That is of little concern now. I believe it is all too obvious the Sergeant failed to fulfil his duty."
Master Bruis sensed my wariness, "Commander Centermerius, where is Sergeant Vallo?"
"…Dead. He's dead,"
It was the truth…
A new vox crackle saved me from having to elaborate at the moment. Keeping whatever thoughts Master Bruis had for later.
Praetor Vaurion's distorted voice hissed into several helmets at once,
"…eat. Any Eleventh Legion Officers resp… I… Respond."
I raised my right claw for silence, the others let me respond, "Praetor. This is Commander Centermerius. I read you."
The vox gave its static filled reply, but I could interpret most of the words this time, "Skius. Status report."
"Situation under control. But… Worrying Praetor."
"Under control?"
"Afirmative," I said. Silence filled in the next few seconds, "Praetor?"
Vaurion spoke again, "New directive Commander. Fall back to your staging area and assume defensive positions. Transports shall be arriving within the hour. We are withdrawing to orbit. Do you read?"
I nodded out of habit, "Yes my lord. We're on the move."
The others heard my words. The little shifts in their stances telling me little about their real thoughts. But they remained silent.
The next transmission that came from the flagship however wasn't a voice.
It was an alarm klaxon. A harsh consistent blare twice a second drowning out what ever calling voice from the sensor stations might have been saying.
"Praetor what is happening?" I asked into the blaring vox,
The interference was back worse than ever, I only caught one word and a handful of syllables before it cut out completely, "Ca… dit… Proximity…"
Master Bruis pointed out that single ominous word, "Proximity."
Then our Diaconus looked up to the sky.
My hearts skipped a beat, but Bruis's apprentice beat me to calling out this rash action.
"Is that wise Master?" He asked, pulling back his own half moving hand to get Bruis's head down.
"No," Bruis admitted before continuing his examination. Soon pointing his power-maul almost straight up into the air.
"There, the Rays is not alone…"
Against my better judgement I cast my eyes to where Bruis indicated. Zooming in with my helmet's features as close as I could.
Indeed there sat the battle barge in low orbit now, the most recognizable and largest shape out of this flotilla of almost a dozen that I could quickly count. Not at all the full force of the fleet that had entered the system.
Now arrayed against twice that many number of newly appeared warships.
Ork warships.
Patchwork behemoths like a shoal of scrap-fish, leaking exhaust smoke and energy from their impossibly unstable yet lethal design materializing out of nowhere. Much to the shock of all, both those daring to look into the storm and those on the ships suddenly confronted with a powerful host of hostile Greenskins well within weapons range.
Perhaps the creatures were just as surprised as I assumed our comrades overhead. The Brimming Rays managed to get off the first volley from its great banks of lance cannons. The most visible weapon to open fire in that battle but not the last. Making at least three smaller ships into false suns to replace the one swallowed by the Warp before the Orks let loose with their wild cannon volleys. Lit there engines and began to close in.
The vox roared to life perfectly clear to every imperial channel it could reach. Mistress Read with an unfamiliar under tone in her cry of orders.
"Astartes to arms! Security teams to arms! Commence full screening fire, boarding craft incoming!"
Vaurion appeared to notice this errant broadcast,
"Kill those lines!" The Praetor demanded, then lowered his voice to give us our next order on more secure channels, "The Greenskin battleship will be within boarding range in thirty minutes and we can't escape in this blasted storm. I shall attempt to recall the Terminator wing. Yet I need every Legionnaire on the surface to get back to the ship by any means necessary or we will be overrun within five hours."
Astartes know no fear.
Yet my hearts were filled with dread. Dread at contemplating being trapped within this cursed storm with the Orks and the Ra'Chaal. Dread at theorizing how we could possibly make it through the city that had become exponentially more dangerous and fulfill our given orders. Dread at pondering how the Tenth Echelon could possibly survive this.
We were all going to die here.
I did not simply consider the possibility. This to me was a certainty.
We were all going to die.
Lost and forgotten. Simply a mystery to be mournfully lauded by our brothers and avoided by other legions pondering how five thousand Dawn Stalkers could have possibly been so weak to have all been slain.
That thought froze me with a weight I had not been expecting. I didn't hear my brothers for five seconds that seemed to stretch for minutes as they tried to acquire my attention. The incoming threats Master Bruis saw earlier were upon us and more.
From the west pained twisted screeches of electronics heralded more of the natives. Again scores of their now rabid civilians and mechanical infantry. This time accompanied by soldiers who had maintained sense enough to keep their collection of weapons ready to use. And behind the first rows looming shadows of more Knights representing the greatest threat sighting their cannons on us.
Brothers called out from the east side, they too had sighted targets approaching. Not more of the Ra'Chaal as I had expected at first. A signature cry for carnage and slaughter illuminating the nature of these approaching aliens. A cry which broke through the haze set upon me. Growing louder and fiercer,
Until let loose in all its horror as a horde of Greenskins two kilometers wide appeared from the east out of red drenched city ruins.
"WAAAGH!"
Master Bruis stepped away, his white cloak billowing behind him as he raised his black power maul.
"Sons of the Eleventh!" Our Diaconus roared in my stead, "Kindred comrades! Stand fast! The enemy is upon us!"
He pointed his weapon back to those of us standing beneath the rising sun standard, "What do we greet them with?"
Sergeant Ryder and the acolyte answered first, raising powerfist and power sword up with their voices chanting, "Blood!"
Echoed in a heartbeat by every Space Marine.
"Blood Blood! Blood!"
"There comes a point in adversity when fear disappears leaving only the will to survive."
I suppose I finally learned the truth of those words that day. Surrounded on all sides in the Warp drowned hive as the violence began. A lesson one of the legion instructors had told my cadre of initiates.
I was at the point where everything disappeared.
Like what seemed so far away now, when the Ra'Chaal blew the ground out from beneath the legion.
The whole world vanished into the roaring void of war.
Sweeping heavy bolters and vehicle mounted weapons did their part to thin the ranks of enemies. A brace of las cannons and all the missile launches we still possessed targeted the approaching Knights who began to return fire.
Auxiliaries shot low over their barricades, creating a ruby tide of las spreading out in all directions. Bringing down their fair share of foes as Dawn Stalkers aimed high. Thousands of mass reactive shells flew, starting a chorus of ten thousand thunder blasts covering the rain of spent shells rattling at our armored feet and the renewed Orkish battle cry.
But our foes ignored these grievous losses, luckily some began to part around our lines and close in on the other alien force. Our firepower could only hold them back for so long, thousands and thousands of aliens and constructs were shot dead. Infrequent flashes from plasma guns and flame throwers illuminated the battle.
The crude slugs and other exotic alien weapons carried by both hordes did not leave us unscathed. While impacts continually bounced off our armor in uncountable numbers. Many mortals and Astartes cried out and fell as they were shot down. Or were not afforded the opportunity as they were turned into clouds of red mist, shredded flak armor and shattered bronze ceramite.
Our enemies rolled over the corpses piling in front of them and soon the blades were drawn and the melee began.
Mortal soldiers were tackled and bludgeoned to death by frenzied fists. Others were bisected as crude cleavers swung up through and down on the still screaming and firing Humans. Brothers threw down their bolt guns and swept their combat knives and chainswords out of sheaths and mag locks. Shoulder to shoulder they pushed against the green tide.
Power fields ignited along with the jump packs of the sixty first and we joined the fray.
Master Bruis's power maul pulverized Ork and Ra'Chaal like they were paint filled balloons which the Diaconus then fried the remains of with a plasma pistol. His acolyte hoisted his shield and killed aliens with snapping lunges of his power sword, warding the back of his master.
Sergeant Ryder kept to my side, picking shots with his wrist mounted bolter as he held our flag aloft. Weathering the storm always sent at him as he always did with stoic pride.
A bare chested brute of a Greenskin raised its axe and charged for the standard. Arminger stepped in its way raising his own blade as if he aimed to sunder the chopper. Spit coated his visor. The assault captain returned its roar of challenge. When at the last possible second, in the blink of a superhuman eye John ducked changed my expected course of his weapon and hacked off the Ork's right leg at the knee.
Its roar cut off into a squawk of surprise, ended soon after when its jaw fell onto my raised right claw.
Different instincts were taking over me.
I gutted two Orks with one wide strike. Pivoted and drove the claws on both hands into the mouth of another and parted his snarling face like I was swimming through blood.
Primal, not anything learned through an armsman's blade teachings.
Swinging up I ripped through three more synthetic soldiers breaking into the heart of their pack. Small arms clattered off my bronze shoulders,
More like mad flailing than measured cuts and thrusts, limited by the range of my arms. Animal movements, taking form of a beast striking at any opening I saw.
And that was fine.
This was a pure fight for survival. Every strike was a killing blow into the plethora of enemies laid before me. Chainswords and stabbing knives flashed at the edges of my tunnel vision on occasion. Enemies fell beneath the shadow of death my trailing black cloak cast over the ruin of flesh in my wake.
Checking the chronometer of my HUD would have been a fatal mistake in this brawl. I did not know how long I walked and slaughtered through these creatures. I thought I saw a Knight step close at one point. The next thing I truly remember was arriving at a space in between our transport ring and the back of a blocky Land Raider Proteus.
Memorable because of the two green arms one that ended with a power claw, which suddenly wrapped around my stomach and pulled me up into the air.
I gave a shout of surprise as the Ork flipped us both backwards and crushed me headfirst into the black ferrocrete. Stunned for a moment I rolled onto my stomach, claws marking the ground. Blindly kicking out behind me and feeling a solid crunch that elicited a yelp of pain from the green beast.
I rolled again, back now pressed against the Land Raider. The Ork latched onto my utility belt with its free hand. Raising its own claw back to ram down into my guts.
As I rose to intercept him a volley of las bolts broke on his scrap armor from the front and back. Four mortal soldiers rushed to my aid, three probing for weak points with their bayonets the last their sergeant swinging a chainsword to split its skull open.
The Ork let go of me, back handing one soldier away so hard its' fist crushed his fully enclosed helm like a melon. Then the beast darted its claw forth and cut the chainsword in two.
From my position I put three mass reactive rounds into its face, saving the sergeant fumbling with the holster of his pistol. The three auxiliaries went back to back as I came to my feet, still firing at whatever threats they could see in this madness.
Snaps of parting air from near misses and the distance muffled explosions told me little of the situation. Again I could only theorize we might be fighting millions of foes with no way out. Caught between the hammer of the Orks and the anvil of the Ra'Chaal we could never kill enough of them to break free.
During this pause in the bloodshed as the adrenaline flowing hard through my veins subsided for a moment. And a new noise blasted away the ringing in my ears.
The war horns on Colonel Kenneth's Stormhammer sounding as the super heavy lurched over a small rise onto the edge of the battlefield.
Mortal soldiers and some Astartes cheered where they could, a few raising their weapons aloft in salute. The Orks mostly had enough sense to pause and become aware of the gun laden monster and how little their current forces could do to it. The Ra'Chaal did not even hesitate to continue their rampage.
The quad las cannons blew Knights apart, sending mechanical limbs and deadly shrapnel flying. Its heavy flamers sprayed promethium wildly melting flesh to bone and liquefying metal. Eight sponson heavy bolters opened fire, tracer rounds streaking into the hordes while the massive treads crushed everything in its path.
The four battle cannons and the demolisher lined up their targets.
The colonel's voice blared out over loud speakers.
"Die Xenos! For the Emperor!"
Then he fired straight into the heart of our formation.