Registering clearance sigils- Office of the Ordo Chronos. Welcome Back Inquisitor.
: Herein lies the final salvageable log transcribed from the records of the 375-13 compliance. Sealed under command of Legion Master of the XIth Antinous the Black under highest authority.
- Personal log of Praetorian Markus Vaurion. Eleventh Legion. Seventh Company. 10th Echelon\\Date (Error). Mark (Error.0)
"This shall be my final account. Should it be recovered I would make thoughts on our one last glorious day in the eleventh legion be known… There was no other way out, no other way this would end. Such grievous injury done to my sons... Let it be known the tenth echelon conducted itself as Dawn Stalkers ever have. As any of our get would have...This morn we have gone to claim vengeance on all the foul Xenos who have wronged us, or if not die in the attempt.
Should we have turned and chanced the storm? Live... For another day… No, that is not our way. You know it. I know it. Our Emperor wills it... I would not…
I cannot… There is no life without her… Sweet, dear bride of my soul Arteme.
…I must make confession before departing. Conduct unbecoming of an Astartes. Such that has weighted my decision more heavily towards hopeless attack. Fraternizing with lower servants. Sharing more than I had ever thought possible with the Lady of my flagship for nigh my entire existence as a Space Marine. Since I acquiesced to finally take this noble office.
We were always together. She had been there. Until the wretched greenskins tore her from grasp… I would not define our love by cruder manners of lesser Humans. But we had… We had what we had… Perhaps some of my fellow Praetorians suspected. Perhaps they knew.
(Transcribes 16.55 secs silence.)
But it no longer matters. If any feel I should be called to account for my choice… Well, you know where to find me.
"Short the sleep the foe is taking, ere the morrow's morn is breaking. They shall have a rude awakening, roused by Harlech men."
The sun was rising.
The line cutting Three-Seven-Five Thirteen into day and night passed the walls of this last bastion of Xenos filth and witchery. The new born day heralding the tenth echelon's dread arrival like our forefathers of yore out of the dark and into the light. An auspicious start.
That, the great cogitators of the Brimming Rays told us as we departed in a flurry of drop pods trailing kilometer long plumes of rocket exhaust. Xeno weapons fire shook the hull of our Battle barge to the core. Its own weapons hitting back as best they could, warding our departure into battle one last time.
Those same instruments gave the legion officers another glimpse at the nightmare we hastened towards. Warships launching broadsides into each other, fighter craft in a thousand dogfights, projected landing sites for our paltry force and the more dangerous corridors we were to speed through to them. As far from ideal conditions as one could imagine.
Yet I saw no reason to change our heading. It was in the hands of chance now who, if any, would make it down.
While drop pods were Captain Arminger's preferred form of orbital insertion I was far from the same opinion on these deathtraps. I longed for the armored safety of a Stormbird, though as discussed. Such craft would never make it through the maelstrom of weapons fire churning above our target. One message blinked on my HUD confirming those craft were away and making for what safety they could find.
Shortly before the comms net blinked out of existence.
My drop pod shook again in violence, more than it was currently subject to as something very large exploded in the void behind us. The shock wave slammed my armored helmet into the bulkheads. Egli had been correct, twenty minutes was a generous estimate for how long the Brimming Rays would last.
More tallies to be reaped in recompense from the foes' flesh. My bridled rage flickered just a little bit hotter at the destruction of the closest thing I had to a home.
The short range vox flared into life, Master Bruis called out to us.
"Stay the course Brothers! Time on target, one Minute!"
Other shorter blurts of the vox came from other drop pods meeting ill-fated ends in death and fire. But there was nothing any of us could do. But keep hurtling toward the planet below.
I took a deep breath, trying to remain calm. Closing my eyes and allowing my helm to roll backwards onto the rumbling head brace. With the black shadow of the void so close again my mind wandered to the not so distant past.
Vaurion had commanded, and we would obey. I had stepped too far out of line not to. But in any case such was his right. Our ships, our weapons, our very lives were his to send into the fire in pursuit of victory. In that regard, that supreme moral right to command any of us to die. Vaurion was like our Emperor.
My thoughts turned to our ultimate liege lord. I had listened to the broadcasts, heard His voice and seen His likeness in art and video feeds a hundred times. An exemplar of humanity in every regard. But I had never personally seen Him. And now I was to never have such an honor. Nor to ever meet our father.
But, our master of the Tenth Echelon was more than a worthy substitute for either to follow into battle one last time.
"That's not a good idea Commander."
Blinking in surprise I turned to the marine across from me who had broken the noisy stillness. Brother Jonas I recalled, he had one of my inherited power swords in a baldric on his back and a bolter braced on his chest.
This one of my Chosen spoke again, "You don't want to be too calm or tense when we hit, sir."
I nodded, clenching hidden fingers and flexing every muscle I could in a ready exercise. "Gratitude brother. It has been sometime since I have dropped."
He gave a quick nod, "Understood sir, worry not. We're soon to-"
In a thunderous crack, an alien round punched clean through the hull and Jonas' chest so fast I didn't even see it. Blood sprayed across my visor while ceramite and plasteel shrapnel ricocheted through the compartment. Smoke began to flood from the compromised machinery and I cursed mightily in surprise. Our tiny craft rumbled in distress and now uncontrollable descent. But training soon kicked in and I shouted back through the vox to alert my brethren officers.
"We're hit! Praetor! Master Bruis! We're hit!"
At that precise moment the pod finally kissed the surface of the third world in this system, much closer than I had realized. Hard enough to almost slam my chattering teeth through my skull, certainly breaking a few of them. I tasted blood from a laceration in the wake of the horrid whiplash.
I quickly slid my energized claws through the restraints, not giving them a chance to potentially be stuck. I looked across the compartment, Jonas hung limp and lifeless in his harness. The armored hatch began to creep downwards as the motors strained to release its living cargo. Much too slowly for my taste. Quickly I threw my shoulder into the ramp door howling with all my might pushing against the adamantium slab.
As I strained towards freedom liquid pooled deeply around my boots, foaming in the more and more I forced the door. A sickly smell I recognized all too keenly coated my nose and the back of my throat all the way to the lungs.
The bloody stench of slaughter.
It was a hard fought struggle for every inch I moved that door. And the nature of why such little progress on my endeavor was being made, sent ice flowing back in my veins. After finally clearing enough space to throw my body out into the open onto uneven ground and stumbled down to my hands and knees.
Dead in the middle of a pit of gore and bone.
This viscous concoction went a handspan over my head. Purple and red irregularly mixed in this bloody black tar coating on my visor. Meat and splintered skeletons floated in the mire, both of the Ra'Chaal and the Orks. I shot to my feet roaring with disgust, soaked in warm viscera seeping into the joints of my armor and the ballistic weave beneath.
I gazed up, taking in my first view of the Xeno home world.
The sister planet torn from their orbits to collide, hung large and looming in the atmosphere as friction lit their edges in fire. Already threatened to set the whole world aflame as they grew closer and closer together. Filling the horizon with promise of even more cataclysm yet to come. Few things could make an Astartes feel insignificant but I count facing that as one of them.
Ruin and carnage abounded as the WAAGH made battle on the doorstep of the citadel. Its walls' dark silhouettes against the burning sky, anchored on four smaller bastions situated at the four cardinal directions. Knights of all makes and models fired in wild abandon everything they had down into the churning mass of madness and melee below them on the battlements. The orbital guns that had denied us landing within the walls still blazed into the fading night sky.
Outlining a single defiant tower spire...
A desolate ring of lonely pillars stood all that remained of its outer zone. That particular locale having been torn apart by networks of trenches laced with piles of the dead and dying on earthen mounds in numbers uncounted since this witchery began.
Nothing remained of the other once proud Xeno spires and parkways they were so fond of but that fortress. Across the world and back again nothing remained but the ruins of buildings smashed flat by the indiscriminate bombing, and the march of more war machines then I could think to estimate. Steel was torn up like ripe vegetable husks from weapons fire. Smoke poured into the red orange sky from a thousand separate fires in the city that had been so utterly and irrevocably destroyed by all the other billion dark deeds that the Ra'Chaal performed as their entire species devolved into insanity.
Orbital strikes from each battling faction continued to fall and shake the ground in a constant rain of ordinance, killing hundreds of Xenos in every explosion that bloomed. Fighter craft and flying drones spat slugs, missiles and energy bolts at one another as they battled for supremacy. Or to just simply drag more into the void of death with them as they wove in the air, strafed the ground and came apart in fiery showers of debris.
Battle sounds made near a solid wall in the air themselves. Ra'Chaal war horns and screeches of madness accented with Orkish howls tried to rise in the thunderstorm of gunfire and bombs to little avail. More screaming jet engines and the howl of incoming drop pods sounded as well. My helmet dampeners were nearly overwhelmed.
Poets of old had spent many days wondering what the end of the world would entail. I could enlighten them of such a scene with but a few moments looking at this war.
The sound, the taste of the air in my dry throat, the heat of my hearts hammering in my chest. It filled me from head to toe with a red gnashing need to be let loose.
I shook my head. Clearing some of the haze that had descended over my eyes. I was not one prone to frenzy, if I were then I would not have made it very far in the seventh company. But I remembered now. I remembered the berserker pull I had felt in every fight I had fought in this solar system. And whatever had brought me to the brink so many times pulsed in the air, in the ground and behind my eyes with a malevolent force. I no longer tried to dismiss it. I knew foul things, dark arts out of myth and legend moved openly here.
And the only thing they wanted was death.
I turned to the hundreds of hours of training that had brought me to this command. I had to lead, to focus this aggression.
More drop pods slammed down, throwing waves of ichor over those extricating themselves from the would be coffins. Not so many as had left from the embarkation deck mere minutes ago.
Over the rocky ridge of the blood pool. The first of our foes on the ground made notice of our arrival. Thirty meters up the gentle slope, Orks crested and howled their good fortune of finding more enemies to battle.
They were in my way.
Astartes with more fortune than I disembarked and began looking for targets. Sergeant Ryder, recognizable by the banner he so carefully held above the mire of carnage soon emerged. He gave a nod which I returned, grateful to see him alive.
I shouted over the vox, "Clear path for those yet to land! Advance with the standard and make for the walls! Fifth and Sixth squads! Covering fire!"
The bark of Imperial bolters joined the violent cacophony, explosive shells flew true and plucked the curious Orks from their feet.
I began to attempt a run, making tall steps in an ungainly form. Plowing through the gore and errant skeletons towards free ground and my enemies. Another voice came through the ether to my ears with a static crackle. It sounded like Sergeant Naylor.
"…justing 7 degrees," Much was lost in a gnarled surge, "Heads up!"
At this point the alien guns had turned on us, shells and lances of energy plowed new furloughs and foxholes into the ground seeking range. I called out again.
"Move! Move! Move! Get under the guns!"
Another wave of pods landed on the other side of this first ridge. Crushing many foes into paste. I finally rose from the bloody muck and made proper form of myself. Tearing up the ground still damp with blood beneath my boots. Others kept pace at my sides howling in frustrated rage towards the things killing us from far beyond the length of our blades and small arms. Our heavy weapons might be able to reach out and touch the wall defenses. But I was no longer concerned about that.
The haze crept back over my senses, calling to me again. I saw Orks come again at the top of the hill, tantalizingly close to my claws. The gap between us soon another memory as we ran at them.
And they at us.
One swung a broad bladed spear at my left. I shattered it with back handed swing then drove my right hand into its guts. Tearing into his green stomach while I pulled my bulk forward like clambering up a rock wall. To then drive my left hand into the clavicle of another Ork making too wide a strike.
The energized blades thoroughly lodged in meat I put my augmented strength to task. Heaving the two greenskins back into their comrades over the ragged rocky crest. Bowling over a score into which I speared my claws after flaring them free of the ugly Ork hides.
Their Nob leader stood resolute at the rear, beating an ugly sword against its chest in challenge.
I leapt like a wild cat for its throat, left claw descending from on high. A look of surprise at my agility crossed its face before my talons ripped half of it away, along with an eye. In retaliation it stabbed for my chest, I turned with my own momentum and merely took a shallow scratch across my chest plate.
With another full throated howl I swung, shredding my enemy's broad chest. Throwing a knee into its groin for good measure and to knock it back like a dead rotting tree. The Astartes at my side put their own blades down into prone Xenos. More blood began to seep into the ruined soil.
Panning my green eyes down over the battlefield I spied the dominating figures of our Terminator wing and dozens of other squads carving their way out of smoking vessels into the fray. The giants that bore powerfists found suitable work punching through the scrap shod hulls of Ork Kans, and hewing legs of Ra'Chaal Knights. The enormous figure of Sergeant Naylor swung his club down sending broken bodies flying. His deep voice almost audible over the din of slaughter.
"Praetor!"
He called for our master. Lord Vaurion whose pod I presumed was among those ahead, I could see no sign of. Only the sea of foes the Dawn Stalkers before us stood within like islands of bronze, line-marines, and tactical dreadnoughts alike. Shooting and swinging whilst trying to coalesce into a rock strong enough to break the tide.
A clatter of armor plates settling back on geneforged bodies surrounded me as some hundred of my men took pause at my side. The legion banner cast a long shadow as Ryder bore it to the front ranks on my left. We shared a brief look.
"Master Bruis?" I asked the sergeant of our Diaconus.
"Towards the rear," He replied, "Discouraging tardiness... Shall we?"
I nodded, and roared at the top of my three lungs, "At them Space Marines!"
Blood pounded to my ears. I lost myself to the thrill of the Hunt.
Our bulk made easy work of the rubble strewn terrain. Not so ordered an attack as on a practice field, but a far grander sight to behold none the less. Hundreds of brothers crashed down like an avalanche towards the enemies that rose to meet us. The terrible Greentide surging on the left flank, the innumerable hordes of sorcery maddened Ra'Chaal boiling up like an anthill kicked over on the right. Howls of challenge, hate and madness matching our own as we charged.
Errant bolt shells and energy beams flashed back and forth between our lines as we ran eagerly into the fray. Another high energy beam shot down from the walls vaporizing half a squad in the lead ranks, peppering the rest with a shower of rocks. A handful of new holes appeared in the rising sun standard.
Scattered rockets from our own horde flew in retaliation. Their distant explosions indistinguishable from the flashes of ships destroying each other in the space above between the three planets closing the final kilometers to their doomed embrace.
My head was jarred to the side as a bolt shell ricocheted off my temple into the burning sky. Exotic blue slugs from some Ra'Chaal gun stitched a line up my right side, finding more than a few weak points along my arm. Wounds stung for a moment, a flood of combat stims and adrenaline pushed the pain down.
With one last animal cry and push of muscled legs the three lines met. I jumped again, crashing down onto another Ork. My claws relieving it of arms before they could swing or fire. Even as it fell my right hand flashed and took it in the throat. Fresh blood spraying on my talons. I did not attempt to block any of the threats I saw, only put more speed into my arms and killed them before they could do the same to me.
To the left an Ork swung low, opening up the stomach of a running marine too focused on reloading his bolter to properly counter. The press of bodies spun that beast back, and Sergeant Ryder crouched and slammed his fist into the back of the Xeno's bending knee. Its broken femur tore through skin as the thing fell howling to be trampled to death. Ryder's ungraceful hammerblow that followed smashed a smaller mech trooper's head down through its pelvis.
He disappeared into the fray. Our billowing flag the only sign of him now. While it stood, the sergeant lived.
I rejoined the press. Stabbing razor edged claws at whatever luckless thing survived the surge of ceramite to come to me as we continued killing our way onwards. Taking limbs, heads and Xeno lives as I pleased. Slicking the ground with an unstoppable rain of blood.
A barrage of Ork slugs hammered home and killed the Astartes before me. As trained, I wove around the fallen and closed in. My artificer crafted armor stood more suited to weather the hail of brass. I swung up the moment I judged appropriate. Detonating the unspent ammo in the Ork's crude big shoota and ripping out its guts before I put my other claws through its mouth, eyes and brains to finish it off.
It's comrade rushed me with an axe as soon as I freed my blades, my right I flicked down and pushed the horizontal strike far off course. My left then descended and took it in the side of its right leg sending it sprawling to the ground. Helpless to do anything as I brought a boot down on its face. Crushing the thick skull.
Chain blades droned carving apart Xenos flesh and metal. Power fields on relic weapons sundered molecular bonds cleaving beasts in half. Exploding bolts blasted fist size chunks out of bodies as Marines fired full auto into the press of enemies.
The ground was littered with dead. But our advance was slowing.
I snarled and hacked at the writhing mass of flesh in front of my face, pressed against my soldier's backs and the foul smelling aliens trying to kill us. So close, but yet so far from those further afield. So far from our Praetor, from victory and redemption.
I wracked my brain trying to think of means to break the deadlock. Before it broke us.
The ground shook again.
Not from a gun nor bomb. Rhythmic vibrations up from my boots of something heavy making towards our position at speed. The tread of a walker. I raised my head expecting another knight.
Instead came the haphazardly welded together shape of a Deff Dread barreling right at us
The Greenskin's mockery of our own vessels for the venerable dead. Spinning buzzsaws on a half dozen of its arms came back up from the fray throwing more showers of blood across the field. A lascannon shot from our rear lines smacked into it and blew off one spindly limb. But that only enraged the mechanical beast even further than simply existing in the state I knew its wretched pilot was trapped in.
Again the dread dipped and plowed through every single fighting creature and marine in its way. I stumbled for balance, being battered by the limp rag doll weights of my brothers flung at me. And soon the mech came at me swinging to take my crested helm and head. I brought both my lightning claws down, dashing aside the first saw blade. Another pincher arm came round and hit me in the back, warning sigils on my HUD told of damage to my armor's power supply. A sharp stabbing pain in my back confirmed the hit landed true.
Dozens of bolt shells exploded against its scrap clad hide, seeking a lucky shot to lay it low. I however bared my teeth and snarled, taking my first step backwards on this planet. Yet there was little else I could do in the face of so many sharp hacking blades and so much armor.
I ducked beneath another one of its wild strikes. Snaking my bladed fingers behind and severing an errant hydraulic hose as the arm passed. It did little to slow the onslaught. A very inconvenient thought broke through my battle frenzy that this was how I would die. Crushed to a pulp by this thing I couldn't even scratch.
I pondered, for a very brief moment. Just making it so.
To drop my guard only in the slightest and be done. This was a suicide mission anyway, to do what our brothers would expect of us. Proof for memory which would be preserved that we had given our best effort. That I could do, that I had done. It was what Vaurion had said. He didn't really think we could be victorious?
However, salvation came a heartbeat after I had made peace that I might at least hold this ugly thing in place long enough for what heavy support we had to take it out.
Thunder cracked, shattering my muse, and the sight of the Deff Dread rising nearly a meter in the air gave me quite a start.
As Sergeant Naylor put every ounce of his might into the swing with the Kanabo club he hammered into the left flank of the walker. Air and foul liquid squeezed out from the breached abode of the Greenskin within. It gave one last pitiful wail of defiance before slumping to the ground.
Like a ghost Sergeant Ryder, bloody and battered as any of us materialised on my peripherals. And from his belt, the standard bearer produced a krak grenade and almost gently underhanded the explosive device onto the walker. Finishing the hard fought kill with a sharp crack and a spray of metal.
"Form up!" The giant Naylor called out to the legionnaires behind him. Some other terminators and the other Dawn Stalkers who had managed to fight their way through alien lines divvying our force in half. Trying to impose order on the battlefield
Yet still Praetor Vaurion was not among these warriors.
More shots from on high rained down. Sergeant Naylor quickly pulled myself and Sergeant Ryder under his left arm to shield us and the rising sun banner from harm. What indignation I felt at his action was shaken away by the following bomb blasts.
"It is a glorious day," The hulking space marine said to me through a private vox link, "To have so many Xenos to kill."
"For too many for my tastes brother," I said, "So many of little consequence. I seek those whose deaths would have effect on this mission."
This latest barrage from on high petered out. Killing more of the luckless and less protected yet again. The three of us separated from the armored embrace. Acrid smoke drifted like morning mists by our feet. The angry haze clouding my thoughts disappeared like it had never been, but I knew while the enemy witches yet lived it would be back.
The terminator spoke again, "Then how are we to see ourselves to those foes Commander? Walls thick and stout block forward path. And the wing is not known well for leaping abilities."
I ignored his questions and simply gave commands, trying to put my moment of clarity to good use. "Linger here on the standard and await the other officers."
"I've not seen evidence of their arrival, Skius." He replied in a low tone. "May haps, you're the last remaining."
I knew that not to be true. But the idea did not sit well in my empty stomach.
"Curb thoughts," I told him. Trying to put the fire in my veins into my tone. "Master Bruis is bringing up the rear, so says stalwart Ryder. I shall find Lord Vaurion."
Sergeant Naylor peered out over the hundred raging fights surrounding us, "Yes if he lives. What of Captain Arminger?"
There was once a saying, speak of the devil and he shall appear. Superstitious talk from a bygone era. But when the assault captain's name was cast into the air, he did appear.
Jet packs from the sixty-first company delivered their wearers finally into the battle. Those close quarters specialists hit hard. Crushing Xenos beneath them as they hit those stubborn wretches keeping our brothers apart. Much needed reinforcements finally buckling that front in our favor when they swept weapons out and began to kill.
I smirked. Keying my second into our little conversation. "Captain Arminger is far too vain to not make a show of his end for all to see."
The rise and fall of a familiar power ax came up from the clashing hordes. Arminger spoke between grunts of exertion. "Astute, as always Commander! One last chance for the blade master of the sixty-first assault to prove his quality!"
Meanwhile more squads appeared over the ridge. Two figures in midnight clad stood and waited on this tiniest of summits. Master Bruis with the last of his would be Diaconi at his side.
The vox spat out some words in static from Master Brusi to me, "Commander Centermerius, the last drop pods are down or destroyed. We're all that remains."
I nodded though he could not see, "Whilst we breath we fight Master. If you've ideas to keep us breathing then I would hear them."
A few heavy seconds of silence followed my request before Master Bruis voxed back, "Very well Commander."
He gave a signal in battle sign over his right left shoulder, a sign to advance. A third figure in gunmetal grey appeared behind the two men.
The Librarian Captain of the fifteenth legion, the psyker Khonsu. He took a long look over the battle that continued to rage unabated around us. Then spun the iron staff in one hand, bowed forward then threw back his metal cowled head. Arms splayed out to their fullest reach as he set to the disciplines of his order of Space Marines and called on his powers.
Our legion being so absent of Astartes with such gifts, I had no image to call upon about what manner of display he was to conjure into being. Even less so how one prepared a mind to throw about its weight in reality.
Back on the distant battlements, its mechanical defenders loosed another volley on us.
Caught out in the open yet again I made to dive for cover again beneath the shadow of Sergeant Naylor.
The sounds of said volley. A noise I was all too familiar with, did not crash down again heralding yet more death and disorder. Instead they burst halfway towards their intended targets of my legionaries and I.
A new unnatural glow soon covered the battlefield. Not so harsh as the warp fire still up in the void. This glow emerged from no clear source, merely the tainted air itself so it seemed.
I turned my gaze back to the sorcerer. The man's eyes were alight in power. His arm holding the staff moved in a supernatural blur. Where he aimed with that rod, incoming ordinance was detonated. As if Khonsu commanded each individual projectile to explode. All the while as well catching and turning aside energy beams with but a wave of his other hand.
Things that escaped his glowing gaze slammed into the energy dome he had conjured around our paltry force. But I could see that the shield was far from impervious, some attacks punched through around the weaker spots.
I was surprised, finding myself wishing Khonsu's strength to last.
Sergeant Ryder huffed, giving a quick tap on my right arm calling my attention. "I jested I would do vile things to be free of those wall guns." He said, "Trusting a psyker however was not among them."
"Just be glad he finally is of use." I instructed.
"Skius!"
The vox link with Captain Arminger crackled to life again. I spoke into the link, "Copy brother."
"I have eyes on Lord Vaurion."
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A/N Yeah where, have I been. Well you guys should know by now.
Could have kept going in this chapter. But I was worried I had started losing momentum. In both my writing and the story pace. So I have like two maybe three more chapters of this battle planned and then what I got to finish it. But I had hoped to have the finale after a certain point in my main story.
So, you know If you want me to get to work on that. Review as you do, and share if you care. Stay safe out there people