Chapter 58(orphan)
The bridge was on fire aboard the Angels of Brutality battle barge the "Blood Oceans". Almost every other part of the ship was on fire too.
The entire loyalist space marine fleet was heavily damaged, with at least one raging fire onboard every single ship.
Things were not going to plan so far.
The Nightmare Asylum was still operational in orbit around 92/EHY/55, with guns blazing out a lethal fusillade of firepower at the loyalist fleet.
By the Emperor this chaos ship was TOUGH!
The loyalists had hit it with ten separate torpedo salvoes, and still it had not died.
They had hit it hundreds of times with macro cannons and lance batteries, yet still it had not died.
They had even boarded it and set bombs off inside it several times, and yet STILL it had not died!
The Nightmare Asylum was horrifically damaged, with huge gashes in its hull leaking out gas and cargo. The orbit of the planet was now littered with a spreading cloud of gold ingots and hull fragments from the wounded Nightmare Asylum, and by the laws of nature it should have been completely destroyed by now!
Unfortunately the Nightmare Asylum was not a "natural" ship. It was a daemon ship that supernaturally healed its own damage over time, letting it shrug off everything they threw at it.
"Ram it!" Space Marine Captain Francis Milat of the Angels of Brutality 3rd Company ordered from his command throne.
"Yes Brother-Captain!" Space Marine bridge officers acknowledged obediently.
The entire crew braced for impact as the battle barge hurtled towards the starboard side of the Nightmare Asylum at hypersonic speed.
CRUNCH!
The human chapter serf crew were sent flying, some of them splattering against walls from the sudden deceleration!
The Space Marines had better grips, and held themselves from slamming into the walls with merely a terrible jolt to the servos in their power armour.
"Report!" Captain Milat ordered.
There was a brief pause as space marines checked the sensor readings.
"We are INSIDE the Nightmare Asylum!" A marine announced.
Captain Milat did a double take, and checked the readings himself.
The battle barge "Blood Oceans" was now firmly imbedded in the side of the superstructure of the Nightmare Asylum like a giant ceramite thorn!
"Brother-Captain, the Nightmare Asylum hull is healing around us!" A marine informed urgently.
"Fire the engines!" Captain Milat ordered.
The marines were once again nearly knocked over by the sudden G forces as the engines fired at full power.
The inertia was all wrong, they were swivelling around in lopsided circles!
"Still embedded in the hull, the Nightmare Asylum is being spun around in circles by our engines Brother-Captain!"
"Use our engines to crash the Nightmare Asylum into the planet! We will fight the heretics on the ground in the wreckage!" Captain Milat ordered, knowing no fear.
"Yes Brother-Captain!"
The ship was spinning crazily once more, deliberately firing the engines in a pattern to destabilise the Nightmare Asylum's orbit.
The motion suddenly shifted, the Nightmare Asylum was firing its own engines to fight back!
The entwined ships danced around crazily in orbit, engines screaming!
A sudden shock slammed both ships hard!
"Entering the upper atmosphere! Brace for impact!"
The space marines held on for dear life as the two ships spun crazily through the air, atmospheric drag rapidly slowing down their terrible momentum!
The ships careened out of control in their wild spin, sirens wailing!
THUMP!
"We just plowed off the peak of a mountain Brother-Captain!"
THUMP THUMP THUMP WHACK SCREECH!
The Space Marines were hurled across the floor!
The ships were bouncing and sliding across the planet surface, inertia still too vast to stop their motion!
CRASH! GRIND!
SCRAPE THUD!
(Stillness)
The pair of ships had stopped completely still on the ground!
"We have the heretics now Brothers! To battle!" Captain Milat roared in triumph.
Captain Milat unsheathed his power sword and bolt pistol, and assembled his command squad of veterans around him. Three entire companies of Angels of Brutality space marines had been aboard the Blood Oceans before it crashed, and all the surviving marines would now be mobilising to attack the heretics in the Nightmare Asylum wreckage.
Captain Milat stepped through a gigantic gash in the side of the battle barge, out onto wreckage below the open sky.
He stood atop a vast mountain of metal and ceramite wreckage, both ships completely trashed beyond hope of repair. Behind the pile of wreckage was a deep wide blackened impact canyon in the ground, stretching in a straight line right over the horizon. The canyon was smoking with heat and filled with odd bits of wreckage and melting gold ingots.
A few miles away to the left side of the canyon and wrecked ships stood a colossal prison complex the size of a city.
Even as he watched, Marines Malevolent drop pods started screaming down onto the wreckage, coming from the heavily damaged pair of strike cruisers still in orbit.
Pods slammed down onto the mountain of ruin, ramps exploding open to disgorge Marines Malevolent tactical squads and dreadnoughts. These new arrivals greeted the Angels of Brutality warmly like brothers, their victory was now at hand!
Hundreds of thousands of penal legionaries were now pouring out of the nearby prison, heading towards the wreckage in a vast marching mass. The marines ignored these inferior maggots, and proceeded to try to find entry into the ruined Nightmare Asylum.
"Brother-Captain, the Nightmare Asylum hull is STILL healing itself, look!" One of his veterans warned.
Captain Milat followed the pointing finger, and observed gashes in the metal slowly stitching itself closed.
"Foul chaos witchcraft! Let us purge this unholy vessel of all the filth within!" Captain Milat roared.
Marines with melta guns burned open a huge hole in the hull, and the entire assembled army of marines and dreadnoughts proceeded inside, boxes of additional ammunition carried by the tactical marines in the middle of the force.
It was extremely dark inside the blasphemous ship, and the dreadnoughts activated massive floodlights on their chassis, cutting through the darkness with blinding light.
The floodlights immediately glinted off the shiny wet black eyes of hissing daemonettes.
The daemonettes charged viciously, but were gunned down immediately before they covered the distance.
The marines advanced, methodically exterminating ever more of the blasphemous daemonic pests with dreadnought assault cannon fire.
They had covered over a mile of twisting corridor tunnels by now, and seemed to be inside a gigantic deserted maze. They had so far seen nothing but daemonettes, no humans or Night Lords at all. This bit of the ship seemed uninhabited.
Daemonettes infested this maze like locusts, thousands of the vile things were attacking them from every direction.
The marines simply stayed tightly packed together, and used their combined firepower to gun down these pests before they could enter close combat. They pressed on methodically, gradually mapping their way through the maze, noting the locations of every dead end.
The daemonette resistance was getting heavier now, and a few of the vile things got into close combat, cutting down a battle brother with their lethal claws before being dispatched.
Tiny heretic men with unnatural eyes suddenly swarmed out of the walls and ceilings all around them.
The heretics clambered over the walls and ceilings like insects, and fired laspistols at the marines!
More marines fell to this surprise attack hitting the weak gap points in their power armour!
The marines opened up their flamers, dousing the walls and ceilings with burning promethium.
Heretics screamed as they were burned alive, and more screamed as the flamers were fired into tiny gaps in the walls and ceilings.
Chaos cultists with grenade launchers were around the next corner, and the leading marines were pelted with exploding frag grenades.
More marines fell, and the survivors blasted the cultists bodies apart with their explosive bolter rounds.
"Face us yourself you Night Lord cowards!" Captain Milat shouted in challenge, growing tired of all of these minor inferior servants attacking them.
The Night Lords made no reply, and the attacks by minor chaos servants continued.
The space marines advanced beyond the maze, and entered into what looked like a residential area.
Bolter fire suddenly exploded off their armour!
Shambling undead things in old damaged power armour were firing on them!
"These aren't Night Lords! What foul sorcery is this!" Captain Milat exclaimed in disgust over the sounds of the firefight.
The Angels of Brutality and Marines Malevolent returned fire.
The shots hit true and the undead things staggered.
The undead things got back up and resumed fighting!
Space marines were falling dead from the firefight.
The space marines and dreadnoughts charged into close combat, ready to physically rip the undead into pieces.
Dreadnought close combat weapons squished undead creatures to a paste. Assault marines hacked off limbs with chain swords.
Captain Milat's power sword sliced undead apart with brutal skill.
More unholy undead approached and opened fire on the space marines. Daemonettes charged in too, adding to the mayhem.
The space marines ripped the assailants apart, taking more casualties of their own in the process.
The corridors behind the space marines suddenly lit up brightly as overhead lights activated.
Tens of thousands of men's footsteps could be heard approaching them from the brightly lit corridors behind them.
The marines turned and saw half naked penal legionaries with crude lasguns walk into view.
The space marines laughed in relief.
"Come allies! Help us fight this tide of heretic scum!" Captain Milat called cheerfully to the newly arrived penal legionaries.
The penal legionaries aimed their shoddy aluminium lasguns at the space marines and opened fire on them!
The marines roared with betrayal and gunned down the treacherous scum!
The penal legionaries exploded in fountains of gore as bolter rounds detonated inside their bodies.
More legionaries surged forward from around a corner, the tide of them was endless!
Marines used flamers to burn the crowd alive, leaving a wall of flame on the floor that kept the other legionaries back.
The space marines pressed on forwards, tired of these distractions and wanting only to hunt the actual Night Lords who were pulling all the strings.
The very gates of hell seemed to have opened now, so large was the swarm of daemonettes who were attacking them from ahead. The targets surely MUST be ahead now given the quantity of resistance.
The marines slaughtered the daemonettes in a frenzy of gunfire and close combat, destroying the hissing moaning things as more marines were killed.
The casualties were starting to pile up now, but space marines shall know no fear, and they simply continued fighting no matter what, holding their nerve.
The penal legionaries seemed to have extinguished the fires now, and began attacking the space marines in the rear once again.
The marines were being savagely attacked on two sides now, and surely must fall!
Two of the dreadnoughts broke off and approached the legionaries, assault cannons roaring as they gunned down swarms of the penal scum, sacrificing themselves to keep the rear held.
The legionaries attacked the dreadnoughts, but lacked the antitank weapons needed to hurt them, achieving nothing with their attacks.
The rest of the space marine force continued forward without these two dreadnoughts, fighting their way through the rabid flood of daemonettes.
Cultists up ahead with ornate demonically carved missile launchers fired on the remaining dreadnoughts!
The marines returned fire, but one of the sacred dreadnoughts was blown to pieces by the missile barrage!
The cultists were blown to bleeding rags by the return fire.
Still they continued forward, moving towards the Nightmare Asylum bridge.
The two dreadnoughts guarding the rear voxed to inform that their assault cannons were now getting low on ammunition. The space marines could do little to help, and just continued pushing forwards.
A huge foul Greater Daemon of Slaanesh suddenly ambushed them in the flank!
The foul pale naked hermaphroditic thing moved with blistering speed, almost too fast to see!
The monster moaned obscenely as it snipped off all the limbs of entire squads of space marines with a lithe pair of huge crab claws, leaving its amputee victims very much alive but totally defenceless!
The entire space marine force opened fire on the extremely fast moving Greater Daemon.
Their auto targeters couldn't lock on to the daemon! Their aim was messed up!
The thing cast foul pink sorcery at the marines, leaving half the force completely blinded by its witchcraft!
The remaining unaffected marines filled the entire air with gunfire, too much randomly aimed bolts for the thing to dodge even with it's speed.
The Greater Daemon of Slaanesh screamed in orgasmic pleasure as it was hit!
The marines recoiled in disgust and just kept shooting it!
Bolter fire hit them in the back!
The Night Lords had cowardly decided to attack when the loyalists were at their most distracted!
The Greater Daemon of Slaanesh was still maiming marines in close combat!
Hundreds of daemonettes suddenly charged into the marines as well!
It was an ambush!
The marines fought for their lives!
The loyalists prioritised targets and focused everything on the Greater Daemon as the largest threat.
The unholy thing was hit with hundreds of bolter rounds and was blasted into bleeding rags of meat!
It was banished back to the warp!
The supernatural blindness disappeared from half the marines, and these added their weapons to the fighting.
The loyalist casualties were appalling, but they knew no fear!
The surviving dreadnoughts engaged the cowardly Night Lords in a firefight.
The Night Lord cowards fled!
The daemonettes were still in melee with the marines, viciously amputating limbs through gaps in the armour with their claws.
The marines hacked off daemonette heads with their combat blades, unstoppable in their fearless resolve as they stubbornly fought on no matter the odds.
The dreadnoughts who had engaged the Night Lords were now helping to splatter the daemonettes.
Daemonic ichor ran everywhere as the lesser daemons were gradually slaughtered.
A vox from the two dreadnoughts fighting the legionaries reported that the pair of dreadnoughts were completely out of ammunition now!
The marines fought on grimly, they did not know terror or fear.
The daemonettes were all gone now, the surviving marines left their amputee wounded behind, unable to take them with them.
The cowardly Night Lords were retreating up ahead, firing behind themselves as they ran!
The loyalist marines were not stupid, and suspected a trap, advancing very methodically.
Lasgun fire hit them in the back!
Some of the penal legionaries had slipped past the ammo-less invulnerable dreadnoughts in close combat to attack the marines!
Bolters made short work of the legionaries.
The Night Lords attacked the marines in a cowardly ranged attack during the distraction!
Brave space marines fell to the firepower.
The marines returned fire on the Night Lords.
The cowards fled yet again!
Captain Milat was getting extremely frustrated with these cowardly tactics of the enemy, why couldn't they fight with honour like men!
Almost half of the loyalist force were dead or wounded casualties now, only the dreadnoughts were preventing complete defeat now, but the Night Lords were STILL behaving like complete cowards!
The noble heroes of the Marines Malevolent and the Angels of Brutality just pushed on regardless, while their bodies still drew breath they would never stop fighting.
The marines encountered weeping civilian women and children in residential rooms to either side of the corridors now. The civilians were not hostile and were a waste of time and ammunition to kill right now, they could be burned alive later.
The loyalists shot a few of the women anyway for fun.
The resistance suddenly massively increased in result!
Night Lords were suddenly attacking them in a berserk frenzy!
The loyalists roared with heroic glee and fought these traitors in a brutal melee.
The women and children fled away from the fighting.
The moment the women and children left the area the Night Lords suddenly withdrew once more!
"The women! The women are the traitor's wives! Kill the women to make the Night Lords fight us!" Captain Milat ordered triumphantly.
The distant Night Lords roared in distorted snarls of daemonic rage at these words, and gunfire started erupting off the loyalist's power armour.
An announcement siren suddenly blared throughout the corrupted ship.
"All women and children abandon ship! All women and children abandon ship! Seek refuge with the convict men outside!"
Screaming filled the air and women and children scurried out of every doorway, fleeing for their lives.
The Night Lords kept attacking the marines with long range attacks, providing covering fire for the fleeing civilians.
The marines returned fire savagely, but the Night Lords held their nerve until every one of their women had fled.
The Night Lords suddenly vanished away into the darkness and disappeared.
The loyalists advanced forward.
The ship was rapidly emptying of people now, and the attacks had completely stopped.
The marines advanced uncontested onto the Nightmare Asylum bridge, and found it completely deserted.
The marines gazed out of the fully healed glass viewing window at the lands outside the ship.
Many tens of thousands of people were swarming out of the ship like tiny ants, not just women and children but also penal legionaries, heretic men, mutants, daemonettes, vehicles and Night Lord Chaos Space Marines! The cowards had fled the ship with their women!
The lands all around the wreckage were now black with the shadows of many hundreds of thousands of penal legionaries. The legionaries were grabbing the fleeing women and carrying them over their shoulders like meat carcasses, and escorting their new chaos allies safely through the crowd towards the massive nearby city sized prison.
Captain Milat groaned in annoyance, the traitors had escaped!
***...
