The servitors came to escort Gechorus to the armoury. It was time to get ready.
After the long process of arming he went to meet his brothers in the drop pod bay, fully kitted out and ready to get going. His brothers belonged to Squad Pantaleon, named after its sergeant; the other three members of the squad were Remus, Kato and Loukios.
"Brother Kato," he said, greeting the brother closest to him.
"Brother Gechorus," replied Kato, "What kept you?"
They spoke over a tech priest, muttering prayers to the machine god. "I came as quickly as I could," explained Gechorus, "but the servitors were slow in summoning me. Have I missed anything?"
"Only mission details; we are going into a dense manufacturing zone, full of Orks. So we are taking a modified drop pod, teleporting in would be too dangerous," explained Kato.
Gechorus eyed the drop pod; it hadn't changed since the last time he was in it and plummeting towards a planet's surface; back before he got his terminator armour. "And our objective?"
"The green skins have taken a manufactorum, we need to take it back as soon as possible. The longer we leave it in their hands, the more of it they will desecrate."
Remus spoke up, "Menial objectives are pointless, brother. We are going down there to kill Orks, that's all that matters."
The tech priest was almost done inspecting the drop pod; he stepped back and was now whispering words of prayer to the machine spirits that dwelled within. "Bring these noble warriors to their destination straight and true, serve these masters well; and be calm, sweet spirits." He left a moment of pause before telling the space marines, "You may enter."
The five terminator armoured space marines climbed into the drop pod and strapped themselves in, each member of the squad had a door to himself, as the bulk of the terminator armour meant the drop pod that was made for ten, could only fit the squad of five.
The voice box of the tech priest buzzed into life to give them one last reminder of their objective, "The machine spirits will guide you to a walking distance from the entrance to the holy manufactorum. You will be able to see the building from where you land. Destroy the orks, space marines; the desecration of a manufactorum is a great blasphemy against the Machine God."
"…and the Emperor," finished the Sergeant. "We will reclaim it, in his name."
"The Emperor protects," said the tech priest as the doors to the drop pod began to close up around the marines.
"You looking forward to this?" asked Kato.
"As always, brother," replied Gechorus. "Orks die well."
Drop pods were uncomfortable; they were loud, claustrophobic, and the drops were badly affected by turbulence. They crashed with force that would have killed a normal human; they had landed on solid ground. Bullets were pinging off the armour plating of the drop pod, they had landed in the right place. Pantaleon gave his marines a few seconds to recover their senses from the landing and get their harnesses off. "The Emperor Protects," he stated before slamming the button to open the doors, they fell open and the slaughter began.
Orks did die well. Like countless times before, Gechorus mowed them down, mob after mob. He must have killed fifty orks within a minute of the doors opening, and they kept coming. Occasionally one would get close, but what could an ork boy do against terminator armour? Needless to say they were smashed by Gechorus' power fist.
The dings of bouncing bullets were louder against armour but no more dangerous than when they were hitting the side of the drop pod. Gechorus could feel his ammo box getting light as the horde began to thin, but before it was empty the orks had turned and run from the terminators. They must have realised that the space marines were not going down easy. They continued to shoot some of the fleeing orks, to make sure they kept running.
Gechorus knew the action would start again, when they moved out, so he took a moment to get a new ammo box from the drop pod.
"Form up," ordered Sergeant Pantaleon. And they did, just in front of the sergeant's drop pod door. Looking around, there were many ork bodies that they had killed and some human bodies that were old and rotten; the remains of the planetary defence force that tried so nobly but ultimately failed in keeping the orks away. One body of a human defender did not have a lasgun beside it. Gechorus hoped that this man had not dropped his gun and abandoned his duties as hopeless as the odds may have seemed, for an act of cowardice such as this would have been a shameful betrayal.
Pantaleon pointed up to a building with his sword; the building bared a massive seal of the Adeptus Mechanicus, "That is the Manufactorum, and our target." described Pantaleon "The Orks will know this building is important."
"So we can expect more than just boys when we're inside?" assumed Gechorus.
"Yes," agreed the sergeant, "So it will be a bit more of a challenge if the Emperor is smiling on us."
They advanced to the Manufactorum every now and then a mob of orks would try to intercept them, but they were no trouble for the marines. Opening the door to the Manufactorum they found the ork desecration of the huge manufacturing floor had already started to take a hold. They had dismantled some of the machines, no doubt planning to use them for their own ends, and had erected primitive fortifications and shrines to their ork gods.
Opening fire again, the marines dealt with the orks in the immediate area with no problems at all. "Keep on guard," warned Pantaleon, "there will be more on their way."
And sure enough, the thundering of hundreds of ork feet and the tell-tale "Waaagh!" that always accompanied them was heard. The orks flooded in from all angles. It didn't take long for Gechorus to empty his gun into countless ork victims, now came time to reload; Gechorus could reload in a matter of seconds, given the space for it, but with hundreds of orks trying to beat him down it was much more of a challenge. For a time his assault cannon was essentially a close combat weapon as he waded his way through the green tide to get to a corner with enough space to reload.
Gechorus could just make out some vox chatter over the immense sound of the orks, "Walker Incoming!" It was Kato. If he was the one to hear its footsteps, then it must be coming from his direction. Gechorus turned to look round at the other marine's locations. They had all become separated from each other, drawn into deeper fighting with the greenskins, or pushed back and looking for space to reload. This was not good, the orks kept pouring in, and with all their guns empty, they were unable to kill them at the same speed they were arriving.
The wall Kato was standing next to shook, with a crash and started to crumble, the walker was on the other side. Another smash, it was trying to get though, but Gechorus had his own ork problems to worry about. Every time he killed one with his power fist or a slam from his assault cannon, two more seemed to take its place.
Finally the wall fell, revealing a hulking Deff Dread, it dwarfed Kato. Now this was a real threat; ork boys had very little chance of doing damage to terminator armour, but a deff dread could put enough force into its massive klaws to crush right through ceramite. The ork boys around Gechorus paused to cheer for the deff dread's arrival; this was all the time Gechorus needed to reload.
As soon as he was able, he got the barrels spinning and quickly shot down the orks in front of him. He then moved to get a clear shot of the walker.
Kato, moved round to the side of the deff dread and used his power fist to krush the exposed components of the walker's legs. But the walker, even though crippled, was not without its arms. A great klaw from the deff dread snatched Kato from the ground and held him in the air. Kato was gripped by his waist and he flailed his power fist around, in the hope of hitting something but as he was being held from the right he didn't have the flexibility to reach. The deff dread tightened its grip around Kato's waist and with a horrible crack, there was a huge spray of blood, and Kato's legs dropped away. His struggles slowed and his torso flopped forwards and fell to the floor.
Gechorus now had a clear shot to the dread's 'face' he quickly took aim and unleashed a salvo of high velocity rounds at the eye of the walker. It seemed to work, the machine's arms dropped and the whole hull of the vehicle began to keel forwards and eventually toppled. The driver within must have been hit. This distracted the rest of the orks long enough for the four space marines to make big sweeps with their automatic weapons. The sudden loss of their walker, then the salvo of shots from the marines must have spooked them. They ran through whatever doors they could get to, the marines took a few of the fleeing orks out as the last of them left the area.
"Nice work, gentlemen," said Pantaleon over the vox as they regrouped in the centre of the room. "Orks only run when they think there is no hope in fighting; they must be running out of bodies."
The floor was covered in dead greenskins, but amongst all the green flesh and crude weaponry, there were two specs of silver. The upper and lower half of brother Kato lay where they fell, a gruesome death for a great hero of the imperium.
Pantaleon started talking into his long range vox, "The manufactorum is secure," he said, "the remaining orks have scattered, it's a clean-up operation now, the guardsmen can take over."
As Pantaleon listened to a response, Gechorus had his eyes fixed on his fallen brother. Such a majestic creation, lying face down in two halves; this was a brother, one of Gechorus' closest, they had been through everything together, they were even in the same scout unit, all those hundreds of years ago.
"And send an apothecary to our location, one our own has fallen," concluded Pantaleon. He spotted Gechorus staring at the body and went over to him. "You are not grieving, brother Gechorus?" probed Pantaleon.
"No, Sergeant," he replied, to show no sign of weakness. "Will the orks will be back?"
"Our company and the system's Militarum are attacking all the ork strongholds in the area at the same time," explained the sergeant. "They will have no reinforcements to send." Pantaleon turned to the other two in the squad crushing an ork body under foot when he did so, "Remus, Loukios, check around the manufactorum for any remaining orks."
The army had arrived and was pulling away all the ork bodies to be burned outside the manufactorum. Orks must be burned, or their spores can spread and grow. Kato's body was placed in a respectable position as they waited for the apothecary. According to vox chatter the orks had been a very worthy enemy and the apothecaries were busy with wounded marines. The wounded always took precedence over the dead.
"I will never get used to their stench," said Brother Loukios to Gechorus.
"I have come to welcome the smell of burning green flesh," he replied.
Loukios sighed "you think…"
Hard work exercises the body and focuses the mind; it is a noble and worthy thing.
Looking around, Loukios tried to find the source of the voice, "What was that?"
"It is the Adeptus Mechanicus' motivational broadcasts," said Gechorus, "I have not heard one for many years."
"I have never heard it before."
"Then you have never seen a functioning manufactorum."
Lasgun production of this facility is down ninety percent, please rectify. Work diligently to bring honour and glory to the Machine God.
"You would think good citizens would not need to be reminded to work hard," commented Loukios.
Gechorus turned to face Loukios, "You do not know humans; they are lazy, feeble and weak minded. They need all the encouragement they can get. It's also why they need us."
"Strange that they started the announcements this early," said Loukios, "the workers are not back yet, the army is still clearing up."
Praise be to the Emperor. All you do, you do in his name.
"These soldiers are doing Emperor's work as well; are they not?"