The now 4 man Sternguard Veteran squad slunk through the trees and canopy of this alien world, weapons raised and ready for their signal. The blue and orange-clad Astartes sat, hunched behind trees and thick brushes of wildlife, a deafening silence overtaking them all.
1 second passed, 2 seconds passed, then finally, 3 seconds passed. Their vox channel came alight.
"Men, I need you now! I am at the destination, Commando Droids have ambushed my position, the abominations are swarming me like flies!" Sirus seemed to scream from the other end of the vox, the clear and deafening sounds of battle spilling over alongside the Captain's voice. In that instant, the Astartes sprung into action, sprinting at full force toward the location of the energy ping.
Running with the speed of feral, angered bulls, the marines rushed past trees and brush, sometimes using their agility to avoid them, other times using their immense weight and force to literally pulverize the flora that stood in their way. Less than a few seconds passed before they crossed the 100-meter mark, standing where the Captain was, or rather, where he was supposed to be.
In front of them was a tree, a massive, almost kilometer-tall, 400-meter-wide monster, pillowing with dark radiant energy. This had to be the source of the energy, the source of the warp-induced time loop they found themselves trapped in. But that wasn't what unnerved the men. Captain Sirus, alongside the battle he was supposedly fighting against the mechanical abominations, was nowhere to be seen. There wasn't even any sign that a battle had taken place here. There were no bolter shells, no blood or pulverized metal, there wasn't even a scorch mark left by one of their enemy's signature particle-based weapons. There was nothing.
Castor's eyes went wide, he knew it. He knew it damned well, and they had just walked into it. But before he could bellow a retreat to his brothers, an unexpected, terrifying thumping sound bellowed through the forest. Alien birds flew away from not one, but two directions as the stomping came closer. Aiolos finally had enough.
"What are we doing? Get to cover, now!-" Aiolos managed to scream before a veritable 4-way stream of red energy hit his helmeted head, the man barely having time to turn to face the new foe before his skull alongside his helmet blew away in a flurry of charred blood and gore. The weapon made itself clear that with sustained and unnumbered hits, it was strong enough to pierce even ceramite.
Castor only had the time to blink before being tackled behind cover, the sound of rapid-firing blaster cannons filled the forest. The stomping had stopped, but in front of them stood the responsible forms of this dread. 2 dreadnought-sized Abominable Machines stood in front of them, their forms firing a constant stream of red bolts from two side-mounted blaster cannons. B-3 Ultra Battle Droids, their armor seemingly upgraded with cortosis-weave, an unfamiliar and horrific new form of droid warrior, one not even the Crimson Razors had yet encountered.
"What in the name of the Burning Throne are those?" Tabit screamed over the volleys of red death, his form crotched behind the form of a toppled tree.
"I don't know! But whatever it is, we need to start shooting, fast!" Izar screamed in response. On cue, Castor managed to pull himself together, the stress from this betrayal solidifying into a cold hatred as he was cast back into the familiar, the ingrained.
Castor opened up with a volley of his own, mass-reactive bolts firing and striking one of the massive droid creatures, the cracks from the holy weapon billowing out like the Emperor's thunder. Every single bolt hit the target, but it did next to nothing. Some of the weapon's fire simply bounced off of the thick, alien metal, while others seemed to penetrate the target and detonate, only for the resulting explosion to rebound from the point of detonation, shrapnel, and fire seemed to launch itself back out of the wounds. Castor's jaw almost dropped at this, the shocked form of the marine ducking milliseconds before the creature could turn its attention toward him.
"Damnit! What the fuck are those things made of?" Castor asked the remains of his squad, before looking at the broken form of his former Sergeant. He knew what he had to do, he knew he had to take his place as acting commander. Castor cursed to himself before issuing orders.
"Izar, I need you to stay here and fire your plasma gun on my command. Tabit! I need you to fire at only one of the droids to draw their attention, their weapons are strong but it seems like they need more than a few shots before breaking Ceramite. Act fast. Make sure you do not get hit anymore than twice!" Castor screamed over the hail of blaster-fire, red bolts capable of killing anything other than a space marine with but one shot whizzing overhead.
"Who made you commander of this squad, Castor?" Tabit screamed back.
"Shut it! We don't have time for this. We need to fight and survive here, we were betrayed here and Aiolos is dead, you can complain when this is done!" Izar responded.
A second passed before Tabit begrudgingly nodded his head. Tabit then stood up, firing volleys of bolter fire directly at the closest facing droid, his fire just like Castor's barely managing to even damage the hulking A.I. After a few milliseconds of fire, the Droid turned its attention towards Tabit. Now was Izar's cue.
Standing up, the Space Marine fired two bright green balls of death toward the machines, the heat from the blasts literally lighting the air around them ablaze. The blasts hit the machines directly on target, spheres of green light and heat turning into whirling storms of semi-gaseous plasma. The machine seemed to stagger back at this, the thing taking a few steps back, but as the plasma dispersed Izar's twin hearts seemed to drop like balls of pure Adamantium.
The machine wasn't just unscathed, it wasn't even burned. The B-3's armor, whatever it was made of, seemed to deflect and disperse the plasma from his weapon, literally turning weapons-fire strong enough to disable tanks into what amounted to be splashes of water. As he realized this, the droid drew its attention back towards him, the stunned marine barely making it back to the forest floor before it opened up with a weapon far deadlier than the blaster cannons it was firing with before.
With a deafening crack, the thing's massive wrist-mounted weapon fired, a ball of glowing blue, blindingly hot plasma barreling forth toward Izar's position. Castor's eyes went wide as he saw this, the man pulling his brother out of the miniature star's path before it hit the downed tree, blowing the cover apart in a rain of burning ionized wood.
"It has a Throne damned plasma cannon!" Castor screamed as he helped Izar towards a more sturdy cover. "Get to better cover now, Tabit!"
Tabit heard the order and began to stand up to run towards a thicker collection of trees. However, whatever intelligence these droids had seemed to predict his most likely course of movement, and with a sudden roar, two long deadly missiles, their heads glowing a dull purple, launched themselves directly towards where the marine was going.
"Shit!" Castor yelled as he stood up and began to fire bolt rounds at the homing missiles, only managing to shoot one out of the sky as it weaved and bobbed to little effect. Almost on instinct, the other hulking machine beast noticed this, it's twin rapid-fire blaster cannons opening up with a volley of death yet again, forcing Castor back down, the marine only being able to fire off but a few, ineffective bolts at the other semi-sentient Brillant Missile, which seemed to dodge and weave around the fairly inaccurate shots.
The missile seemed to hit Tabit in slow motion, the marine only noticing the mortal danger he was in when it was already too late. The rocket detonated as its armor-piercing tip lodged itself deep inside the marine's thigh. Tabit's body flew off in two directions, his legs flying off backward towards the B-3s, and his upper, still living body flying off towards the trees. Valiantly, Tabit managed to prop his barely living form up next to the trees he fell next to, firing his bolter on full auto towards the hulking machines of carnage.
"For humanity! For the Emp!-" Tabit was cut off mid-battle cry, his voice and lungs raw as his head went up in a fountain of charred gore, a stream of red blaster cannon fire ending his battle cry then and there. Silence overtook the two surviving marines for but a few milliseconds, before they pulled themselves back and took cover yet again as another blue orb of death flew overhead.
"How in the Throne's name are we going to kill those things? Our bolters are useless, plasma tickles them like it's not even there, and there are two of them. We can't even focus on one long enough before our heads get forced back down!" Castor almost screamed at Izar, desperation deep in his voice. The young marine's conscious finally began to come over him like a long, dark shadow, the knowledge that it was his decision-making that got Tabit killed fresh in his mind like a newly burned mark of shame.
"Fuck if I know! These things are tearing us to pieces, the only chance we got at bringing them down is with…" Izar trailed off as his helm'd face darted to the massive, thrumming tree in front of them. "Unless we bring something bigger down on them."
The younger marine took his meaning as he noticed where his older brother was looking. "What?! That's insane! We have no clue if that will work." Castor replied, his bolter held tight against his chest.
"Listen, brother. I fought the Great Devourer more times than I can count, take it from me sometimes the only way to bring down something big is to let something bigger do the work. In our case, that tree is our best chance." Izar turned his vision back towards the marine at his side. "As a bonus too, we'll get the hell out of this loop, and one step closer to ripping out Sirus's throat for what he's done to us."
Castor sat in silence for but a few seconds before replying abruptly. "Fine! How do you plan on bringing the thing down?"
"Your grenades, and well, everyone else here's. I need you to grab as many grenades as you can and hand them off to me. If we have enough, the resulting blast will dislodge the roots and push the tree over. Once you have as many as you can grab, I need you to distract the Men of Iron as much as you can, get them to focus on you, and do whatever you need to besides dying. I will detonate the grenades once you are in position. Give me a signal once you are through Vox. If everything goes to plan, the tree will crush them both, got it?"
Castor simply nodded in response.
"Good, we move out on my count. Draw their fire but try not to get killed." Izar said bluntly, the Astarte holding his plasma gun at the ready, his scarlet eye lenses peering over their makeshift cover towards the lumbering dread machines. As he did so, Castor too readied himself, loading his last magazine into his prized bolter and setting it to fully automatic in a nearly vain hope to at least damage the metal beasts.
"3…2…1!"
Izar opened up with a short volley from his plasma gun, the blobs of fusion energy splitting the air on torrents of emerald light, the ever-present stream of red death stopping as they met their targets. The first hit the furthest B-3 directly in the chest, the giant stumbling back as it attempted to regain its footing. The second was hit wide, the ball of plasma hitting the target on its far left side causing it to stumble and stutter to the right.
As this all happened, Castor ran as fast as his gene-enhanced legs could carry him, his twin hearts pumping and thrumming like an engine's coils. Using his momentum, the Astarte ducked and grabbed onto the belt of his fallen commander, the leather snapping as Castor pulled it free, alongside the 6 grenades attached to it. 3 krak, 3 frag.
Castor barely managed to dive back to cover before a volley of red blaster cannon fire opened up again, his form being hit by 3 shots out of their weapons. The marine wanted to scream as his left arm went numb and flared up in a scorching pain, one of the shots hit his under armor, it fried the servos in that arm and blew a hole right into his elbow.
Worse yet, the man just then heard it. Missiles being fired, their engines screaming with the hatred and fury of false life. Pulling himself back up, Castor fired his bolter, a hail of exploding micro-missiles meeting one of the purple-tipped armaments, the projectile exploding as it did. However, there was still one more missile, and when he saw it he knew it was too late. Or at least, he thought it was.
Like a bolt of lightning cast down by a protector deity, a single glob of emerald plasma hit the accelerating self-propelled round, blowing it out of the sky and showering Castor in rapidly dispersing plasma and relatively harmless shrapnel, leaving shallow burns and singeing his hair. Castor fell to the ground, the explosive force being enough to knock him on his ass but nowhere near enough to kill him.
Castor sat back up behind the cover of a tree and clipped the broken belt to his own. He realized then that this was the same tree Tabit was behind before his ultimate fate was met. He whispered to himself a mantra. No, not a mantra, a prayer, a litany that would see him through this till the end.
"What is your Duty?" Castor jammed his free, working hand into the flexible under armor where he was shot, Mark-3 power armor screeching in defiance as he pushed hard against his vambrace. "To serve the Emperor's Will. What is the Emperor's Will?" Pain swelled in his arm, his Black Carapace flooding his mind with primal and horrific signals. "That we fight and die. What is Death? It is our duty!" Castor's barely functioning armor came off with a sharp deafly crack, his naked bleeding arm while incredibly damaged was still functional, still able to fire his holy weapon.
Castor stood up. Hefting his bolter in his one fully functional arm and bracing it in the pained naked one. The stream of metal and death opened up again, this time firing directly at the lumbering death giants in his distance. One or two bolts would have never been enough to even tickle these things. But a nearly full magazine? It would give him a shot, a chance to stagger the thing long enough to grab the last belt. And that's all he needed.
The droid he targeted as he hoped fell back, step by step, unable to target the Astarte under this volume of fire. Castor grabbed both Tabit's belt and bolter. As his weapon finally clicked empty, he ducked to cover again and threw his empty weapon to the side, the all too familiar crack of a plasma weapon signaling his chance to run back to Izar.
He ran again. He ran like he never had in his life, his blood hot like ice as the damaged B-3 still tracked its evading target as it recalculated and recalibrated itself. Castor then fired another torrent of mass-reactive bolts at the second lumbering beast, distracting the thing from its task of keeping Izar's head down for long enough to get back over to him. Miraculously, the Astarte made it, diving and rolling to Izar's side as the twin beasts of carnage opened fire yet again.
Castor panted, hard, as he unhooked his belt and tossed it over to his savior brother. "There's 10 grenades total there, 6 frag, 4 krak. Tabit was supposed to have more but with the way he died, we are lucky we got as little as we did off of him."
"You did a damn good job Castor, made the Emperor proud, it's just…" Izar trailed off as he seemed to think, his mind working like a calculator to figure out if there was any way to get what they had planned done without the needed amount of ordnance.
10 grenades total, plus the 4 I have on me… There's not enough.
"I'm just going to be straight with you, brother. We don't have enough." Izar finally said. "The explosion that would be caused by these many grenades would at best force the tree back onto me, but it would more than likely just throw up a shit ton of dirt."
"No, that can't be right!-" Castor began before Izar cut him off.
"There is a way for this to still work. You won't like it. But it's the only choice now, we can't run, we'll either be cut down or stuck in this loop for the rest of time itself, we can't call for help, we have to do this." Izar said, almost as if to soothe his own nerves. "We have one more explosive, one that should be enough to force that tree over."
Izar looked down at his prized plasma gun as he finished. Castor knew what he meant immediately. This, everything here, had just turned from worse to cataclysmic.
"No, you can't, the only way to turn a plasma weapon into an explosive is if you overload it. It's entirely manual! You can't do it remotely, you'll die right then and there!" Castor almost screamed at his older brother, grief about to boil over onto his burned face.
Izar simply looked up to Castor. Suddenly, the aging marine grabbed his helm and twisted the beaked, ancient thing off of his head, revealing the tired old man underneath, thin grey hair billowing in the wind of combat and grey stubble crying out to what once was. "Go. Distract those abominations. Give me time to set things up. I'll vox you when you need to run."
Castor's demeanor went stone-cold as he said this, he didn't know if it was his psycho-indoctrination or his genuine acceptance of what needed to be done. But he knew what needed to come next. He knew above all else the mission mattered more than anything here, and he knew that death was their duty. Castor nodded in response.
In an instant, they were off again.
Castor wasted no time, firing round after round at the lumbering beasts yet again. A thought crossed his mind as he did, his trans-human eyes noticing the slowing state of the monstrous metal creatures. They were slowing. The bolt rounds had done some damage after all, not enough to down them, they had nowhere near enough rounds to do that, but enough to slow them down and get them on their backfoot.
The marine almost smiled at this but stopped himself as he continued his grim purpose, keeping the false intelligence on his turf, on his tail, so that they wouldn't notice the death about to fall upon them. As he did this, one of the slowing creatures fired its wrist-mounted plasma cannon.
Roaring in defiance, he rolled to cover yet again as the rolling ball of blue death hit a cluster of trees behind where the marine once was. Looking back up, he saw the B-3 Battle Droids were now in position, their backs facing the massive tree as they continued their barrage onto his position.
"Izar, are you ready?" Castor screamed through his vox. A moment of silence passed before Izar met his response.
"I'm ready, move!"
Castor felt cold guilt overtake him before it melted away into a fire of resolve. As he made his way to the furthest left-facing tree cluster, he heard it, Izar's last words before his life was too ended. But unlike the others, unlike Tabit or Aiolos or Ogma, he knew his death would mean something. His death would save their very chapter itself.
"Live to fight another day, Castor. Live to fight another day."
Castor turned around just in time to see the explosion. At first, it was just a green flash, the characteristic sign of a plasma weapon overheating, but then it was a tidal wave of energy and force. It almost forced Castor onto his knees as the shockwave hit him, and as it did the massive kilometer-sized tree collapsed, its eldrich energies silencing and blinding themselves as it fell to the forest floor hard, crushing the two metal giants underneath.