Author note: Seems to be a bit of confusion about the idea behind this story and the way it is written so let me clarify: It is just a parody. I have not done any extensive reasearch into the canon of either franchise to make this story. it is just for fun, like all my crossovers. There are a lot of anachronisms and canonical plot holes in it. Please don't take it too seriously. thank you.
Chapter 3.
Horus hears the comms scrambling as his pod enters the atmosphere. 3 minutes to landfall.
He is ready, he was born ready. He will not fail his Father in his quest, in the crusade. This planet, another among thousands. Humans, mutants, and heretics. They will be cleansed.
Horus does wonder. If one of his brothers is here, why isn't he already ruling the planet? Why is this encounter so different from the others?
He remembers all the other first contacts. Their planets, their styles, their father's presence, and His influence on them. He knows his brothers, he feels what they feel.
But this one, this one he doesn't feel, he doesn't know. Granted, he had doubts at first about 1 or 2 of his brothers, and not only about dedication and loyalty. But still, Horus is skeptical.
The warp storms were getting closer the astrophysics officer told them, they don't have forever in this system to figure everything out.
Landfall, Horus braces for impact and as soon as the door opens he storms out, powerglove fully charged, bolter in hand. He scans the horizon.
In the distance, he sees Sanguinius and Rogal's pods descent. Good, with his brothers by his side, they can cover more than half this planet's territories with the astartes, containing the fighting and focus on finding out more about these mutants and heretics.
His father left everything regarding this invasion up to Horus, so big is the trust between them. Horus immediately ordered all troop ships to start a planetary landing, all legions. They will be landing across this entire plateau and beyond, several enemy warriors had been spotted moving across the vast sand desert, out in the open.
4 groups of ten thousand astartes are coming down. Twenty thousand of these belong to the Thousand Sons, Magnus the Red's troops. They carry his gene-seed and are 100 percent loyal to him and the Emperor.
But Horus is his most beloved son and beloved by his brothers as well and they all fully trust their legions with him.
10K astartes belong to the Blood Angels, troops of Sanguinius, who is down on the planet along with Horus. The last 10K are Imperial Fists, Rogal's troops. Sanguinius will be more directly controlling his troops during the campaign whilst Horus will take control of the Thousand Sons and Imperial Fists legions directly.
That is all the astartes troops they have available in total, no reserves, no reinforcements, no extra supplies.
Horus opens communications with his brothers and all legions.
"Report status, establish a perimeter, deploy defenses, and start tactical analyses. You all have 5 minutes to be ready." He says. He had scanned the horizon and knew instantly where he was on the planet, having studied the planet hologram intensely. He knew exactly where his troops had landed, his brothers, where the enemy and enemy outposts were. 5 minutes delay is already unacceptable but he knows the planet is still mostly unknown, who knows what secrets their enemy has in store for them. Better play this by the book.
He marches east, linking up with Thousand Sons forces that had landed the closest to him. They had already linked up with the Imperial Fists and had established a perimeter. First Captain Sigismund reports in and shares his tactical overview and battle plans.
"Excellent work First Captain, you are to be commended. Your tactical analysis is closer to my own than I had anticipated. I trust you with both legions for the time being, move your forces to the outskirts of the city and engage enemy troops there, this is just for assessing the enemy's strengths. Report back to me when you have sufficient data, do not retreat to this perimeter unless overwhelmed or engaged with an unknown force.
I will meanwhile link up with my Brother Primarchs and lay down a strategic plan." He orders.
"Yes warmaster Horus." And with that, Horus is off again, he can trust the First Captain to carry out his orders, they will secure territory enough and build a base. Meanwhile, he has to cross country to link up with his brothers, no transport so he has to go on foot. Whilst running he opens communication.
"Sanguinius, Rogal. Report." He says as he was doing a steady 40 miles per hour on the sand dunes.
"Horus, Sanguinius here. We have sent you our coordinates, new locations have been selected for offensive maneuvers. We are currently engaged in combat with Sardaukar forces, no casualties so far. They have dug themselves in deep though." Sanguinius answers. Horus frowned.
"Why have you not engaged and overtaken the Sardaukar positions? Advancing in key, speed, create chaos amongst our foe." He replies, confused by his brother's lack of commitment.
"A group of Fremen popped up on our flanks. They fight ferociously and weh ad to divert our attention. They seem to be able to blend in the sandy landscape perfectly, a lot more than the Sardaukar were doing. We have decided to make the Fremen our top priority, they are also the ones in charge of what they call the "shai hulud", monstrous creatures as we heard but we haven't seen one yet." Sanguinius answers. Horus understood, he was nearly at their position anyway so he could see himself. They knew they were fighting 2 different enemy groups but were led to believe through their intel that these Fremen were nothing more but a band of raiders, highly unorganized and untrained. Horus guessed their intel was wrong.
He should have known of course, considering the source of the intel. It appears the people on board the enemy ships had little knowledge of the planet. Horus was pretty sure he knew more about it now than they did, and he was only on this planet for a short time.
Fine, that mistake won't be made again, it is time to show them they mean business so they can start pacifying this plateau of the taint of chaos.
Arriving he sees Sanguinius and Rogal together in a makeshift tent, with several officers of the Blood Angels and Iron Fists in attendance.
"Excellent, I see all forces are accounted for and organized properly. Tell me about these Fremen attacks." Horus says as he enters. All present stand up straight and salute. It was quiet outside, but Horus could smell the stink of battle. They lost astartes brothers.
"Brother Horus, Fremen have attacked us on several spots. They use quick hit-and-run tactics, come up out of the sand, lay down a hail of fire from powerful and unexplained weapons, and disappear before we can return fire, mostly. They can dig into the sand and make a quick escape using tunnels. I have already ordered a dispatch of demolitions to clear some of these tunnels." Sanguinius says. As he says this an officer of the Blood Angels enters, he is not wearing a helmet. Horus growls.
"Lieutenant, you are on an alien world, no samples have been taken of this atmosphere. I command you to wear your helmet at all times." Horus says to him. The space marine is unflustered and puts his helmet on without question.
"Yes, my lord. I have come to report an imminent attack by Fremen, our seismic scanner has been finetuned to their signature and they will be attacking in less than 5 minutes." The lieutenant says. Horus closes his powerfist, and sparks fly from it.
"Excellent. Brothers, we will take point ourselves and see how these Fremen fight. Move it!" He says and they exit the tent, following the lieutenant across the perimeter to the seismographs. Horus reads them quickly and agrees, the enemy is about to attack.
"We will have a surprise for them this time," Rogal says.
"Indeed we do brother. Get ready!" Horus says as the seconds pass. He sees the sand stir in front of him and aims his bolter.
3 big bulges of sand appear and explode in front of them, sending sand in large quantities over the astartes and their primarch commanders. The firefight starts almost immediately after. Even Horus has trouble locking on his targets but eventually manages to squeeze a few rounds into a Fremen enemy who comes down in front of his feet. The firepower of the Fremen is intense, the sand has hardly fallen back to the ground when Horus can see them dig their way back down, away from their own bolter and lasgun fire.
"Report," Horus says calmly as he approaches his kill.
"No casualties my lord. reporting 3 dead Fremen." The lieutenant says.
"They have some sort of sonic weapons, attuned to their voices," Sanguinius says. Horus nods as he turns the body over and examines his enemy.
"Their suits are meant for desert warfare, they are highly adapted. Fast, resilient, accurate. A formidable foe. A lot more so than the Sardaukar I have seen fight as well." Horus says as Sanguinius and Rogal stand beside him.
"Look at his eyes, they all have that. Fully blue. Mutation?" Sanguinius asks. Horus grunts.
"Possibly, The Emperor has warned me of some foul corruption on this planet. It might well be in the air, all around us. I need to know as much about this contamination as possible lieutenant, I'm making you personally responsible for the research, you can use the main tent." Horus says. The lieutenant grabs the body and throws it over his shoulder with ease.
"Right away my lord." He says and trods off. Horus looks at his brothers.
"Rogal, Sanguinius. I want you two to take a few hundred troops and reinforce the Thousand Sons at the city at the coordinates I will send you. I want that city contained, limit the garrison as much as you can, I got a feeling we are going to need the most troops out here, at the edge of the plateau. Send all Thousands Sons to my position." He says. Sanguinius and Rogal don't question him, they know he is right. The Fremen are just testing their new enemies' abilities, they will soon launch a major attack.
"I suggest we send out scouting parties into the dunes, we have reports of caves and canyons occupied by Fremen warriors, they are probably staging their offensive from them," Rogal says. Horus nods.
"Yes, we are not ready to go on the offense into the desert just yet. We need to know more about our foe and its capabilities. I will send out scouts, though we have no bikes or speeders and very few predator tanks." He says.
"A small group of storm ravens has been deployed on the other side of the plateau, the only ones we have though. They can do a quick sweep of the immediate area before we do ground patrols. The enemy seems to have some aircraft but inferior and hardly any anti-air." Sanguinius says.
"Excellent. Coordinate that Sanguinius. Rogal takes control of the ground forces around the city and you take the rest of the plateau whilst I plan our offensive from here." Horus says. They nod to each other and his brothers start sprinting back towards the city.
Horus walks back to the tent where his newly appointed surgeon is working on the corpse.
"Anything lieutenant?" He asks. The Lieutenant turns around, his armor is covered in blood. He has his bolter in his hands which has a knife at the bottom which he is using to cut open the Fremen corpse.
"Yes, Primarch Horus. Please examine this armor he was wearing." The lieutenant says. Horus walks over the another table where the space marine has laid out the armor suit the Fremen was wearing. He had cut it open and torn it apart but Horus could examine every piece individually to find out how it worked.
"Interesting, a perfectly isolating environmental suit, fully recycling water and exchanging heat, complete cover from the elements except the air. Ingenious. Perfect for desert operations. How is it powered?" Horus asked.
"Most likely through motions of the body, breathing, heartbeat, possibly even movement of the limbs. Take a notice though at the mask and its filters." The lieutenant says. Horus examines it closely.
"Curious. It seems to filter the air but not fully. That seems strange, considering the sophistication of the technology. These people are born on this planet though, no need to filter the air they breathe when not wearing the suit." Horus says.
"I don't think they ever remove the suits. Unless they absolutely have to. Come have a look at the body Primarch." The lieutenant says. Horus walks over to the table where the corpse lies. The lieutenant opens the eyes. They are fully blue, although where the pupils should be there is only a darker blue.
"Mutation," Horus exclaims. The lieutenant nods.
"Must be something in the air then, they breathe it in from birth, causing this mutation to form. Communications with forward forces tell us the Sardaukar and none of the landed forces have this mutation, it appears to be indigenous to the planet." He says. Horus grunts.
"Appears? Why do you say that?" Horus asks. The lieutenant sighs.
"Primarch Horus, the ship surgeon on the Arica Dominus found the same mutation on the navigator abomination on one of their ships, and he was surrounded by a volatile substance diluted in water where he was submerged in. And it is clear that thing is not indigenous to this planet." He says. Horus acknowledges the lieutenant's concern.
"Some sort of substance, origination from this planet that they use. They use it to travel the warp, some kind of catalyst. I will order this body up into space for examination, we need microbiology and environmental analysis teams down here as soon as possible to find the source of this substance, starting with traces in the air and sand. I will make the call." Horus says. This is highly disturbing. His Father told about his concerns with this substance, able to help people become navigators, and enhanced psychic abilities. A terrible sort of heresy, worse than AI. No wonder they were fighting each other. He might have to consult his Father directly, to consider exterminatus.