Unshackled Salamander Captain Gaur'than Shatar is head of Fleet Prometheus, which consists of a hundred newly redesigned battleships with enough power to decimate fleets five times their size. He was given command of ten thousand of his Unshackled Salamander brothers, Firstborn and Primaris stock. Gaur'than himself is a Firstborn, having been assigned to Terra as a bodyguard for Navigator House De'ord. He was there to witness the return of the first and the revival of the birth world of mankind. He is one of the first of the Unshackled and has strode across worlds witnessing the might and majesty it the Father of Mankind. The task of his fleet is to liberate each system they pass through on the way to the Salamander homeworld of Prometheus, where they will bring the Truth of the First to their brothers and where Gaur'than will hand control of the Unshackled Salamander Legion over to Chapter Master Tu'Shan upon his unshackling. Now, his force has come to the Neburia system in its time of need
They immediately engaged the fleet of Tyranid bioships upon jumping into the system. It was nowhere near a fair fight. The ships of the New Imperium are half the size of the old vessels, with five times the speed and power. Sio has even given the Unshackled all the knowledge they need to fly them a task that can be accomplished by a bridge crew of five. There are no more gunnery crews or slaves on board. Most of the regular crews have been left on the worlds of their choice. Those remaining are either hardcore spacers or are simply there to see history being made with their own eyes. They are given jobs to do if they ask for them, even though the ships themselves are self-maintaining and self-repairing.
They decimated the bioships at the edge of the system and continued to rip through them as they made their way deeper. Ships broke off to go to each besieged world in the system. Gaur'than left the fleet work of hunting and killing bioships to his brothers, who enjoyed that kind of warfare while he led a thousand of his brothers down to the surface of Neburia.
The Salamanders, not wanting to waste any time, teleported into the heart of the largest swarms assaulting the planetary capital, Preim. Upon arrival, Gaur'than immediately found himself face-to-face with Carnifex in the middle of ripping apart a Leman Russ Battle Tank. Gaur'than had forty-nine battle brothers with him, and all of them preferred the roar and devastation of the Vengence Bolters over the quieter, quicker UC pattern. These enemies did not deserve the mercy of a quick or quiet death. There is no reasoning with them. They only live to devour. They only deserve the wrath of the First and his New Imperium.
"Into the fires of battle, my brothers," shouts Gaur'than.
Forty-nine Unshackled roar, "Unto the Anvil of war!"
Gaur'than opens fire on full auto with his Vengeance Storm Bolter, sending a storm of Vengeance rounds into the Carnifex. The rounds rip through the beast's armored hide like it is paper, and the explosive core, which has been redesigned, now adjusts the blast yield needed to cause maximum damage to the target. Emptying the clip into it was overkill but also a statement. The Carnifex pops like an overripe melon. The other Salanders all picked different targets, of which there were plenty to choose from. Termagants, hormagaunts, hypergaunts, and more. All of them are momentarily stunned by the death of the Carnifex, which acted as the psychic resonator transmitting commands to this part of the horde. It costs them as the wall of explosive bolts tears them to shreds. Despite how it looks, this is far from spray and pray. As regular Space Marines, their aim was superhuman. As Unshackled, each of them has machine-level precision. Each shot is a hit, and no two brothers aim at the same target. It is a massacre. Few of the creatures survive to retreat, leaving the broad street looking like a charnel house.
Gaur'than and his men hit the reload studs on the sides of their guns. Instead of ejecting the spent clips, the guns click as fresh bolts are loaded into the clips from the personal pocket dimension that each Unshackled has access to, from which they can call upon a full armory of personal weapons and all ammo they will ever need.
Gaur'than turns around and looks back over the Guardsmen who had been defending the street before their arrival. They all stare at the Unshackled in awe, disbelief, and reverence.
"Brothers Jo'khargan and Bar'keln, shepherd them to safety," says Gaur'than as he turns away.
"My lord," says a black-coated Commissar stepping forward, "With all due respect, we can still fight. It is our duty to the Emperor to hold this line with our lives. We will not abandon it."
"Aw, a Commissar," says Gaur'than, retracting his helm with a thought to fix the man with the woman with the full heat of his fiery red eyes, which are a mark of his geneseed which his unshackling did not change, "I do not care what you consider your duty to be. You will do as you are told. If you try to stop these soldiers from retreating to safety, we will designate you just as much an enemy to Mankind as these xeno. Now, I said fallback."
The Commissar steps back as if slapped. Gaur'than favors her with a smile that would not be out of place on the face of a dragon before replacing his helm and turning back to the sound of a fresh horde coming. The Hive Mind, as effective as ever, had sent more for them to kill.
"Brothers, I think I need a workout," says Gaur'than over his suit speakers, "What say you?"
Sergeant Verveem Her'vo replies, "Aye, captain. Let us show them the true fire of the sons of Vulkan."
With that, they send their guns away and summon their personal preferences in close combat gear. Gaur'than's are a set of what looks like Lightning Claws that, like the Unshackled, have been upgraded. These do not rely on crackling energy. They are made of stabilized and hardened antimatter capable of slicing through shields, armor, flesh, and bone like paper. The Salamander's freshly armed lift from the ground with their armor's anti-grav jets and fly toward the horde, roars bellowing from their suit speakers like dragons. They absorbed the fire of the ranged bioforms, ignoring the bioammunition as it splattered on their armors' skin-tight energy shields. They crash into the front rank of the horde and begin their dances of death.
When the First remade them, he left them all the size and strength of Space Marines but upped their speed and agility to be a match for that of an Aeldari Harlequin. They are lethal works of art. Art they are more than happy to put on display.
Gaur'than cuts down seven Termagants in three heartbeats. He dances left to dodge a Genestesler's claws by mere inches before cutting its head off. He moves right and dodges a pair of Hormagaunts attempting to take him from behind. He eviscerates both in seconds. He and his brothers form a wall of death in the middle of the street, moving in perfect sync and not letting a single beast past them. Blades and hammers flash and smash xenos with every swing.
"Gargoyles, Brother Captain," comes the calm voice of Brother Barari over comms.
Gaur'than looks up and sees the flying Tyranids swooping down from above. He needs to issue no orders. Five of his brothers break off and take flight to engage. They equip their UC Bolters since they are outnumbered fifty to one and go to work decimating the air assault. The others close ranks and continue the slaughter. Gaur'than grins as he returns to his brutal work. He spots the target he was looking for, the Warrior form leading this horde. The beast is massive, with a venom cannon in place of its right arm, a serrated bone sword in its left claw, and two blade-like forelimbs over its back.
"The Warrior is mine," growls Gaur'than.
He cuts down fifty-seven more lesser forms before he is face-to-face with the Warrior. It fires on him with its venom cannon. Gaur'than eats that shit and charges in his shields down to seventy from the total damage he has taken. He ducks the Warrior's three blades, moving left and right, taking pleasure in the thing's fury and confusion. His first strike sheers off the venom cannon, and his second takes its left claw. Then, he plunges his claws into the creature's guts and rips them up through its chest. Still alive, it falls to its knees before him, and he grabs it by its horned crest, holding it up. He moves his face to it until they are inches apart.
"I know you are only a slave," growls Gaur'than, "This message is for your Hive Mind, who I know can hear me. The First has returned, and he will not stand by while you prey on Mankind. This is your only warning. Go back to the void you crawled out of. If you don't, we will burn every bioship from space. If you don't, we will make you watch and feel every last one of your children die. If you don't, he will come and rip the heart out of your world. He knows you. He knows where you hide. You have been warned."
He cuts the head off the beast, severing its control of the lesser forms. He and his brother eradicate them in their sudden confusion. They give the Hive Mind its first taste of the might of the New Imperium. Like the Tyranids, when they devour worlds, they will not stop until every bioship is a gutted hulk and every bioform is dead. No mercy, no quarter. Only fire and death.