Sergeant Sidrel of the dark angels and his battle brothers ran through the corridors of the PDF headquarters on Izata, Located at the top of hive Ferri. He briefly glanced up through a window in the ceiling to see flashes through the smog above as the Borg ship tore through the orbital defense grid. They knew an attack on the planet was imminent, but with everything they had on the ground, they were sure they could handle it. Although the fact that the ship had torn through the fleet in minutes was extremely alarming. They finally arrived at the room where the PDF and Astra Militarum leaders were supposed to be meeting and discovered chaos. People with cybernetic implants and personal shields were attacking the Officers and injecting them with something with flexible tubes at the ends of their hands. Their bolters roared and within seconds all of the cybernetic men were dead. "That must have been them," said the marine to Sidrel's right. He turned his head to look at him. "They were the Borg," said the marine. They knew the name because their message had been broadcasted over every Vox system on the planet. Then they heard a scream down the hall, followed by lasfire. They found that there were more of them teleporting in, and the entire spire was going to be overrun. The space marines tried to fight, but quickly found out that their bolters now had no effect against the Borg's personal shields. They decided to resort to their melee weapons, which proved to be devastatingly effective. Lasfire and shouting echoed throughout the complex and more Borg teleported in. The sergeant cut down dozens of Borg with his chainsword but was still all but powerless to stop the assault on the massive command complex with only ten marines. After a few minutes they had amassed a small group of several dozen following the marines for safety from the onslaught. Some were soldiers, others were just secretaries, but they all followed the marines because they were scared and wanted to survive. In what felt like the longest fifteen minutes of their lives, the attack was over. The maries and the people that accompanied them walked into one of the many meeting rooms as the last of the borg and the people they had injected with that mysterious substance teleported away. Now they could finally begin to coordinate a defense of the planet. Someone brought out a vox communicator and Sidrel called out on all frequencies: "This is Sergeant Sidrel of the Dark Angels calling out to all PDF and Guard units, I am taking command of this planetary defense, please report in. Silence. For several seconds then they got a lone voice: "Hello, I am Axel, I am at the PDF headquarters in hive Dossus."
"WHAT IS YOUR RANK SOLDIER!" Roared Sidrel into the Vox system.
"Well i am only a private but…"
"Well then put your commanding officer on! NOW!"
"Hes, I mean they're all… gone. All of our commanding officers were taken, the highest ranking person here is a sergeant, and there are no commissars anywhere, we managed to contact some of the other bases, and they're all the same, the entire planet has been hit. No commanding officers anywhere. The planetary governor and his staff are also missing. Astropathic relays have also been hit. We can't call for help" Sidrel froze, trying to think of a solution. The entire planet's military force had just been decapitated. "Alright private, have your unit assemble then stand by and wait for orders".
—-
Now that the planet's military had been severely weakened, it didn't take long for the invasion itself to start. As the dark angels tried desperately to pull together the mess that was the Izata's defending forces, they got jumbled vox communications talking about attacks in hives Ferri and Dossus, in the lower hive. Defenseless citizens were apparently being attacked and taken away by the Borg Soldiers. So he took his men to go investigate.
Sidrel and his men Moved through the refugees surging in the opposite direction. They didn't have to push through the crowd, as everyone gave them a wide berth to move around. Eventually they spotted them. At the end of the huge line of people, was a large group of black clad Borg soldiers, engaged in combat with a ragtag group of guardsmen, hive law enforcement, and civilians, and even a few gangers, all working together to hold back the tide of the invading Borg. Sidriel and his men made it through the crowd and tore into the onslaught of Borg, which crumbled quickly under chainswords and power axes.
"My lord…" said one of the guardsmen, a sergeant, by the looks of him. "Thank you for saving us". As he dropped to one knee and bowed, the rest of the group either did the same, or just stood there in shock, staring at the giants in power armor standing in front of them. The space marines simply ignored the group and continued deeper into the lower hive. The Borg had occupied much of the mining and industrial areas of the lower hive, and as they quickly began to realize as they ventured deeper, transformed it into a horrible, heretical factory of their own. It started with a few Dark black wires and unidentifiable circuit boxes, and then quickly turned into human sized alcoved lining the walls with cables and machines everywhere, and eventually they found more Borg. They turned a corner and saw, in the darkness, dozens and dozens of silhouettes of human figures, standing completely still gazing at them.
"Why aren't they attacking?" asked one of the marines.
"They must be afraid," replied another.
"No" responded Sidrel, "They must be waiting for something, they do not strike me as the kind that know fear". He took a few steps forward holding out his chainsword, ready to jump into combat if necessary. All at once, the many Borg soldiers raised their right arms and pointed them directly at the marines and let loose with a flood of green energy bolts, fired from the wrists of each borg. Sidrel felt two burn right through his armor and bore deep into his flesh. The borg then began to advance, continuing to unleash their wrath upon Sidrel and his men. He quickly realized that they could not close the distance to the Borg to use their melee weapons when they had this much firepower. However, not all of his men thought the same. Two of them immediately charged at the orderly line of Borg soldiers, and were swiftly cut down as the Borg focused fire. Sidrel immediately gave the order to retreat. Sidrel himself turned and took off down the road he watched his battle-brothers briefly turn around to shoot spouts of bolter fire at the advancing column of Borg, but he didn't have to turn around to know that they were having no effect. One of his battle brothers turned around to fire another spray of bolter fire at the oncoming Borg, Sidrel could only watch as a single Borg emerged from an alleyway behind him. In the gloomy lighting, he could make out that the Borg had his right forearm removed and, in its place, was the heavily modified, but unmistakable form of a Melta gun. Sidrel cried out a warning over the vox, but it was too late.
The marine whirled around to confront the attacker, only to take the full power of the Melta blast in the face. As best as Sidrel could guess, he was killed instantly. Sidrel body slammed the Borg at a full sprint, sending him flying like a ragdoll. The remaining seven marines had gained enough distance on their pursuers that they had stopped firing at them, but now they had a new problem. Cutting off their path back the way they came was another wall of black-clad bodies. Normally, he would stand and fight, but even the proud Dark Angel knew that they were outmatched and retreat was the tactical choice. Looking around for another way out, he spotted an alleyway.
"Over here" Sidrel said as he ran towards the narrow opening between structures.
"We won't even fit in there" protested one of the marines.
"We will if we go in sideways, plus we're out of options".
One by one the marines squeezed into the alleyway and shuffled as quickly as they could down the passage. The last marine entered the alleyway as soon as the Borg began to open fire against them. Knowing that it wouldn't be long before they started down the alleyway after them, Sidrel picked up the pace; he did not want to lose any more battle-brothers today. With one final push they made it through the alley way and stepped into hell. Or so they thought. The street they were standing in was filled with elevated tables, each one containing a restrained human. Dozens more human captives lay in neat rows at the foot of each table. A single Borg operated on each restrained human. The last marine burst out of the alleyway. He was the first to speak. "What in the name of the emperor are they doing?" he whispered.
"They are assimilating them". Sidrel Said in horror. "They are turning them into Borg". The marine to Sidrel's left roared in anger. "Vile Xenos filth! You all deserve a fate worse than death!" The marine, followed by the rest of Sidrel's men, threw themselves at the offending Borg, cutting them down with righteous fury. The Borg attempted to fight back, firing wildly at the marines, but they were no match for them. After cutting all of the Borg in the area to pieces, the others began to retreat. The proud Dark Angel realized a while ago that they were in way over their heads, so Sidrel rallied his seven remaining marines and led them down the street back towards friendly lines.
—-
Helia listened to the fuzzy sounds of alarms echoing throughout the ship, painfully aware of the searing sensation in her head and the crusty feeling of dried blood on her face. She just laid there for a few minutes, hunched over, resting on her console, hoping the pain in her head would go away. When it didn't after several minutes, she decided that she should probably go look for some medical attention. She put both her palms against the cracked surface of her console and shakily pushed herself up to her feet. She barely got two steps away from her chair before stumbling and falling. After a few seconds, she decided to try again. Pushing herself to her feet a second time, she used the wall for support and looked around the bridge. The Captain and first officer were dead, killed from a ceiling collapse, there were more bodies scattered across the bridge, and more people were missing, fled to other parts of the ship. The widows were cracked badly, but luckily for her, had held under the stress of battle. Moving slowly and using the wall for support, she made her way to the exit. She wandered through the corridors of the ship, navigating by emergency lighting only, she moved around for what felt like hours, looking for anyone that could help her. She eventually heard voices, but everything was fuzzy and she couldn't understand what they were saying. She turned a corner and saw what looked like the beams of flashlights, several of them, pointing away from her. She said something that not even she could make out and was immediately aware of a bright light blazing in front of her. The bright light immediately made the pain in her head triple, and she quickly brought her hand up to block it. More talking, a little clearer now. She felt several pairs of hands grab her and help her move down the hall, before laying her down on a soft surface, where she quickly dozed off and lost consciousness.
—-
Sidrel Arrived back in the command center a few hours later to grim news. Large swaths of hives Ferri and Dossus had already been overrun and many of the smaller settlements were gone as well.
"How could we be defeated so quickly?" Sidrel asked one of the newly promoted commanding officers.
"Well, all of their soldiers have personal shields that are impervious to ranged fire, so our only option is to fight them in melee," Sidrel knew this to be true from his own experience.
"However, their cybernetic enhancements make them extremely strong and powerful, in close combat, at least compared to an ordinary human."
"What about energy weapons used by the Borg soldiers?"
"Well, um, they do appear to have ranged weapons mounted at their wrists, but they only seem to use them on vehicles and structures, never people, we are lucky that they are though, because otherwise things would be worse than they already are." Sidrel doubted that. If the Borg had simply been killing people, then he suspected they wouldn't have the manpower to take the planet, but now it looked like they were all doomed to become Borg. Unless they could do something about it. Sidrel then decided that he and his marines would go up to orbit in their stealth ship to confront their leader.
—-
Helia awoke, but stayed on the mattress with her eyes closed, still trying to alleviate the pain in her head. It was softer now, more bearable, but present nonetheless. She heard two pairs of footsteps approach her.
"When will she wake up?" asked a male voice "We need everyone to keep the ship's life support online."
"I am not sure, she had a pretty bad concussion, I gave her something for it, but-" Helia exhaled "I'm awake" she said, cutting off the medic as he pushed herself into a sitting position. The medic offered her a hand and she took it. Now on her feet, she looked at the officer.
"Where do you need me?" she asked.
"I was about to say, she is in no condition-" Interjected the medic
Helia cut her off. "I'm fine, plus, they need me to help prevent us all from dying".
"Great, I need a few people to go down to the fighter bay three decks down and scavenge some spare parts from whatever craft are still there. Two tech priests will be going with you to do the actual mechanical work, you'll be carrying the parts back up here". Said the officer. The medic opened her mouth to protest but decided that it was pointless and waked to attend to another patient with a defeated look on her face. Helia grabbed a tan backpack on her way out and headed down the hall, head still aching. When they got to the next deck of the ship, they found that the emergency lighting was offline, luckily they had brought flashlights.
"Well this is unnerving" Heila said as they made their way through the pitch black corridors.
"Yeah, never know what might come out and snatch you away". Said the man that had accompanied them.
Helia giggled, despite the fact that laughing made her head hurt.
"Hi, im Jazzeth". He said, extending his hand.
"Helia," she replied as she took it.
"We must move fast, the machine god will not tolerate our inefficiency". Shot one of the tech priests from in front of them. Helia rolled her eyes.
"Come on Jazzeth, we wouldn't want to make the machine ghosts angry, or they might turn off our flashlights". Jazzeth cracked a smile, but, although he said nothing, she thought she could feel the techpreist's anger coming off him in waves.
"Relax, it's not personal," she said, "I make fun of everyone". Until now the fourth member of their group, the second techpriest, had been silent, looked over his shoulder. "What gave you the impression that I was angry?" He spoke in a very human voice compared to other Techpriests she had spoken to, indicating he still used his human vocal cords and not a machine replacement.
"Not you, him," she pointed to the techpriest to his right.
"He gets angry at everything, don't take him seriously". Replied the techpriest. "I am Kathik. It is good to make your acquaintance." Helia smiled and waved at him. The Techpriest turned and faced forward as they continued their journey down towards the fighter bay. The fighter bay was even more unnerving than the dark hallways. It was just as dark, but their flashlights couldn't reach the ceiling or the walls, so they wandered through the dark until one of the spacecraft they were looking for came into view. The Techpriests quickly got to work, stripping the vessel of its life support components to be used in repairs elsewhere on the ship. All was going well, then she heard a faint hissing sound, and Jazzeth hitting the floor. Looking around she saw a man in black armor and wires running in and out of his flesh approach Kathik from behind.
"Kathik! Behind You!" The Techprest whirled around with surprising speed, just in time to confront his attacker, who was mere feet away. The other Techpriest was not so lucky, and was struck from behind before he could react. Helia suddenly two tubes pierce her neck and a cool liquid flow inside of her body.