The Skaven warrior stalks across a stinking trickle of thick sludge leaking out of the depths of a sewer pipe.
-
The Last Litany of Endless Despair
The breaching pod slammed into the space hulk, cutting deep into it’s twisted body. With a jolt the pod screeched to a stop and opened up into the belly of the hulk. Code named Endless Despair, the space hulk lived up to its name. The five terminators turned on their shoulder mounted spotlights, cutting into the gloom as the decouplers hissed and detached.
With their sergeant taking point, the terminators of the Blood Angels chapter resolutely moved into the oppressive darkness. Their stomping armor drowning out the clunks and hisses of the hulk.
It did not take long for the enemy to attack Hated xenos attacked them soon after their extraction from the breaching pod. The Blood Angels welcomed it. The Sergeant’s power sword thrummed to life and cut down the first, his storm bolter taking the next in the chest. Explosive rounds covered the terminators in gore, their holy armor sullied by the filth.
Suddenly a door exploded inward, a thrashing xenos besetting brother Petrarch. Brother Acrion behind him cut down the twisted this with his lightning claws, the pieces of it’s body splattering to the ground it’s claws still twitching. Without missing a beat, Brother Petrarch turned his heavy flamer to the destroyed door and filled the chamber beyond with purifying flame. Screeches and howls emanated out from the opening eventually diminishing to pitiful squeals as the xenos burned alive.
First to fall was Brother Belarius who held up the rear. A xenos claw burst out of the wall and slashed across his throat, taking off his head in one savage blow. His body fell to its knees, blood spurting out of the exposed stump and slumped to the side against the wall. Storm bolter fire rang out from the survivors covering the wall in exploding shells.
Then silence.
Smoke rose from the barrels of the terminators guns as they waited for any movement, the blood rage rising. Still they controlled themselves, for they were of the first and discipline was firmly entrenched. Hearing nothing, they carried on, marking the resting place of their fallen brother for later extraction.
Twenty minutes later Brother Meros and Petrarch were the next to fall, rushed by several genestealers at once from the rear. Brother Petrarch’s heavy flamer chaotically spraying burning promethium everywhere, covering the ceiling in flames as his ruined chest spilled out it’s life blood. Brother Meros in the midst of slamming his chainfist into the chest of one genestealer was taken out by another, his arm shorn off at the shoulder, quickly followed by his torso.
The sergeant, overtaken by rage at seeing his betherin slain pushed past Brother Acrion and slashed one of the surviving xenos to pieces with this power sword. The warning from Brother Acrion fell dead on his lips as the berzerker Sergeant overextended and fell to slashing claws. But even in his death throes, the Sergeant managed to blow the head and shoulders off of one genestealer and slice another in half with his power sword before he finally succumbed to his wounds. Brother Acrion dispatched the remaining two with his arcing claws. The silence was oppressive. Only Brother Acrion remained.
Stamping down the corridor Brother Acrion watched as a xenos turned the corner and charged towards him. At the same time another genestealer broke out of the ceiling and scuttled down the wall. Brother Acrion began the litany of battle, bellowing iit fruitlessly at his foes.
I am the edge of His Sword,
I am the tip of His Spear,
I am the mail about His Fist,
The Emperor’s chosen,
Covered in the Blood of Sanguinius,
I will smite my enemies,
I will purge the heretic,
I will burn the witch,
For I am the Emperor’s judgement.He splayed out his claws as another genestealer burst out of the floor, ready to deal out the Emperor’s justice against the hated xenos.
Brother Acrion fell to the ground as a claw pierced his heart, his litany still thundering in his head.
-
The First Angel
The angel of the First looked on at what his brothers had wrought. Desolation as far as his genetically enhanced eyes could see. A wisp of smoke drifted lazily across his vision. It’s meandering tendrils a stark contrast to the swift violence that was carried out just hours before. The angel turned his head to watch a building crumble under it’s own weight, it’s structure riddled with battle wounds. Dust splayed out from the devastation as the rockcrete grinded against itself in its descent.
He and his brothers had laid waste to this forsaken planet in the name of the Emperor. Their duty had been performed with precision and an unwavering determination. The cursed enemy were defiant to the end, those known as The Brethren of the Golden Strain. Tainted by the insidious xenos genestealers.
There was no hope for this planet. Once its defense systems fired on the angel’s vessel the planet’s fate was sealed. No mercy was expected and certainly not given. Control of the defense systems meant all levels of the planet had been corrupted by the xenos plague. Therefore all had to be purged. An attempt to preserve industry and infrastructure would be made but the priority was eradication of the cancer that infested this planet.
Eventually the angels had made their way to the governor’s palace to execute those in power. Twisted abominations had met them. Hulking monsters with crude weapons. All had been slain. The governor himself, riddled with mutations was executed without ceremony, despite his pleading and protests. At the last he cursed the Emperor and the angels. He was cut short as the angel stomped on his head, spraying brain matter and skull fragments across the rich carpet.
And so the angel stood and contemplated as explosions rained down from above, destroying the last of the buildings. None would be left living here. In the centuries to come this place would be rebuilt to become a productive member of the Imperium once more.
-
Desert Ambush
The dust kicked up by it’s tainted metal legs gave the Sentinel’s position away giving Sergeant Dioclese ample time to prepare the ambush. The space marine had been fighting these treacherous auxiliary for several months now. The clanking hulk before him now was the only survivor of an artillery strike seventeen kilometers back.
As the cursed machine stomped through the gap the trap was sprung with practiced efficiency. The Sergeant leaped from his vantage point high above the traitor, his power swords eager to taste the corrupted engine. “For the Emperor!”, he bellowed as the first sword plunged into the top most armor, slicing through it like butter. As the space marine passed over the Sentinel, his second sword came swiping under the body hewing the diseased metal in two. The tainted wreck screamed a machine howl, the sound echoing off the rocky protrusions dotted throughout the desert. The Sergeant’s body hit the dirt with a practiced roll, standing up in front of his handiwork.
The wind howled across the plains as the creaking halfs crashed to the ground, the lone space marine already accessing his helmet’s auspex for his next victim.
