+++WORD BEARERS SKIRMISH FORCE DEFEATED AT VOSCH MANUFACTORUM++
+++TEMPEST WARDENS VICTORIOUS+++
+++HEAVY LOSSES INFLICTED ON THE ENEMY+++
In the cavernous halls of the Vosch manufactorum, iridescent radioactive sludge covered every surface like a glistening morning frost on a grassy plain. Even the air seemed to shimmer from the radiation.
Marek Seth, a Diabolist of Word Bearers expeditionary fleet 1302 could sense it. His face was hot and flushed as thousands of tiny pinpricks raked across his skin caused by the radiation, his cells fighting a loosing battle to replenish at a rate faster than their genetic code was being obliterated. Even Astartes could not linger in environments such as this, their battle-plate only affording them momentary protection from this silent killer. They had already lingered too long and he expected that he and his men would need some significant time with the apothecaries while their anatomy recovered from this damage.
An Astartes next to him vomited, a thick black coffee grind paste spewing from his mouth, splattering down his crimson breastplate. The man dropped to his knees clawing at his throat as he began choking, his physiology failing to adapt. He looked to Marek for help, desperation in his eyes as clots in his trachea rendered him helpless. The Diabolist drew his combat knife. Marek took the fallen astartes’ hair in his off hand and drew the blade down from his larynx to his manubrium. More blood clots spilled from the wound as the Astartes slumped forwards and his chest heaved, his airway clear but his body useless. He gestured for an apothecary to collect him. Despite their reputation for being cold and dispassionate, there was no sense in loosing trained warriors in campaigns as this.
Seth blinked his eyes shut and extended out into the aether. His soul soared through the nothingness burning bright like a flaming hawk, high up above his position. He knew Astartes sensors struggled when bathed in such interference, but his psychic might was unaffected. A mere 300 yards away were the enemy, shielded by a number of machinery blocks from the manufactorum. It was the forces of the Tempest Wardens, a small faction of the Imperial fists. Their crimson heraldry differing from the yellow and black scheme laid out by Dorn many years before. The Tempest Wardens were new to the Aleph sector, this their first test of their mettle.
Perched upon a taller mechanicum building, a Master of Ordinance of the Tempest Wardens crouched with Squad Fulgur, their Crimson plates mimicking the glow of their lascannon’s power units in the radiation. He opened a vox channel to his recon squad, who had been ordered to their position but one floor up.
“Are the charges set, sergeant?” he asked as the Word Bearers triggered their ambush, his men opened fire on them with their bolt guns.
“Yes sir” he rasped back, the radiation cracking the vox channel, his voice barely audible over the static.
“Detonate them on my mark. Three, Two, One, Mark!” he ordered, as five breaching charges detonated above the heads of the Word Bearers tactical marines and Seth. At first nothing happened before the metal began to wail.
Marek Seth looked up at the explosion above his head and laughed, his voice booming out through his vox-plate on his helmet, seeming to come from all directions.
“It will take more than trickery to best me, Fist!” he howled as power surged through his limbs. He began to rise above the heads of his marines, sparks and forbidden lightning arcing from his stave towards the Tempest Wardens.
The celling continued to creak and groan, a building crescendo of tearing metal and tortured cables. The man next to him pointed up as the ceiling began to give way. Dread took root in Marek’s gut, he had been utterly outplayed. While his powers allowed him foresight, they were not infallible.
A sixth charge detonated, and the ceiling dropped. Vast chunks of metal, slurry and cable fell from above. The ground shook as the slabs impacted, throwing up vast clouds of fallout, dust reducing the visibility to next to nothing before their visors compensated. Men around Marek were utterly crushed, ceramite plates offering no resistance to the tremendous amount of energy imparted by the slabs of falling metal. His arms whirled and sparks arced as he threw his men into debris meant for him, their sacrifice would be appreciated later however all he cared for at present was survival. 18 of his men died as he launched them against the debris. Chaplain Karak Thall lay at his feet, his body mangled by a large angled wedge of ceramite. While survivable in normal conditions, the radiation was hampering the ability of his blood to clot, for him to survive he had to get out.
Marek gestured to another Astartes and together they heaved at the wedge of metal, their power armour enhancing their already abhuman strength. At first the metal did not budge, it was if it had been mag-locked to the floor. It shifted suddenly and Thall let out a piercing scream as the shattered ends of his femurs ground against each other. While Astartes were genetically superior to humans, pain is universal and Thall succumbed to shock, his eyes rolling back in his skull. His brain placed him in an induced coma, it would save his mind from any degradation if he were to loose all circulation despite his two hearts. Dragging him from under the metal they saw the extent of his injuries. While his limbs were attached they were mangled almost beyond recognition. A severed artery in his thigh pulsed blood out of the many cracks in his armour, the blood swelling like a sea at high tide.
Seth straightened to his full height and began a tirade of orders to his men through the vox network. He wanted revenge on the cowardly Tempest wardens and their vile deceit but today was not that day. Their Sicaran battle tank roared past, in support of the two rhinos, its accelerator autocannon and three heavy bolters firing on the massed ranks of a Tempest Warden tactical squad that had tasted blood and had advanced seeking a scalp to take.
Seth did not see the rest of the battle. He scooped the limp body of Thall and ran, leaving his men to their fate. His overlords would not be pleased, nor would the being that had ordered them down into the depths of the manufactorum. The Crimson King would not take this well…
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