2nd Crusade of the Shadow Scars

[AssaultCommander]

Prologue

 

Commander Sephaestus watched out the window of his personal Thunderhawk, the Blissful Chaos, as it made its descent. Below him, Verkon IX burned.

 

Fire choked the grey skies, unhindered by the heavy downpour. Sephaestus saw the unnamed city below him explode and burn, the handiwork of the Shadow Legion. Traitorous bastards, he thought.

 

"Two minutes until landing," said the Thunderhawk's pilot. Sephaestus raised his gun and inspected it. It was more of a habit, the first captain required nothing more than a perfectly tuned weapon.

 

It was classified as a Storm Bolter, but Sephaestus called it Traitorbane, and for good reason. To the untrained eye, it was just a normal 'Storm Bolter', but, upon further inspection, more was revealed. It was crafted by the Shadow Scars' Forgemaster Hephaestus himself, a quarter centurie's worth of toil. Sephaestus remembered the day he cast aside his standard-issue bolter and took up 25 years of metal in his hands. It still felt amazing.

 

The pilot called, "Twenty-five seconds," and Sephaestus stood. His eight-and-a-half, almost one thousand pound bulk made the floor beneath him shudder with each step. Thoom. Thoom. He strode intently to the exit hatch. Two squads of the Shadow Scars' greatest, geared up and ready to fight.

 

There was squad Ares, the Sternguard veterans, who had an ammunition type for each enemy they fought (or so they claimed). And there was his own personal bodyguard. The 10-strong Sephaestus' Swords. The ten finest, handpicked Astartes taken from the ranks of the first company. Within their ranks was their Forgemaster, Hephaestus, a powerful Conversion Beamer perched on his back.

 

They all nodded, solemnly, in recognition of their master's arrival. He needed no more. There was a loud boom-ing as the transport rouched down. The ramp opened, and they marched into Hell itself.

[AssaultCommander]

Chapter 1

 

A bolt round punctured Brother-Sergeant Amideas' pauldron, causing a spray of blood to fly from his arm. Immediately, his enhanceed bloodstream clotted the wound. Amideas dropped to one knee and began pouring rounds from his own boltgun into the enemy beyond him. Behind him, his squad followed his lead.

 

Sephaestus led the charge, Traitorbane spewing holy fire into the masses of traitors before him. Beside him, his command squad drew their chainswords and brought down suppressing fire. The traitors in the building before them scattered and dropped like flies, some with gaping holes in their chest, others without heads.

 

"For the Emperor and mankind!" the commander yelled. The Astartes behind him roared in response.

 

A traitor Astartes, wearing armor as black as the night itself, was the first to fall to Sephaestus' furious charge. His stomach was blown wide open as two bolt rounds punctured him midsection and exploded, sending blood and bone in all directions. In a split second, Sephaestus had his sword in his hand, and was digging into his hated enemy with every swing. With one hand, he disembowled a sergeant and with the other, he detonated the head of another. The squads that were under their command fell back, shooting wildly in an attempt to hold off the attacking Shadow Scars.

 

That was when they fell into the sweeping advance of the company's Drednaughts.

 

Ancient Mathias swung his massive mechanical fist in a full circle, smashing aside three of the Chaos legion before they even knew what was happening. As he returned to his original position, the massive robot fired his assault cannon in another circle, brutally shooting down the remaining traitors.

 

Beside him, Ancient Daedelus crushed two bezerkers of Khorne in his fists and shot another in the back with his underslung storm bolter. He then raised an armored foot and crushed a fourth into the dirt without a moment's pause.

 

As the masses of the Shadow Legion fell back, three large walkers stomped foreword into the battlefield. Their bolters flew left and right, barely touching the Shadow Scars' troopers. One crashed into Ancient Daedelus, knocking him down. Before the monstrosity could finish him off, however, Forgemaster Hephaestus obliderated it with his conversion beamer. It unleashed a demonic scream as fire poured from its 'face'.

 

Ancient Mathias spun around and punched his fist into the shoulder of the second chaos drednaught. Three twisted tentacles lashed out, twisted around Mathias' leg and pulled, bringing him to his knees. The twisted mass of machine and monstrosity aimed its bolters at the armored coffin that held the near-dead remains of Mathias' pilot.

 

A second lance from Hephaestus' Conversion Beamer dropped the abomination and prevented the loss of one of the chapter's most pwoerful warriors.

 

"That's two," said Hephaestus, pulling his power sword out of the corpse of a so-called 'champion' of chaos. Behind him, Sephaestus had to jump to get over the pile of corpses he had grown for himself. Beneath their helmets, they were smiling.

[Croakamancer]

:P I liked it. Traditional SM battle stuff isn't normally my focus, but this is good, and passably written (sorry, I'm an English Student, so unqualified praise is out of the question ;)) A little mainstream thus far, a little pedestrian and predictable, but this is a promising start, and you've caught my attention at least. ;)

 

A couple of things the Nazi in me was screaming about

 

Blissful Chaos? As a LOYAL Space Marine ship? ;)

centurie = Century

Conversion Beamer? What?

Try and put a little more variety into your words. It's rather refreshing to see that not overdone, but when you used the word traitor three times in two lines... ;) Heretic? Blasphemer? Bastard?

You've put the bodycount of your opponents a little on the high side. Remember, they're astartes too, your legion's equals in battle and skill. Fighting them should not be so easy, should it?

Mathias' pilot? Mathias, surely? The whole point of a Dred is the first guy being inside. (a better fight there though.)

 

And now, for the sake of facile self promotion, would you consider having a look at my tale? ;) It's also on site, here

[AssaultCommander]

Thanks. Sorry about the gramatical errors. Stupid keyboard :geek:

 

And how do you not know what the conversion beamer is? :P Read the new marines codex!

 

Oh, and I read your story. It's also pretty good, keep it up! :D

[Croakamancer]

:D Meh. I feel out of date now. I only just started this hobby! (Well, restarted)

 

And thanks. :) I'll give it a look, and glad of the encouragement. :) Not enough people post feedback to other people's stories... perhaps B&C could get some kinda peer review going?

[AssaultCommander]

Chapter II

 

Sephaestus watched as a pair of Thunderhawks landed and disgorged Astartes soldiers and members of the Imperial Guard. The venerable commander wished he could muster more of his Chapter than just the first and second company, but he knew that the third through fifth were busy fighting Orks on a different planet light years away.

 

He sighed as he wiped the blood from his sword on the corpse of an 'Aspiring Champion' of the so-called Blood God. His head had been exploded by a bolt round.

 

Forgemaster Hephaestus approached him from behind. In his hand, he held a hologram projector with a map of the surrounding area.

 

"Sir, I've got good news and bad news," he said.

 

"Tell me," said Sephaestus without turning.

 

Hephastus pointed at a large city on the boddom half of the hologram. "This is where we are," he said, then pointed at a second, much larger city in the middle of the picture. "This is the capital of this region. The good news is that it is only guarded by a handful of heretical Astartes, the large force we wiped out here must have been the rest of them."

 

Sephaestus nodded. "Any other defenders?"

 

"A few dozen corrupted Guardsmen, a few light vehicles. These satilite images don't often lie. Now, the bad news is that they are very well dug in. The capitok building in the middle is also a nigh-impregnable fortress, at least with conventional infantry and vehicle weapons."

 

The two stood in silence for a moment. Sephaestus considered his options. Bombing the city would definately destroy the traitors, but their objective was to save as many citizens as possible. Knowing the denizens of Chaos from similar encounters, they would probably have some kind of dark apostle for morphing the citizens into horrific daemons, or using them as sacrifice for suimmoning bigger ones. He shuddered at the thought.

 

Then again, the ceremony may already be underway, or possibly even completed. Could he risk losing men to the horrors of the warp to save a few citizens?

 

No. No, he could not.

 

Sephaestus turned around to face Hephaestus.

 

"Get the battle barge on the comms. I want a strike cruiser prepped for an orbital strike in the next half-hour, got it?"

 

The Forgemaster sighed and shook his head. "They have anti-air cannons prepped. We were barely able to get our recon satelite out of the line of fire once it was spotted."

 

The first captain cursed inside his helmet. "Where are these cannons?"

 

Hephaestus consulted his hologram again. "There are four; two on the north wall and two on the south. They are mounted on the outer gates of the capitol fortress. If you plan on destroying them, we'll have to blow our way through the city first."

 

Sephaestus nodded. He liked that option. "Do it. Spread the order, we move in one hour."

 

 

 

 

 

In the inky, pitch-black room, three figures were strapped to large stone tablets, symbols of chaos cut into the rock. They could not see anything, for it was as black as a Dark Apostle's hearts.

 

They were mere civilians, people without any military connections at all, save Miri, whose husband was amongst the first soldiers killed when Chaos struck. She had been taken hostage a mere hour after she recieved the news.

 

Now, they prayed in silence, hoping the Emperor would send someone to save them from their inevitable doom.

 

The door to the chamber swung open. Four massive, black armor-clad Astartes entered the room. One wore ceremonial robes and had symbols of the gods of Chaos etched into his armor in many places. Miri knew him as the Dark Apostle.

 

He wore no helmet, revealing his pale, scarred face. One scar ran from his left eye down below his neck, where it was concealed by his armor.

 

The Apostle approached Jayson, a friend of Miri's who had tried to flee with her when the soldiers of Chaos attacked. His legs were broken by one such soldier, and had been brought to this chamber soon afterword. The priest of darkness briefly inspected Jayson's face and nodded once. He then drew a serrated knife from a concealed sheath and cut Jayson's neck open in one swift motion. The poor man gurgled and coughed up blood for almost a minute before he died.

 

The Apostle then turned to look at Miri. He would have killed her, too, if the explosion had not caught his attention first.