Imperial Fists Lost 48th

[oakenshield]

I started with an idea to justify my friend's prehersey Imperial Fists army build including a Librarian. I ended up having fun with it and just kept writing. C&C would be appreciated.

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Part 1. 135 years into the great crusade.

 

Captain Berthold stood next to the command chair, dwarfing the aged Inwit shipmaster that resided within. Berthold was anxious for the impending warp translation, and even more anxious for the moment, weeks from now, when they would translate back into the comforting embrace of realspace. He would feel more secure if the Iron Resolve was docked in the belly of Phalanx, but as it stood he and the 48th company of the Imperial Fists flew ahead as outriders for the legion fleet. He also knew, as he glanced at the red armored warrior who accompanied him on the bridge, that Lord Dorn was more comfortable with the sorcerer separated from the main fleet.

Joab Auset had come the Imperial Fists eight months prior. An adept of the Thousand Sons legion, he had been seconded to the fists, a gift from Magnus the Red to oversee the development of Dorn’s Librarium. Magnus had seen fit to send Auset, a member of the Raptora Cult, believing their telekinetic prowess would lend itself naturally to the Imperial Fist's already prodigious skill at defense. His welcome had been anything but warm. When Auset's shuttle had arrived within the mighty fortress of Phalanx Rogal Dorn's belligerent champion Sigismund had wanted to skewer the Thousand Son legionary on discovery of his pysker talents. Berthold wished such a simple solution would have come to pass. Dorn quickly pacified the situation, but he explained his position to Auset in no uncertain terms.

 

“My legion has no librarium, and I have no intention that my sons will employ your dangerous witchery. You will find I do not command my legion in the same manner as my brother.”

 

For the duration of Auset’s detachment he was to fight alongside the battle brothers of the seventh legion without the use of warpcraft. Since that time he had been Berthold’s charge, and the captain was weary of his company. Finally, however, the fleet was preparing to translate into warpspace, and Auset would be joining an Imperial Army convoy once they reached their destination.

The last 8 months had been difficult for Auset, not only because he had cut himself from the great ocean and the company of his tutelary. He was separated from his legion, diverted from the path of knowledge, and on a fool’s errand to enlighten his heavy-handed cousins. He was treated with nothing but suspicion and hatred from the seventh legion. He had fought alongside the 48th company for months, relying wholly on the brute power of his tactical dreadnought armor and using his inactive force sword as an almost blunt weapon to bludgeon his enemies. In spite of all this he had still made no brothers, no bonds of any sort.

 

As the Iron Resolve’s Gellar fields activated, Auset felt a lurch in his stomach. It was a pang of prescient warning. He had not dared to reach out with his mind in his time with the Imperial Fists, but now the warp was screaming and clawing into his mind. He tried to yell a warning to the crew but foam and blood was all that left his mouth.The deck shuttered and lurched. Waves of vibrant and sickening colors penetrated the thick ceramite and plasteel lining the walls of the command bridge. A strong stink of sulfur penetrated the air and all those manning the bridge felt the putrid taste of bile on their tongues. Berthold’s twin hearts sank as he realized the translation had gone horribly awry. The Gellar field’s integrity was failing, and they were being hurled aimlessly into the Empyrean. Even as these realizations sunk in upon Berthold, the hand of the Inwit shipmaster clamped down on the captain’s gauntlet with a strength the Berthold could not believe.

The gaunt and hunched frame of the elderly shipmaster was writhing and reshaping itself. Bones snapped and skin burst as horns and raw musculature expanded from the remains of the old Inwit. A monstrous hulk of red flesh had sprung from the shipmaster’s body, and Berthold realized he stood face to face with one of the vile powers that resided in the warp. The captian remained resolute. He was an Imperial Fist. He was a son of Rogal Dorn. He was one of the Imperium’s mightiest defenders. He was...

Before Berthold had even drawn his weapon, the hellblade of the warp creature had shorn him in two. The creature stepped over the captain’s fallen body, calcified hooves clanking against he ceramite armor. The creature was advancing on Auset, the rippling and bleeding muscles looked like a crude mockery of the vitruvian man he had studied on Prospero. Blue light irradiated from Auset’s eyes, mouth and hands as he grabbed the monomolecular chakra blade at his side. He had forsaken the use of his powers while deployed with the seventh legion, but all was now lost and he would not surrender to the warp without fighting back the only way he knew how.

Energy coruscated along the chakra as Auset swung a wide arc at the advancing creature. The creatures blade fell to the floor, still clutched in both of it’s hands which had been precisely separated at the wrists. The disfigured creature reared back, spitting curses in a ancient tongue that not even the most inquisitive scholar would wish to understand. To Auset’s surprise the wounded creature addressed him clear precise low-gothic. “Sorcerer, you and your brothers are beholden to the cowardly lord of change. Your craven use of magicks has earned the ire of the blood god. Your flesh will rot within your helm as it is placed on the lowest base of the skull throne.” While Auset was dumbfounded by the creature’s strange message he realized the other non-augmented humans of the deck crew had all began similar corruptions of the flesh as the shipmaster.

At this moment sergeant Rolan Burzum bust through the door of the command bridge from the adjacent corridor. His squad of Terminator elite filed in behind him. Berthold had always been a hardliner when it came to ship security, and at least one squad of terminators always patrolled the corridors of the Iron Resolve at any given time. “Daemons…. “ Burzum whispered in an incredulous tone as he saw the warp spawned devils that now dominated the command bridge.

Auset backed from the advancing warp creatures, retreating to the line of reinforcements. Most of the veterans carried storm shields and close combat weapons. The only firepower among the squad was a heavy flamer integrated into the armor of one the veterans. As the legionary with the heavy flamer stepped forward to put a wall of promethium between the marines and daemons, Auset concentrated all his psychic will on the licking tongues of flame. With deliberate care Auset nursed and manipulated the flame until it reached a brilliant white heat. As he pushed the flame towards the daemonic spawn he poured his last bit of psychic energy into a symbolic gesture, the flame took the crude shape of the two headed imperial Aquila. Auset had only the most understandings of the Pyrae Cult’s powers, and such an effort had greatly drained him.

The bridge was clear of the daemonic incursion, but the entirety of the command crew had been killed in a matter of minutes. Sergeant Burzum removed the faceplate of his tactical dreadnought armor. For the first time Auset saw a legionary of the Imperial Fists look upon him not with scorn and derision, but with something approaching awe. “We need to muster our forces brother. I do not understand what has boarded our ship…” Burzum looked down at the at the burnt and ruined body of Captain Berthold in the middle of the room ” but we will need all our strength to repel it.”

Auset took point as they cleared corridor after corridor filled with devilish creatures. Along the way their numbers were strengthened with human serfs, astartes in nothing more than training tunics, servitors and several squads of Imperial Army that had been garrisoned aboard the Iron Resolve. The dynamic /between the Son of Magnus and the Imperial Fists legionaries had changed dramatically. Auset’s aptitude at fighting against the warp creatures put him in a de facto command role. He could see that even with that trademark stubbornness, the legionaries were now seeing his eldritch powers as an asset rather than a scourge.

After several hours they had fought their way to the armory. Legionaries helped themselves to whatever armor and weapons could be found. As the band of warriors quickly equipped themselves before another incursion struck, heavy footfalls shook the armory. Six contemptor pattern dreadnoughts stepped from their storage areas. A techmarine among the group had just installed their caskets and was beginning the process of waking the venerable battle brothers within from their twilight sleep. Fields of fire were devised. Overwatch positions were assigned. Entrances were fortified. True to their legion’s spirit of steadfast defense, the remnants of the Iron Resolve’s crew stood ready to hold the armory to the last man.

 

For weeks the Iron Resolve drifted aimlessly in the void. The Gellar Fields had not failed entirely, but they sputtered and waned, letting immaterial beasts ghost through the hull and wreak havoc on those left inside the cruiser. Human crewmen, debased into slobbering ghouls, gathered their strength to attack the

Armory. Each of these attacks was led by a corrupted warrior in the yellow ocher plate of the VIIth Legion, the mutation of his flesh and desecration of his insignia made it impossible for the defenders to identify their fallen brother. Time after time these attacks were repelled by flame, bolter shells and the kine shields erected by Auset.

 

Auset felt a dichotomous nature surrounding him in the warp. He was no stranger to the predatory qualities of the warp. His subtle body had swum the depths of the great ocean, and he had repelled the mindless things that sought to feed on his consciousness. But now his physical body was caught in limbo between the depths of the warp and the fragile bay of realspace cradled within the Gellar field. These creatures of horns and blood and brass were nothing like those mindless things his mind had encountered before. These monsters had a unifying thread, a common devotion to something even more powerful and terrible, and he could feel all their unchained aggression fixated upon him. Even with this unexplainable hostility, he felt some supportive power at work as well. Auset’s powers had grown exponentially in the short time since the Gellar fields had began to fail. It was almost as though he had some patron here in the warp guiding his hand. A growing sense of both unease and curiosity

 

On the 49th standard terran day since the botched translation into the warp, the denizens of the warp along with the corrupted crew mounted their most staggering assault yet. The barricaded doors were breached, and the damned crew flooded in, flanked by the monstrous red beasts. An enormous champion of the same ilk as the other creatures waded through the throng and bellowed curses in an unintelligible tongue. Brother Germanicus, oldest and most venerated of the companies dreadnoughts surged forward to meet this challenge. The corrupted Imperial Fist, now adorned with skull totems and a tabard of human skin singled out the Thousand Son sorcerer. All around mayhem ensued as the remaining battle brothers of the 48th Company laid into the assaulting wave with pistol and chainsword.

 

Servos whined and hissed as Germanicus powerful arms grappled with the monstrous champion. The plasteel flooring buckled and cracked under the powerful struggle. Any combatant who strayed too close to the struggle was crushed by the the reckless belligerent mass of the two wrestling leviathans.

Auset was no duelist, and he had no interest in a dragged out confrontation with the debased Imperial Fist striding toward him. The traitor had discarded his legion issued weapon for a crudely fashioned maul made from some piece of the ships heavy duty mechanisms. The champion raised the maul high, letting out a disgusting battle cry “Blood for the blood God, skulls for the sk…” Auset gave him no time to finish his exclamation. Enhancing the force of his swing with all his telekinetic might, Auset swung his razor sharp chakra at the traitor, easily cleaving him from neck to shoulder. As it passed through the corrupted flesh the chakra flared white hot, and Auset dropped it from his grip in surprised. The heat had scorched his armor, and the figure of an eight pointed star was now emblazoned on the palm of his gauntlet. “An eightfold path…” thought Auest to himself “this is a fine omen.”

The battle however, was not in the favor of the survivors. The horde of approaching enemies forced them to retreat to the rear of the armory, Assault cannons and Plasma fire pouring from the dreadnoughts to cover those falling back. All seemed lost as more entities flooded the armory, new horrors that the legionaries had not yet encountered. They were blue amorphous bodies shrouded in flame. The surviving astartes were shocked as the newcomers attacked their fellow warp creatures with a cannibalistic fury. Chaos was the only word Sgt. Burzum’s mind could conjure to describe the events unfolding.

The battle paused for a strange moment as the fabric of space seemed to strain and then buckles under some immense force. The eldritch creatures of the warp flickered for a moment, then melted away as though they had been some phantasmal illusion. At the same moment the corrupted crew fell to the ground, clutching at their faces, ripping chunks of flesh from the bone and screaming in agony.

Even over the lamenting and painful cries of the corrupted crew, every legionary felt what had happened. They all cried cheers of joy and relief as the oppressive atmosphere of the warp dissipated from the armory. Amidst the whooping victory cry Burzum and Auset shared a concerned glance between each other. What power, they wondered, could have brought the ships bulk back from the immaterial realm?

[Chapter Master Onyxius]

I love it, really like the tail of the Imperial Fists fighting daemons, though where was this? And why was a Thousand Sons Legionary staying with the Imperial Fists if there was no Librarium? Wouldn't he just go back to Prospero or back to Magnus and give him his report? That was the only thing I didn't understand but or else then that, the sentences were flowing real nice and to be honest I can't wait to see more!

 

- CMO

[oakenshield]

I love it, really like the tail of the Imperial Fists fighting daemons, though where was this? And why was a Thousand Sons Legionary staying with the Imperial Fists if there was no Librarium? Wouldn't he just go back to Prospero or back to Magnus and give him his report? That was the only thing I didn't understand but or else then that, the sentences were flowing real nice and to be honest I can't wait to see more!

 

- CMO

 

Thank you for your feedback, I appreciate the kind words. As for why a Thousand Son's marine would stay with the Imperial Fists is because of the unreliability of warp travel and difficulty procuring warp capable craft for a single marine. It made more sense to me that he would make leave of them when they next encountered another fleet that would be heading back to his celestial "neighborhood."

[Phalanx Warder]

I am really liked the whole story! I have started a bit of a Imperial Fist legion obsession and is going to be the next army build I go for, I will be on this page to check for more updates