The Carnage at Vecedes

[Julgolax]

The Carnage at Vecedus

 

Lornak looked around at the holotable's projection of the battlefield below. Seeing that Imperial forces were engaging the Orks in sporadic firefights told him that the Orks were covering their advance. Pict captures from servo skulls showed the main body of Orks was going to attack from the south side of the west-facing Imperial Fortress. Perfect he thought. He looked up at the snarling helmeted forms of his chosen honor guard. They all knew same as him that this would be a golden opportunity. Standard Imperial protocol for defensive positions dictated that all non-military flights are grounded and any larger than a thunderhawk are also grounded as they were too large a target for anti-air. Time was a factor working against them but it meant little.

 

"We will have our prize brothers. There can be no more a perfect target. Small enough not to warrant a larger force, but worth a sacrifice to Khorne." He looked back down at the table and entered a 4 number code into the table's runepad. The hologram became 3 dimensional and showed detailed workings of the fortress's inner and outer workings and glowing red runes indicating known Imperial defensive positions. "It should be simple if gods willing, our infiltration team made it to their targets. I trust they would not lax in light of their fates if they did." Lornak grinned showing off his yellowing fang-like teeth. He grabbed his helmet from the table and affixed it to his head, sealing the air-tight locks with a hiss. His voice became even more deep and sounded like a growling wolf through the vox grille on his helmet. "We have our plan, signal our brothers to prepare, time is short and there is much blood to spill. Glory to Khorne!" He clamped his fist against the brazen mark of Khorne upon his chest and his brothers roared in response.

 

Moving with a purpose, the brazen-armored warriors howled and roared with glee as they readied themselves for a rapid drop pod assault. What were once gleaming golden halls draped proudly with crisp, clean banners of the chapter had become a twisted mirror of it's former glory. Banners were ripped and defaced with crude markings, the halls had been carved with blasphemous marks of Khorne and what was once a battle-shrine to the Emperor had been destroyed, melted down and remolded into a bloody effigy of Khorne's might. The warriors themselves became twisted mirrors of their former selves. Galurf had fasioned skulls in a ring around his shoulder guards with the mark of Khorne carved into the foreheads of each skull while Belgall cultured demonic horns on his helmet and hammered spiked chains to his augmented power pack's vent heads, dangling bloody meat-hooks. The entire assembly of warriors had inflicted damning blasphemies to his armor, each giving praise to Khorne in his own way.

 

The warriors finished their muster and each squad stood at attention in front of their drop pod while slaves and servitors hurriedly finished their tasks. Lord Lornak and his chosen squad entered at the rear of the room. Resplendent in aged crimson armor slicked with blood-laced unguents, skulls of his greatest sacrifices chained to his tusked jump pack, and symbols of Khorne bleeding as though they were alive were affixed his armor like wards of battle. He proudly looked out at his men, runed spear in one arm and steel-crested helmet atop his head and felt the heady red haze of battle rise from within. "My brothers! The time has come! You have your orders, you are blessed in the blood of sacrifice, you have the favor of the Lord of Battles behind you! Khorne favors the strong, he damns the weak, and I expect not but strength from my brothers! Go now, kill our enemies, all are sacrifices to Khorne! Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne! Glory for the Lord of Battles!"

 

The gathered warriors roared, calling for blood, cramming into their drop pods as thunderhawk gunships loaded Lornak and his jump assault infantry. Slaves and servitors scurried from the room as pressure seals began to disengage within the room with a deafening hiss. The forward launch bay door, a colossal slab of adamantium and ceramite, ground open as all the musky air within the launch bay was sucked into space and the thunderhawks rocketed forward into the soundless vacuum, down towards the planet. The drop pods ejected from their launch tubes and their retro thrusters erupted into life slamming the adamantium pods through the outer atmosphere on pillars of fire. Down below the Imperial Guard defenders were desperately erecting defenses and fortifying killzones entirely unaware of the fate that was about to befall them. Due to the radio interference from the enormous static of Orkid transmissions and their ramshackle fleet engaging the Imperial PDF orbiting the planet, the Imperial Guard had not detected the strike cruiser in orbit above their fortress, and with the Ork hordes closing in, they had made the oversight that would surely see them all dead.

 

"Colonel Gabbison, sir outposts 14 through 29 and 43 through 72 have gone completely dark, zero transponder signal." A short pause to gather the information laid out on the second screen. "Long range auspex showing signs of Ork mobilization in the southern cantons." Vox Officer Callib was sweating profusely as he read his report to the Colonel, knowing how the Colonel hated bad news. Colonel Gabbison frowned and bent over the young Voxman's shoulder, reading the report for himself pausing now and then to let the news sink in. His usually upstanding appearance had long been neglected into a ragged figure that looked as if it had been through hell and back, and for the last 8 months the Ork invaders had put him through just that. "Get on the vox, make sure that the southern cantons hold as long as they can before falling back. Order the tactical withdrawal of all outposts beyond Daelis Wall." The dark vox station was lit only by reserve power and emergency lights. The Colonel worried as no word had come from the platoon he ordered to investigate and repair one of the 3 massive power generator stations beneath the plateau. With all the chaos going on with the Ork raiders, it was a wonder he could keep track of anything at all.

 

Deep underground the bloody cultists were finished butchering the Imperial dogs who walked right into their ambush. They had set up the explosives just as they were ordered and began to withdraw to await the signal to attack the upper floors. "What is the signal boss?" The throaty voice of one of the cultists cut through the sound of slashing meat and the cult champion shoved him to the side. "We'll know when it happens, stand watch!" The cultists continued marking themselves with the fresh blood and skulls rent from the dead platoon of guardsmen, biding their time, waiting for any other Imperial fools to wander into their midst and join their kin in butchery. The explosives were set to detonate upon trigger and the resultant explosion will totally disable the void shield protecting the hive spire. One of the cultists noticed the bomb wasn't just active but was ticking down, in fact it was only 3 seconds away from 0...

 

Colonel Gabbison and Vox Officer Callib were throne to the floor from the explosion of their comm equipment. The entire fortress was rocked with explosions from below and fires erupted from deep below the complex. The shimmering honeycomb voidshields surrounding the Imperial fortress cracked and shattered into ions, charging the air with particles. The guardsmen defenders only managed to see the sky fill with drop pods hurtling towards them before all hell broke loose. The first of the drop pods slammed violently into the upper tiers of the complex spires, shattering centuries old statues of Imperial heroes and pulping those caught in their path. The drop pods landed in calculated centers of resistance where guardsmen thought themselves safe from attack. The Imperial Guard stood no chance. The drop pods opened, assault ramps slamming into the crumbled stone and ferrocrete, releasing the slaughterers within. Dark red warriors struck out with bolter and chainblade tossing grenades into gun nests, releasing accursed flames and roiling bolts of plasma into the crowded passages and corridors leading inside the huge complex.

 

The thunderhawk gunships began making deep strike runs down on the airfields, firing heavy bolters and demolisher rounds into the idling valkyrie fighters and thunderbolt bombers, their munitions detonating spectacularly and blasting huge holes into the hangars below. Lornak's opportunity had come, leading the others aboard the thunderhawks he leaped from the forward hatch and their jump packs howled to life. Barely slowing his descent, the Chaos Lord and his killers dropped through the vertical breaches in the underground hangars and hammered into the panicked flight crews. The slaughter had begun on all fronts and the slaughterers reveled in it. Outside and within, the floors of the Imperial fortress had become red with gore. Chaos Space Marines cut down men by the dozen in a matter of minutes. Roars of savage joy cut through the constant din of battle. The Chaos Space Marines took each objective without so much as a wound here an there. The plan was working.