Tightening the Noose (feat. Libators & Angels of Vengeance)

[Welcheren]

When I discovered that the Libators had been confirmed as an Ultramarines 2nd Founding Successor chapter, with very little official fluff, I suggested an idea on their chapter origin and homeworld.

 

Here follows the first part of a short story I have been working on. From what I have read so far, there are some seriously talented writers in this forum, so I look forward to learning from those willing to offer constructive critique. Also thanks to the contributors in the Space Marine Tau alliance forum, who inspired an idea for the future ending of this story.

 

Well, here goes. 

 

Tightening the Noose (Part 1)

(featuring the Libators and Angels of Vengeance chapters)

 

 

Violence. This astounding violence, directed with transhuman precision and ceaseless perseverance, tortures me. It breaks my heart to watch its punishing progress against my
people. But there is no release from this prison, and all I have left is to witness the sights that my gaoler shows me. Soon now these Angels of Death will begin to discover what I, and my people have become… and then my jailer will reveal himself to them.

 

 

 

The ribcage cracked. Brother Erad, veteran sergeant of Squad Unyielding of the Libators First Company, did not pay attention to it. Great is the wisdom of the Emperor... I am the instrument of his judgement. The bones of his slain foe cracked under his ceramite boot. Lumen strips in the roof of the tunnel reflected in pools of gore. In a quick sequence of movements that would have been as elegant as a dance if not for the scene of carnage, Erad sank down to one knee, while enemy fire laced overhead, raised his bolter and discharged four rounds in close succession. Rising again, he brought up his knee against the chest of an onrushing rebel, catapulting him off the ground. And the Primarch shall rise from his shrine and find me worthy. Arterial blood fountained over his plate as he broke the neck of another with his hand. While he moved with unnatural speed for his size, lasfire ripped around him. His bolter spoke gain, cleansing the last four enemies on the barricade directly ahead. Everything fell still. Squad Unyielding had taken their first objective. The network of bunkers behind them lay in a state of ruin, filled with dismembered corpses, and now at the end of this tunnel stood the last blast door. It would lead them back to the surface.

 

 

The Libators, pious and proud sons of Roboute Guilliman since the Second Founding, had committed three full companies upon receiving distress signals from the galactic south of the Segmentum Ultima. A great fleet of rebellious human warships had nearly laid waste to an Imperial Guard recruitment world. The enemy bristled at the term rebels: their world had been lost to the Imperium since the Heresy. Generations beyond count have lived and died under the independent rule of elected officials before rediscovery. “We will not lay down our freedom now!” the insult was scrawled across their vessels as they burned and boarded the Imperial Navy’s orbital stations, deploying arms and ships from the epoch of the Great Crusade. The Emperor’s Chosen would not countenance such blasphemy. Adding to their depravity, Techmarines confirmed that the attackers had availed themselves of some form of xenos technology. Armed and armoured as the rebels were only a fool would expect an easy defeat. But defeat did come.

Even so, while the remnants of the dissident fleet made to escape, it seemed that fortune had set itself against the Libators. No sooner had they set course to pursue their quarry when more distress calls reached the battle barge Blood of Plataea via astrophatic choir. Several coordinated xenos attacks, launched further to the galactic south, could neither be ignored nor delegated to lesser warriors of the Imperium. But the Emperor provides, Erad had thought when news came that two companies of the Angels of Vengeance chapter had been pursuing allies of the rebels from another system. Like the Libators, the Angels of Vengeance had been suddenly beset by other obligations. But combined and re-organised they pursued the heretics to this place: a death world with only one small inhabitable landmass, orbiting a dying star. Now the Libators Third Company, with two squads of the First, would fight alongside the Second Company of the Angels.

A strategy had been agreed upon and was now in the process of execution.

 

 

“Brother Anix, lay low this door.”

“Aye Brother-Sergeant,” Anix acknowledged. The others spread out to cover him as he approached with his melta bomb in hand.

Squad Unyielding emerged from the tunnel onto a world of sharp black rock and golden sand, where their gold and black plate offered partial camouflage. They stood upon a cliff with only two routes aside from the tunnel at their backs. One snaked off to the right bending out of sight into a maze of jagged black stone. The other was directly in front of them: a steep descent down the cliff, narrow and winding. It was man-made and designed to expose its users to the squat tower lurking two kilometres away on the flat plain. A single terrace ringed the tower in the centre of its height, large enough for ten Thunderhawks abreast, and studded with massive las-turrets.

 

“Standard deployment,” Erad’s veterans fanned out to establish a defensive perimeter around the tunnel exit. Each man had proven his reliability many times over, and each bore decorations, citations and battle honours upon their plate in silent testimony. Squad Unyielding would link up with Squads Helbrand and Harkon of the Angels of Vengeance, due to arrive from the snaking pathway to the right any second now. Together they would hold their ground until Thunderhawk assault had broken the turrets, followed by a wave of assault marines from the Libators Third. At that moment, Squads Unyielding, Helbrand and Harkon would storm the network of redoubts between them and the tower. Any foes who sought escape would have no choice but to make for the northern pass beyond the tower where, even now, scout elements armed with sniper equipment were effecting insertion. Once the tower was taken intact, intelligence on the location of the remaining rebels could be seized.

 

Erad watched the mission chronometer ticking away inside his helmet display. “They should have been here by now.”

Suddenly his Lyman’s ears picked up the sound of boots striking sand. He filtered the noise out, his genhanced organs fixing on what sounded like the tell-tale noise of carapace plates jingling against each other with the wearer’s movement. All this happened in under two seconds, before brother Mirad swept his auspex round and confirmed, “Hostiles inbound Brother-Sergeant, estimated between forty and fifty troops. Precisely on the vector our Angel cousins should be arriving from.” The Astartes deployed to meet the incoming threat, just as the first foe rounded an outcrop of black rock.

“Emperor guide your aim brothers!”

“We commend our souls to his armies!” the entire squad responded.

A single mass-reactive bolt left Erad’s weapon, ripped through the eye mask of its target and detonated inside his skull. The attacking troops rushed to take cover amid the maze of rocks around the footpath. In appearance they bore uncanny resemblance to Kasrkin storm troopers, but their armour was white and, to the sharp sight of the Astartes, made of a different alloy. The energy weapons among them were not only longer and thinner than standard Imperial equipment, but were not connected to any source. Nevertheless, beams of focused energy whipped past and burned deep into the rock behind the squad. Bolter fire raked the edges of the pathway sending razor sharp sprays of stone into the air. Although the fragments of stone bounced harmlessly off the white armour-plates, the bolter rounds found their mark.

However, the squad was standing in the open with no cover. More foes were pouring into the narrow passage, some taking cover behind the armoured corpses of fallen comrades. A beam of superheated matter that would have scored a direct hit - if not for his swift movement - glanced off Mirad’s pauldron, at exactly the moment when another obliterated the auspex maglocked to his hip. Erad’s eyes picked up the motion of a storm trooper rebel arming a grenade. Twisting his body to avoid an incoming beam, he placed a single round in the heart of the grenade and felt a surge of satisfaction as it burst open, shredding three troopers with wicked shrapnel. Next, his trigger-finger ended the heresy of another rebel by virtue of a bolt through the eye-piece.

“Grenades brothers! And charge!” Erad announced over the squad vox.

In a shallow arc, the Libators hurled their deadly charges among the rebels where each detonated with a low thump, creating a transient cloud of dust and splintered stone, decorated with flecks of gore. 

Bellowing their war cry over amplified vox-grilles, Squad Unyielding strove to close the gap, all the while subjecting the enemy to disciplined bolter volleys. Brother Starcus raced ahead and brought his flamer in range, treating the rebel storm troopers to a jet of agonising promethium. As his squad mates overtook him, he noticed that none of the immolated bodies had uttered a sound of pain.

Waiting till the last possible moment, Erad maglocked his bolter in one smooth motion and brought forth his power sword. It met the barrel of a rifle pointed directly at his face-plate, and severed it in a clean stroke. A short and broad-bladed spear appeared in his adversary’s hands. Abruptly, purple light played along its edge, closely akin to the disrupter field around his own blade. Erad deflected the thrust with his left pauldron and felt the blade score a mark over the chalice-and-omega device. In retribution, his own sword swept through the small gap between two armour plates on the rebel’s stomach. No scream issued from the heavy mask on his opponent’s face.
Without time to ponder this further, Erad set about him in the narrow space while his warriors either fired at point-blank range or applied their chainswords and ceramite-encased hands. Registering a fleeting sense of curiosity at his enemy’s reflexes, the sergeant dodged a spear thrust aimed at his eye lens, before slicing the head off his last opponent.

Something unnatural was augmenting their combat skill.

 

 

Silence settled on the ten giant warriors - abruptly torn asunder by the unmistakable thrum of Thunderhawk engines, followed swiftly by the low boom of detonating ordinance. No one remarked upon the obvious: the assault had commenced, and the squad was not in position.

“On me,” sergeant Erad led the way down the path in search of their Angel cousins. Along the way they passed the destroyed blast door from which the Angels would have made their exit. Footprints in the sand indicated that heavy infantry had moved to the right at speed, away from the intended meeting place on the cliff.

“Curse them for bereaving me of my auspex!” Mirad swore.

Finally, another one hundred metres further along the rock-walled path, the object of their search nearly collided with them. A party of nineteen Astartes emerged, in sleek black battle plate, bearing a white skull adorned with wings and a red cape upon their left pauldrons, where the Libators bore the omega-and-chalice. A sergeant marched at their head, but two hundred metres behind their bulky bodies, in a sandy clearing, Erad spotted a second. This sergeant in the clearing was kneeling over the stricken form of a prisoner, and looming over them both was the solemn skull-faced figure of a Chaplain, crozius arcanum flaring with righteous might.

Besides all this, Erad also took in the large number of storm trooper corpses surrounding the two Angels: thirty-seven in all. Six of them bore signs of torture. They jeopardise the mission for this?

Quickly, the sergeant leading the two squads strode forward, but before either could speak, the force-wide vox cracked into life: “Brother-sergeant Erad, to your position at once! Battle commences and the role assigned to Unyielding awaits.”

“Immediately Lord Captain Rudas,” he replied with a sour, vomit-like taste pushing into his mouth at the tone of the Captain, who had been his mentor during his years as a scout.

This conduct will not go unreported.

Instantly, the veteran sergeant chided himself for countenancing such pride without proper investigation of the Angels’ motives. Even so… he eyed the marks of interrogation on the rebel corpses, estimating how much time had been devoted to its execution. A thought brought up the tactical display inside his helm, and icons confirmed that the assault marines were already engaged.

“To battle then, brothers,” said the Angels sergeant in level tones, “duty beckons.” A rich tapestry of High Gothic script, in exceedingly fine calligraphy, adorned his plastron, including an entry that ended with a pair of crossed swords and the words “I, Gamdred, of the Guardians of the Covenant chapter drew these signs in acknowledgement of the devotion and service rendered by Brother Helbrand”.

“Indeed,” Erad responded and the three squads set off with all speed to make their charge at the tower’s foot, leaving the Chaplain and second sergeant behind.

 

 

 

[Quixus]

I haven't read the story yet, but are you sure the chapter is called Libators (meaning drinkers) and not Liberators?

[Conn Eremon]

In the context of 'libations,' it is more meant to reflect a sacred offering, I think.

 

With another Dark Angel successor being called the Consecrators, it is a fitting name.

[Welcheren]

As I have it (and I am open to correction), the Libators are a Second Founding UM successor chapter, with a chalice and omega as a symbol (hence Libators). But if I got it wrong please correct me .

In a separate post under Liber Astartes, I make a suggestion as to a possible origin for the name, since I cannot find any official fluff on it.

There is also a separate by... can't remember his name now... but the thread title is Libators and other easter eggs. This thread has the official colours of the chapter.

[Welcheren]

  Just did a Lexicanum search (which I know is not the absolute best source ever), but its got this:

 

Liberators: loyalist SM chapter of unknown founding and origin.

 

Libators: Second Founding chapter of UM lineage, with chalice and omega badge. Colour scheme: yellow with black trim, aquilla and backpack. 

[Conn Eremon]

Sorry, assumption on my part after reading the title.

[Welcheren]

Well you're perfectly correct on the cultural connotations of libation - I thought it would be fun to work out why a chapter would pick that name, compared to liberators.

[deathspectersgt7]

 

I haven't read the story yet, but are you sure the chapter is called Libators (meaning drinkers) and not Liberators?

Welcheren is correct on the name Libators .Like the story .

[Welcheren]

Thanks deathspectre.

[Welcheren]

 

The last Thunderhawk completed its strafing run and tipped its nose disdainfully away from the field of combat. The Astartes of Squads Unyielding, Helbrand and Harkon, appeared on the cliff overlooking the sandy plain, where smoke and dust billowed over scarred rockcrete redoubts. But the enemy were recovering, and as Erad’s lenses pierced the obfuscating smoke, warning runes indicated the outlines
of armour-piercing lascannons, leering over the rims of low walls, spaced in a complicated pattern over the plain. White-armoured dissidents scrambled to test how many cannons had survived the Thunderhawks’ wrath. All along the black lip of the tower’s terrace, Libators assault marines whirred and flashed among the defenders. Down on the plain, commanders among the rebels rallied survivors and jabbed fingers
at the fighting assault marines, their intentions clear. All this, the Astartes on the cliff observed in a second before descending to the plain without missing a step. The winding way would have wasted precious time for un-augmented humans, but these men simply leaped the distance from junction to junction until, landing heavily on the sand of the plain, they spread out as if the three squads had been fighting together all their lives.

 

“Sniper equipment!” roared the Angels’ Sergeant Helbrand to Erad’s right.

Smooth rifles, mounted on bipods with exceptionally elongated magscopes reared up behind the rockcrete barriers, aiming for the assault marines on the terrace, while their companions turned lascannons of ancient pre-Heresy design upon the onrushing Marines. We have not failed our purpose yet. Even as they stormed on, the Marines picked out their targets with unfaltering precision, the combined bolter-fire heralding their inevitable close-quarters crash. Two Angels of Vengeance trailed at the far right flank of the formation, spewing punishment from heavy bolters. Brothers Anix and Mirad hurled grenades ahead of them, before leaping over the first rockcrete obstacle. Brother Starcus
readied his flamer.

But then, in the skies overhead, a single patch of bleak cloud swirled into a vortex of igniting atmosphere. A lance of light speared towards the ground, proclaiming the arrival of Lord Captain Rudas and the Command Squad via drop pod, hard upon the rebel’s left flank. For now, there
was no time to ponder the Captain’s intensions or mood. Battle commenced.

…

“They offered no explanation?”

“Duty precluded discussion. I presume they engaged the threat as they emerged from the tunnel and then pursued them further away from the rendezvous. For the rest I cannot guess.”

The Captain removed his helm, and turned away from the tower to face him. Oddly, to Erad, the Captain’s face seemed the spitting image of Rogal Dorn, a face he had only ever seen cast in marble or precious metal. “The last enemy stronghold has been identified, Brother.” The abrupt change of subject perturbed Erad. “There is a secondary objective – far away from the fighting.”

“I accept whatever penance you deem necessary, Brother-Captain.”

“You misunderstand Brother. Our Angel cousins have already offered to take it. But they do not deploy Scouts. Instead Squad Helbrand has claimed the honour… You will accompany them because we will not go blind and deaf.”

 

 

 

[deathspectersgt7]

thanks for the up-scaled letters easier on the eyes. Ok ready for the next installment

[Welcheren]

Yeah I've been reading other fan fiction in order to learn from my betters and realised that larger font would help.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. Might take a little longer.

[Andurin Marvak]

Just to give you all a little taste of humor, I misread the title of this short story as "The Tightening of the Moose" I'll be back with some actuall commentary on your story in due time.

 

Edit: Alright, that was a good read. The only advice I have for you is that, while it is very easy, especially with an over-the-top universe like 40k, to go to greater lengths to describe how vile, dangerous, or awesome something is, it is usually best just to keep it short and sweet. Too much description jars the mind and makes it harder to fall into the depths of the story. You only did this a handful of times, though, and it's not too hard of a problem to correct.

[Welcheren]

Thanks Andurin

 

Your comments make perfect sense. I'll watch out for verbose descriptions. I have a subsequent installment ready, and will probably post it soon. I wrote it before reading your comment, so please feel free to flag specific bits where I go off the rails with over-description. 

 

Thanks again.

[Welcheren]

…

Voices in High Gothic played on the edge of his hearing, deep and powerful with pious intent. He could almost relax. Alcibides had underestimated the sons of the Lion. That was why he was here: inside his cell aboard the Strike Cruiser Fearless, adoring the calming cadence of the choir serfs. Deep inside an underground culvert, he had first met Sergeant Helbrand. That was… two standard weeks ago. Deep into the drainage under the Imperial Guard compound he had led the Sergeant’s squad, in an effort to retake the compound from the rebels.

“They are directly above us, deploying precious archeo-weapons from the Heresy and hateful xenos tools. When the Guard regiments have drawn all their fire to the walls, your glorious Angels may strike from behind. They will succumb in minutes”.

“I have witnessed these blasphemers endure more pain than normal malcontents. We do not underestimate our foes.”

“Your understanding of all things martial do you credit, great Sergeant. I have brought you here, and shall advise no more. All that remains for me is to detonate those charges over there on the drainage grille… when the time is right.”

And so Alcibides had delayed the commitment of the Emperor’s Finest, reaping the deaths of over thirteen thousand Guardsmen. Finally, the special detachment of rebels made their move into the culvert as planned, assaulting the Angels in force from elevated positions. But Alcibides had underestimated the sons of the Lion.

“Greetings Inquisitor,” the voice shattered his reverie.

Helbrand loomed by the bars of his cell. Every inch of his skin was invisible under a rough black habit and deep black cowl. Like a monk in some dour death cult, or a statue in a cold cemetery he reared up. Helbrand was massive even without his plate. “My Brother Chaplain wants a word.” In his mind, Alcibides recited a litany designed to activate a miraculous little device, one of several embedded deep within his body. It released a potent mix of pain-killers: barely enough to keep him sane. “Your coordinates ring true. We have located the bunker you spoke of. Soon now we shall assess the veracity of your other claims. And perhaps we shall learn how an Inquisitor with your reputation could have fallen so low.” Suddenly, Helbrand moved. His right hand flew to his ear. “Yes Brother?” Alcibides could feel the tension radiating from his jailer. “Understood.” Slowly, Helbrand resumed his previous stance.

Alcibides grinned and ventured: “You have received a distress signal from the bunker, correct? An Astartes distress signal. Strangely, after repeated augur scans, there are no signs of life. None at all. You plan to investigate, but unfortunately your kin from the Libators have also intercepted the signal. You will have to take them along now.”

 

…

Reclusiarch Sidon dipped his hands into a chest lined with blue silk. Reverentially, he lifted a tall black chalice from its depths. The cup was dented, as though a mighty gauntlet had nearly crushed it. This was not the cup of Mori himself, the first Chapter Master of the Libators. This was not the cup he had held in his hand when news of the Warmaster’s betrayal reached the Legio XIII. This cup was a copy. All the various elements of the Libators fleet possessed one, as well as the next item. Four chapel serfs, in gold and black robes, approached Sidon. Suspended between them hung what appeared to be a smooth wooden hexagon. When they reached Sidon, the serfs placed it upon a low marble plinth. He reached down, gently caressing the wooden surface, and opened the lid. The ceremony was being conducted inside the bay of a Thunderhawk. Only Erad and the veterans of Unyielding where present. There was only time for a small part of the standard ritual, for the Angels had expressed intense haste. The wooden hexagon contained a substance of profound value to the spirit of the Libators chapter: dust. Dust and rubble, fragments of stone, marble and ferrocrete, filled it. Like the copied cup, each portion of the various fleets possessed a share. Beside Sidon, an Apothecary stepped forward and filled the chalice with a mixture of wine and oil – made from the crops of Plataea, their homeworld. Sidon lifted the chalice and held it suspended over the rubble in the hexagon. All the Libators present lifted a small chalice they each bore in the air, to mirror the Recluriarch. Upon death, the chalice of a fallen brother would be ground to dust, and added to the wooden container.

“This is the rubble of the cathedral that saw the last stand of our Founder” intoned Sidon. Tilting the chalice, he carefully poured a small portion of its contents into the container, where it splattered on the ancient rubble. “In the service of the Imperium, of the Emperor, and the Primarch, our lives are forfeit. A flash of light and blood in the dark… sanctified by the purest purpose. And lo, when the flash of our lives wink out, we shall see the Shrine of the Primarch. And there we shall stand, ranged among the line of our brotherhood, back to the Founding. And the Primarch shall shield our souls from the enemy, for the purity of our sacrifice shall please him. And there we shall wait until the Emperor rises. Until that moment, we shall not falter, we shall not yield.”

“We commend our souls to his armies!” intoned the veterans in the darkened bay.  

It was only a portion of the ceremony. But needs must.

 

…

 

“Scouts. Trying to reconnoitre the advance of the main force,” Helbrand commented on the rebel corpses strewn around his Angels and the black-and-gold Libators. The Astartes had taken to calling the rebels the Blasphemers for the insults scrawled on their ships and armour.

“They made no transmission. Our purpose remains concealed – so it seems,” Brother Mirad, consulted his auspex, sweeping it in wide arcs to ensure they were alone. The dying sun of the death world emitted only weak light, even at the height of day, and the shadows surrounding them now were deep.  

“Good. Let us proceed then,” finished Helbrand.

Erad savoured a sense of brotherly pride in the battle prowess of the Angels. But he detested the whispering shadow of distrust on the margin of his mind. He had battled with other chapters before: Rampagers, White Scars, Iron Hands, Doom Eagles and the Novamarines. But none of the Lion’s progeny. Normally he took comfort in the common zeal of fellow Astartes. Normally, this was precisely the nature of war that he revelled in most - far from civilians and their frailties that so easily changed from pitiable to burdensome..But this mission was different.

Quickly he resettled his focus on current events. “He have but a short distance to cover. Let us be swift.”

“We welcome haste,” said another of the Angels, named Hellorn.

“The time has come to divide. Two Libators and two Angels per group. We approach the target from five directions.”

Erad was joined by Mirad, and together with Helbrand and Hellorn, set out on a pre-determined route. 

[Quixus]

It's a good start. some minor nitpicks though:

 

"intoned in his head" looks weird to me. Either you intone something i.e. you give it sound or you simply think it in your head.

 

"storm trooper rebel". Personally I'd have used "rebel storm trooper",

 

"Curse them for berefting me of my auspex!" It should be "curse them for bereaving me of my auspex!"

 

In the second part it should be "the Captain removed his helmet" instead of the Captained

[Welcheren]

Thanks Quixus. These are all very helpful. I'll attend to then asap.

Nit-picking is exactly what I need. Otherwise I can't improve and I would become a dishonour to the B&C.

[deathspectersgt7]

A good read Welcheren Whats this I see from a Nova to a Scar?.

[Welcheren]

Changed to Libators now. Still prefer Guilliman over the Khan.

[Welcheren]

PS to all reading so far:

 

I think Andurin really has a point and (once I have time again - don't know exactly when that will be), I am going to attempt to focus more on making events interesting and to tone down the heavy description.

 

Thanks to all.