BotL - Monthly fluff challenge

[TheBlindPrimarch]

Here's my first submission for the month of February...hope you all like it. As always, c&c is craved and highly appreciated!

 

The Flight of the Odyssey

 

Sergeant Bence ran down the main corridor leading to the bridge, stopping only momentarily to help a visibly frightened female Legion serf to her feet after the Cruiser, the Odyssey of Reason, was rocked by another punishing salvo from the Harbringer ships they were fleeing from. As he reached the bridge’s great circular portal he noticed with trepidation that the quartermaster’s men had been replaced by two of his fellow Wardens. The two saluted as he approached.

 

“Where are the armsmen assigned to this post?” he asked as he returned the salute hurriedly.

 

“reassigned to assist with damage control, Sergeant,” one of them replied. “that last hit opened two whole sections to the void six levels down.”

 

“Damn those traitors.” Bence growled to himself before focusing again on the matter at hand. “Is Captain Valence present on the bridge?”

 

“He is, Sergeant,” the other Legionary replied before half-turning to hit the access control to the bridge with his armored fist. As Bence waited for the portal to slide open he was treated to a view of the chaotic activity of the bridge crew beyond.

 

“Aft shields at thirty percent!” One announced.

 

Junior officers rushed to complete their assigned tasks in an attempt to keep the aging cruiser going, while others remained focused on their particular stations.

 

“We've lost the portside weapons batteries!” Another called out.

 

“Fires reported on decks three, seven, nine, fourteen,” A hard-wired Servitor droned continuously. “Hull breaches on decks four, five, twelve, twenty…”

 

He blinked to focus past the calamitous noise as everyone seemed to be competing with each other to be heard over the collective din, the wailing klaxons doing little to improve the situation. He noticed the Captain standing next to the Ship Master’s command throne, and he walked briskly towards him as the door finally opened completely.

 

“Sir, I…” He began. A cutting motion by the Captain silenced him.

 

“Receiving fleet wide transmission from the Dominion of Reason. Priority one”

 

“Put it through.” Captain Valence ordered curtly as Bence moved to stand next to him. Before them a holographic representation of the Lord Protector rapidly come into focus before them.

 

"This is Lord Protector Pyrrhicles," he began, his eyes seemingly scanning the bridge crew of the Odyssey as he spoke. The crew had gone silent in respect for the senior Astartes. Even the noise of the klaxons seemed to grow softer.

 

“I am ordering the fleet to abandon formation. All ships are to make for Terra at best speed regardless of the situation around them.” he said firmly. “The highest priority of every Warden is to warn our Primarch of this betrayal, nothing else matters.”

 

“Ship Master, break formation and get us to the mornival point.” Captain Valence ordered quietly as the Lord Protector continued. Bence looked at his Captain. While the senior Warden maintained a veneer of calm fortitude, he could see the seething anger simmering just below the surface. He knew it was there, because he felt the same.

 

“The ship is far too damaged to make a safe Warp jump,” The Ship Master grunted as the Cruiser shook, the Harbringers intent on reminding them of their continued peril. “We wouldn't survive the journey. Better to turn and fight, at least then we can take some of those oath-breakers with us.”

 

“I don't care how damaged we are!” Captain Valence roared, the veneer of calm shattered instantly, his voice booming and causing more than a couple of the mortal crew to jump. “You heard the Lord Protector, we must warn the Warmaster!”

 

There was a moment of stunned silence, and to Bence it looked for a moment that the Ship Master might choose to continue the debate. Instead the man simply sighed and began issuing orders to the bridge crew in preparation. Bence turned his attention back to the Lord Protector.

 

“For whoever reaches the Warmaster, tell him this: The Eighteenth Expeditionary fought…”

 

The Odyssey of Reason suddenly lurched, throwing any mortal crew unfortunate enough to not be secured in a seat across the bridge, many of which didn't get up again. The image of the Lord Protector disappeared as a powerful, second salvo punched through the damaged ship's failing shields.

 

“Shields down! Direct hit on our sensor array! We've lost conventional communication capabilities!” A junior officer reported once she had returned to her station. She paused for a second, and a hint of hope entered her voice. “Enemy ships disengaging! We're pulling away.

 

The news was received with cheers of relief by the bridge crew, and even Sergeant Bence allowed himself a small smile.

 

“Navigator?” the Ship Master called through the vox in an absurdly polite voice given they're situation.

 

“Ship Master?” Came the demurred response of a woman who by the sound of her voice was likely a rather attractive example of the female gender.

 

“A Warp jump please.” The Ship Master asked.

 

Captain Valence turned from the Ship Master and regarded Bence for the first time since his arrival.

 

“We're not out of the dark yet Sergeant.” he signed. “Better go debrief your squad. They'll need this time in transit to process everything that's just occurred, I think.”

 

“Yes Sir.” Bence replied, rendering a crisp salute as he turned to leave the bridge.

 

“Beginning transition into the Warp in five minutes...”

 

Bence opened the portal,and was about to cross the threshold when something occurred to him. He turned and looked back towards Captain Valence, who was still looking in his direction.

 

“The Emperor Protects, Sir.” he said, saluting once more. Captain Valence smiled tiresomely and returned the salute.

 

“We are his…” The venerable Legionary never had a chance to finish the Legion's motto.

 

Suddenly the entire bridge lit up with a blinding light, everything cast in the negative for milliseconds, before Bence was thrown back and down the corridor with the force of a thunder hammer to the gut. Dazed he looked up to see the portal that was supposed to lead to the bridge now opened into the void, screaming crew hurtling past him as they were sucked out into the nothingness of space by the sudden decompression. Realizing that he himself was slowly being dragged towards the breach by the all consuming void, he reached out and grabbed a structural support and struggled to his feet, mag-locking his boots once he was able to get them under him.

 

Donning his helmet, he carefully made his way towards the breach. Reaching the bulkhead flanking the portal, he gripped a pole to anchor himself and looked to see what had happened. For a long second he stood there, looking beyond the threshold as his brain struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. The bridge, or rather, where the bridge was supposed to be, was now little more than twisted metal and the exposed inner workings of the ship.

 

Everything was gone, along with everyone who had been there mere moments before. Including Captain Valence. Looking beyond the wreckage he realized the ship was seconds away from breaching the immaterium. He quickly pulled himself back into the ship, and hit the door control, sealing the breach. Seconds later the atmosphere re-pressurized in the hallway he was standing in, and as it did the Odyssey of Reason slipped into the Warp.

 

+++

 

Bence and his squadmates sat in a semi circle in one of the cruisers many mess halls. Few of the ship's mortal crew were present, being either occupied with determining the full extent of the damage they'd sustained, or as was more likely, had simply decided to eat elsewhere. Bence looked at reach of his men in turn. Alois, the newest member of the squad, busied himself breaking down his bolter to clean. Reginhard, their marksman, sat dispassionately waiting for someone to say something about the loss of their Captain and what Bence had just told them. Faustus stared at a mural on the wall, the turmoil of his inner thoughts plainly written in the micro-moments of his face. It would be Husaam, the one member of the squad Bence could always count on to speak his mind, to break the heavy silence.

 

“What of the Astropathic Choir?”

 

“Gone as well,” Bence sighed. “Whatever caused the explosion destroyed the entire bridge section. Even if we make it back to Terra, we won't be able to relay the Lord Protector’s warning until we're boarded.”

 

“If we are even capable of completing the journey.”

 

Bence looked behind himself to see the Techmarine Wajid and the Apothecary Layland approaching. It was Wajid that had spoken, his voice deep and artificial as it emitted from the vox speaker built into his armor, an augmentation necessitated by a wound sustained in combat years ago. He had opted to remove his servo harness for the time being. Apothecary Layland, often said to be so similar in appearance to their gene-sire that the effect was palpable, wiped his gauntlets with a cloth as the two closed the distance between them and the squad. From the blood visible on the rag, it was obvious that he had been recently tending someone injured. The white clad Warden’s young face betraying no evidence of whether or not he had been successful.

 

“You know something, brother?” Bence asked as he rose to his feet and turned to address the newcomers.

 

“Indeed, I do Sergeant.” Wajid replied. He paused for a moment while Layland did a cursory exam of each Legionary for any injuries. “The Odyssey had been severely damaged, her machine spirit is dying. We are leaking atmosphere, ave the Genetorum is faltering. If it fails completely we would quickly lose life support capabilities.”

 

“Spelling certain death for much of the remaining mortal crew,” Layland chimed in as he examined a gash on Faustus’s forehead. “And one just as certain for us, though likely a slower, and perhaps more agonizing version.”

 

“Splendid.” Reginhard grunted, earning him a disapproving glare from Bence, to which he simply shrugged.

 

“At least the Geller Field hasn't failed.” Alois remarked as he resembled his weapon, cocked it, and pointed it at the wall before dry firing it. Bence was about to agree with the junior Astartes when the overhead lumens suddenly went out. The Astartes stood in silence, looking towards Bence for orders when the warning klaxons went off.

 

What followed could only be described as being similar to the “Hell" of ancient Terran myth. Thousands of the mortal crew died within days of the Geller Field falling. Killed by their fellows, or by their own hands. Some even committed suicide by Legionary, falling upon the Wardens aboard the Cruiser as madness consumed them, desperate to die before it could. By the end of the first week, the screaming had started. A keening, constant cry of terror and dismay, intermixed from time to time with sudden bursts of manic laughter. No one could determine where it was coming from,and there was no escaping it, the noise rapidly putting even the Wardens on edge.

 

On and on the torment went, day after day. As if to add an additional layer to the psychological concerns, reports began to spring up of otherworldly beings sighted aboard the ship, poltergeist, and disappearances. Most disturbing was that these reports came from Legionaries as well as from the mortal crew. Finally Bence decided that they would suffer the Warp no longer, and he purposely destroyed the Cruiser’s Warp Generator. This had the desired effect, and the ship was spat back into realspace abruptly, but as the ruined Cruiser emerged from the Warp the battered ship was suddenly wracked with numerous explosions as all of the strain of its journey finally caught up with it. What was left was a lifeless husk of a ship, left to drift aimlessly through the void with barely enough power left in the backup Genetorum to maintain the bare minimum of life support systems.

 

Sergeant Bence walked down the corridor, the muffled sounds if his boots barely heard over his heavy breaths as his lungs struggled to draw what little oxygen there was left in the stale air. He nodded in greetings to Layland as he passed the Apothecary administering the Emperor's Peace to a fallen Warden, using his Narthecium to end the Legionary’s suffering. Of the two hundred Wardens garrisoned aboard the Odyssey of Reason, there remained only sixty, and of that number over a third were likely to succumb to various wounds. None of the mortal crew remained alive.

 

He found the rest of his squad standing in one of the portside galleries next to a window with its combat shutters raised.All of them, including Wajid, were looking out into the void.

 

“What in the Warmaster’s name are you all staring at so intently?” He asked as he reached them.Husaam glanced at him before looking back out the window and pointed. Annoyed, Bence looked in the direction the Legionary was pointing, and for a second honestly believed his eyes were playing tricks on him, our worse...That the “Madness” had finally claimed him. But sure enough, even after blinking half a dozen times, the massive Imperial Goliath class Battleship remained.

 

“How long has that been there?” He asked.

 

“it arrived minutes ago,” Wajid replied. “Identified as the Manifestum est Finis, flagship of Grand Marshal Xander Purechild of the First Terra Heredes Regiment.”

 

“Hail them,” Bence sighed in relief. “Let them know who we are and that we've got wounded aboard.”

 

“I already have Sergeant,” the Techmarine replied. “ Repeatedly.”

 

“And?”

 

“Nothing.” Wajid looked sideways at Bence. “They are ignoring our hails...”

[Kelborn]

Custodes. Would be fine to see our primarchs through their eyes

Read Chris Wraight's Magisterium. There you'll have Custodian pov. I dare to say that it does not differ to our Primarch.

 

It's like: The Primarchs were a mistake / failure and the Custodians has the Chance to end them before anything could go wrong. But as they were trusting Big E, they die nothing.

Now, they're in a mess.

 

Especially Valdor seems to "dislike" them.

[bluntblade]

Poor Dorn on that score. Has to sit tight hearing about how this brother is lost and that one had turned, tens of thousands of his sons are missing and the Custodians shut him out of a mission to save Terra itself.

[TheBlindPrimarch]

Second submission, hope you guys like it. C&C welcome.

 

Vth Legion Legionary Bio

-Legionary Yash (Specialist/Support)

-Fifth Cohort, Twenty-Second Brigade

-The Battle of Hena-jagathi, Defense of Mirage Hive.

 

Deployed to serve as part of the Legion defensive garrison of Hena-jagathi, a desert world considered one of the twenty-six Protectorate Planets under the aegis of the Fifth Legion, Legionary Yash would conduct himself with exemplary honour and courage during the defense of the planet against attack by the traitorous Eagle Warriors.

 

Shown here in a pic-capture taken four imperial standard days before the invasion, Legionary Yash wears standard Mark Four Astartes power armour, and is armed with a Mars pattern plasma rifle. Notable features include the white Aiguillette worn attached to the right pauldron, and the stylized Hena-jagathi Nova Flower on his right greave, which serves as the campaign badge for the garrison.

 

Legionary Yash would ultimately sacrifice himself to give his brothers the time needed to evacuate non-combatants and regroup, suffering numerous wounds while holding back a much larger force of traitor Astartes in an attempt to buy his brothers as much time as he could. His valiant sacrifice would ensure the successful evacuation of hundreds of innocents, and would give the garrison the breathing room it needed to establish an effective counter attack, and drive the Eagle Warriors from Hena-jagathi.

Edited March 1, 2018 by TheBlindPrimarch

[simison]

Blind, remember to italicize ship names. Otherwise, I like it, and greatly appreciate the fact we don't actually see them get slaughtered. I especially love how you interwove Pyrrhicles' final speech with the scene.

 

Also, the judges have been chosen:

 

1. Grifft
2. Sanguinius
3. Blunt
4. Kelborn
5. Beren
6. Skal
7. Mikhal
8. Talon
9. Demus
10. Blind
11. simison

 

Grifft, San, Blunt, you're our judges.

Edited February 26, 2018 by simison

[TheBlindPrimarch]

I'll try to fix it tonight...I originally posted it from my phone

[bluntblade]

Second submission, hope you guys like it. C&C welcome.

Vth Legion Legionary Bio

-Legionary Yash (Specialist/Support)

-Fifth Cohort, Twenty-Second Brigade

-The Battle of Hena-jagathi, Defense of Mirage Hive.

Deployed to serve as part of the Legion defensive garrison of Hena-jagathi, a desert world considered one of the twenty-six Protectorate Planets under the aegis of the Fifth Legion, Legionary Yash would conduct himself with exemplary honour and courage during the defense of the planet against attack by the traitorous Eagle Warriors.

Shown here in a pic-capture taken four imperial standard days before the invasion, Legionary Yash wears standard Mark Four Astartes power armour, and is armed with a Mars pattern plasma rifle. Notable features include the white Aiguillette worn attached to the right pauldron, and the stylized Hena-jagathi Nova Flower on his right greave, which serves as the campaign badge for the garrison.

Legionary Yash would ultimately sacrifice himself to give his brothers the time needed to evacuate non-combatants and regroup, suffering numerous wounds while holding back a much larger force of traitor Astartes for over an hour. His valiant sacrifice would ensure the successful evacuation of thousands of innocents, and would give the garrison the breathing room it needed to establish an effective counter attack, and drive the Eagle Warriors from Hena-jagathi.

One issue with this: a single Legionary saving thousands sound a tad excessive. I suggest either making it hundreds, or widening the scope of that sacrifice to others in Yash's squad/company.

[TheBlindPrimarch]

As stated, his sacrifice gave his brothers time to evacuate the non-combatants...but if that explanation isn't enough I can always change it.

[bluntblade]

Just seems a bit much for a single warrior to hold other Astartes back for so long

[TheBlindPrimarch]

Ok, I'll fix it

[bluntblade]

Good man

[TheBlindPrimarch]

Fixed

...

I think...

Edited March 1, 2018 by TheBlindPrimarch

[Jagus Kumkani]

Custodians

[simison]

By a single vote, we will be doing Elite Mortal Regiments for the month of March. 

 

Since I didn't complete my Heredes attempt last year, I will endeavour to finish it this time.

[TheBlindPrimarch]

I too will be doing the Heredes

[bluntblade]

Let's just say woman-fronted metal will play a role in my creative process this month,

[simison]

[Reposting this for ease of access.]

 

Colonel Selene Purechild

 

Daughter of Xander Purechild, many had written off her military career as nothing more than political maneuvering either for the benefit or by the express desire of her more powerful father. Although beloved on Vasalius through her generosity and willingness to interact with the commoner, the young scion had never once experienced combat before being granted the rank of colonel of her own regiment. Despite a full decade of training and instruction in combat theory and application, many detractors quietly remarked that good men and women would soon die for the Purechilds' vainglory.

 

Selene would prove them wrong. 

 

The 12^th Vasalian would remain in reserve for a year after Selene was made colonel. Time was spent recovering from its last campaign which inflicted a casualty rate of 38%, along with additional opportunities to repair and modernize equipment. With the year completed, the regiment swiftly returned to the Great Crusade, their first major battle taking place in the newly named Segmentum Atlantica. 

 

[i'll cover her Great Crusade info and then end with her being deployed at the start of the Insurrection.]

[Beren]

I'm thinking of doing a FW book style piece, and have come up with a quote, but am stuck as to where to take it from there. Any ideas?

 

“Tell me, in whom is bravery more laudable? The thing that should not feel fear at all, or the human who must fight it and defeat it? Your men may have stormed that fortress in your ceramite power amour and wielding weapons that could down a Kudokar beast in a single shot, but it was my soldiers that bled for this war. They have faced foes far more lethal than you with bodies and minds that have received none the reinforcement that girder yours. They have faced foes with technology more advanced than yours with weapons that are weaker. Yet they are unbroken. I advise you remember that before you disparage the sacrifices we have made.”

 

General Primus Alegar Halk of the 216th ... , conversing with Warbringer Legate Vastanadan Stylta

[TheBlindPrimarch]

Little correction Simi...Selene commands the 87th Terra Heredes Regiment, not the 12th.

[TheBlindPrimarch]

So um...who won last month?

[bluntblade]

And the winners are Beren for his story, and Blind for his Book fluff.

[TheBlindPrimarch]

Woot

[simison]

Congrats you two!

[Beren]

Thanks a tonne.

[MikhalLeNoir]

Grats to the winners..and your prize: write more stories