White Pinions, Black Hearts

[KiltedMarine]

So I managed to find the story I asked for help locating a little bit ago.  With the Lion's return, I'm inspired to pick it up and try to add to it.  Hope it gives you all some enjoyment.

 

+Pod away. The Emperor protects.+

 

Brother-Sergeant Iriel’s voice was emotionless; his squad received the information in silence. The ten Marines plummeted into the thinnest reaches of Canopus IX’s atmosphere without saying a word, each one focused on his own thoughts and private meditations to the Emperor. In a matter of minutes, assuming that xeno anti-orbital defenses didn’t obliterate them instantaneously, they would impact with two other squads on the front plaza of the High Palace of the Magistrix-General. Orbital auspex-surveys had determined that the nearest xenos forces were engaged against the Cadian 57th five kilometers outside the city. Squad Iraeus would have ten minutes to fight past the rebellious units of Canopan PDF who had capitulated to the xenos, break into the palace undervaults, reach their objective, and plant the homing beacon. In the midst of silently reciting the Canticle of Fury, Brother Saris secretly hoped the auspex readings were wrong. Ten minutes would be too easy.

He corrected himself instantly. Such underestimation of the enemy could cost him his life. More dangerous yet, it was a path toward damnation, toward the pride that had led Horus to betray the Emperor. As the interior of the pod heated up and the hull began to moan on reentry, he turned his thoughts back to the canticle. Around him, the pod grew hotter; the squad had the climate-control functions of their armor locked down to minimum to preserve power. When the canticle came to an end, he went through a mental checklist: bolter loaded, one round in the chamber and 30 in the magazine. Four spare magazines at his waist, along with his combat knife and two frag grenades. His brothers carried similar loads; only Sergeant Iriel, with the power sword that was his badge of rank, and brother Lomiel, who carried a Deimos-pattern plasmagun, were armed differently. Prior to their departure, aboard the Strike Cruiser Ruthless Vindication, brother Falnor had joked about missing his heavy bolter; on this mission they would need mobility far more than the weapon’s firepower.

The heat grew more intense as time passed, and the moaning of the wind increased to a shriek, like the howls of the damned. Saris hated the last moments of an orbital drop, the waiting when the checklists were finished and the canticles became hard to concentrate on. He could feel beads of sweat forming on his face inside his helmet, and the quickening of both hearts as sense-memory told his body that combat was imminent. It came as a relief when Sergeant Iriel’s voice rang out, loud in the pod even over the howling of the wind.

 

+Impact in ninety seconds- final diagnostics!+

 

Although Saris had performed the Hymnal of Right Function already, he murmured it with a note of eagerness in his voice again, glad of the rote.

Suit power idling at 40%- autosenses active- integrity green- environmental systems green- reactor stable- servomotors responsive- Let my thoughts protect my soul as my armor protects my flesh; blessed is the armor of the righteous, for it is the Shield of Humanity, Emperor protect.

+Unlock climate control!+ At Iriel’s order, the squad each subvocalised the command, and cooling systems kicked into high gear. +We deliver the Emperor’s Wrath!+

As one, the squad’s voices rang out in perfect sync: +Let His vengeance prevail!+

From there, the Lesser Canticle of Vengeance flowed with a seamlessness born of decades of repetition- Iriel called, the squad responded.

+We cleanse the stars with fire and steel!+

+Let heretics fear us always!+

+We fight the Long War!+

+Never forgive! Never forget!+

+We are the Dark Angels!+

+We! Bring! Death!+

 

Like all his brothers, Saris felt the stirring of anger in his veins, the eager thrill of stoked aggression. He had been born for this, grown up amongst his people training for this, been exalted by the Emperor to join the ranks of His Dark Angels, to deliver His retribution and bring justice down on the heads of those who would betray Humanity. He felt the floor of the pod shudder and the sudden feeling of impact as retro-rockets fired. Sergeant Iriel’s voice came now over the comm.:

+Dispersal pattern Delta; Second of the Fourth+

Again in unison, the squad answered to signal acknowledgement:

 

+White pinions, black hearts+

[KiltedMarine]

Everything seemed to happen all at once from there. The pod impacted with a juddering crash that would have crippled any normal human. The hatches blew open, and with perfect unity Squad Iraeus, the Second Squad of the Fourth Company of the Dark Angels, rushed out into blinding sunlight and a hail of lasgun fire. Beside them, the pods carrying the Third and Fifth Squads blew open like steel flowers an instant later. Saris brought his bolter up without conscious thought and fired a burst into a cluster of rebel soldiers. His legs carried him reflexively into his assigned position relative to his squad brothers, while his mind caught up with his muscles and he took in the scene around them.

The plaza stretched fully a hundred meters across, paved with golden-tan flagstones that matched the administrative buildings on all four sides. Grandest of them all was the façade of the High Palace of the Magistrix, three stories high, fronted by steps forty meters wide, and centered on a pair of great steel doors embossed with aquilae. Hot, brilliant sunlight beat down from a cloudless blue sky, and glinted off the barrels of weapons and the armor of Saris’ brothers. Had the defenders been prepared, the plaza would have been a nightmare, a slaughter-ground without cover.

Clearly, though, the rebels and their xeno allies had not expected the arrival of an Astartes task force. They had entrenched to fight off an assault by ground forces through the city, with sandbagged gun emplacements blocking the major avenues into the plaza and the gates of the palace itself. Now, with marines dismounting from behind them, the defenders scrambled to turn their heavy stubbers and lascannons around 180 degrees, and threw themselves prone in an attempt to protect themselves from the precise bolter fire of three tactical squads. In a matter of moments, the advantage of surprise would be lost. Already the Canopans atop the Palace steps forty meters away had opened fire with a heavy stubber, and the clank of bullets ricocheting from the hull of the drop pod mingled with the crack of bolter fire and the high snapping of lasguns.

+Saris, Falnor, Lomiel- with me; we need that stubber out of action before the Devastators land. The rest of you, concentrate on the right flank; our brothers have the rear and left.+ The squad barked acknowledgement. Sergeant Iriel unlimbered his power sword as Saris and Falnor came around the pod from his left side, under the cover of Fourth Squad. Lomiel came from the far side.

They broke for the steps without pause, armored feet cracking the flagstones as they pounded forward. The stubber roared at them, and flashes of blue-green lasgun fire lanced past Saris’ head. In response, he leveled his bolter, aiming at the head of the stubber’s loader, and pulled the trigger. The weapon barked in his grip, and his target disappeared in a spray of sand. The stubber continued to fire, spitting bullets that whined past his head like angry hornets. The gunner was inexperienced; firing downward required aiming deliberately low. Beside him, Lomiel opened up with the plasmagun, vaporizing a swath of the sandbags and the upper torso of a rebel soldier with a lance of blue-white flame. Saris fired again, saw three of the defenders fall back from the sandbags in explosions of gore as impact-fused bolter shells struck home, couldn’t tell if the kills were his own or his brothers’.

He heard an inchoate grunt over the comm. The gunner had found the range, and Sergeant Iriel had been struck several times. Saris himself felt the impacts of three separate rounds, one of them at his right eyebrow and two on the left side of his chest. They glanced off his armor with high whines, staggering him and checking his stride for a moment. He answered with a burst of fire of his own, felt fierce satisfaction as he heard a scream from behind the sandbags. Ahead of him now, Lomiel crested the steps and another flare of plasma erupted from the gun in his hand. The stubber fell silent, and the sergeant in charge of the gun crew jabbered at his remaining men desperately.

Falnor slung his bolter and hurled a fragmentation grenade. More screaming erupted in the emplacement, more semi-coherent orders from the squad leader. Sergeant Iriel leaped over the sandbags, and the shimmering blade of his power sword took the rebel’s head from his shoulders. Saris followed an eyeblink behind, running up the embankment and firing from its crest down into the position. He saw the terror in his first target’s eyes as the man lunged feebly with his bayonet. The steel point glittered in the sunlight, and scored a narrow scratch along Saris’ left vambrace as he contemptuously swatted it aside. One-handed, he fired a single bolter shell into the man’s chest and watched him fold over and fall away in a crimson cloud. Another rebel behind the first swung the butt of his lasgun two-handed like an axe. Saris stepped aside the blow, let it ring off his left shoulder guard, and blew the man’s right arm and shoulder away with another bolter round.

+Objective secured. Shift all fire to the right flank. Clear that position.+

 

Saris, Lomiel and Falnor turned to bring fire to bear on the heretics already pinned in place by their squad brothers. Within moments, that position too fell silent save for the groans of the wounded.

 

+Count off.+

 

One by one, Squad Iraeus called their names out. None had suffered significant injury. Iriel’s face remained impassive, but he nodded satisfaction as he reported to the other sergeants on the command frequency.

Less than 60 seconds had passed since impact.