Rogue blood Angel: Trial by Swarm and chaos part 2

[Tred1998]

The convoy rumbled across the scarred terrain of Caltraxis, its engines growling in unison as armored treads chewed through ash and rust. The strike force—several Chimeras, Taurox Primes, a handful of Leman Russ tanks, and two Basilisks held in the rear—moved in tight formation beneath the shadow of jagged ridges. Valkyries streaked overhead, their contrails etched against the burning sky. Inside the lead transport, Colonel Drast’s orders cut sharply through the vox-net, steady and precise.

 

For a brief moment, the column crested a rise, revealing the wasteland beyond. From their vantage, the Guardsmen beheld the nightmare in full: a tide of Tyranids crashing against entrenched Black Legion positions. Carnifexes battered bunkers to rubble, Hive Guard launched organic artillery, and endless broods of Gaunts poured like rivers into the traitor lines. Chaos responded with roaring Havoc batteries and sorcerous firestorms, the ground quaking as Daemon Engines joined the fray. It was a scene of unrestrained apocalypse—two predators locked in a death struggle, oblivious to the mortals watching from afar.

 

Colonel Drast’s voice rasped through the vox. “Enjoy the sight, men. It means the swarm’s eyes are elsewhere. Armor, form up! Infantry, prepare to dismount on my mark!”

As the convoy drew closer to the looming silhouette of Hydra Battery Theta-5, auspex signals spiked. Tyranid organisms nested around the Macro-Lance complex, though far fewer than expected. Perhaps their focus remained on the Chaos lines. The Imperials would use that window. Orders snapped through the formations.

The first Basilisk thundered, a shell screaming across the field before detonating among clustered Termagants. The blast showered the front gates of the defense facility with chitin and ichor. The strike force surged forward, engines roaring as hatches slammed open. Guardsmen poured from their transports in disciplined lines, lasguns spitting crimson light.

Tred vaulted from the lead Chimera, storm bolter barking in disciplined bursts. “Advance! Keep formation!” His voice cut through the din like a thunderclap. Sergeant Ventris limped alongside the front ranks, her augmetic leg moving with precision, directing squads into firing lanes with clipped commands.

 

The Tyranids reacted swiftly. Hormagaunts leapt from shattered battlements, their scything talons glinting in the firelight. A brood of Warriors roared from a side breach, directing lesser beasts into the fray. The Guard held steady. Grenades blossomed among the swarms, lasfire burned holes through chitinous carapaces, and autocannons from the Taurox tore limbs from bodies.

Yet still, Guardsmen fell. A Hormagaunt scissored two troopers apart before Tred’s chainsword removed its head. A squad was dragged down screaming beneath a crashing Carnifex, its death only assured when a Russ battle cannon caved its skull. The price of progress was blood, but the line surged ever forward.

Through smoke and shrieking alien cries, the strike force broke into the outer bastion. Bolters thundered, flamers spat rivers of promethium, and bayonets drove into alien flesh. The corridors of the Macro-Lance facility became a brutal gauntlet—choked with ichor, bodies, and gunfire. Tyranid presence was fierce but scattered; without full synapse coordination, their defense lacked cohesion.

 

Tred carved a path through them, his storm bolter barking point-blank before his chainsword finished the work. Guardsmen pressed behind him, stacking up at doorways, storming rooms with disciplined volleys. Each stairwell was contested, each corridor a killing ground, but momentum remained with the Imperials.

Finally, after hours compressed into a blur of violence, the surviving force burst into the Command Sanctum of Hydra Battery Theta-5. The vaulted chamber, its walls inlaid with cracked Mechanicus sigils and cogwheel frescoes, housed the Master Cogitator Nexus—a massive dais of rune-etched consoles and data spires that controlled the Macro-Lance’s targeting arrays. Tyranids swarmed the sanctum, but they were the last remnants of the infestation. Guardsmen unleashed concentrated volleys, mowing them down with grim efficiency.

Tred led the charge up the final gantry. He clashed with a towering Tyranid Warrior, its bone swords screeching against his chainsword. The duel was vicious—each blow jarring his arm, sparks flying as adamantine teeth met alien chitin. With a final surge of strength, Tred forced his weapon into the Warrior’s skull. The chainsword screamed, then shattered in his hands as its teeth snapped and the motor tore apart—but not before it cleaved through the beast’s head, killing it outright. Breathing heavily, Tred glanced down at the broken hilt in his grasp, then cast it aside with a measured, almost casual throw. Lira’s lasgun fire punched holes through the last Termagants. With a final roar, the sanctum fell silent, the last of the xenos crushed beneath Imperial steel.

Colonel Drast strode forward, his voice ringing through the vox-net. “Hydra Battery Theta-5 secured. All units—hold positions and establish a defensive perimeter! Get firing lines dug, heavy weapons sited, and sentries posted at every breach. Burn the alien corpses and stack our own for rites—this ground is to be held.” He turned sharply to the red-robed figures already stepping toward the cogitator dais. “Tech-Priests—initiate rites to awaken the Machine Spirits of the Master Cogitator Nexus. I want the Vox array brought online at once and the Macro-Lance targeting controls stirred from dormancy. We have a gun to wake. 

 

The battered but victorious survivors stood among the wreckage of the control sanctum, the Macro-Lance theirs once more.

Around them, the facility stirred with frantic activity. Guardsmen hurried through the vaulted halls, dragging corpses into pyres, reinforcing barricades, and manning firing slits. Tech-crews rushed cables into cracked ports, sparks showering as they worked to feed power back into ancient circuits. Servitors clattered through smoke, hauling debris aside while Tech-Priests intoned binaric prayers, their voices echoing as they labored to soothe and awaken the slumbering machine spirits of the gun.

Tred stood silent, watching the Imperials at their work. The mortal soldiers bled, sweated, and toiled without hesitation—an echo of the duty he carried within himself. His gaze swept across the chamber, unmoving as others moved with urgency.

 

Minutes passed before Sergeant Lira Ventris approached with two Guardsmen at her side. They carried something heavy between them, reverently wrapped in oil-stained cloth. With a nod, they unveiled it—a Space Marine power sword, its blade of crackling energy shimmering faintly with restrained fury. “We found this in the armory,” Lira said firmly. “It would greatly serve in your hands.”

 

Tred strode over, towering above them. He reached out, grasping the weapon by its hilt. The blade’s energy field hissed to life at his touch. “Thank you,” he rumbled, his helm dipping ever so slightly. “This will be useful later on.”

 

As if on cue, one of the Tech-Priests suddenly lifted his mechadendrites and let out a burst of vox-filtered triumph. “The Vox-spirits respond! The array lives!” Runes flared across the cogitator banks, and the room buzzed with new life.

 

Colonel Drast wasted no time. He strode toward the restored console, his voice harsh and commanding. “Patch me through. Establish link to High Command immediately. They will know what we have done here.”

 

The colonel disappeared into an adjoining chamber, his retinue of vox-officers and scribes following in his wake. The thick bulkhead door sealed behind them, leaving the command sanctum to the labors of the Tech-Priests and the weary Guard.

 

Sergeant Ventris lingered near Tred, her gaze sharp. “While clearing the lower decks, we noticed something unusual. Many of the garrison who once manned this facility weren’t at their posts. They had fallen back, deeper into the complex. Is that normal procedure, even when Tyranids press the walls?”

Tred’s helm turned toward her, his voice low and certain. “No. It is not.”

The chamber settled into uneasy silence, broken only by the clatter of tools and binaric chanting. Minutes stretched before the bulkhead hissed open again. Colonel Drast emerged, his face grim beneath the rebreather mask.

 

“They’re not sending support!” he barked, his voice echoing through the sanctum.

Murmurs rippled among the Guardsmen. Tred stepped forward. “Why? What did they say?”

Drast’s tone was bitter, edged with fury. “High Command is sending an Inquisitor. He claims there is something here that must be secured before anything else. No reinforcements, no evacuation, not until his task is complete. Only then will they commit to aiding us in bringing the gun fully online.”

Colonel Drast’s fists tightened against his coat, his voice rising with fury.
“Why now, of all times? This battery is of vital strategic importance—our lifeline! And instead of sending us reinforcements, they dispatch an Inquisitor? What could possibly matter more than securing this gun?”

 

A silence hung over the chamber, until Sergeant Lira Ventris spoke up. Her voice was measured, but there was a hard edge beneath her words.
“Sir… our sweeps through the lower decks revealed something troubling. Many of the Guardsmen who manned this facility did not die at their posts. They were found deeper within the complex. The further we pressed, the more corpses we discovered. Entire squads seemed to have abandoned their positions and fled downward.”

Drast turned toward her sharply, his rebreather hissing as he inhaled. His voice came out like a thunderclap.
“Guardsmen leaving their posts? That is heresy!”

 

He snapped his gaze to Magos Feran, who stood hunched in the glow of the cogitators.
“Tech-Priest—bring up the last order issued to this facility. Now!”

The Magos uttered a string of binaric cant, mechadendrites plugging into sockets with a hiss of steam. Runes cascaded across cracked screens, fragments of encrypted orders flashing and dissolving. At last the data-stream steadied. One line burned bright in green across the hololithic display: Directive: GUARD THE VAULT.

Confusion rippled through the chamber. Guardsmen muttered in disbelief, their hands tightening on lasguns.

Drast’s eyes widened. “A vault? What vault? This is a gun battery, not a vault installation!”

 

It was then that Tred moved forward, his armored steps echoing with finality. His voice rolled from his helm like distant thunder.
“Curious. Why would the Inquisition guard a vault on this world? Caltraxis holds no relics of faith, no treasures of strategy. And yet Chaos is here, spilling blood beneath the shadow of a Tyranid swarm. The Traitor Legions may be mad, but they are not fools. They know when to avoid battle. No… they came with intent.”

His helm turned slightly, the lenses glinting red in the cogitator’s glow.
“Perhaps they were told to be here. Perhaps… they were led.”

 

The words struck like a hammer. Silence pressed down on the room, broken only by the static hiss of failing vents and the monotone chant of the Tech-Priests. Every Guardsman felt it—that sense of being watched.

 

Suddenly, Tred’s storm bolter roared to life. The deafening bark of mass-reactive shells thundered into the rafters above. Sparks and shrapnel rained down from steel beams, startling soldiers into cover.

“What is he firing at?!” Drast bellowed, but his words were swallowed by the cacophony.

Tred ignored them. His weapon tracked in sharp arcs, spitting explosive bolts into shadows along the gantries and railings. Then—a distortion shimmered, the air itself rippling. A heavy thud shook the deck as something unseen landed among them.

 

Tred did not hesitate. With a swift motion, he slung the storm bolter and ignited his newly gifted power sword, its crackling field cutting bright lines into the dark. He struck hard, his blows sparking off invisible resistance. To the mortal eye, it seemed as though he fought a ghost, his blade biting into nothingness. Yet each impact rang with the sound of steel on ceramite.

The Guardsmen staggered back in confusion, shouting prayers and curses alike. Some raised their lasguns, but none dared fire—afraid of striking the Astartes himself.

The air screamed as the unseen foe retaliated. Tred’s pauldron sparked under the weight of a blow, deep scoring across his armor. He braced, striking back with inhuman strength, sparks flaring as his sword clashed against something veiled.

 

Then, in a blur, Tred shifted tactics. With his left hand he drew his combat knife in one smooth, practiced motion—a surprise move. The blade glinted only for an instant before he rammed it forward into the empty air at chest height.

 

The strike connected. The knife bit deep, puncturing armor that was unseen but undeniably there. Tred twisted the blade savagely, his teeth clenched as he forced it further. A distorted howl tore through the chamber, alien and yet horribly human.

 

The shimmer collapsed. The veil of distortion peeled away like smoke, and the intruder was revealed at last. A hulking figure in baroque ceramite stood before them, midnight-blue plate shifting with serpentine scales, hydra symbols etched across its pauldrons. The mark of treachery was unmistakable, The Guardsmen recoiled, voices rising in alarm.
“That— that’s not Black Legion!” one shouted, fear cutting into his tone. “Who is that?!”

Tred’s helm turned toward the fallen warrior, his voice low and heavy.
“No. It is the Alpha Legion.”

 

The corpse of the traitor clattered to the deck, ichor and oil hissing from ruptured armor. The Guardsmen gathered warily, lasguns raised though the foe was clearly slain.

One trooper swallowed hard, his voice carrying unease.
“I’ve never even heard of the Alpha Legion before. What are they?”

Tred wrenched his combat knife from the body, black ichor dripping from the blade. He turned slightly, his helm lenses glowing in the dim sanctum light as he answered.
“They are one of the Traitor Legions. Their Primarch was Alpharius—some say Omegon as well, for the two were twins, though truth and lies are their weapons, and history is twisted in their wake. Unlike other Legions who revel in slaughter or worship their dark gods openly, the Alpha Legion are serpents in the dark. They embed themselves in Imperial ranks, plant agents, corrupt commanders, and whisper poison into vox and council alike. They mislead, they deceive, and they manipulate until victory is stolen without a battle even being fought.”

The Guardsmen shifted uneasily, some crossing themselves in the sign of the Aquila. Colonel Drast muttered, “Emperor preserve us…”

Tred’s voice rumbled on, unrelenting.

“They do not wage war in the manner of the World Eaters or the Black Legion. Their victories come through espionage, misinformation, and the sowing of betrayal. It was they who lured the Black Legion to this world. And they have done so beneath the shadow of the Tyranids, knowing the swarm would bleed both sides. The Alpha Legion never commit themselves unless there is a greater purpose beneath the surface.”

He crouched briefly, wiping his knife clean against the traitor’s scaled tabard before sliding it back into its sheath. The sound of steel against leather echoed in the uneasy silence.

“And where there is one Alpha Legionnaire, there are always more. Their cells never work alone. If they have infiltrated this facility, and the Inquisition comes here in person… then this world hides something far greater than a gun. Something they are desperate to claim.”

The chamber fell into silence once more, the Guardsmen exchanging fearful glances. For the first time, the Macro-Lance felt like little more than a distraction. The true danger lay deeper within the facility.

 

Colonel Drast paced before the corpse, his rebreather hissing with every heavy breath. His fists clenched as he glared at the fallen traitor.
“First the Black Legion, now Tyranids, and now this? The Alpha Legion here of all places? Why? What in the Throne’s name could be so valuable in this rusted husk of a facility that even they would come crawling through the shadows?”

No one answered. The Guardsmen stood silent, muttering prayers, their eyes flicking toward the bulkheads as if expecting more phantoms to emerge at any moment.

Tred’s helm turned toward the colonel, his voice a deep, immovable weight.
“Whatever it is, it must not fall into their hands. If the Alpha Legion have made this place their quarry, then it holds something beyond weapons or fortifications. And if the Inquisition has diverted support to secure it, then their suspicions already align with what we have uncovered. The vault they ordered guarded is the key.”

He paused, scanning the Guardsmen, his crimson armor gleaming under the flickering lumen strips. “Tell me, Colonel. What of the search teams you dispatched further into the complex? What have they reported?”

 

Drast’s eyes narrowed. He gestured sharply toward a vox-operator, who began cycling channels in a desperate attempt to raise the scattered patrols. Static filled the air. Callsigns were repeated again and again. No reply came.

The vox-officer looked up, face pale. “Nothing, sir. All channels are dead.”

A heavy silence fell over the chamber. Several Guardsmen tightened their grips on lasguns, their nerves fraying under the oppressive realization.

Tred’s voice cut through the tension like a blade.
“Then it is proven. There is more than one Alpha Legionnaire in these halls. The search teams are silenced. And if the hydra coils within the depths, then they already move to whatever lies hidden in this vault.”

 

The Astartes turned, his cloak shifting with the weight of his steps. He sheathed his combat knife with deliberate calm.
“I will descend. Alone. The Alpha Legion will not be undone by mortal eyes—they thrive in confusion, in whispers, in shadows. I will find them, and end them.”

Drast moved to protest, but Tred raised a hand.
“The rest of you must hold this ground. Fortify the sanctum, keep the Macro-Lance secure, and prepare for the Tyranids’ return. The Alpha Legion are a threat, but the swarm is a storm that does not relent. If your defenses falter, nothing will matter. Hold the line.”

His words carried the weight of command, though no rank bound him here. The Guardsmen straightened instinctively, as though a sliver of Sanguinius himself stood among them. Colonel Drast exhaled slowly, then nodded.

“Very well, Astartes. Go. We’ll hold the gun. Emperor guide you.”

Without another word, Tred turned toward the yawning bulkhead corridors that descended deeper into Hydra Battery Theta-5. The shadows swallowed his armored form, the crimson glow of his eyes lingering for only a moment before fading into the dark.

he corridors of Hydra Battery Theta-5 plunged downward into shadow, their steel walls slick with condensation and streaked with old blood. Tred’s armored boots echoed heavily as he descended, the lumen strips along the walls flickering weakly, casting half-light across the carnage. The deeper he went, the more bodies he found—first desiccated corpses of the original garrison, then fresher ones, their wounds raw and their armor still reeking of battle. Lasguns lay discarded, their charge packs spent; bayonets jutted from broken alien forms, though many of the corpses bore wounds that spoke not of Tyranids, but of blades and bolter fire.

Tred’s helm lenses swept across each scene with clinical precision. Some squads had died in formation, others cut down as they fled. The trail was no longer just a record of battle—it was a story of confusion and betrayal.

 

A voice broke the silence. “Astartes.”

 

Tred turned sharply, his bolt rifle snapping up to his shoulder, the barrel aimed squarely into the shadows. From the gloom emerged a lone figure in battered flak armor—Sergeant Lira Ventris. She moved with her usual limp, her augmetic leg catching the lumen glow. Her lasgun was slung across her shoulder, but her eyes burned with grim determination.

“What are you doing here?” Tred’s voice rumbled, low and accusing.

Ventris met his gaze without flinching. “I’m here to identify the dead. These were my men. I ordered them down here. It’s my duty to bring back their tags, at the very least—to ensure their names aren’t lost in the dust of this Emperor-forsaken world.” She lifted a chain already bearing a half-dozen bloody tags. “It’s the least I owe them.”

Tred studied her in silence for a long moment. His helm tilted slightly, the green glow of his lenses locking with her eyes. He searched for hesitation, for weakness, but found only stubborn resolve. At last, his voice came, slow and deliberate.
“So be it. But keep your eyes peeled for anything unusual.”

Ventris gave a bitter laugh, though it carried no humor. “More unusual than the Gods of Chaos or the swarms of Tyranids? By the Throne, I’ll try my best.”

The faintest incline of Tred’s helm might have been approval. Wordlessly, he turned back down the corridor, and Ventris fell in step beside him. Together they pressed deeper into the battery’s underbelly.

 

The air grew heavier with every level descended. The walls seemed to close in, the light strips flickering more erratically. Here, the corpses were fresher still. Blood had yet to congeal on the steel decking. Dog tags jingled softly in Ventris’ hands as she gathered them one by one, whispering short prayers over each of her fallen troopers.

Yet amid the reverence, unease gnawed at them both. The pattern of the deaths was wrong. Some bodies bore precise blade strikes, others bore holes that could only have come from bolters. A few looked as if they had been ambushed from behind. The deeper they went, the more it stank not of xenos slaughter, but of sabotage and betrayal.

Tred’s voice finally cut through the silence. “The hydra coils in the dark. Remain vigilant, Sergeant. We are walking into their lair.”

And still, they descended, shadows thickening, every step drawing them closer to the vault that even the Inquisition feared to name.

The descent grew darker with each level. Rusted plating groaned under their boots, the walls closing in like a tomb. Sergeant Ventris gathered another set of tags from a fallen trooper, the chain around her neck rattling under the growing weight. The air smelled of oil, rust, and blood, every corridor lined with corpses—some decades old, others fresh enough that the blood had not yet dried.

 

Then the lumen strips overhead flickered and died.

Darkness swallowed the corridor. The silence that followed was suffocating.

Ventris cursed under her breath and snapped on her lasgun’s lamp. A narrow beam cut through the black, shaking slightly in her grip as it passed over broken weapons and slack, staring faces. The shadows seemed thicker now, every corner alive with menace.

She pressed forward, whispering, “Tred… do you see anything?”

No answer.

Her breath quickened. She turned the beam across the bulkhead. “Astartes?”

Still nothing.

Her heart began to pound. She swung the light fully behind her—he was gone. The corridor stretched out, empty.

A faint scuff echoed behind her. She froze. The sound came again, closer this time, like something heavy brushing against steel. Slowly, she turned the lamp.

A shape detached itself from the shadows. A giant in midnight-blue armor, his presence all but invisible until that moment. The Alpha Legionnaire moved like a phantom, combat blade raised high, the edge catching the faintest glimmer of her light.

Ventris’ breath caught. She could not even scream.

The traitor lunged.

 

A deafening slice tore through the silence, steel shrieking against ceramite. For a heartbeat, the Alpha Legionnaire stood frozen in place, the raised blade still poised to strike. Then, with a sickening jolt, a sword erupted from his chest, its edge slick with oil and blood.

The traitor convulsed once, armor sparking, before collapsing in a heap at Ventris’ feet.

Tred stepped forward from the shadows, withdrawing his blade in one smooth motion. His voice was low, hard as stone.
“Eyes forward, Sergeant. They are hunting us.”

Ventris swallowed, her knuckles white around her lasgun. “…By the Emperor…”

Tred ignored her awe. “Stay close. They will try again.”

The two pressed on into the suffocating dark, every step carrying the weight of unseen eyes and the promise of more killers waiting in the depths.

The tunnels widened as Tred and Ventris pressed deeper into the complex. The suffocating corridors opened into a vast cogitator hall, its ceiling high and jagged where bombardments had collapsed sections of the superstructure. Burned-out terminals and shattered vox-arrays lined the walls like the corpses of long-dead machines. The floor was a battlefield—strewn with Guardsmen bodies, lasguns still clutched in rigid hands, their deaths too clean to be Tyranid work.

Ventris crouched to gather another cluster of dog tags, her expression hard. She whispered a prayer before slipping them onto the chain around her neck. Then she froze, her head tilting.

“I hear something,” she muttered, her voice tense. “Down there—other side of the hall.”

She broke into a jog, lasgun lamp bouncing against the shadows as she angled toward the sound.

Tred remained still, helm sweeping. At the far end of the chamber, he caught it—a faint glint of glass. A sniper’s scope.

“Down!” he barked.

 

The shot rang out, thunderous in the hollowed hall. At the same instant, Tred’s bolt rifle cracked, his round slamming into the sniper’s perch and throwing the aim wide. The enemy’s shot smashed into a column near Ventris, detonating in a spray of sparks and debris. The blast hurled her off her feet and into the dark with a cry.

From the left, a new threat burst from the shadows. A hulking Alpha Legionnaire thundered forward, twin lightning claws igniting with snarling arcs of energy. He lunged at Tred like a predator unleashed.

 

The Blood Angel dropped his rifle in a smooth motion and drew his power sword. The blade flared to life as it met the first swipe of the claws. Sparks cascaded through the gloom as sword and talons clashed, each impact ringing like thunder.

The traitor pressed with savage fury, claws scissoring in overlapping arcs. Tred fought with grim precision, using his blade as both shield and weapon. He turned aside one blow with the flat of the blade, then countered with a slash that scored a burning line across the Alpha Legionnaire’s chest plate. The next strikes came faster—left, right, downward—and each time the Blood Angel’s sword intercepted them, sparks and energy spraying in the dark.

With a roar, Tred drove forward, hammering blow after blow against the traitor’s guard. The Alpha Legionnaire snarled and crossed his claws before him, forming a barrier of crackling energy. For a heartbeat the two locked, strength against strength, sparks spitting where power fields ground together.

Then Tred unleashed his full fury. With a bellow, he forced the blade between the claws and rammed it through the traitor’s chest. The sword burst out the other side in a spray of ichor and molten ceramite. The Alpha Legionnaire convulsed once, vox-grille rasping, before collapsing in a heap at Tred’s feet.

The sniper adjusted fire. A bolt round hammered into the ceiling supports. The entire chamber groaned, then collapsed in a cascade of ferrocrete and twisted girders. Tred braced, but a massive slab slammed him to the ground, pinning him beneath rubble. His sword was still clenched in his hand, but his body was trapped, immobile.

Across the hall, the sniper descended from his perch with calculated calm, striding forward with his rifle raised. He leveled the barrel directly at Tred’s helm, closing the distance with deliberate steps.

 

Pinned, Tred glared up at him, growling deep in his throat. He strained, but the weight held him fast.

The Alpha Legionnaire stopped a few paces away, scope glinting faintly. He aimed point-blank at the Blood Angel’s head.

The trigger clicked.

The chamber thundered.

But it was not Tred who fell.

The sniper convulsed, his chest erupting outward as a blast cored through him, tearing his back into molten shards. He staggered once, then collapsed in a lifeless heap.

Smoke hissed from the barrel of the pulse cannon. Ventris stood behind it, braced against the recoil, her face streaked with blood and grime but her eyes alive with fierce resolve.

She lowered the weapon slowly, her voice hoarse but burning with fury. “For the Emperor… and for every one of my Guardsmen you butchered, you traitorous bastard.”

With that, she let the cannon fall from her hands, the heavy weapon clattering uselessly to the floor.

Tred shoved aside the rubble with a grunt, forcing his way upright. He bent to retrieve his bolt rifle from where it had fallen, checking the action with practiced ease before slinging it across his chest. His helm turned toward the shadowed corridors that stretched beyond.

“The trail runs deeper,” he rumbled. “The bodies lead us onward.”

Ventris nodded grimly, stepping in beside him. Together they pressed on, following the path of the dead into the dark, where greater secrets—and deadlier foes—waited.

The corridors narrowed again as they pressed deeper, the air thick with rust, incense, and the stench of old blood. The trail of corpses grew denser until at last they reached the source.

A mountain of Guardsmen bodies lay heaped before a vast blast door, their broken forms piled high as though they had been cut down defending it to the last. Weapons still clutched in skeletal hands, bayonets fixed, laspacks long since spent—their stand had been desperate, but absolute.

Ventris moved among them with quiet reverence, bending to collect the dog tags of the fallen. Her hands trembled as she lifted each one, whispering the Litany of Remembrance under her breath. “This… this was the place they were ordered to hold.”

Tred’s gaze swept the carnage. At the base of the pile lay a Guardsman in a tattered officer’s coat, the insignia of command still clinging to his armor. In his stiffened grasp rested a small rune-etched device. Tred stooped, pried it free, and turned it over in his gauntleted hand. “A key.”

He strode to the blast door. Without hesitation, he pressed the device into a waiting port. Ancient locks groaned as gears rumbled awake. A tremor rippled through the hall as vast seals disengaged one by one.

 

With a final thunderous crack, the blast door parted.

Pale light flooded out, cutting through the dark like the gaze of some forgotten machine-god.

The chamber beyond was no bunker, nor armory. It was a sanctum of the Mechanicus—an archive-vault. Towering data-stacks climbed into the gloom, cogitator pylons hummed with a ghostly pulse, and servo-skulls drifted aimlessly through the air, their optics glowing faintly as they whispered scraps of recorded binaric cant. A pair of lobotomised servitors clanked through the aisles, their tasks long meaningless, their motions endless.

At the center of the vault stood a circular dais. Upon it glowed a hololithic star map, constellations suspended in shimmering light. Beside it rested a single data-slate, its runes pulsing faintly as though calling to be claimed.

Ventris stared in disbelief. “This… this is what they died for? A map?”

Tred’s helm tilted slightly, his voice as steady as stone. “If a map lies sealed behind a door guarded in blood, then it is no common chart. It is one the Imperium would see hidden, its secret known to few.”

A new voice rang out, smooth and venomous, echoing from behind them.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Ventris spun, lasgun raised. Tred pivoted sharply, bolt rifle snapping to aim.

From beyond the pile of corpses, a massive figure stepped forth. His power armor was bulkier than that of his fallen kin, its plating ridged and scarred, festooned with cabling and warped mechanisms that pulsed with unholy resonance. Set into the breastplate, where a loyal warrior might bear an aquila or Chapter sigil, a jagged crystal pulsed with sickly light. It resembled the shard Tred carried within his own body, but where his was alien and tempered by Eldar craft, this one throbbed with the energies of the Warp, its surface crawling with veins of corruption.

His helm was wrought into a cruel visage, its lenses burning with cold malice. In his gauntleted hands rested a curved power sword, the blade humming with restrained energy, its edge marked by dark runes.

Every motion radiated authority, his presence heavy and deliberate. This was no ordinary operative. This was a war-leader of the hydra.

The Alpha Legion Captain stopped at the threshold, his gaze sweeping over the vault’s star map with calculated hunger.

“Which,” he said, his vox-grille distorting the words into a sibilant hiss, “is why only my eyes may behold it.”

The words of the Alpha Legion Captain had barely finished reverberating through the vault when Tred raised his bolt rifle and opened fire. The chamber filled with thunder, bolt rounds screaming across the distance toward the Chaos warlord.

But none struck home.

With each shot, the Captain flickered. His form blurred, then vanished in a flare of sickly light—reappearing a few meters to the side, the sound of displaced air snapping like a whip. He advanced in these stuttering steps, each teleport closing the gap, each evasion perfectly timed. The bolter roared again and again, shells detonating against consoles, cogitators, and the stone walls of the vault, but never the Captain.

Closer. Closer.

At last the traitor materialized directly before him, power sword arcing. With a vicious strike, he smacked the bolt rifle aside. It clattered to the ground, sparks leaping from the impact.

Tred answered without hesitation. His power sword hissed to life, the blue-white field crackling as he swung for the Captain’s helm. But the blade cut only air—another teleport carried the traitor just out of reach.

The duel became a maddening rhythm. Every time Tred struck, the Captain vanished and reappeared at a different angle, his curved blade slashing in mocking counters. Sparks flew as ceramite clashed with steel, but never for long—the Alpha Legionnaire would “blink” away again, leaving only the echo of laughter through his vox.

For long minutes, the Blood Angel endured this deadly dance. Each teleport was too fast to track, too sudden to predict.

And then… something shifted.

The crystal embedded in Tred’s chest burned faintly, a low thrum resonating through his armor. His vision warped. Each time the Alpha Legion Captain vanished, faint streaks of light—like afterimages—lingered in the air. They formed ghostly trails that marked where he would reappear.

Tred’s strikes grew sharper, his parries swifter. A curved blade lashed from his flank, but he was already there, sword intercepting it with a ringing crack. Another strike came from behind, yet he spun and met it head-on, steel screaming against steel.

But even with this new sight, the Captain’s advantage held. He never lingered long enough for Tred to retaliate; every time the Blood Angel swung, the traitor dissolved in a flicker, only to return at another angle.

Ventris huddled behind a collapsed cogitator bank, heart hammering as she watched the duel unfold. She gripped her lasgun tight, but knew firing would be useless against a foe who could vanish at will. Yet her soldier’s eye noted something the Astartes could not: a pattern. The Captain’s jumps were not random. He was circling, weaving, always returning to the same fallback points like a serpent coiling around its prey.

Tred pressed the fight, deflecting and dodging, his every movement deliberate, but still unable to land the killing blow. The Captain was toying with him, drawing out the battle, savoring the frustration of his foe.

Ventris’ breath steadied. Her mind began to work.

The duel had become a furious pendulum, blade against blink, sparks and shattered vox-echoes strobing across the vault. Tred’s power sword arced and hammered, but each strike found only air; the Captain blinked away in jagged steps and reformed at the same fallback points Ventris had watched again and again. The traitor’s laughter rasped through his vox like a serrated knife.

“You cannot touch me, son of Sanguinius,” the Captain spat, materializing long enough to rake a blade across Tred’s pauldron. “You bleed for nothing.”

Tred answered only with a raw, exhaled growl, his sword slamming down with a force that shook the flooring. The Captain vanished—then reappeared, taunting, at the familiar point across the chamber.

 

Ventris’ breath hitched. The pattern was no chaos—it was rhythm. The Alpha Legionnaire favored certain anchors; each blink traced the same narrow arcs before returning to those anchor points. She felt the chance coalesce like a fist inside her gut.

There was no time for finesse. She drew a stun grenade, pin between thumb and forefinger, and stepped forward. In the second the Captain blinked toward his fallback point to cut Tred off, she leapt into the path—putting her body between the two, and throwing the grenade point-blank into the place she knew he would reappear.

The device detonated in a white, thunderous bloom. Light flared so bright it burned the edges of vision; a concussion slammed through the chamber and a ringing roar clawed at the teeth. The Captain staggered, vox-wires shrieking as his senses fractured, sight and balance gone for the span of a breath.

Blinded, he lashed out. His armored fist caught Ventris square and hurled her aside like a rag doll. She struck the deck hard, skidding across the tiles before coming to a breathless stop, stunned but alive.

 

Where the Captain’s left arm had raised in reflex, the right came too late to defend. Tred roared and surged like a falling star, his blade a blue-white comet. He drove the power sword down through the traitor’s raised guard. The energized edge bit through ceramite and binding with an animal scream as metal and biofibre parted. The Captain’s arm—gauntleted, clutching the warped crystal—was sheared clean from the shoulder in a spray of sparks and molten fragments. The severed limb tumbled free, the crystal blinking once like a dying eye as it skittered across the tiles.

 

The Captain howled—not with mockery now, but with primal fury—and for the first time his vanishings failed. The blink-blink of his teleportation stuttered, then stopped; without the crystal he had no tether to the short-step rift.

Tred pressed the advantage like an axe. He hammered the traitor back with brutal, unrelenting strokes, each blow splintering plate and buckling frame. The Captain fought, tried to parry, to claw back some footing, but his rhythm was gone; his movements were ragged and raw where they had been surgical and sly.

With a final, earth-shaking surge, Tred drove the power sword straight through the Captain’s breastplate. The energized edge burned out the back of the armor in a flash of molten light; the traitor sagged, choked on blood and smoke. With a roar, Tred seized the Captain by the helm. His gauntlet clamped like an iron vice, and with a single, savage wrench he tore the traitor’s head free from his body. The spine snapped wetly as it came away, a fountain of dark blood gushing from the ragged stump, splattering across the deck in steaming arcs. The head came away to a wet, snapping sound; the vox-grille gave a final, fractured rasp and fell silent.

Tred let the severed head drop and flung it aside without a backward glance. He stood over the ruined body, chest heaving beneath ceramite, blade dripping with ichor and sparks. In the lingering haze of concussion and dust, he looked toward Ventris, who lay against the deck plating, breathing hard.

 

She spat blood and forced herself upright, only to grimace as she looked down. Her augmetic leg sparked and twitched, the metal frame bent and fractured where the Captain’s blow had landed. “Emperor’s teeth…” she muttered, steadying herself on the wall. “Tell me you killed him.”

Tred gave a single, steady nod, the energy field of his sword hissing as it powered down.

Around them, the vault hummed and recorded as if indifferent. The star map’s pale constellations kept turning.

Tred crossed the chamber toward Ventris, his power sword dimming as he sheathed it. He knelt, scanning her with the detached precision of an Astartes. “You have injuries,” he rumbled. “But you will endure.”

Ventris spat blood again, steadying herself against the wall. Despite her sparking augmetic leg and bruised frame, she gave him a crooked grin. “By the Emperor, thank you for the obvious statement,” she rasped. “Always wanted a giant in red armor to tell me how bad I look.”

For a moment, the shadows of war lifted just slightly. Tred gave the faintest tilt of his helm, as if acknowledging the stubborn grit of the mortal at his side. Then his gaze turned back to the heart of the vault.

The great star map loomed above, its pale constellations shifting in solemn rhythm. Beneath it, he found the nexus panel—an ancient cogitator altar, its surface worn smooth by centuries of rites. Servo-skulls drifted near, their bone faces flickering with weak hololithic projections. Tred’s gauntleted hand reached down, finding the sacred interface port where a dataslate slotted into a gilded socket.

He pressed his palm to the runes and intoned, “By the Omnissiah’s will, awaken. Let the Machine Spirit’s knowledge be transferred.” The cogitator thrummed, lights crawling like fire across the engravings. A low chant of binaric code echoed as if from deep within the walls. Slowly, obediently, the data poured itself into the waiting slate—an unassuming device, yet now carrying a weight of untold importance.

Tred withdrew it, the glow fading from the console. He held the slate in his massive grip, the star map still turning above them.

From her place by the wall, Ventris spoke, her voice hoarse. “Why?” she asked. “Why would the Alpha Legion rouse the Black Legion, draw them to a world crawling with Tyranids… all for a map?”

 

Tred did not answer at once. His eyes had already fixed upon the severed arm of the Alpha Legion Captain. The limb lay twisted on the tiles, its gauntlet still clutching the warp crystal. It pulsed faintly, a malign glow that seemed to breathe with the silence of the chamber.

The Blood Angel stood motionless, staring at it. Then, slowly, he raised his fist and pressed it against his own chest, where his own crystal burned faintly behind the ceramite.

“Whatever it is,” he said at last, voice low and unyielding, “by the Emperor—it cannot be good.”

Edited September 20 by Tred1998