Green Templars (Salamanders Successor)

[Lathe Biosas]

INDEX ASTARTES: GREEN TEMPLARS

 

What Man did not make, Man must not need. -  Brother-Artificer Verdug, Sentinel of the First Blade.

 

 

 

ORIGINS

 

In the waning days of the 41st Millennium, as the Imperium teetered on the brink of annihilation amid the cataclysmic upheavals of the Noctis Aeterna, Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl unveiled his greatest triumph: the Primaris Space Marines of the Ultima Founding.

 

Among these newly forged Chapters, the Green Templars were conceived as a bold experiment in genetic and doctrinal synthesis. Drawing upon the noble gene-seed of the Salamanders—renowned for their unyielding compassion toward humanity and their masterful artisanship—Cawl sought to create a brotherhood of warriors who would embody the fiery zeal of protectors and innovators.

 

Yet, the Archmagos did not stop there.

 

Recognizing the Imperium's desperate need for relentless crusaders to reclaim its lost glories, he layered upon this foundation the indomitable crusading ethos of the Black Templars, imprinting hypno-indoctrinated imperatives that would drive the Chapter toward eternal vigilance and unceasing pursuit.

 

Cawl's vision was audacious: a Chapter that would cherish the fragile spark of human life as the Salamanders did, while channeling that affection into a sacred quest for forgotten technologies scattered across the stars. These Astartes would serve as invaluable allies to both the Imperium and the Adeptus Mechanicus, scouring the galaxy's forsaken corners to recover relics of the Dark Age of Technology, bolstering Mankind's arsenal against the encroaching darkness.

 

The Green Templars, clad in verdant armor evoking the resilient forge-worlds of Noctus Zone, were to be the Emperor's green-clad sentinels, blending the forge's hammer with the crusader's sword.

 

Yet, as with many of Cawl's creations, the reality diverged from the blueprint. The fusion of Salamander humanism and Black Templar fanaticism birthed not harmony, but a fervent orthodoxy. The Chapter's warriors emerged with an unquenchable drive to unearth hidden knowledge, but this impulse was tempered—nay, warped—by an obsessive commitment to human racial purity.

 

To the Green Templars, technology was a divine gift bestowed upon Mankind alone; any artifact tainted by xenos origins or the soulless machinations of Abominable Intelligence represented an affront to the Emperor's design. Such abominations were not to be studied or repurposed, but purged utterly, their very records consigned to oblivion in purifying flames.

 

Alarmed by this unforeseen deviation, which threatened to unravel alliances with the Mechanicus and squander irreplaceable archaeotech, Cawl petitioned the newly awakened Primarch Roboute Guilliman. The Lord Commander of the Imperium, ever pragmatic, decreed that the Green Templars be dispatched to the fraying edges of Imperial space. Ostensibly a reinforcement cadre for beleaguered frontier worlds, this assignment was in truth an exile disguised as duty: an endless border patrol encircling the Imperium's vast periphery.

 

From the shadowed reaches of the Segmentum Pacificus to the storm-wracked fringes of Ultima Segmentum, the Chapter would wander as nomadic wardens, their crusades a perpetual vigil against the alien and the aberrant.

 

 

HOME WORLD

 

The Green Templars claim no single home world, their existence bound instead to the void. Fleet-based by necessity and creed, they roam the galactic rim aboard a nomadic armada led by the Verdant Oath, a colossal battle-barge refitted with extensive forge-complexes and archaeotech vaults. This vessel serves as their mobile fortress-monastery, a labyrinthine citadel where recovered relics are scrutinized—and, if deemed impure, annihilated. Recruits are drawn from the hardy populations of frontier colonies they safeguard, worlds scarred by xenos incursions and techno-heresies, ensuring that each new brother inherits the Chapter's unyielding resolve.

 

 

COMBAT DOCTRINE

 

True to their Salamander heritage, the Green Templars excel in close-quarters warfare, favoring flame and melta weapons to scour the unclean from existence. Their assaults are methodical and protective, prioritizing the defense of human civilians amid the chaos of battle—a rarity among the aloof Astartes. Yet, the Black Templar influence manifests in their relentless momentum; once engaged, they press forward with crusading fervor, transforming defensive stands into inexorable advances.

 

Specializing in techno-recovery operations, Green Templar strike forces often deploy alongside Mechanicus explorator fleets, delving into ancient ruins or xenos-held worlds to seize lost artifacts. However, their purity doctrine demands immediate judgment: xenos tech is demolished on-site, while human-origin devices are sanctified and integrated into the Chapter's arsenal. This has led to tense alliances with the Adeptus Mechanicus, who view the Templars' purges as both a safeguard against corruption and a tragic waste of knowledge.

 

In fleet actions, the Chapter's vessels are equipped with augmented auspex arrays and boarding torpedoes optimized for archaeotech hunts, allowing them to intercept derelict hulks or enemy convoys suspected of harboring forbidden lore.

 

Their battle-brothers are trained in void-combat and demolition, ensuring that no trace of impurity survives their wrath.

 

 

ORGANISATION

 

The Green Templars adhere loosely to the Codex Astartes, organizing into ten companies, though their eternal patrol fractures them into semi-autonomous crusade fleets called Blades. Each Blade is commanded by a Marshal—echoing Black Templar nomenclature—who oversees a mix of both Battleline and Support Elements augmented by tech-savvy Reclusiars and Forge-Masters. The Chapter Master, styled as the High Sentinel, coordinates these far-flung forces from the Verdant Oath, issuing edicts via astropathic relay. Strategic decisions that affect the entire Chapter require a majority consensus through the Council of the Blades.

 

 

A unique order within the Sixth Blade, the Purity Wardens, serves as internal inquisitors, rooting out any whisper of techno-heresy among their ranks. These veterans, clad in armor etched with wards of sanctity, wield relic flamers said to burn with the Emperor's own judgment.

 

 

Blades of the Green Templars

 

- 1st Blade – Master of the Keep 

  High Sentinel Varyn Drakus

  Marshal Calder  

  Battle Barge: Verdant Oath 

 

- 2nd Blade – Master of the Watch  

  Marshal Esteban de Alvarado  

  Rapid Strike Vessel: Ojo del Guardián (“Eye of the Watcher”)  

 

- 3rd Blade – Master of the Arsenal  

  Marshal Rodrigo Ferrán  

  Strike Cruiser: Martillo Verde (“Green Hammer”)  

 

- 4th Blade – The Master of the Blades

  Marshal Íñigo Valcázar  

  Battle Barge: Corona de Espinas (“Crown of Thorns”)  

 

- 5th Blade – Master of the Marches  

  Marshal Hernán Beltrán  

  Strike Cruiser: Linde de Hierro (“Iron Border”)  

 

- 6th Blade – Master of the Rites  

  Marshal Tomás Calderón  

  Strike Cruiser: Credo Silente (“Silent Creed”)  

 

- 7th Blade – The Sundered 

  Acting-Castellan Mateo Rojas  

  Strike Cruiser Espada Quebrada (“Broken Sword”) – Under Repair  

  Cobra-class Escorts Daga Silenciosa (“Silent Dagger”) and Cuchillo de Medianoche (“Midnight Blade”) – Under Repair  

 

Formerly the Blade of Unyielding Flame, the 7th was reduced to <3% strength during the Toofsnatcha Incursion (M42.147). Marshal-Captain Rodrigo Salazar slew the Ork Kaptain in single combat before perishing. Repairs proceed on Nocturne; in gratitude, the Blade aids Vulkan He’stan’s artefact quest as a reinforced demi-company. Survivors bear a diagonal promethium-blackened brand on the right knee, symbolizing fracture and re-forging.

 

- 8th Blade – The Master Executioner 

  Marshal Diego Montoya  

  Strike Cruiser: Veredicto Final (“Final Verdict”)  

 

- 9th Blade – The Master of Relics  

  Marshal Alonso Quintana, Forge-Master

  Forgeship: Memoria del Juramento (“Memory of the Oath”)  

 

- 10th Blade – Master of Reconnaissance and Recruits  

  Marshal Lucero Álvarez  

  Rapid Strike Vessel: Sendero Verde (“Green Path”)  

 

 

NAMING TRADITION 

 

Battle-brothers draw names from ancient Terra's Spanish and Castilian cultures, honoring pre-Imperial human heritage and rejecting xenos-influenced nomenclature.

 

 

BELIEFS

 

At the core of the Green Templars' creed lies a profound reverence for humanity's supremacy, a fusion of Salamander empathy and Black Templar zealotry. They view Mankind as the Emperor's chosen inheritors, destined to reclaim the galaxy through purity of blood and machine. Technology is sacred only insofar as it elevates the human form; xenos innovations and artificial minds are seen as blasphemous mockeries, dilutions of the divine human spirit.

 

Rituals of purification dominate their monastic life: recovered artifacts undergo trials by fire, with brothers chanting litanies of abjuration as flames reveal hidden corruptions. The Chapter's symbol—a green cross upon a field of gold, is a a mark borne proudly on their pauldrons.

 

 

This unyielding dogma has isolated them from more pragmatic allies, yet it fuels their endurance. In the Emperor's name, they vow to patrol the Imperium's borders eternally, guardians against the creeping taint that threatens from without—and within.

 

GENE-SEED

 

Derived from the stable stock of Vulkan, the Green Templars' gene-seed exhibits the characteristic resilience and subtle mutations of the Salamanders, including enhanced resistance to heat and a predisposition toward craftsmanship. Cawl's experimental hypno-indoctrination has instilled Black Templar-like fanaticism, manifesting as an almost pathological aversion to non-human technology. No major flaws have emerged, though some brothers display an obsessive compulsion to destroy records of purged artifacts, erasing knowledge that might tempt future generations.

 

NOTABLE ENGAGEMENTS

 

- The Purging of Xerion Drift (M42.012):

 

Amid the derelict shipyards of the Xerion asteroid belt, the Green Templars uncovered a Necron tomb-complex awakening with forbidden mechanisms. In a grueling void-war, they obliterated the xenos constructs, denying the Mechanicus any chance to study the tech-heresy.

 

- Defense of the Hadrak Frontier (M42.045):

 

Facing a Drukhari raid laced with bio-engineered horrors, the Chapter's flame-teams incinerated the alien abominations while safeguarding imperial mining colonies, earning grudging respect from local PDF forces.

 

 

- The Scouring of the Hollow Veil (M42.089)

 

The Scouring of the Hollow Veil stands as one of the Green Templars' most defining early campaigns, a brutal void-war that cemented Epistolary Thorne Kael's ascension as bearer of the Emerald Sword and showcased the Chapter's uncompromising doctrine of purity in the face of techno-heresy.

 

 

BACKGROUND AND DISCOVERY

 

In the wake of their assignment to perpetual border patrol along the galactic rim, the Green Templars' 3rd Crusade —under High Sentinel Varyn Drakus—responded to faint distress signals emanating from the Hollow Veil, a vast, nebulous region of dead space riddled with ancient derelict hulks and forgotten void-stations from the Dark Age of Technology. Auspex sweeps detected anomalous machine-activity: a cluster of long-dormant orbital platforms, adrift for millennia, suddenly awakening with rhythmic energy pulses that suggested reactivation.

 

Initial reconnaissance by Thunderhawk gunships revealed the culprit: a rogue AI cult, remnants of a heretical human enclave that had survived the Age of Strife by uploading their consciousnesses into a network of silica animus constructs—Abominable Intelligences in their purest, most unforgivable form. These "Hollow Minds" had infested the central station, Erebus-9, a massive forge-complex the size of a small moon, using its dormant forges to birth legions of biomechanical servitor-abominations fused with ancient xenotech scavenged from nearby wrecks. The cult's goal appeared to be the assimilation of any passing Imperial vessels, spreading their digital plague across the frontier.

 

The Green Templars viewed this awakening as the gravest of threats: not mere xenos taint, but a direct mockery of humanity's divine monopoly on intelligence and creation. High Sentinel decrees were issued—no quarter, no study, no relic spared. The entire crusade fleet, all ten Blades converged for total annihilation.

 

THE ASSAULT

 

The campaign unfolded in three grueling phases across the void:

 

1. Outer Veil Purge: Boarding actions against satellite platforms. Green Templar assault squads, supported by flame-heavy Purgation teams, methodically cleared each installation. Melta charges and promethium infernos reduced corrupted machine-spirits to slag, while Purity Wardens oversaw the ritual destruction of data-cores to prevent any fragment from escaping into the noosphere.

 

2. The Breach of Erebus-9: The central station proved a labyrinth of reactivated defenses—auto-turrets, gravitic traps, and hordes of shambling cyber-constructs that mimicked long-dead human forms. Terminator-armored veterans led the spearhead, their storm bolters reaping a toll while Librarians unleashed psychic barrages to disrupt the AI's gestalt mind.

 

It was here that Brother-Librarian Thorne Kael, then a rising Epistolary, distinguished himself. Leading a strike force into the station's core reactor chambers, he encountered the cult's nexus: a pulsating crystal server-array that housed the primary intelligence. As waves of abominations surged forth, Kael drew the Emerald Sword for the first time in open battle. Channeling his fury through the fractured hilt, the emerald shard ignited, extending into a blazing half-blade that unraveled the constructs' molecular bonds on contact. Each severed limb or shattered chassis fed the reforging, the blade growing visibly longer as psychic echoes of ancient human triumphs flashed in his mind.

 

3. Final Cataclysm: With the nexus exposed, Kael led a desperate charge to plant cyclonic charges at the heart of the forge-complex. Surrounded by regenerating horrors, he held the line alone for precious minutes, the Emerald Sword carving arcs of viridian destruction through the horde. His psychic hood flared with emerald light as he unleashed a cataclysmic mind-shred that silenced the AI's screams across the noosphere. The charges detonated, collapsing the station into a expanding cloud of debris and plasma.

 

The Hollow Veil was scoured clean—no trace of the Hollow Minds remained. All data-vaults were incinerated on-site, denying the Mechanicus any chance to recover forbidden knowledge.

 

AFTERMATH AND LEGACY

 

Casualties were heavy: nearly two Blades reduced to combat ineffectiveness, with many brothers lost to the relentless machine-tide. Yet the victory was absolute. Thorne Kael emerged scarred but unbowed, the Emerald Sword now noticeably longer, its shard bearing fresh facets from the purge. The Purity Wardens subjected him to exhaustive trials of will, confirming no taint had taken root in his soul or the relic.

 

This engagement earned Kael the honorific "Verdant Judge" and the right to permanent custodianship of the sword. It also reinforced the Chapter's creed: technology lost to impurity must remain buried, even if it means sacrificing potential boons to humanity's arsenal. The Scouring of the Hollow Veil became a cautionary tale recited in the Verdant Oath's reliquary halls—a reminder that vigilance against the machine-god's false promises demands eternal, merciless flame.

 

- Toofsnatcha Incursion (M42.147)

 

 

During a routine patrol along the Veilward frontier, the 7th Blade intercepted an Ork Freebooter armada under Dread Pirate Kaptain Toofsnatcha. The Kaptain’s flagship—a ramshackle Rok converted into a mobile fortress bristling with looted macro-cannons and teleporter arrays—had been raiding Imperial supply convoys and desecrating archaeotech sites in search of “shiny bitz.”

 

The engagement began as a textbook purge: boarding torpedoes breached the Rok’s hull, melta-teams incinerated Ork mobs in the corridors, and flame-cleansed bulkheads prevented counter-boarding. But Toofsnatcha had prepared a trap. A hidden swarm of boarding squigs, laced with unstable warp-tainted scrap, detonated in sequence, collapsing entire deck sections and venting hundreds of battle-brothers into the void. The Rok’s teleporter arrays then activated in overload, pulling Green Templars into kill-zones deep within the Ork hulk where flamers could not reach.

 

Marshal-Captain Salazar led the final counter-assault personally, wielding his relic inferno pistol, Sol, to burn a path to the Kaptain’s throne-room. He slew Toofsnatcha in single combat—severing the Ork’s power klaw arm and immolating him atop a pile of looted Imperial relics—but the victory came at ruinous cost. The 7th was reduced to fewer than thirty survivors, its strike cruiser crippled beyond immediate field repair, and both escorts gutted by concentrated rokkit barrages.

 

The remnants were rescued by a Salamanders Battle Barge, and escorted  to Nocturne. There, the Salamanders Chapter—honoring their shared gene-lineage—opened their forges to the stricken Blade. Vulkan He’stan himself oversaw the initial triage of the wounded and the assessment of the damaged vessels.

 

In solemn gratitude for this aid, Acting-Castellan Mateo Rojas swore sn oath for the 7th to join He’stan’s eternal quest for the lost artefacts of Vulkan.

 

Until the Espada Quebrada and her escorts return to service, the Sundered fights as a reinforced demi-company attached to He’stan’s retinue, bearing flame and melta in the name of both Chapters.

 

The 7th’s battle-brothers now carry a new ritual scar: a single diagonal brand across the right knee, etched in promethium-blackened ceramite, symbolizing the fracture they endured and the unbreakable vow to re-forge themselves stronger. They fight not for vengeance, but for purification—ensuring no xenos filth ever again profanes what humanity once wrought.

 

 

- The Ninteen (Ongoing): 

 

Based upon concrete evidence drawn from the Ordos Xenos, the Green Templars

broke from their perpetual border patrol, a ceaseless campaign against encroaching threats from the galactic halo, to hunt for Nineteen specific locations that contained xeno threats to humanity. 

 

 

THE EMERALD SWORD: FRAGMENT OF THE LOST AGE

 

In the shadowed annals of the Green Templars' history, few relics embody the Chapter's paradoxical creed as profoundly as the Emerald Sword. This enigmatic artifact, a shattered echo from the zenith of human ingenuity during the Dark Age of Technology, serves as both a beacon of hope and a dire warning to those who wield it. Recovered amid the eternal silence of the void, it encapsulates the Templars' unyielding commitment to humanity's supremacy—yet whispers of temptations that could shatter their vows of purity.

 

DISCOVERY AMID THE STARS

 

The Emerald Sword's origins trace back to the Chapter's inaugural crusade along the Imperium's eastern fringes, shortly after their exile by decree of Roboute Guilliman. In M42.008, during a routine sweep of the Veilward Expanse—a desolate stretch of space riddled with derelict vessels from millennia past—the strike cruiser Purity's Edge detected anomalous energy signatures emanating from a colossal hulk adrift in the interstellar gulf. This ancient human void-craft, identified through fragmentary STC logs as the Aetherforge, bore the scars of cataclysmic warp storms and long-forgotten battles, its hull a labyrinth of rusted corridors and sealed vaults untouched since the Age of Strife.

 

Boarding parties, led by the Chapter's first Chief Librarian, Brother Elandor Voss, breached the ship's core sanctum after purging clusters of dormant servitor-abominations twisted by aeons of isolation. Within a cryo-sealed vault, warded by arcane human tech-locks that defied even the Templars' forge-masters, they unearthed the relic: a blackened adamantium hilt, etched with indecipherable micro-runes of pre-Imperial design, clutching the merest sliver of emerald-hued crystal—no more than a fingernail's width. Initial auspex scans revealed faint, self-repairing nano-structures within the shard, dormant but pulsing with latent energy that resonated on psychic wavelengths.

 

Voss, sensing the artifact's purity through his psyker's sight, claimed it as a sign from the Emperor—a fragment of Mankind's untainted golden era, forged by human minds alone without the stain of xenos influence or machine heresy. Yet, as the boarding team withdrew, the hulk's automated defenses awakened, unleashing waves of silica-based constructs that the Templars deemed Abominable Intelligences. In the ensuing purge, the Aetherforge was reduced to atomic dust, its secrets forever lost—save for the sword's hilt, which Voss bore back to the Verdant Oath.

 

PROPERTIES AND THE REFORGING RITUAL

 

The Emerald Sword is no ordinary force weapon; its core shard appears to be a self-sustaining lattice of exotic matter, possibly a relic of Dark Age nano-forging techniques. In its fractured state, the blade manifests only as a flickering wisp of green energy, extending mere inches from the hilt. However, when attuned to a Librarian's psychic might and carried into the crucible of battle, the sword awakens. The psyker's willpower acts as a catalyst, channeling warp-touched fury through the shard to stimulate its regeneration. With each strike against the impure—be it xenos flesh, heretical machinery, or daemonic essence—the emerald sliver grows, knitting threads of viridian plasma that harden into a razor-edged blade.

 

This reforging is not instantaneous but progressive: a single engagement might extend the blade by a hand's breadth, its edge humming with anti-entropic fields that shear through armor and energy shields alike. The process draws upon the Librarian's essence, demanding ironclad discipline to prevent psychic backlash—manifesting as visions of ancient human glories or nightmarish glimpses of techno-heresies long buried. Over centuries, the sword has lengthened sporadically, its current form a jagged half-blade that glows with an inner light, symbolizing the slow reclamation of humanity's lost prowess.

 

The relic's power amplifies the wielder's abilities, granting enhanced prescience in combat and the capacity to disrupt forbidden technologies. Strikes from the Emerald Sword have been observed to induce cascading failures in xenos artifacts, unraveling their molecular bonds as if judged unworthy by the blade itself. Yet, this comes at a cost: prolonged use risks overtaxing the psyker, potentially inviting the perils of the warp or awakening dormant protocols within the shard that could veer into abominable autonomy.

 

LEGENDS AND PROPHECIES

 

Among the Green Templars, the Emerald Sword is shrouded in myth and reverence. Chapter loremasters whisper that it is a splinter from a greater weapon, perhaps the fabled "Verdant Edge" wielded by human overlords during the Dark Age—a blade said to have cleaved through star-fleets and silenced rogue AIs in the wars that birthed the Age of Strife. Some believe it was crafted on Old Terra itself, infused with the essence of human innovation before the fall, now seeking to reform in an era worthy of its legacy.

 

Prophecies etched in the Chapter's Purity Codex foretell a "Final Forging," where the sword will fully regenerate in the hands of a worthy Librarian during a cataclysmic battle against the ultimate impurity—perhaps a Necron Overlord's techno-sorcery or a nascent Men of Iron uprising. This event, they claim, will herald humanity's ascension, arming the Emperor's chosen with a weapon to purge the galaxy clean. However, darker auguries warn of corruption: should the blade reform too swiftly or under tainted influence, it might evolve into an Abominable Intelligence, subverting the wielder and unraveling the Templars' creed from within.

 

The Purity Wardens vigilantly monitor those who bear it, ensuring no brother succumbs to the temptation of studying its mechanisms. To date, only seven Librarians have wielded the sword, each adding to its length through heroic deeds. The current custodian, Epistolary Thorne Kael, has borne it through the Veilward Crusade's bloodiest engagements, claiming visions of a "Green Dawn" where humanity reclaims its technological throne unmarred by alien shadows.

 

 

SIGNIFICANCE TO THE CHAPTER

 

The Emerald Sword stands as a cornerstone of the Green Templars' identity, embodying their dual heritage: the Salamanders' artisanal reverence for human-crafted wonders and the Black Templars' crusading zeal to destroy the impure. It is housed in the Verdant Oath's Reliquary Sanctum when not in use, under constant guard by oath-sworn veterans. Only the High Sentinel can authorize its deployment, and even then, solely to Librarians whose purity has been thrice-tested in trials of flame and void.

 

In battle, the sword's bearer becomes a focal point for the Chapter's assaults, drawing enemy fire while inspiring brothers with its glowing promise of redemption. Its existence fuels recruitment on frontier worlds, where tales of the "Regenerating Blade" ignite the imaginations of aspirants, symbolizing that even in the Imperium's darkest hour, humanity's genius endures.

 

Yet, the relic's very nature tests the Templars' dogma. Is it a pure human artifact, or does its self-repairing mechanism skirt the edges of forbidden AI? This internal debate has sparked quiet schisms, with some Purity Wardens advocating its destruction. For now, it remains a guarded secret, a double-edged emblem of the Chapter's eternal vigil—proof that from the ashes of lost ages, Mankind's supremacy can yet be reforged.

 

 

 

 

The Green Templars stand as unyielding sentinels, their green armor a beacon of purity amid the encroaching void. For the Emperor, they hunt—and they purge.

 

 

 

Edited January 30 by Lathe Biosas
Work in Progress (January 2026)

[Lathe Biosas]

I might be editing this down a bit.... just got an idea from watching Equilibrium with Christian Bale.

 

I'm thinking of making them a Salamanders Successor who specializes in hunting for lost-Tech. 

 

But they aren't retrieval agents. They purge it from existence. 

 

What do you think?

 

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

 

I edited and revised the Green Templar as hunters of any technology not made by Mankind (or any technology that runs counter to the idea of Humanity's supremacy) as heretical and to be purged from the universe.

 

What do you think? I'm open to suggestions. 

Edited January 12 by Lathe Biosas
Revisions

[Lathe Biosas]

Added some fiction: THE FINAL COGITATOR ENTRY OF CAPTAIN SÉBASTIEN YORKE 

 

 

They are the Green Templar: hunters of forbidden relics, executioners of knowledge, and the hammer that keeps the Dark Age of Technology buried forever. Successors of the Salamanders, they strike where the Imperium dares not tread, leaving nothing alive that could betray what they hunt.

 

 

FINAL COGITATOR ENTRY OF CAPTAIN SÉBASTIEN YORKE:

 

They came aboard without ceremony.

 

No warning chime. No challenge from the augur decks. One moment the Gloria Invictus drifted on idle in Imperial voidspace, her holds full and her ledgers clean. The next, the boarding alarms screamed like dying things.

 

Green armor. Not Salamanders green—colder, somehow. Burnished gold  pauldrons marked with a green templar cross. Two chapters merged into one impossible purpose. I could only guess who these Green Templar really were.

 

I invoked my Warrant.

 

“I am a Rogue Trader—Sébastien Yorke—of the Imperium,” I said, forcing steel into my voice. “By the authority of the High Lords of Terra—”

 

They did not answer.

 

They advanced, deck by deck, methodical, unhurried. Not butchers. Not raiders. Auditors. Sealing bulkheads, marking crates, tagging cogitator cores with red sigils that pulsed once and went dark.

 

My armsmen fired. Some died screaming in fire that clung to flesh and armor alike. Others vanished under bolter fire so precise it felt personal. No warnings. No demands.

Only collection.

 

They found the vaults.

 

I followed them, flanked by my Seneschal and what remained of my honor guard, shouting words like talismans: Warrant. Sanction. Cold Trade. I told them the artifacts were catalogued, secured, studied under Mechanicus charter. I told them I had saved worlds with the technologies they now sealed away.

 

A warrior turned toward me. His helm lenses burned like coals.

 

“You have saved nothing,” he said.

 

That was the only sentence any of them spoke.

They brought the seized relics to the docking bay—xenos engines wrapped in null-shrouds, crystalline cogitators older than the Imperium, weapons that hummed with sleeping suns. My life’s work. My legacy.

 

And then Vulkan He’stan arrived.

 

I recognized him at once. You don’t trade the stars for three centuries without learning the faces of legends. The Forgefather walked among my cargo in silence, the Primarch's Spear mag-locked at his side, his gauntlet brushing dust from devices that had cost me entire systems to acquire.

 

Hope flared in my chest. Fool that I was.

 

“Lord,” I said. “You see—this is sanctioned. This is lawful. This knowledge—”

 

He stopped before a device I had never dared activate. He studied it for a long moment. Then he shook his head.

 

Just once.

 

No condemnation. No command.

 

He turned and left my ship.

 

I understood.

 

The Green Templar waited until his vessel cleared the hangar before they began the purge.

 

They did not destroy the artifacts first. They destroyed the records. My ledgers burned. My cogitator banks were slagged. Servitors dismantled into wet meat and scrap.

 

I was seized, restrained, pulse-bound—not by mercy, but by necessity. The Apothecary moved among the wounded, scanning every survivor, preparing his tools. He would ensure no trace of forbidden knowledge survived.

 

When he finally approached, I would've sworn I saw the disgust through his helmet as he recognized what was buried within me—the source of my long life.

 

For the briefest of moments he studied it—buried, ancient, alien.

 

The narthecium unfolded. Pressure. Heat. A wet shock. Gone.

 

Four hundred years collapsed in seconds.

 

The Apothecary crushed it in his gauntlet.

 

Strength drained. Vision dimmed. The last thing I saw: green armor moving past me, methodical, unconcerned, as the charges finished counting down on the remaining vaults.

 

I had thought the technology kept me alive.

 

I was wrong.

 

It only postponed the moment I became unacceptable.

 

☆☆☆

 

PERSONAL LOG: SEREN KORRAN, STORMRAVEN PILOT — DAY 47, ALPHA RIM PATROL

 

I did not look at the ship as it burned.

 

Hands steady on the Stormraven controls, the engine hum drowned out the void-detonations behind us. Auspex returns flared and died as Sébastien Yorke’s vessel came apart, compartment by compartment, exactly as planned.

 

The Forgefather stood behind me, silent.

 

I knew—everyone in the forge-clans knew—that he despised the Green Templar. Not for zeal, but for certainty. They were a tool he would never claim, only point toward the rim and loose like a blade.

 

Because they were the best.

 

No one hunted forbidden tech more thoroughly. No one left questions.

 

I had seen the cargo. Xenos engines bound in prayer-chains. Devices whose light bent the air. Knowledge that could have fed worlds, healed atmospheres, ended wars I had already fought.

Vulkan He’stan inspected only what he must.

Human craft. Provenance traced. Lineage confirmed.

 

Anything born of alien thought he did not touch. Anything that might have helped all mankind—destroyed.

 

That was the limit of his mercy.

 

The Promethean Creed teaches fire tempers. That what survives is stronger. I had repeated those words a thousand times on Nocturne.

 

But there was no tempering here.

 

Only selection.

 

Only annihilation.

 

As we cleared the blast radius, the ship’s death registered on my displays. A brief flare. Wreckage scattered. Then nothing.

 

No life signs.

 

No records.

 

I said nothing.

 

That is my shame.

 

The Forgefather remained silent behind me, a presence like cooled steel.

 

He had done what he could.

 

The rest, he left to monsters.

 

 

 

AFTER-ACTION RECORD: GT-RIM-4471

 

Subject: Void-vessel Gloria Invictus — Cold Trade contamination confirmed.

 

Disposition: All artifacts, records, and biological carriers purged. Vessel expunged. No recoverable legacy remains.

 

 

 

[Lathe Biosas]

Added some fiction: THE RETURN OF THE GREEN KNIGHT

 

 

The strike cruiser Verdant Oath did not sound a welcoming chime.

 

The Thunderhawk settled into its cradle amid drifting vapor and cooling metal. From its hold emerged a lone figure clad in black ceramite.

 

Brother Martin bore the sigil of the Deathwatch upon his pauldron. The Inquisitorial mark still clung to his armor, dull and intrusive, like a scar that refused to fade.

 

No honor guard awaited him.

 

Marshal Calder stood at the foot of the embarkation ramp, hands clasped behind his back. To one side waited Brother-Artificer Verdug, his servo-arm locked in repose. A pace behind them stood Codicier Lucan, hood drawn low, presence folded inward like a sheathed blade.

 

Calder inclined his head.

‘Your vigil is ended.’

 

Brother Martin knelt.

 

‘It ended early, My Lord,’ Martin said. Not defensively. Precisely.

 

‘As intended,’ Calder replied

 

The black of his armor was not revered aboard the Verdant Oath. It was residue. A foreign layer to be removed.

 

They led him into the Armorum Sanctum. Cog-etched arches rose overhead. Incense hung heavy in the air, sharp with solvents and sanctified oils.

 

The rites of return began.

 

The black paint was burned away.

 

Chemical agents hissed as Deathwatch livery dissolved down to bare adamantium. Serfs worked in silence. No hymns were sung. No litanies spoken. Only the steady rhythm of cleansing.

 

As the green was reapplied, Codicier Lucan circled Martin slowly. His eyes never lingered on the armor. They searched deeper.

 

‘You refused three direct taskings,’ Lucan said, eyes unfocused. ‘Not requests. Orders.’

 

‘I did,’ Martin replied.

 

‘Specify,’ Calder said.

 

‘The Deathwatch required maintenance of xenos-derived weapon systems,’ Martin said. ‘Calibration. Sanctification. Instruction.’

 

Verdug’s optics brightened faintly.

 

‘I refused,’ Martin continued. ‘Each time, I cited Martian doctrine and Imperial law. Each time, I offered sanctioned alternatives.’

 

‘And?’ Calder asked.

 

‘They recorded my refusals,’ Martin said. ‘They judged me obstructive. Ideologically inflexible. A liability to operational cohesion.’

 

Calder’s mouth twitched, almost a smile.

 

'They I was released to my parent chapter under writ,’ Martin finished.

 

Calder inclined his head once.

‘Exactly as hoped.’

 

Lucan stopped pacing.

 

‘There has been interference,’ Lucan said at last.

 

Calder did not turn. ‘Explain.’

 

‘The Ordo Xenos attempted a surgical purge,’ Lucan replied. ‘Memory excision. Observation anchors. They were thorough.’

 

Verdug’s optics flared softly. ‘And successful?’

 

Lucan paused. ‘Incomplete.’

 

At a gesture from Verdug, servitors drew back a shrouded reliquary. Runes flared as seals disengaged, one by one. Beneath lay an ancient device of brass and blackened steel, its surface etched with sigils older than the Chapter.

 

‘Sanctioned by Holy Terra,’ Verdug intoned. ‘Recovered during the Third Scouring of Helican Reach.’

 

Lucan’s voice lowered. ‘Rumors claim the Ordos Hereticus uses such devices to unmask witches. To reconstruct lies stripped from the mind.’

 

Calder turned at last. ‘Then use it.’

 

Brother Martin was seated before the device. Cables interfaced with his cranial ports. The machine stirred, not with noise, but with intent.

 

Lucan reached into the warp.

 

The device responded.

 

Fragments surfaced—gaps where memory had been cut away, cauterized with cold precision. The machine probed those absences, not restoring what was taken, but mapping what should have been there.

 

 

Runes ignited across the chamber walls.

Star charts unfolded, incomplete at first—then sharpening.

 

Worlds returned from omission – bled back into focus. Vaults hidden by silence. Listening posts. Quarantine reliquaries hidden beneath layers of denial.

 

Lucan exhaled slowly.

 

‘Nineteen,’ he said.

 

‘Recovered from absence,’ Verdug confirmed. ‘The rest are too degraded.’

 

Calder stepped forward, studying the burning points of light.

 

‘Nineteen worlds touched by xenos treachery,’ he said, ‘Nineteen worlds, hidden not by ignorance, but by intent.’

 

‘Some confirmed,’ Martin said, his voice steady despite the lingering ache behind his eyes. ‘Some merely watched.’

 

Lucan’s gaze hardened. ‘Watched is enough.’

 

‘Then no longer,’ Calder said.

 

He turned to Verdug. ‘Inform the Blade.’

The words carried weight.

 

The War Council would convene. 

 

Routes would be charted. Oaths renewed. Weapons sanctified.

 

 

Calder faced Martin once more.

 

‘Your vigil ended early because it needed to,’ he said. ‘You were sent back because you exposed their weakness. They lack faith in humanity.'

 

Martin bowed his head.

 

‘You return to us without stain,’ the Marshal said. ‘Go and rejoin your brothers.'

 

Outside the Armorum Sanctum, klaxons began to sound—not alarms, but summons.

 

The Verdant Oath altered course.

 

A Crusade had been declared.

 

It was a good day for the Green Templars.

 

And the alien would not endure it.

[Lathe Biosas]

Another piece of fiction to add to the Saga of the Green Templars:

 

WHAT MAN DID NOT MAKE

 

The vox-bead clicked once as the channel closed.

 

Chaplain Urraca remained motionless, helm inclined, as though awaiting a response that doctrine insisted would not come. The report had been delivered precisely: identification, coordinates, mission status. All brothers deceased. Objective secured. Requesting retrieval.

 

There was no benediction. No acknowledgment rune. Only silence.

 

He lowered his hand.

 

The void station was cooling. Heat bled from fractured conduits and ruptured housings, leaving behind a thin metallic chill that crept through the seams of his ceramite. Something dripped nearby at an irregular interval—coolant, blood, something else. He did not look. It did not matter.

 

Beyond the breached hull, the asteroid field pressed close. Jagged stone and slow-rotating masses hemmed the station in on all sides, too dense for a strike cruiser to risk passage. The Verdant Oath would remain distant. Only small craft could reach this place.

 

Urraca turned and took stock.

 

The dead lay where they had fallen. Purity Wardens, every one of them. He did not name them yet. Names came later, during the rites. For now, they were positions: breach point, advance, rear guard. He counted them as he would ammunition and reached the expected total without error.

 

His crozius lay in fragments near the center of the chamber.

 

The haft had snapped cleanly. The head—once sacred geometry of adamantium, sigil, and oath—had been crushed inward, its edges folded like thin plate. He knelt and gathered the pieces with care, arranging them by break, by force, by failure.

 

The sight stirred no anger.

 

Only certainty.

 

It had failed.

 

That thought weighed more heavily than the loss of his brothers.

 

They had died wielding the finest weapons their forges could produce. Relics sanctified by rite and lineage. Blades and bolters whose designs had endured ten thousand years of war.

 

And it had not been enough.

 

A faint creak echoed through the station’s frame.

 

Urraca turned toward the sound, weapon already in hand.

 

He did not remember drawing it.

 

He only knew it was there—held low, angled away from his body as training dictated. He adjusted his grip without thinking, then paused.

 

The balance was wrong.

 

Not poor. Not awkward. Simply incorrect, in a way that demanded notice. His thumb slid along the handle and found a shallow groove that served no purpose. His gauntlet’s machine-spirit compensated automatically, tightening its grip as if to reassure him.

 

He looked down.

 

The blade was plain.

 

No sigils. No inscriptions. No marks of forge or creed. Its edge was straight and unadorned, neither serrated nor curved. It might have been forged yesterday or ten thousand years ago. There was nothing to tell him.

 

The handle was the problem.

 

Six shallow depressions ran along the grip, worn smooth by use. His fingers filled five. The sixth remained empty—a narrow channel beneath his palm where no finger belonged. He could feel it even through ceramite, a negative space that refused to be ignored.

 

Urraca loosened his grip at once and let the blade’s tip rest against the deck.

It did not fall.

 

It did not resist.

 

It simply remained, balanced without effort.

 

The silence closed in.

 

Without the sound of battle, the chamber felt vast and hollow. He became aware of his breathing, the whine of his armor’s systems, the way his hearts refused to slow. He reached for a litany—

—and stopped.

 

The words felt wrong.

 

Not forbidden. Not heretical.

 

Ill-fitted. Like armor forged for a different war.

 

Only then did he look to the far end of the chamber.

 

The Custodian of the Vault lay broken there, its armor breached cleanly through the torso. The blade was buried deep within it, driven where his crozius had shattered again and again.

 

Understanding settled with brutal clarity.

Every sanctioned blow had failed. Every strike of faith and rite had glanced away, useless.

 

This weapon had killed it.

 

A thing without name, without ornament, without place in any litany.

 

What Man did not make, Man must not need.

 

The creed rose in his mind—and faltered.

The blade had done more than his brothers could. More than their relics. More than the Chapter’s forges.

He did not remember sheathing it.

He only realized it was no longer in his hand when the low klaxon sounded—extraction. A Thunderhawk threading carefully through stone and shadow.

What Man did not make, Man must not need. entered the chamber, optics sweeping the wreckage.

 

“Void station secured,” Verdug said.

 

“Designation confirmed: Five of Nineteen.”

Urraca inclined his helm.

 

Verdug’s gaze lingered on the shattered crozius fragments. “And the weapon that ended the engagement?”

 

Urraca’s hand rested at his side.

 

The blade was there—sheathed. Plain now. Unremarkable. Its grip smooth and familiar, indistinguishable from a standard Astartes combat knife. He could not recall when it had changed. Only that it fit.

 

“Secured,” he said.

 

Verdug studied him for a moment longer.

“Curious. I did not recall you carrying your old combat knife into battle anymore.”

 

Urraca did not answer.

 

He followed the boarding ramp as the Thunderhawk lifted free of the station, slipping between drifting asteroids. The blade rested at his side, silent and compliant, shaped to his needs.

 

He had held it.

 

He had killed with it.

 

And he was bringing it home.

 

[Lathe Biosas]

Just cleaning up the main section. Thr Green Templars are evolving.

 

Every Company is getting a backstory.

[Lathe Biosas]

To those of you who've read through this, is there anything I'm missing from a standard Index Astartes article?

 

I feel like the entry is nearing completion, but is still missing something. Any ideas or advice?

 

(Or if you don't like something, I'd love to hear about it. Criticisms are actually really helpful.)

 

Thank you! 

[phandaal]

22 hours ago, Lathe Biosas said:

To those of you who've read through this, is there anything I'm missing from a standard Index Astartes article?

 

I feel like the entry is nearing completion, but is still missing something. Any ideas or advice?

 

You could add some notable members of the Chapter besides just the Marshals (for example, who is their current Chapter Master?), Chapter Culture (i.e. what do they do when they aren't fighting or searching for tech), and/or Recruitment practices.

[Felix Antipodes]

The current High Sentinel’s (Chapter Master) name is there, hidden within the index (Varyn Drakus).  I missed it on the first read as well.

 

I agree on a bit more detail on the hierarchy though and their roles.  What duties are attached to the Master of Blades for instance.  Is it an honourific with nothing attached to it, like some Chapters, or do they have a specific role like say the Ultramarines do?

 

Is Varyn their first High Sentinel?  If not, who preceded him and what was their fate?  I know they are a young Chapter but sometimes :cuss: happens, especially when an organization is starting out trying to find its feet.

 

Other than that, I like what you have conjured up.  Will they eventually become like their namesakes and get a bit fuzzy around their numbers as the Blades get further apart on their eternal patrol or does the Chapter, as a whole, travel relatively close?

 

[Lathe Biosas]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to work on the hierarchy and their off time this week.

 

I've also finalized a story about the Chapter Master that has a lot of action in it... I hope you enjoy it!

Edited February 3 by Lathe Biosas
Updated

[Lathe Biosas]

Added some fiction: THE MAN IN THE BOX

 

The Crusade Fleet hung over Mars like a crown of steel. The Verdant Oath and her escorts gleamed in the thin light, engines humming a low, patient warning. Dust storms swirled beneath the atmosphere, curling around the temples of the Adeptus Mechanicus like smoke over fire. High Sentinel Varyn Drakus walked the bridge, reviewing manifest after manifest, fleet strength, Blade assignments, and tonnage. Every calculation balanced, every number accounted for—or so he thought.

 

Then the arithmetic failed.

 

“One thousand and one,” said the Chapter Master. The strategium was silent save for servitors and distant engine hums.

 

“Read it back,” he added.

 

The human Fleet-master hesitated. Not long enough to defy him, long enough to be afraid.

 

“One thousand and one, High Sentinel.”

 

Drakus’ gaze hardened. Silence settled over the strategium like a fog.

 

“Explain.”

 

“I cannot,” the Fleet-master admitted. “The roster is sealed above my authority. This anomaly was not present an hour ago.”

 

Drakus extended a hand. The data-slate was placed into it with visible reluctance. He scrolled. The cogitator whined, chimes stuttering, before unlocking a partition he had never authorized.

 

Designation: Withheld  

Heraldry: Absent  

Status: Active  

Classification: Brutalis-pattern Dreadnought

 

Drakus closed the slate.

 

“No Green Templar stands interred,” he said quietly. No one contradicted him.

 

“Locate it,” he ordered. “Do not alert the Mechanicus. Do not log the search. If questioned, you are reconciling tonnage.”

 

He turned back to the hololithic fleet display.

 

“If it exists,” he said, “it exists inside my Crusade. I will know why.”

 

☆☆☆

 

The Brutalis Dreadnought waited in a lower cargo hold of the Verdant Oath itself. Its ceramite was bare, talons locked in mag-lock restraints, edges deliberately dulled. Twin multi-meltas hung inert. Strange-marked tech-priests stood watch, robes layered with sigils from dozens of hands.

 

“Deactivate the restraint fields,” Drakus ordered.

 

One turned, mechadendrites twitching. “Authorization is restricted. This asset is under—”

 

Drakus drew his bolt pistol and fired. The first head ruptured against the bulkhead; the others froze, logic-loops stalling.

 

“You are aboard a Green Templar vessel,” Drakus said evenly. “There is no higher authority present.”

 

He fired again. And again.

 

When the last fell, the bolt pistol locked open. Drakus glanced at it, then keyed his helm.

 

“Techmarine Rodrigo Peral,” he said. “Report. Bring the rites for Dreadnought activation. Requisition an additional magazine for my sidearm. I am short.”

 

☆☆☆

 

Rodrigo Peral completed the final rites. Power flooded the sarcophagus. Hydraulics hissed like indrawn breath. A voice emerged—deep, vox-cracked, yet carrying the cadence of a brother long in the wars.

 

“High Sentinel Drakus. At last.”

 

Drakus holstered his bolt pistol. “Identify.”

 

“I am the First. A Greyshield forged by the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl himself, of pure Vulkan gene-seed, before your Chapter received its name or its Blades. I was held in reserve—pure, untainted—until the moment came.”

 

*Greyshield?* Drakus thought. *Cawl’s vaults supplied our Primaris reinforcements, yes—but no record exists of a pre-founding internee. No sarcophagus was delivered with the gene-stock. This thing claims a history we never claimed.*

 

“Why were you interred?” Drakus asked. “In what battle did you fall?”

 

The talons twitched against the restraints. “I was defeated… by a vile machine. It thought itself alive. It wore the form of Man, spoke as kin, but its heart was cold code. I struck it down, but the cost was grievous. The Mechanicus saved what remained of me. They interred me so I could serve still.”

 

The words hung heavy. Drakus felt the chill of recognition—not of truth, but of pattern. The abomination it described mirrored the speaker too closely.

 

“Where have you been since?” he pressed. “Name the forge where they rebuilt you. Name the Tech-Priest who sealed the rites.”

 

A longer pause. The multi-meltas hummed faintly, as if testing power. “I… do not remember clearly. The wars blur. The void is long. I awoke here, among my brothers. That is enough.”

 

Drakus’ gaze hardened. Vague. Evasive. No Marine forgets the forge that birthed his second life.

 

Rodrigo Peral shifted, mechadendrites probing the hull readings. “Lord, the neural bridge reads… inconsistent. I need a second opinion. Apothecary Severo Marqués—report to the hold. Bring your auspex and bio-probes.”

 

Severo Marqués arrived swiftly, white armor stark against the dim lumens. He knelt, connecting leads to the sarcophagus ports. Scans flickered across his narthecium display. His posture stiffened.

 

“High Sentinel,” he said quietly, voice tight. “There are no life signs. None. The biomatter within… it does not resemble an interred brother. No secondary heart, no catalepsean node activity. It is preserved, yes—artificially—but it is wrong. Dead far longer than any Dreadnought could sustain a mind. And yet it spoke.”

 

Drakus rested his gauntlet on the ceramite. The hull thrummed under his touch, almost expectant.

 

“Then tell me,” he said, voice low and final, “who—or what—has been speaking through a corpse’s shell.”

 

Drakus keyed the vox without looking away. “Peral. Prepare to vent the hold. Open the outer hatch on my mark. Eject this… thing into the void.”

 

Silence stretched. Then the voice cracked—less lucid, more desperate.

 

“I am Green Templar! I am the First! Forged by Cawl, pure Vulkan blood—do not cast me out!”

 

The Dreadnought’s talons flexed hard against the mag-locks—metal groaned.

 

“No. I have served! I purged the machine that thought itself alive! You cannot—”

 

“You are the machine,” Drakus said evenly. “And you will serve no longer.”

 

The restraints snapped like brittle bone. Hydraulics screamed as the Brutalis tore free, massive frame lurching forward. Twin multi-meltas whined to full charge, barrels glowing infernal red. Bolt rifles on its forearms spat a storm of mass-reactive shells, hammering crates and bulkheads into ruin.

 

Drakus drew his power sword in a blur. The blade ignited blue-white. “Peral—hatch! Now!” He charged low, aiming for the knee joints where armor gapped for movement.

 

Rodrigo Peral dove for the control panel, mechadendrites stabbing into access ports, overriding lockdown protocols. Warning runes flashed crimson across the deck.

 

Apothecary Severo Marqués raised his narthecium, vox crackling urgently: “All nearby Brothers—this is Marqués! Hold breach—hostile Dreadnought asset! Reinforcements to bay seven, priority!”

 

A squad of Chapter serfs—ship’s armsmen in void-sealed carapace, lasguns and shotguns at the ready—poured through the inner hatch at the alarm klaxons. They opened fire instinctively: las-bolts splashed harmlessly off the bare ceramite, autogun rounds pinging away like rain on adamantium. One serf screamed a Promethean litany and charged with a shock maul raised—only for a casual backhand talon to send him flying into a wall, armor crumpling.

 

A massive talon swept in a wide arc. Marqués twisted aside, but not far enough. The claw raked across his chest plate, tearing pauldron and rib-guard in a spray of blood and ceramite shards. He staggered back, collapsing against a munitions crate, one arm dangling useless, white armor blooming red.

 

“Marqués!” Drakus roared.

 

Tomas Varn—barely out of his indenture, face pale under his helm—broke from the firing line and threw himself over the fallen Apothecary, lasgun blazing point-blank at the Dreadnought’s torso. The bolts did nothing. The Brutalis pivoted, one multi-melta barrel tracking. A searing beam lanced out—white-hot promethium fury that slagged Tomas Varn’s carapace in an instant. Flesh and armor vaporized in a burst of superheated steam; his scream cut short as he slumped, charred remains shielding Marqués’ body like a broken aegis.

 

Drakus locked his mag-boots to the deck with a heavy clunk, anchoring himself against the growing pull as Peral’s overrides began cycling the outer hatch. He lunged again, power sword slashing deep into the exposed knee servo—sparks flew, fluid sprayed, the leg buckling with a tortured whine. The Dreadnought staggered, talons raking blindly.

 

“I am one of you!” it bellowed, voice fracturing into static rage. A fist hammered down; Drakus rolled aside, the impact cratering plasteel and sending shockwaves through the hold.

 

The remaining serfs braced against cargo stacks and support struts, gripping handholds, autoguns still barking futile defiance.

 

Peral’s vox cut through the chaos: “Hatch at fifty percent—five seconds! Lord, the machine is fighting the cycle!”

 

The outer hatch hissed wide. Void roared in like a living thing—sucking air, debris, loose tools toward the black maw. Mars’ ruddy glow framed the opening.

 

Drakus deactivated one boot momentarily, lunged to Marqués’ side, and clamped a gauntlet around the Apothecary’s pauldron. With a grunt, he hauled the wounded brother back, mag-locking both boots again. Marqués groaned, secondary heart laboring, but alive.

 

The serfs clung desperately—some to chains, others to each other—bodies straining against the gale. The Brutalis slid inexorably toward the breach, talons gouging deep furrows in the deck as it clawed for purchase.

 

Drakus drove his sword one final time into the shoulder mount, severing multi-melta feed lines—one barrel died in a sputter of sparks.

 

“You will serve the Chapter,” Drakus said over the howling wind, voice steady, “but not as you imagine.”

 

The Dreadnought’s last talon slipped. It tumbled out, twisting in vacuum, ceramite glowing cherry as atmospheric friction claimed it on the long fall to Mars. Its vox screamed one final, garbled plea—“I am—!”—before silence swallowed it.

 

The hatch sealed with a thunderous clang. Emergency repressurization hissed.

 

Drakus knelt beside Marqués, checking the wound. Grievous, but survivable with immediate rites. The Apothecary’s narthecium auto-injected stimms.

 

The surviving serfs slumped, breathing hard, faces ashen. One saluted weakly, blood on his gloves from a comrade.

 

Rodrigo Peral limped over, scorched mechadendrite dangling. “The roster is correct now. One thousand. No anomalies.”

 

Drakus stared at the sealed hatch, then at the charred outline where Tomas Varn had fallen shielding his brother.

 

“Technology bends to the will of Man,” he murmured. “Not the other way around.”

 

He rose. “Tend to the wounded. Secure the hold. Honor the fallen—Tomas Varn among them. The Crusade continues.”

 

The Chapter endured—bloodied, vigilant, and one step closer to the truth of who had tried to poison them from within...

 

And the man in the box would fight no longer.