The Invasion

“ANNA!!! GET OUT OF HERE!!”

For a moment time seemed to slow and sister Anna of the order of the penitent heart thought of one thing as she sprinted through the collapsing hab block.

"Anna?" She thought as the servos in her armored legs struggled to beat the crumbling building. The battle sister could not remember ever being addressed without a prefix.

She was sure it had happened sometime in her life but her memory was blank. She thought of her time at the schola when she was initiate Anna as a scrumball sized piece of rockcrete hit her shoulder. The masonry put her off balance and she leaned foreword with her meltagun to off set her fall and regain her balance.

She thought about her meltagun, remembering when she had been awarded the heavy weapon as something large slammed into the ground behind her. It had been sister Anna then too.

Ahead she saw the kill marine, his expressionless black helmet and red eyes looking back at her. His left hand still held his bolt pistol while his right was outstretched towards her. Why did he call her by name alone?

He was standing in a large doorway, the one to the collapsing building she realized. Behind her more of the building fell to the ground and in front of her she watched her escape begin to close. Twenty feet away she heard a louder groan from the building above. Fifteen feet away and an upper story floor crashed into the ground, half blocking the exit. Ten feet, she swallowed and pulled her meltagun gun to her chest. Five feet, she dropped to her knees and let her momentum carry her across the poured rockerete ground. As she slid she glanced up to ensure that she would pass under the rubble she saw the rest of the level falling towards her.

Slithering across a jumbled mess of broken pipes and blasted ferrocrete Faust felt his pulse quicken. Bellow him and to his immediate right a monstrous hole had been punched through the earth, tearing through hive levels in their hundreds reaching truly abyssal levels that even his heightened senses could not pierce. The air smelled of hot metal and burnt rockcrete obviously the side effect of an orbital bombardment.

Here and there, plague zombies shambled moaning piteously, all of them were scorched, cooked almost clean by whatever blast had rocked this area of the hive. Some turned their heads towards him and tried to pursue, stupid and slow they shambled over the edge to fall into the endless quiet.

Sniffing, testing the air with a long black tongue Faust hesitated. He could hear the Salamander Marines footsteps not far behind him and briefly though of warning him about the crevasse but decided against it, what marine would be fool enough to step into a hole in the dark?

Something caught his attention. His ears stood up straighter and he faced off into the broken hab block to his left. Nothing, only moaning from zombies and the unnatural silence of a murdered hive…still…

Trilling a strange chirp he faced the ruins and let the echo of his sound return to him painting the area in greater detail. Nothing, only corpses and ruins. Gurgling a sigh he turned away and scurried the rest of the way across the narrow, fragile bridge of wreckage to the waiting dark of shadowed habs.

Infernatos was in view again the dark armored marine paused for a moment to glance into the darkness of the abyss before he continued his trek around the smoldering crater.

Setting off once more Faust made it only a few more steps into the dark alley before every nerve in his body screamed at him to stop. There before him slumped against a wall that had been partially demolished by it’s fall was a truly enormous chaos terminator marine. It festered, mold had already grown around the body and up the walls it leaned against. Flies, maggots, and countless other vile creatures seethed about the body, the smell hit Faust all at once, as if it had stayed in the alley alone just waiting to choke the next person that happened by.

Wretching dryly he made to turn around and fine another way when the Terminator moved.

Faster than it had any right to be the humongous champion of Nurgle stood whipping the rotating barrels of its arm canon around unleashing a fusillade of heavy gauge shots. Faust was saved by his wire tight reflexes only by the skin of his teeth. Hurling himself back out of the alley he leapt for all his worth for the closest wall and began to scale it even as the monster below began to pursue.

The Lord Governor sprinted as fast as his body would allow him to move. Explosive bolts detonated around the two of them, shattering masonry and the decorative park statues. The Giant marine plowed through everything in his path, not missing a beat and only ceasing to fire while reloading his weapon.

The Governor leapt over a low wall and threw a grenade he had hidden in his long coat. The frag hit the armored behemoth directly in the head and detonated, sending shards of shrapnel exploding into its body, but it only shrugged it off and fired. The bolt shot right through the governor's cover and impacted into his leg. The governor buckled and fell to the ground. Dark liquid seeped from the governor's leg, and the governor tried to stand. But it was to no avail as the Plaguemarine had cleared the wall. The Marine kicked out, sending the Governor flying into a wall like a ragdoll. The Governor screamed, but it was obvious that the Marine had kept from killing him on purpose. He intended to capture him.

"You match my Lord's description of the Planetary Governor. My Lord will reward me once I bring you to him." The Marine gurgled, walking slowly over to where the governor's body lay crumpled. The governor was silent, probably unconscious, thought the traitor. Humans were so weak and pathetic. He mag locked his bolter to his side and went to grab the Lord governor.

But the governor was fast, fast enough to gain imfamy in his old guard regiment for being the fastest duelist. He drew his plasma pistol in the time it took the marine to blink and sent a hot blast of plasma into its chest. The Plague marined howled and unhooked its bolter, but the governor fired off a super-charged blast from his pistol. The shot over-heated the weapon and it exploded in a flash, taking the Lord-Governor's right arm up to the elbow with it. The Plague marine didn't fair as well. Its torso melted and its rotten insides were incinerated. The monster fell. Hard.

The Lord governor clutched the cauterized stump that was once was his right arm. He spat a phlemy wad of blood and tried to stand. He looked around to see if the woman was still here, but all he could see was three more giant figures in power armor. More traitor Astartes. "No..." The Governor gurgled. One of the Marines hoisted him over his shoulder and spoke. "The Portal is not far, let's hope this one survives his wounds long enough for Lord Haman to corrupt him."

"What of the female that accompanied him?" One queried.

"If you see her, kill her. Otherwise let the humans rot."

As the Gunfire began Infernatos moved swiftly forwards, sprinting along as Faust came into view.

" Mutant, hide yourself."

Infernatos dove from cover and began firing at the Massive, Hulking Terminator, His Bolter rounds doing barely anything to the Armour.

As he took cover in front of the behemoth raining heavy fire down upon him he began to think about his chances. One marine versus a terminator, he estimated he had a 10% chance of taking the heretic down. Infernatos made a short count to 5 and moved from his position.

One shot. that was all it took to burst Infernatos' Armour. The round ripped into his chest and through his organs. Infernatos took in his life signs.. 3 minutes till the wound would become too much for him.

The Terminator lurched towards him, looking down upon him, clearly going to crush his helmet under his massive boot.

To his left was the endless hole left by the orbital blast, last chance.

Infernatos rolled at the last possible second and brought his spear out, thrusting, impaling the kneecap of the terminator.
Infernatos held a tight grip on the power spear , slowly pulling the terminator down towards the depths.

As the terminator was about to fall Chronus yelled towards his Mutant Allie " Faust, return to the Kill Marine!".

The terminator fell, but Chronus knew that there was a chance it would survive. They were falling for at least a minute before Infernatos activated a melta bomb , bringing himself close to the heretic as it exploded, searing his skin the second it melted his armour, he felt himself being destroyed at a molecular level. He did not scream. He only smiled as he prayed to the emperor.

Faust watched the Salamander die from his perch with an unreadable expression on his twisted face. There was no sorrow, no fear, only an inscrutable distant expression of thoughtfulness. Again the stylized I branded into his thigh itched painfully and the temptation to scratch it bloody made him finally break his almost serene reverie with a silent snarl. He would miss the marine, not for the person that he’d been, but for the power that he’d represented.

Turning his ears to the Cryptic Knights below who’d grabbed cover when the terminator had come out shooting he silently moved further into the shadows. He’d made up his mind, following marines was a bad idea, one that would get him killed, they were Adaptus Astartes, they did not need him watching over them.

Turning he scuttled away from them losing sight of them as he finished scaling the wall he’d clung to. Traversing the rooftops he turned himself towards the scent of relatively fresher air and set off as silent as a shadow in the dark.

Sergeant Liah of the 412th Lupradons held onto the handholds by the gunner position in the valkyrie as they soared over the battle zone surrounding the monolithic hive city and watched in silent awe as an apocalypse of firepower was unleashed below. Millions of rounds of ammunition of every make and design zipped back and forth in an impossible lightshow that defied any attempt to rationalize the combat that was taking place. Liah almost laughed at the thought ‘combat’ was such a small word, completely unable to encompass the sheer scope of carnage and destruction being visited on the hive world of Erin Secundus. Seeing the literal ocean of war below she couldn’t help but curse her luck, she and the rest of the 412th, an under strength Drop Regiment had been routed to Erin Secundus only a week before for rest and recuperation only for this shit storm to crop up.

Flak pockmarked the sky around them jarring her backwards; the trooper beside her steadied her and patted her abbreviated pauldron to gain her attention. Handing her a spotting scope she looked where he point and felt her heart flutter. Below amidst the teeming multitudes she saw Secundun infantry in regimental strength with banners waving and all guns blazing charge a field to crunch into an endless ocean of plague zombies and screaming cultists. It was as stirring and heroic a scene as she’d ever seen.

“These Secundun boys don’t give an inch, bravest thing I’ve ever seen!” the trooper beside her shouted, his voice almost completely swallowed up by the drone of the Valkyries engine and the roar of the wind from the open doors despite the coms built into their heavy visored drop helmets. Another blast of flak and she handed him the scope back.

“Brave, but doomed…and they know they’re doomed, they’re making a hole for their comrades to retreat back to the hi-” she was interrupted when the chaos titan fired. It had loomed on the skyline indistinguishable in the growing twilight of battle until its main weapons systems fired. It turned night into day turning her whole world white, the valkyrie seemed to drop down beneath her feet and only her restraints kept her from falling overboard. Blinking shaking her head she turned to shout to the rest of the troopers packed into the transport to hold tight when the sound hit them, literally hit them. Blinking tears of pain from her eyes, she actually watched the shockwave of auditory hell rush at them like surf on the beach.

Debris and gale force winds smashed into them snatching her helmet off of her head making her clench her teeth and screw her eyes shut, elbows and knees seemed to come from every direction as her restraints snapped and threw her to the deck.

“God Emperor! Hold on back there!” cried the tinny voice of the pilot over the vox as the craft stabilized from what had been an uncontrolled nosedive. “We’re aborting, heading back to the LZ, all boats left in the air, abort! Abort!” He might have said more but the entire front half of the cockpit vanished in a cloud of smoke as a flak round detonated directly between the pilot and copilot chairs, the turbines stopped spinning almost immediately.

“Bail! Bail! Bail!” Liah screamed as the now powerless craft preformed a lazy wallowing turn to the left and began to fall. Guardsmen, troopers she had led on countless drop missions floated all around her, dead, perforated by shrapnel, some screamed and writhed in their weightless free fall, others piled out.

Her hands preformed a last minute status check completely out of muscle memory, touching the cut down Accatran pattern, mark IV Las-carbine clipped to her harness, her ammunition, grav chute buckles, knife, and helmet, which was no longer there. Before she scrambled desperately for the spinning doorway. Hurling herself out she almost felt the elation of freedom but something smashed into the back of her chute spinning her with sickening force. Plummeting she caught snap shots of her fellow troopers falling, some in clumps others alone, but all of them out of her reach.

Slapping her chutes ignition she felt a spike of helpless panic as it refused to start. Slapping it harder and harder it misfired and coughed, jerking against her shoulders. Liah screamed as she struggled with it and then screamed again as she was swallowed by darkness. Bewildered she almost forgot to hit the ignition as again as she realized she was below street level, falling through a hole that had been punched through the upper level of the hive.

“Throne!” she screeched in terror as she fell into the bottomless black. Her chute activated, she wasn’t sure if she’d been holding the ignition stud the whole time or not, she hardly cared. Pulling hard against her shoulders and armpits her wild fall was arrested hard enough to make every bone in her body feel like it was breaking. She landed a half second later smashing flat against the rubble-strewn rockcrete hard enough to knock the air from her lungs with an audible whoosh. Staring up she croaked as she didn’t have enough air in her lungs to scream and rolled away as fast as she could manage as a sizable chunk of the now burning valkyrie she’d just been aboard came hurtling down towards her. Ditching her chute she scrambled as the wreckage rained down everywhere around her.

Trembling, wide eyed but whole and unharmed she reached into her pocket with a violently shaking hand and withdrew her pack of Iho sticks. It took her nearly a whole minute to get one out and clench it in her teeth, it took even longer to light it. Sucking in great lungfulls of smoke from the stick, she calmed herself and cursed herself in equal measure.

Sweating, nervous and terrified but well trained she snapped the light on the end of her carbine on to pierce the all pervading gloom and set off, lost but determined to give a good account of herself.