First time posting here in the Fiction threads, hope I haven't committed too many faux
pas ( would hell not even sure if I used faux
pas right!)
I wasn't sure if posting several pages of fluff in my P&M blog was the thing to do so I am posting it here first plus I thought you guys and girls may have some tips on how I could improve my first piece of fluff...or is it fluff piece ?
Anyway here it goes.....
Malefis IV is at first glance a slowly dying planet, a world of permanent night and harsh UV radiation. Shrouded in darkness due to its dying red dwarf sun it is inhabited by groping blind worms, phosphorescent plants and giant flightless bats. Despite the horrific fauna and lack of sunlight the Imperial geologists were still compelled to explore the grave of a world and delighted to find the richest ore deposits in the entire sector, enough to convince the Highlords of Terra to create a colony. Ship after ship arrived on Malefis IV, disgorging settlers, miners and engineers by the thousand and of course the inevitable parasites….namely the imperial bureaucrats who would grow fat off the riches of the black planet.
For several thousand years the imperial colony grew as all of it’s like did, with one major difference. As the miners excavated the massive pits and tunnels needed to mine the ferrous veins beneath the world’s crust the rest of the population followed them. Malefis IV became a subterranean metropolis, its people leaving the permanent red night of the surface for the inky black of the tunnels. Unfortunately for the citizens of Malefis IV the inward turn of its culture began a long slow corruption of its leaders, nepotism and an entrenched hierarchical mindset resulted in a tyrannical and cruel government rarely seen even in the grim 40th millennium. For hundreds of years the sickened bureaucrats bled the planet, living in luxury like Highlords while presenting the Imperial tax collectors with impeccable records and the image of a perfect imperial world. All the while the “nobles” of Malefis IV terrorized their people, beatings, pack rapes and random executions kept them cowed and horrifying work conditions and days long shifts kept the high quotas the nobles demanded. It seemed as long as the metal shipments left for the forgeworlds on time the Highlords didn’t care how it was procured.
No one can truly define when the uprising began or why. All that can be said for sure is that it began among the miners. Deep beneath the crust, where the heat and pressure was greatest and even the Overseers didn’t tread the Blackhands were formed, so named because of the carbon soot that coated their bodies and left black hand prints at the scenes of there guerilla actions, the Blackhands began a decades long war of disruption and terror against their hated Overlords. In the constricted tunnels and cavernous cities they hunted their leaders with a single minded hatred, leaving their fellow citizens in peace and actively targeting those who collaborated with the bureaucracy. During the entirety of the war the Blackhand leaders recruited from among the hardened miners and engineers of the black planet, building a pool of knowledge that allowed them to strike from newly dug shafts and to collapse entire caverns filled with noble enclaves. For them it was a holy war, a jihad to cleanse their world of the poisonous rot that had set in and reinstate the right and proper imperial rule.
In the final days of the insurrection the Blackhands were able to wrest control of the massive spaceport on the surface above the capital Menzoberranzan (I can call it what I want dammit
) and in it, the imperial astropaths that were unaware of the civil war that had been raging beneath them. The rebels then called for help from the Highlords, demanding a change in leadership and an end to the tyranny. A taskforce of Salamanders was dispatched immediately, slamming down on the war torn world and taking iron hard control of the spaceports and cavern cities. Wave after wave of Astartes poured down into the subterranean world, finding the Blackhand forces ready to lay down arms to them and the few remaining loyalist soldiers fighting and dying in order to allow the Nobles time to escape to prepared boltholes or offworld. Almost at once the extant of the Old Bureaucrat’s corruption was revealed to the Battle Brothers, the horrific conditions of the mines and the depredations of the nobles were enough to affect even the hardened Salamanders. A short missive was sent to Terra detailing the situation the Marines had found and before it had even begun to travel the warp the Salamanders began a cleanse the like Malefis IV had never seen , the Noble families were exterminated en masse and the loyalist forces scoured clean with most of the command structure eliminated. And when the Astartes had finished their bloody work they turned to the Blackhands, the loyal sons of Malefis IV, and rounded up their leaders. In a public ceremony in the largest public cavern of Menzoberranzan, the Salamanders announced that for the services rendered to the Empire, the Highlords of Terra had decreed that a space marine chapter would be formed on Malefis in order to maintain peace in the sector and to ensure that the highly valuable planet would never again be jeopardized. The Salamander Task Force Captain then turned to the assembled Blackhand Leaders and announced they would be executed for their rebellion against the duly appointed government of Malefis IV, among roars of the crowd the Captain bared his blade and prepared to execute the will of the Highlords and to then turn it on the outraged citizens. Amid the chaos the leaders of the Blackhand stepped forward and begged for silence, they then addressed the crowd, reminding them of the depredations of the nobles and the long struggle against them. They spoke of the many rebels who had died to bring justice to the grave world and the coming of the avenging Astartes and the subsequent end of the long tyranny. Finally they begged for the crowd to stay calm, to allow them to make this final sacrifice for them and to embrace the new regime that would follow. Despite their pleas the crowd wailed and screamed as their saviors murdered their heroes and the crowd came close to attacking the Marines. In the end it was the Blackhands themselves rose up around the surrounded Astartes and stopped the raging crowd, bringing calm and dispersing the assembly.
Despite the Pyrrhic victory, the inhabitants of the Black World looked forward to the arrival of the new imperial government and a return to peace, unfortunately for them they live in the 40th millennium. Even as the new lords of Malefis arrived the core of their beloved Blackhands were taken from them to begin to be forged into a new Astartes chapter. On the journey they were shown many wonders by their progenitors the Salamanders, the perils of Warp travel, the fantastic forge world of Mars and the glory of Terra herself. After decades of operations, gene therapy and countless military actions the newly born chapter swore their oaths of fealty to the Emperor and boarded their cruisers and assault ships and journeyed home to take possession of their new world bearing the chapter name Storm Dragons in honour of their progenitors.
Imagine their horror to arrive back to a world crushed yet again beneath the iron boot of Imperial tyranny, with in years of assuming control the new lords of Malefis IV had adopted the same horrific methods as their forebears. But this time there was a difference. When the Lords of Malefis gathered to greet the Storm Dragons’s as they returned home they expected to welcome a new weapon in their battle to crush the wills of their new subjects. With smiles of approval and nods of respect the Chapter Master and his captains lead the Lords into closed council to discuss the construction of the Storm Dragon’s new citadel…and emerged a mere hour later with their emerald armour splattered crimson. While none of the Storm Dragons masters have ever spoken of that day the horror of the moment must have been immense, enough that they had the chamber sealed forever to save their people from seeing the fruits of their labour.
While they felt little for the slaughtered Lords, the Storm Dragons did worry for the safety of their homeworld if the Imperium at large new of their actions. And so a great deception was conceived. From among the surviving noble families were chosen the most weak-willed and malleable and a puppet council was formed. Controlled by the Storm Dragon Captains and the leaders of the newly elected Malefis government, the Puppet Council was to keep the up the appearance of normality for the HighLords of Terra with the resident space marine chapter adding a final seal of legitimacy.
But it wasn’t enough. From across the void the former rebellion leaders could hear the cries of the downtrodden and unjustly treated. Despite their years as elite warriors they could not ignore their origin in the mines and the desperate battle against the odds that won them their freedom. And so a select few of their number, all former guerilla fighters, donned their power armour , hefted their sacred boltguns and began the long walk down into the molten dark of the Malefis mines. For several long years they were not spoken of or heard from and were assumed by the citizens of Malefis to have perished on some emperor –forsaken mission unfathomable to normal humans. Until one night, wreathed in swirls of sulphurous smoke and encased in armour as black as the heart of the Malefis itself, they returned to the Citadel of the Storm Dragons. They assembled in the halls of the Astartes and bowed to their Chapter Master, knowing that they may never again see their honoured leader or their brothers-in-arms. The Storm Dragons gathered round the ebon forms and in voices shaking with righteous anger vowed to keep the homeworld and it’s people safe while the chosen few took flight in the soot black assault ships that awaited them and spread their message of relentless justice and violent retribution to the galaxy. And so they strode forward to battle wearing their new chapter symbol and the old name, their true name…
….The Blackhands.
There it is, like my painting and converting I put a lot of effort into it....but not enough that I will cry if you have some helpful critique!
Cheers
BLACKHAND
