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Fluff for my army.
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"Perimeter clear".
Brother Captain Sergius stamped muck from the boot of his blue power armour and cursed. His body could easily filter out the toxins and fungal spores in the air of the swamp, but they could do little for the smell.
"Do we have any sign of where the Blood Angel spearhead landed?” he inquired of the comms tech next to him.
“No Captain” he replied, “it is as expected from the briefing – we lost track of their drop pods and transponders at approximately 20000 metres. We can only stay in communication with our own ship by relaying through our Thuderhawk above.”
“Hmm…”
He was, if being truthful to himself, concerned. He had known Chaplain Erigious of the Blood Angels for more than the lifespan of a mortal man, and was confident that he could carry out a regular scouting mission. They had been outfitted with equipment in the drop pods to create a secure landing ground and to set up a powerful communications system.
That had been twenty-six hours ago.
“Damn this place!” he remarked under his breath. It was now his duty to find the lost Blood Angels and to recover the artifact from the temple.
“Captain?”
“Nothing” he said, subvocalising a prayer to the Emperor to calm himself. “Orders. Squads Belhevian and Marius – perimeter security alpha-gamma-twelve. Heavy weapons - support beta-gamma-twelve. Get the Land Speeder up in the air where they can still see our positions through this damnable mist. Arky’s terminators will ride with me in the Land Raider. Let us pray to the machine spirit that we can ride through this swamp!”.
Sergius listened into his Ultramarine lieutenants and sergeants sound off their readiness to carry out their orders. “Be ready to move on heading one-one-two on my mark.”
Sergius’ headset beeped. “Go ahead Brother Marius” he intoned.
“Captain, we have contact sighted in the mist, moving openly but slowly – heading two-five-four. It looks like it may be the ‘Angels sir!”
“Move forward cautiously – Squad Belhevian, cover squad Marius – gamma-gamma-two. Speeder, flanking support, but make sure you stay within visual range of us.”
“Aye captain” was the response. He stood looking at the auger-screen linked to the images that were being sent down from the Land Speeder.
“Captain, it is the target however there appears to ….. ARRGGG!” There was a flash of heat and light that rendered the auger-screen useless for a moment.
“Come in Marius! Belhevian, what has happened!” he shouted into his comm unit.
He heard panting as the comm circuit was enabled on the other end then. With a noted grimace in the voice, he heard Belhevian respond “hostile contact! It is the ‘Angels, however they carry the taint of mutation! Ah-ugghh! Looks like only two survivors from Squad Marius – they were hit by some sort of fireball. Arghh!”
“Belhevian! Belhevian! Land Speeder – status!”
“Hostile fire from… from…”
“Hostile fire from what damn it!”
“I don’t know sir, you should have visual now.” Sergius looked down at the auger-screen and could not believe what he was seeing. A massive multilegged monstrosity was ambling forwards. Three rheumy jaundiced eyes suddenly looked up into the auger-pickup and trained what looked like could be a weapon on the Land Speeder. There was a flash and then the screen was filled with static.
“Thunderhawk zero two one! Thunderhawk zero two one!” he called after setting the comm unit to long range scan. “Zulu, zulu, zulu. I repeat, zulu, zulu, zulu!”
“sh… s . ..at was tha…”.
He threw the unit down in disgust. “Tactical withdrawal, all units!”
Suddenly, he could hear pounding on the side of the Land Raider. Grey talons could be seen ripping into the door and massive ichorous fists pulled the adamantium door directly from the frame.
Sergius slammed the emergency disembark button and bellowed “Arky, terminators, to me!”
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“Sih, sih, sih”. The sound that escaped from Iya’Kual’s mouth could – almost – be counted as laughter.
“Frrrresh meeeat masssstewr!” said a creature mounted upon a palanquin carried by a swarming mass of maggoty daemons.
“Excellent” said Iya’Kual. “The blue goes with the red beautifully – Sih, sih, sih.” He plucked into his huge frame, found a small struggling creature and popped him into his cavernous maw with a sigh of pleasure.
“Our father will be most pleased with our progress here.”
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