Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Part 1/Intro:

The Chamber Lord sat in his vaulted cathedra at the helm of the large table that dominated the enormous room of the Scions of Gnosis Battle Barge the Enlightenment. Around the table sat ten incredibly powerful psyker Librarians, each whispering unspeakable chants in languages incomprehensible to most humans. Through their chants they opened a hole in the Warp where they could scry for the secrets of time and space, searching for knowledge that would aid them in their quest to find lost artifacts the Inquisition required.
There was a surge of power. The Chamber Lord felt it first, and pulled his mind away from the Warphole, shouting to his comrades to do the same, but they could not react in time. The Chamber Lord did his best to seal the burning hole, but by that time the pure and unbridled power of the Chaos God Tzeentch exploded through and infected the mind of all ten other Librarians. Because they were so exposed, the Ruinous Powers completely and seemingly instantaneously corrupted the Librarians; The Chamber Lord could do nothing to stop it.
He called forth the aid of the Grey Knights stationed onboard, and sent an alert throughout the ship. The Chamber Lord attempted to attack one of the possessed Librarians, who were suspended in midair and surging with unholy lightning as the Chaos Gods wracked their minds and bodies, but was thrown back by a blast of energy. Once his vision cleared, he saw that the warpscry they had been using was blown completely open, creating a doorway to the empyrean. The Chamber Lord looked in horror as daemons began to force their way through the hole, slowly making his way to the doorway.
The Grey Knights were on their way to the room that held the warpscry when they saw the Chamber Lord running to meet them. He told them the events that had transpired, so the Grey Knights nodded grimly and drew their weapons. They fought valiantly, but could not fight through enough of the daemons to enter the room and seal the hole. Though he was no coward, he understood the consequences of his death, and knew that for him to fall to Chaos was a death sentence for the Imperium. The Chamber Lord, knowing the ship was doomed, begged both the Grey Knights and the other Scions to fall back so that he could teleport them to another vessel, but they stood resolute in holding back the seething tide of Chaos, confident they could fight it off. By the time they realized that their actions were futile, the corruption had torn open so many more holes that the ship was being flooded with chaotic daemons.
The Chamber Lord stood in the teleporting bay, waiting for anyone to join him. When no one joined him, he grudgingly began to make the link to the other ships so that he could begin the teleport. Just minutes before the connection was finished, a handful of Space Marines staggered into the room, bloodied and damaged by the unholy monstrosities that lurked the halls. They asked the Chamber Lord to halt the teleporting, but he responded grimly. The link had already been established, to cancel it now was to doom them to the horrors that sought their flesh.
The door to the room opened, and one of the Scion’s Captains onboard staggered in. He called to the Chamber Lord and began staggering toward the teleporting plate, but fell to the ground. The other Scions shouted, but the injuries he suffered were too wounding. A younger Space Marine ran off the teleporting pad to carry the fallen Captain, but before he could return there was a bright flash. The Chamber Lord and the handful of Space Marines that joined him had disappeared, teleported to safety.
On the other ship, the Chamber Lord begged for forgiveness at what he would do next. The ship was doomed, its inhabitants would be dead in the coming hours, and the only thing that could save the rest of the fleet was for the Chamber Lord to activate the ship’s warpdrives and force it through. The Grey Knights onboard understood their brethren's demise with sorrow, and relayed their fate to those survivors still trying to fight off the daemonic invasion. They responded with dignity, saying it was their duty to fight until the end. Unfortunately, the other Space Marines shouted with dismay, heartbroken that the Imperium they fought and bled for would forsake them so quickly.
But there was no other option. To fire on the ship would make no difference, as the daemons would just swim through the void in an attempt to attack the other ships, maybe even falling down on nearby planets and infecting the populations there. With a tear of finality, the Chamber Lord raised his palm to the ship and focused his psychic powers on it. When the ship’s warpdrives would not activate he instead broke the barriers that protected the engines from failure, causing a warphole to tear open and envelope the ship. It was sucked through and disappeared in minutes. The remaining Scions wept at the loss.
Without protection from the warp, exposed to its unholy corruption in full, the surivors onboard were assaulted by the full force of the Chaos Gods. The few Grey Knights managed to offer cover from the direct corruption, but for all their firepower and martial ability there was simply too many daemons to stop. After nearly three days of brave fighting, the Grey Knights succumbed to the unwavering walls of death. Utterly alone and without defence, the remaining Space Marines were blasted by corruption on all sides, all falling to their knees and screaming in agony as the dark gods clawed their way inside of them.
After nearly three months of resistance and struggling, the halls of the Enlightenment were silent, the inhabitants fallen and corrupted. Pleased, the Chaos Gods relinquished their hold on the ship, opening the warp hole and casting them back into real space to invoke their vengeance.


I have more written up if anyone likes what I've written so far. I'm not the best at explaining my thoughts so I'm sorry if it came out really terrible. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

No one? Okay, that's cool...

I think people are put off by a few bits. I liked what you written and you should keep what you have, but if you could add these in it would read better and be more fluffy and in depth.

Helpful tips:

*It could do with stretching out near the start about the chapter master and setting.

*Descreption is lacking for the chamber and space marines on the battle barge, say a few bits about them and what they're wearing and suroundings.

*Explain why the ][ are on board and linked with your chapter a little, what stuff?, where are they looking?

*Is it just me or did the grey knights and Co put up a way too long a stand, i think bringing that down to minutes and hours wouldnt turn people off so much.

Not very intresting, there is no introduction of the persons involved here, and you almost at ocne jump to the action. A first part of a story should be longer than this, and give us some bitzs of introduction about said characthers. And beside the action was rather poorly told in addition.

I suggets going back to the drawingboard and coming back when you have read up on the fluff and such. Then with that knowledge I am willing to bet that this story has more potential than it has at this moment.

This is just the intro, there aren't any characters to introduce. It's like the first cutscene in a game or the flashback in a movie that explains what happened. Finalizing the actual story now and will post in a bit.

Until I read your upcomming post my initial opinion stands. But I see your point and agree

Actual Part 1

Captain Verusei stood at the helm of the Enlightenment, staring into the bleak void of space. It had been nigh a month since they had returned to real space, and he was impatient as to find out where they had landed. As for all the sweeps they have made, all the searches, all the investigations, they had not found a single identifying landmark in the nothingness that surrounded them.
And to make matters worse, Verusei had begun to notice distinct changes in his soldiers over the month. In the near five hundred Space Marines that both he commanded and had survived the ordeal, he could see signs of physical and mental corruption beginning to occur. Some of his brothers attempted to hide the mutations, some embraced and flaunted their growths, but he could tell that all had been affected in some way. There was a distinct divide in the numbers, as well. As random and unpredictable as Chaos was, he noticed a trend in the corrupted individuals. The near five hundred Marines had been divided almost evenly between the four patron gods, with an almost equal number refusing to align with one, instead accepting either all four or none at all.
Verusei had made the decision to remain undivided, believing that to accept all four gods would allow him to better lead the other groups that had already chosen one particular path.
He stood at the helm, pondering over the unusual pattern and fuming at the idea that they had so easily fallen prey to the Ruinous Powers when his thoughts were interrupted by a mechanical voice to his side.
“Captain Verusei,” a corrupted techmarine said, turning from the enormous wall of consoles and monitor screens to address the captain, “I believe I have identified our whereabouts.”
Verusei let out a sigh and made his way over the techmarine, who directed his attention to a large panel, unintelligible scrapcode sprawling across the edges. On it, he could see a series of rings and arrows pointing to a small and unassuming dot on the horizon of space.
“According to the scanners, we may be located in the Eastern Fringe. Remaining Inquisitorial controls onboard suggest that the planet marked on the screen may be inhabited by the Tau Empire, though the information may no longer hold truth, as we have no way to tell how long it has been since our betrayal.”
Verusei nodded in agreement, thinking over the options presented to him. Though every fiber of his being had already made up their mind, he still paused to try and find a reason as to not act on his impulses. In the end, he decided that it was time to do something other than sitting on board the ship and allowing his warriors to rot from the inside.
“The Tau Empire? Very well,” Verusei said with a smile, walking to the forward display and staring out into the void, “let us see what boons the Chaos Gods have presented us.”

The planet was an agricultural world, lush in resources and held in a state of peace. It had been decades since the world was conquered by the Tau, the frontlines pushed lightyears away from the planet. Though a small planetary police and military force was present, it was not nearly as powerful as some of the more immediately important planets. They had believed an attack to be too unlikely to hold forces away from the ever expanding wars raging on the edge of the Empire, an assumption that would normally be true had the Enlightenment not been guided by the hands of Chaos.
As the ship approached, it hailed the planet with signals used by the Scions of Gnosis to display their position of friendliness and the alliance between that particular Inquisitorial sect and the Tau Empire. The planet had responded friendly, asking them why they had appeared so suddenly and without warning. When the ship didn’t respond, they grew cautious, but didn’t want to risk acting aggressively and upsetting the bond that prevented the two sides from clashing in a bloody violence.
The Tau planet tried again and again to make contact with the Scion ship, but they would only get static or distorted sounds in response. It wasn’t until the ship drew closer that they realized their mistake.
The Enlightenment had long since been used as a vessel for the Imperium of Man. Though it was still painted in the colors of the Scions of Gnosis and bore the symbol of the Inquisition on the flanks, it had been corrupted and overgrown with daemonic entities. Fleshy growths sprouted from the sides, consuming the weapon arrays with horrendous muscles. The ship, once proud and noble, was beginning to look more like a Tyranid vessel than anything else.
The Tau planet brought their defensive weapons to bear, aiming heavy mass accelerated cannons at the rapidly approaching warship. They fired once, but the shot splattered against the Enlightenment’s flesh-covered hull. The daemonic entity that possessed the ship screamed in anger and tried to reknit its flesh armor back together. A second round struck the ship, though it scraped against the port side underhull, tearing apart the metal plating. The daemonic ship roared into the void and thick meaty tendrils crawled their way through the fissure to plug the opening.
Before the Tau defenses could make another shot, the ship slammed headlong into the floating defense platform. The comparatively miniscule station splintered into fragments, throwing the crew into the cold vacuum of space. The ship let out a slight cheer at the destruction, then began to turn itself to move into a better angle, exposing its belly to the planet that lay below.

Inside a recently corrupted drop pod, Terminator Senior Sergeant Svasir locked the straps to the harness that held his Tactical Dreadnought Armor. He glanced down as far as the oversized helmet would allow, looking at the gouged markings in the plasteel and ceramite chest plating, running his hand over the grey gouges in the purple ceramite where an Imperial Aquila once rested. His anger and disgust at the betrayal of half the Chapter drove him to break the sacred icon off with whatever tools were available, be it fist or lightning claw.
Captain Verusei’s voice crackled through an ancient vox set suddenly, almost startling Svasir. The Captain was in the process of making sure all preparations were in order, checking over every drop pod and landing vessel onboard the Enlightenment that was still in working order. Svasir responded shortly, then called to the other four Terminators locked in the metal coffin with him. They all grunted, double checking the locking clasps on their harnesses.
After several moments of mind numbing silence, a series of red runes blinked into life in Svasir’s eyes. They were numbers, counting down to the moment when they could finally drop onto the battlefield and wreak the havoc they so sought to indulge in.
Then the numbers clicked green and the ground fell out from beneath them.
The small drop pod hung in the air for a heartbeat, before beginning its screaming descent down the launching tube. With a sound like a cork being pulled from a bottle of amasec, the landing craft was released from the mother ship and was thrown down to the ground below, straight into the heart of the Tau city. Verusei requested a link to the other drop pods, checking to make sure the first wave of invaders had launched successfully, stating that the delay had been from their attempt to clear a suitable landing space for the series of drop pods that were now making their way to the ground, accompanied with a live feed from the ship’s bridge. Flaming missiles hurtled down from the ship, raining death down on the unfortunate Tau running through the streets searching for cover from the relentless assault. Svasir smiled at the barrage, his heart pounding as the missiles slammed into buildings, blowing them apart and causing them to collapse and crush everything underneath.
The drop pod rocketed toward the ground, carrying Svasir and the four Terminators he commanded toward a small area cleared out by the orbital bombardment in the heart of the city. All five let out a guttural cry of excitement as the ground speed up to meet them. Though they couldn’t hear it over the fiery scream of the drop pod’s descent, Svasir could almost feel the terror they wrought upon the Tau.
With an explosion, the drop pod crashed into the broken ground. The harness holding Svasir’s enormous bulk dropped away and the landing doors slammed open. Before he charged out, three more drop pods exploded onto the ground around his drop pod. Dust and debris were thrown into the air, though it didn’t detract from the corrupt Space Marines’ enhanced eyesight.
Svasir leapt out of the small landing craft, raising his storm bolter and sweeping for any threats he could find. The other nineteen Terminators came to join him, some wielding thunder hammers or lightning claws, though most just kept their original storm bolters and powerfists. Even through their bulky armor he could tell that they were all just as agitated and anxious for action as he was.
“My lord,” one of the hulking behemoths inquired, “what would you have us do?”
Svasir’s energy wreathed fist clenched as he answered “Sweep the city, eliminating any force that opposes us.”
In response, the other Terminators nodded or grunted their acknowledgement before breaking off into hunting packs and heading off in separate directions. Svasir remained in the ring of drop pods with his veteran Terminator brethren and opened a vox link to Verusei.
“Captain,” he reported, “we have made planetfall and my men are sweeping the area to clear resistance forces.”
“Understood, Sergeant. Gather all forces with you as you come across them. Their positions are being relayed to your HUD.” Verusei crackled in Svasir’s ear before closing the vox channel. Within moments, a series of inverted triangles appeared before Svasir, some large and some small, designating the location of the other teams that had made planetfall.
Before he began to make his way to the nearest icon, a burst of energy exploded against his shoulder pauldron, singeing the Crux Terminatus that had already begun to grow a curved tusk in response to the chaotic energies aboard the ship. Svasir turned to the origin of the shot and saw the frail form of a Tau Firewarrior, pulse rifle steady in its hands though Svasir could almost taste the fear radiating off the puny soldier. He began to laugh to himself, and once his comrades saw what the supposed threat was, they began to join in as well. The laughter, corrupted by the warp and distorted by the vox-grille in their helmets, was a cacophonous sound to behold. Though the Firewarrior stood adamant in defiance, Svasir noticed the slight tremble in its posture as he made his way toward the creature. A series of shots splashed against the enormous plating of his armor, though it did little damage. He was almost close enough to charge the Firewarrior with his powerfist, but the Tau decided to turn tail and try to escape the oncoming behemoth.
Nearly forty bolts exploded in and around the Tau, all five Terminators unleashing the full barrage from their storm bolters. They all laughed as its body was torn to shreds, splattering xenos blood and internal organs on the wall behind it.
Then there was a loud crack of energy and a solid slug slammed into one of Svasir’s brothers, peeling back a thin layer of ceramite and knocking the massive soldier back a step. Five more similar rounds exploded through him, some bouncing off the armor though some tore straight through him, causing blood to splatter on the broken ground behind him. The Terminators didn’t laugh at that.
A small red dot appeared next to Svasir, barely wavering. He stared at it for a moment before it registered. “Scatter!” he screamed to the three other Terminators that still stood. They barely had time to move before a volley of missile bombardments arced over the broken buildings and descended down upon the corrupt Terminators. Svasir dove behind the nearest cover he could find, though it was hard to cover the oversized armor he wore. Explosions washed over him and he could hear at one of his brothers scream in agony as a seeker missile punched through his armor and exploded.
Once the smoke cleared, Svasir stood back up and swept his storm bolter over the patch of rubble where his comrades once stood. Two more runes appeared on his HUD, meaning that at least two of his brothers had been killed by the Tau missiles. A furious vengeance boiled in his gut, and he relayed his orders to the other two Terminators that survived. They eagerly accepted.
Scanning the sky for the vapor trails of the missiles and using the trajectory of the rail rifle shots as a guide, he found the hiding spot of the Tau Pathfinder vermin that assaulted him. Before he could even mark it for his brothers, he broke off into a run. Storm bolter raised, he fired an impressive volley of bolts at the insects hiding in the ruined building. Two more storm bolters joined in, peppering the structure with small explosions. He saw at least three of the Pathfinders’ bodies get thrown back by the fusillade before the rest retreated farther back into the building. Not that it would help them, Svasir thought with a wicked smile.
The Terminators made their way through the bombed out building, stomping through wreckage and punching their way through walls, eager to get to the Pathfinders and get vengeance. The Pathfinders had set up a defensive formation behind one of the building’s stairwells so they could unload all they had at the attackers coming to find them. Unfortunately, they hadn’t expected the Terminators to punch a hole through the wall next to them. The Tau panicked and tried to turn their weapons to face them, but before they could fire with any accuracy, the Terminators slammed into the group.
One Pathfinder swung his carbine at the brute that stood before him, but the eight foot tall monstrosity batted it away with his right hand and swung an uppercut with his left. The powerfist exploded on impact, blowing the Pathfinder into pieces. Svasir deftly dodged the puny blades that the disgusting xenos swung before swinging his own powerfist at them. One by one, the blue aliens exploded into fragments of entrails, bone, and slivers of armor. Before he could swing again, though, one of the bastard vermin cracked the butt of its carbine against Svasir’s head, stunning him with the act of defiance. Taken aback, he didn’t bother to block the next blow that came at him, though it broke against the ceramite hood behind his head. Svasir blinked, asking to himself out loud if the xenos had actually tried to hurt him. He repeated the question again, then once more, turning to face the Tau Pathfinder, which he noticed lacked a helmet. Svasir momentarily wondered if the Tau had similar philosophies as the Space Marines in regard to the more ‘courageous’ officers charging into battle without helmet.
The Pathfinder stood with its eyes locked on Svasir’s figure, but out of its peripheral vision it could see the last of his Pathfinders being butchered by the towering Terminators. The blue skinned alien began to back away as the other two Terminators came to join the one it had attacked. The first one made its way slowly to the remaining Pathfinder, reaching out with the oversized fist to grab the Tau and lift it off its feet.
Svasir snarled in disgust at defiling his defiled armor by touching the filthy animal, but he couldn’t resist the urge to wreak vengeance upon the Tau vermin that had the audacity to kill two of his brothers, then try to attack him as well. He held the Pathfinder above his head, relishing the fear that radiated off its body. For a moment he pondered what the fate of such a creature should be, but he soon came to the conclusion that his armor lacked the decorations that he thought befit a Terminator Senior Sergeant, swapping the body to his other hand for a better angle.
Once the Pathfinder realized what the Terminator was about to do, it frantically squirmed in its grasp, struggling to break free and escape the fate that would soon take it. But for all its strength it could not escape, and the Terminator brought the Tau’s skull down upon the newly formed spike that grew from his shoulder plating. The Pathfinder went into death spasms for a few seconds before Svasir crushed the Tau’s neck to break the skull away, grinning as he saw the other Terminators nod in approval and one of them, Battle Brother Crial, Svasir believed, even clapped as if he was appraising the morbid trophy as an elegant piece of artwork.
“Now that this little sordid affair has been dealt with, let us gather our other brothers,” Svasir commanded with the faint twitch of a smile.

You have to put in a lot of work into your second bit then but I don't see why you don't just improve the bit already up?

And agreed with Trondheim, but it has potential.

I assume you do realize that Terminators can not use a drop pod? Due to their sheer size and weigth. Secondly a corrupted ship would not still bear the signs of the Ordo Malleus. But this seems better but it still has room for more minor fluff related improvements.

So beside the things I just mentioned well done! It was a amusing read if a bit too bloodless for my taste

 Trondheim wrote:
I assume you do realize that Terminators can not use a drop pod? Due to their sheer size and weigth.

I assume you've got a reference for this, because I've never heard of that before.

Terminators don't use drop pods mainly because they teleport, but chapters that disapprove of teleporting (such as the Space Wolves) can and will make use of drop-podding Terminators. In the Space Wolves codex a unit of Wolf Guard can take Terminator Armour and be deployed via Drop Pod without issue, and nothing I've found in the fluff says that Terminators cannot be drop podded.

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 Trondheim wrote:
I assume you do realize that Terminators can not use a drop pod? Due to their sheer size and weigth.

I assume you've got a reference for this, because I've never heard of that before.

Terminators don't use drop pods mainly because they teleport, but chapters that disapprove of teleporting (such as the Space Wolves) can and will make use of drop-podding Terminators. In the Space Wolves codex a unit of Wolf Guard can take Terminator Armour and be deployed via Drop Pod without issue, and nothing I've found in the fluff says that Terminators cannot be drop podded.

Really? I could swear I had read that somewhere. Well if Im wrong thanks for pointing this out for me

 Trondheim wrote:
I assume you do realize that Terminators can not use a drop pod? Due to their sheer size and weigth. Secondly a corrupted ship would not still bear the signs of the Ordo Malleus. But this seems better but it still has room for more minor fluff related improvements.

So beside the things I just mentioned well done! It was a amusing read if a bit too bloodless for my taste

I never said it was Ordo Malleus, I simply said they had Grey Knights onboard. They also have Sisters of Battle and used to have Deathwatch but there was a lot of conflict due to the peace treaty with the Tau and Eldar. And I'm fairly certain Terminators can use drop pods.
And if you're upset by the bending of fluff, you'll probably hate the parts coming up

EDIT: Also, I like drop pods because it seems like a much cooler way to get to the battlefield(not to mention safer!).

Oh Emperor preserve me, you are one of those are you not. And yes, I will hate this.

What? I'm just using the extremely open ended story to make my Chapter more interesting. And I wont do any major fluff breaks, I just plan on having a bit of fun with the Tau.
Just calm down and enjoy the story, please

I am calm, but when confronted with stories like this I tend to cringe. No Chapter has GK, SoB and Deathwatch on the same ship, such things will not happen and are perfect exampels of going too far.

xSPYXEx wrote:
EDIT: Also, I like drop pods because it seems like a much cooler way to get to the battlefield(not to mention safer!).

Safer in-game, yes, but in fluff? Not really. Space Wolves don't like teleporting, so they pod in their terminators. Most other chapters, however, use terminators to board enemy ships (requiring teleportation) or for pin-point accurate and swift insertions into enemy territory, which teleporting allows. Drop pods are a lot slower than teleporting, can be intercepted, shot out of the sky, engines can misfire, they can land badly, and they can be tracked. Where the game shows teleporting to be far riskier than drop-podding, in fluff the crew of the ship sending them down aren't simply rolling a a scatter die + 2D6 on a board, and deep striking is probably safer than podding in. Not much in the game can take out drop pods before they land, but in the fluff, they'll be open to airborne interceptors, AA emplacements, minefields and a host of mechanical feth-ups with the pod itself.

It's far, far too risky for most chapters to risk their terminators coming down in a tin can travelling at Sillymph, especially since terminator armour is orders of magnitude harder to make than power armour, as well as harder to maintain, so much so that I'd imagine a lot of chapters can't field many at all, and the few that can only really manage to outfit their 1st company, and save them for the most dire situations or until necessary.

Hush hush with your logic. They're angry and fueled with Chaos, they're not worried about the logistics of teleporting vs drop pods.

And Trondheim, I know. But the GK and SoB aren't there to help the Scions, they're there to prevent corruption in the event that something goes wrong. They're reverse bodyguards, if you will. Plus, they never willingly go into battle alongside the Scions because they're not too fond of one another.

Nothing too major here, just setting up for the bigger action scene.

Part 2

The corrupted Captain Verusei made his way through the ruined city, scorched with explosive burns and riddled with blasted holes where bolters shots missed their intended target. Acrid smoke burned his nostrils as he walked with his black and bone-colored helmet hanging from a chain by his waist. Given the newfound freedom in Chaos, he had traded his original helmet with one of the Chapter’s corrupted Chaplains before they could reshape it into a daemonic visage, as he thought the grim faced skull was a much more interesting choice of helmet and made him stand out as the Captain. The rest of his armor, colored a splendid purple with silver trim, had been slightly altered to better suit him. A metal spike had been fused to his knees and boots in the event that he would ever have to fight in hand-to-hand and he had attached a woven fabric to his right pauldron similar to the tassets he wore as a Captain, though that was more for a cosmetic reason than any functional one.
Occasionally he would walk past a desecrated corpse, sometimes one of his own brothers but typically a Tau Firewarrior that fought against him and was rewarded with an explosive death and having its entrails strewn throughout the streets.
Because he had arrived after most of the fighting had taken place, Verusei was accosted by one of the more brazen members of his warband, citing it as cowardice and deeming him unfit to lead. Verusei responded calmly by leveling a plasma pistol at the mutineer and vaporizing his head with a burst of ionized gas. No other dissention came his way after that.
The warband had gathered together and met up over seven or eight blocks away from the city’s center, where a tall spire rose from the ground. Most likely the city’s capitol building, refugees of the invasion had fallen back to hide inside the fortified construct and he had lost many warriors to the defensive guns as they attempted to lay siege to it, as they had expended the Enlightenment’s orbital missiles to clear landing zones. Dozens of Firewarriors barricaded themselves in the windows and the Battlesuits patrolled the outer perimeters with heavy weaponry sweeping the streets that led to the building. Gun drones buzzed through the streets, though they were more of an annoyance than a threat.
“My Lord,” Terminator Sergeant Svasir said with a nod as Verusei approached. Svasir had removed his helmet while they rested in the lull of combat, and Verusei could already see the effects of their corruption on the Sergeant’s face. His face was almost permanently shaped into a pale and angry visage and his jaw held a row of jagged teeth, exposed by his lips being pulled back into a hateful snarl. It would be unnerving to most mortals, though Verusei wasn’t shaken by his Sergeant’s altered appearance. There were much more disturbing mutations taking hold of some of the other warriors. As well as his face, Verusei saw Svasir’s armor had been warped as well. A tusk protruded from a shoulder pauldron and a row of spikes had been implanted to the oversized hood behind his head, all decorated with skulls from those he had slain.
“Sergeant,” Verusei responded with a similar nod, “the Techmarines are almost done moving the Rhinos and Land Raiders to the surface. There were some... interruptions... in the process, but they have been dealt with accordingly. Once we land the transports, there will be nothing to prevent us from overrunning them.” Verusei couldn’t help but smile at the plans he had begun to formulate.
“That is most excellent news, my Lord.” Svasir growled, “I will make the preparations on who would join me in the Land Raider.” Svasir turned to leave with a slight bow.
“Actually,” Verusei interrupted, “I wasn’t intending for you to lead the charge.” Svasir halted and turned to stare Verusei down, standing almost a foot taller than the Captain. “No, you are too valuable of a warrior to risk to the alien’s weaponry. Instead, you will be joining me in the second wave.”
Svasir started to argue but Verusei just held up a hand to quiet the Terminator.
“Don’t worry, my friend, it will all make itself apparent in good time.”
Svasir stood before Verusei for a moment before nodding and turning away, replying “As you wish, my Lord...”
Verusei ran his gauntlet through his hair, sadly noticing that the time spent in the warp had caused his normally crisp black hair to start falling out. An unfortunate side effect that he hoped would pass in due time, as he actually enjoyed the feeling of having wind blow through his hair. Not in the extreme ways that some of the other corrupt Marines enjoyed the pleasantries of life, but he liked it nonetheless.
For the next two days and nights, Verusei walked through the camp set up just outside the range of the Tau guns, speaking to his brothers of what they had seen and relishing the events that had taken part and wishing he could have partaken though he was confined to the ship that hung in orbit as he made the preparations needed for the plan he formed. It had been a week since they landed on the planet, and almost every soldier in his warband was itching for combat. But, as with all good things, they must be patient while it was being worked out.
Five Rhinos and two Land Raiders had been brought down to the camp, along with a corrupted Vindicator and Whirlwind. Carried down one or two at a time, the only working Thunderhawk worked hard to bring the machines down in a timely fashion, as well as carrying the drop pods back up to the ship for repairs. As there was no place large enough for a Thunderhawk to land, the Techmarines had experimented with dropping a Rhino down nearly four stories, though they deemed it too impractical as the Rhino’s tracks had exploded out from under it and it took a full day’s work to repair it. In the end, they carefully eased their way to the bombed out area where Svasir had landed with drop pods and the Rhinos had to bulldoze through streets filled with debris and detritus.
But it was all coming together, and that was all Verusei cared about. He knew the Tau were making their own preparations as they saw the approach of the transports, but he also knew their limited resources wouldn’t save them from much.
By the end of the ninth day of preparations, a Stormraven descended down to land in the slightly more open intersection of two streets, the smaller Stormraven making it much safer to land in the confined area than the large Thunderhawk.
“Svasir, Lorbas,” He hailed over an open vox link, calling the Terminator Sergeant and the Veteran Sergeant respectively, “collect your men and meet me by the Stormraven. All else, to your positions.” He waited patiently for his two Sergeants to gather in his company. They took much less time to make their way there than before, as the Rhinos had plowed through most of the rubble that made the passage difficult.
It took no more than a half hour for the two groups to find him and both arrived almost simultaneously though they came from two separate directions. They boarded the gunship, which was extremely cramped due to the five, as Svasir had recruited replacements, bulky Terminators joining them, though Verusei had anticipated as much and stripped most of the unneeded items to make the aircraft much lighter.

I'm kinda liking this read and look forward to what you have in mind.

On a tangent, Terminators don't always teleport. In Space Hulk they use boarding torpedoes so there are other ways to get TDAs to battle when teleporting is too risky or inaccurate. Just saying.

Part 3

As they lifted, Verusei glanced at the chronometer in his helmet. Fifteen minutes. The warriors gathered in the cramped airship questioned him though he dismissed the questions, instead focussing on making sure the other three hundred Space Marines below were in the positions he described. Though Chaos granted freedom and individuality, Verusei remained a stickler for plans and loved to pick apart different tactics to use in different situations, basing his ideas upon the Codex Astartes but altering it to suit his needs, as he was allowed to do now though he never really followed it to begin with.
As soon as the Stormraven landed aboard the Enlightenment’s hanger, the chronometer reached the end of the countdown. He sent a command through every possible channel he was connected to, setting the plan rolling, then he briskly hurried down the assault ramp and commanded the other groups to follow him. The Stormraven sighed in relief as the Terminators disembarked, and Verusei could almost see distortion in the ship’s belly from the weight.
As he led the two groups, he opened a feed from the Enlightenment’s bridge that was focussed on the battle that went on at the planet’s surface, watching it with one eye and walking with the other.
The city’s main road was a long stretch from the camp to the capitol building, strewn with rubble and blood splatters where refugees had been blown to pieces by the Space Marines’ impressive firepower. All nine vehicles were gathered on either side of the road behind buildings as to limit the chance that a precise railgun shot would destroy the plan Verusei had put into action. The remaining Marines hunkered down behind the buildings as well, making the final preparations before the chronometer finished. Even from orbit, he could see individual Marines loading magazines into their bolters or checking the pressure on flamers and meltaguns. Assault Marines adjusted their harnesses and Techmarines nervously worked over the vehicles in a perfectionist manner.
As soon as the chronometer finished the countdown, he saw two Rhinos with dozer blades attached to their front begin to grind their way forward from behind a building on either side of the road. They met up in the middle and continued forward in that way, dozer blades so close they could have been mistaken for being attached to one another, piles of debris building up and spilling over the sides or falling on top of the Rhinos. Verusei nervously watched their progress as they picked up speed from the growing momentum, noting the Battlesuits that had turned to face the oncoming threat. One of the Battlesuits had a pair of railguns on its shoulders which had turned and were locking on to the Rhinos that approached the tower. A pulse of energy gathered around the barrels for a moment, followed by a bright flash. Even from space, he could almost hear the thunderous cracked that heralded the two slugs that slammed into the left Rhino. One shot exploded harmlessly against the pile of scrap metal built up by the Rhino’s dozer blades, though the second one punched through both the scrap and the Rhino as well. The Rhino had no time to even so much as flinch before it erupted in a ball of cataclysmic flame. Luckily Verusei had been anticipating the Rhinos’ destruction so they were empty, but he still felt a pang in his heart at the lose of such an important resource so soon in the siege.
The second Rhino continued forward, now more angry at the loss of its brother machine. The Battlesuit’s railguns loaded the next slugs, though they were still too hot for it to fire again. A slight breath from the Chaos God of Fate, Verusei thought to himself as he keyed in a console that led to the room that housed the ship’s teleportation bay. Before the Battlesuit even had to fire again, though, a series of bright flashes exploded through the road. In their retread, the Tau had dropped makeshift landmines along all the roads that led to their stronghold. The Rhino, which was unfortunately the one that had been dropped and had the treads blown out, was struck by a series of explosions. Once again, the already weakened treads exploded out, causing the Rhino’s hull to skid along the road until the pile of trash stopped it.
But they had done their job. As soon as Verusei saw the second Rhino’s death, he clicked in the second phase. In response, three teams of bikers, five each, roared around the corner and down the now-cleared street. Fueled by a mixture of high octane fumes and the surge of adrenaline that came with riding at dangerously high speeds, they whooped and hollered as they accelerated down the path.
As they lacked the thick armor of the Rhino, the oncoming bikers were shot at by both the Battlesuits outside the tower as well as some of the Firewarriors inside. The bikers, however, proved to be a much too difficult target to hit as they evaded the volleys of shots aimed at them. One biker out of the fifteen took a pulse hit to the chest and was thrown off his bike, which careened to the side and exploded against a building.
The rest cleared the wreckage of the other two Rhinos and made it into the more difficult stretch, which was just under a hundred or so meters. Forced to slow down to prevent hitting another series of landmines or wreck amongst debris, they became easier targets for the defenders. Another two bikers were shot down, one took a shot to his wheel and flipped over, the other taking a hit to the head and dying outright. But still they advanced, unafraid of death.
Once they made it to the perimeter of the compound, they turned sharply in different directions. Instead of barreling towards the Battlesuits, they sped up and drove circles around the building, firing randomly and indiscriminately at the defenders. The Battlesuits and Firewarriors inside tried to fire at the bikers, but they wove and ducked around rubble and general avoided most of the fire that came their way. Occasionally one would be hit and fall, but their harassment proved to be enough of an annoyance that the Tau didn’t look up until it was too late.
Two full teams of corrupt Assault Marines descended from the sky, dropping from the ruined roofs of nearby buildings with a furious cry. The Battlesuits tried to fire at the Assault Marines, but they couldn’t bring their weapons to bear fast enough. Sergeant Tykios led the assault, plunging straight down to the heart of a Battlesuit with his chainsword roaring almost as loud as he was. He crashed down first, punching through the armor with ease and impaling the Tau that drove the suit. Blood splashed out and onto Tykios’ armor, though it was just another layer on his gore smeared arms.
He looked up to see his brothers crashing like a hammer against the other Battlesuits, though he noticed with snarling disdain that the Battlesuit with two Railguns had leapt back away from the battle. Three of his brothers also saw their primary target slipping away, so they gunned their jump packs and leapt at it. Unfortunately, the original surprise had fallen away so the few remaining battlesuits that hadn’t been torn apart in the first strike now fired their weaponry and the three Marines were blown to pieces before they even began the descent arc.
The bikers, seeing their end of the plan complete, drove around the remaining Battlesuits and lashing out with their chainswords. Rarely coming close to hurting the walkers they tended to distract the Battlesuits long enough for the Assault Marines to leap at them.
Biker Champion Perale and Assault Sergeant Tykios, however, had second objectives. On the side of Perale’s bike was a string of small beacons. During the fight, he would toss one of the beacons on the ground toward the tower, hopefully without them being spotted by the Tau or crushed during the fighting.
As the fighting raged out front, Tykios managed to sneak around to the side of the tower. As most of the Firewarriors had been diverted to the fighting, he didn’t worry about being spotted too much. Of course, there was the chance of a drone buzzing around, and the Gods knew how annoying those things could be. He jumped up the tower, waiting on ledges for his jump pack to recharge until he made it a good five stories above the ground. He unhooked a beacon that hung on his left hip looked for a moment for a potential opening to drop the beacons inside, but the windows had all been boarded up during the lull in fighting. Sighing to himself, he grabbed a krak grenade off his right hip and jammed it in a slight crevice that he hoped would explode into a window, regardless of whether or not it was one to begin with.
Luckily the explosion from the grenade was drowned out by the cacophonous battle on the ground so there wasn’t a risk for any Tau inside to come investigate the small hole that now appeared in the tower’s side. Just barely big enough for a beacon to slip through, he shoved it in and let go, releasing small puffs from his jump pack to prevent him from crashing on the ground.
As Tykios finished the process, Verusei watched the assault beginning in earnest.
Both Land Raiders, the remaining three Rhinos, and both support vehicles trudged up the road toward the fighting. The corrupt Whirlwind stopped first and raised the missile racks to bear. Using the beacons that Perale had thrown, the Whirlwind unleashed a volley of missiles at the fighting and the building. The bikers had driven away and the Assault Marines jumped to safety, both now at under half the original amount of warriors that launched the siege, so the missile fire was without worry of hitting a friendly Marine. The last Battlesuit, somehow the one with the Railguns, saw the volley screaming down on it and fired one last Railgun shot before being destroyed in a ball of fire and death.
The last round, however, struck the lead Land Raider and punched through the heavily armored front. Verusei winced at its death, which was not part of his plan, though he had prepared for it. Though nine Terminators survived the explosion, with one dying outright as the railgun slug exploded through him, they now had to make it to the fight on foot.
But, it was time. The final wave now crashed against the Tau citadel, so Verusei simply nodded to his brothers and clicked the teleportation pad on as soon as it locked onto the beacon that Tykios had planted.
With a bright flash the two squads vanished from the Enlightenment, reappearing moments later in the Tau stronghold. Verusei laughed.

I think you have to have aproof read to fix up a few sentances as they don't flow to good and the action could do with a work over, but it wasn't a that bad a read so don't change the bare bones.