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***
Melchoir was tense. Somewhere deep inside, he felt that the universe had a cruel sense of irony, and was just the thinnest strand of fate from making him into a tragic figure. Whenever he got close to achieving his goals, he always felt a pang of dread, as if he was going to have come all this way just to have something get screwed up at the very end and ruin everything.
This was now one of such moments.
Things had been going very well for the forces of Folera. The enemy had been largely crushed by a brutal air and artillery campaign. The final siege was underway. It would only be a matter of time.
All that was left for the rest of the forces to do was to stamp out any remaining pockets of resistance found here and there scattered around the planet. What little was left of Melchoir's line was joined together with forces from the 7th armored corps. Now that the war was mostly tied up in the siege, the Leman Russes were of less use than in those places where fighting was still engaged over open ground. Melchoir was used to serving in mixed infantry and armor groups, but even he was taken a bit aback by just how many tanks were at their disposal.
The advance across their designated area had been rapid. The armor crushed everything while the infantry easily cleaned up later. There was only one place left to clear out, now. When it was made secure, he would be done. With his many missions accomplished, odds were that he'd get a bit of time off before getting reassigned to a new unit.
That was, at least, unless he screwed something up now, here at the end of everything.
The officer walked forward along with his men, lead by several large battle tanks. They were coming up to a ruined outpost. Its craggy form could just barely be made out against the night sky. He looked up and could see the stars. The weather had finally begun to calm down as of late. Perhaps the seasons were beginning to turn. Melchoir never could tell on planets not his home.
The tanks came to a stop at the edge, just out of range of the ruin, and the rest of the infantry formed up behind them. The officer pulled out his surveyor. The scanner barely worked anymore. Through its flickering screen, the officer could make out signals. There were enemy here after all.
"Deploy fireflies," Melchoir ordered into his micro-bead.
A few moments later, the tanks in front of him shot their rockets up into the air, leaving a thin trail of sparkles glowing orange against the sky. Silently, they were lost up into the night sky. The cluster of them then crackled and popped into life, the firefly grenades sending an eerie green glow over the battlefield.
The enemy was startled to life as the flares began to float in the still air. Vehicles suddenly roared to life. A few disorganized shouts were called out, breaking amongst the silent guardsmen.
The enemy began to move, slowly stirring into action.
Melchoir looked through the ruins and could see them. He took a deep breath. He just had no not screw this up. Not now.
"All units, engage the enemy," the officer ordered.
The tank commanders scarcely needed to be told to start firing. Immediately, the air began to burst with the heavy
pom-
pom-
pom of the exterminator cannons, lascannons both on the tanks and from those infantry that had a good vantage point began to join them. The first enemy casualties began to mount as a lascannon blast found an enemy transport, catching it into flames.
A bright light pierced the sky as the command tank engaged its searchlight. The beam of light swept across the enemy vehicles until it stopped on an enemy siege tank. The command tank fired at it, blasting apart the target's massive cannon. Quickly, the other tanks nearby traversed over and fired into the vehicle. A lascannon bore through its front armor causing the tank to erupt in a cataclysmic fireball.
Heavy weapons fire continued to flash as the shockwaves of the armor's thunderous barrage beat into the enemy downrange. Melchoir could see one of the enemy transports trying to advance, only to get hung up on terrain, while the other passed through only to eat a massive barrage of anti-tank fire. Once again, a knock-out punch slammed into the vehicle's armor, causing the a wide gash to burst out of it, violently ejecting smoke and flame.
Quickly the enemy's mobile element was neutralized under the weight of the thundering autocannons. A few enemy tanks attempted to return fire against the Russes, but were quickly shut down as the command tank fired at the first one and then the second, it's vanquisher cannon ripping apart each target with a single shot.
Melchoir had scarcely been on the winning side of a more lopsided display of firepower. He began to relax just a little bit. Everything was going to be smooth.
The officer looked around at his men. They all stood stalwartly looking on. Except for one of them. He was screaming like a maniac and waving a bunch of explosives above his head. Wait, that wasn't right.
The crazed cultist lifted his hands above his head and shouted a gutteral intonation to the dark god of blood and violence. Before Melchoir could even issue an order, from behind him came the groaning shreik of aircraft engines.
"What?" Melchoir shouted angrily to himself. The skies were supposed to have been completely empty of enemy fliers. They weren't supposed to expect this kind of resistance. What was going on here?
And then, as if on cue, the aircraft descended from the inky darkness into the glow of the flares.
The cultist's voice reached a fevered pitch as the guardsman stood dumbfounded before him. He offered up a final curse before he suddenly detonated himself.
The explosion blasted over the guardsmen, sending a huge, greasy fireball erupting up into the air. Shrapnel pattered off of the armor of the tanks and a thick, roiling smoke blossomed from where the cultist had once stood. A few bits bounced off of Melchoir. He bent down to pick one of the pieces up, examining it in the dim green glow. It was a smouldering tooth.
The officer dropped the former missile in disgust as the fliers began to circle overhead. The graceful entities were difficult to see in the flare light at first, but then they began their attack.
Massive sprays of fire belched out from the circling aircraft, vomiting flaming fuel down onto the guardsmen below. Panic began to set in as another one came down and spewed its lethal fiery chemicals all over them.
Melchoir lurched backwards as a rolling wave of flame cascaded down onto him. The horrible attack instantly incinerated his whole command squad. The flaming liquid bounced angrily off of the officer's refractor field, miraculously saving him as the sheet of fire collapsed to the ground. The officer recoiled in terror from the raining death, only to be surprised that he had survived. His uniform had caught ablaze, and he quickly patted it out as dozens of guardsmen burned alive around him.
The officer turned towards the tanks, who were still firing at something downfield. He needed them to take down these fliers, and to do it now. These aircraft were the biggest threat to the men and to the mission.
He thought.
From behind the roiling clouds of flame being dropped from above, a new threat began to appear.
In the darkness, shadows departed from the ruins. A mass of enemy soldiers began to emerge and then to rush forwards. A black tide of cultists began to howl their damned cries to their dark gods. It was a full-fledged attack.
Before them was a massive shape, difficult to tell in the darkness. It was a machine of some sort, but it couldn't be said precisely what it was.
With terrifying speed, the enemy bounded forward.
As it barreled into his shocked men, it produced a set of whirring blades that immediately began to do their work. With effortless grace, the creature spun around, lopping off heads, arms, and chunks of flesh from all around it all at once. As fast as it moved, guardsmen were eviscerated, blood and body parts spraying into the air.
The guardsmen instantly panicked at the new threat. Nothing could be done to stop it as fistfuls of guardsmen were chopped to pointless gore all around them.
They began to break and run.
"No!" Melchoir shouted, "Stand your ground! Stand your.... Regroup! Regroup I said!"
The demonic machine hacked apart the guardsmen as they desperately attempted to flee from their invincible destroyer.
"Marshal!" came the cry of one of the soldiers of his other platoon, "Marshal, look out!"
Melchoir turned from the scene to his right and looked to his left.
There was ANOTHER one!
The second monster turned slowly and saw the mass of guardsmen before it. They were ripe with fear.
Melchoir closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.
"Men!" he shouted, "Form ranks, face the enemy!" He pointed at the creature on the left as the one on the right butchered another dozen guardsmen. He was about to lose everything.
"First rank lasgunners, on your knees! Second rank meltagunners! Third rank lasgunners! Stagger formation, go!"
The guardsmen quickly attempted to put into practice their endless hours of drill. The monster barreled towards them at freightening speed. Before it were a line of kneeling guardsmen followed by a row standing, with a row behind sticking bayonets and lasguns through between them. It approached the bristling men.
"First rank, FIRE!" Melchoir shoted. Lasguns immediately began to fire in a wave of light and energy. "Meltaguns, FIRE!" The searing blast of short-ranged anti-tank weapons blasted over the heads of the guardsmen in front of them. The concussive heat rays broke through the wall of fire and crackled on the creature's demonic hide. "Second rank, FIRE!"
The lasgun from the succeeding lines of guardsmen joined the first as they were just running out of energy. The concentrated blast of violence of an entire Imperial Guard platoon focused onto a single point. With a scream of rending agony, the creature began to disintegrate. Bits of flesh, armor, and machine began to vaporize off of it in swirling clouds.
"Basilist, FIRE!" From behind them all, the lascannons opened up just as the lasguns ran dry. The shambling hulk was burst through with anti-tank shots, causing huge hunks to collapse to the ground.
"Reload!" Melchoir shouted. He turned to his right, he knew that the other one was going to be right there. It was too late. Had the tanks finally shifted targets? Had they been destroyed? This was it. This was the major screw up right at the end of everything.
He winced as he turned around, prepared to meet his gristly evisceration.
He could see the other monster. The combined weight of five battle tanks was focused squarely on it. The creature desperately tried to carry on forward momentum as it was pummled to the ground by the irresistable barrage of exterminator cannon fire. Sponson and hull anti-tank weapons punched holes into it. The demonic entity wailed loudly as its mortal flesh gave way to the awesome firepower of the armored assault.
Suddenly, the monster was bathed in a radiant white light. Melchoir turned, shielding his eyes. The searchlight from the command tank burst brightly across the guardsmen. The tank commander gave a silent order. The turret traversed. The officer instinctively flinched.
The tank's main gun blasted its shot. It landed square on the monster's head, exploding it into non-existence. The searchlight was shuttered as the enemy slumped to the ground dead.
From all around him, the enemy poured in from the darkness.
From above, a tidal wave of flame rolled out of the sky and crashed down onto the guardsmen. Instantly, screams of agony pierced the inferno as a liquid holocaust rained down upon them.
Melchoir turned to the tank commander. "The fliers! Take down these damned fliers!" he shouted desperately. He whirled around towards his men. "To me!" he shouted, "Regroup to me!"
Those guardsmen who were still able huddled together as the enemy came rushing in.
"Form ranks!" Melchoir shouted. "Lasgunners in front! Fix your bayonets!"
"There here!" someone shouted in a panic.
"Let them have it!"
The guardsmen barely had time to fire before the enemy was on top of them. The first few were downed by fire only to have more rush in. The guardsmen piled in after them as the enemy set on them with combat knives against their bayonets.
The brutal melee quickly ground down. The cultists were rabid in their worship of the god of blood, but the guardsmen were too well trained. Too well armed. Too well armored.
The guardsmen began to push back against the cultists, impaling them on their lasguns, and clubbing and stomping them in whatever way they could.
Meanwhile, the enemy stormed at them from the left flank. Enemy meltaguns were brought forward and began to press in on the tanks.
The Russes fired at whatever was at hand, desperate for survival. Exterminator cannon fire poured into the new meltagun threat, the torrent from the turrets and the brutal punishment from their anti-tank hull weapons ripping them apart with ease. Other exterminators were able to bring down a flier with their multimeltas, ending the threat to the tanks from the air.
The guardsmen broke free from their melee. The enemy was still right on top of them.
One of the aircraft wheeled around and began to hover right on top of them. It unleashed a torrent of flame straight down, engulfing nearly everybody.
Guardsmen everywhere once again burned to death where they stood, engulfed in the flames.
Melchoir could only look up in horror as the circling beast devoured his soldiers.
The slowing of its flight, though, left the aircraft vulnerable. Freed from more pressing issues, the Leman Russes finally swung around towards the aerial bombarders. Exterminator cannon fire swept over one of the aircraft, a shower of autocannon shells and lascannon fire bringing it to the ground. The one hovering overhead was easy prey to multimelta sponsons and turret weapons alike.
In their own cries of anguish, the enemy fliers dropped from the sky and landed as flaming wrecks on the ground.
With the fliers gone, the exterminators traversed their turrets down to the last of the onrushing cultists and traitor guardsmen. With brutal efficiency, the combination of their firepower easily swept the field of those last few who had emerged from the ruin.
Almost as soon as it had begun, it was all over.
The enemy was defeated.
The roar of the tank's gunfire began to ebb away with the last failing light of the firefly flares. Melchoir looked around him. There were only four men left to him that were still battle-ready. He was stunned.
Darkness overtook them as the lights above flickered out.
"Marshal," came a grating, rasping voice from behind him. It was coming over a speaker, which only made the sound more indistinguishable from static. Melchoir had never heard the voice before, and it immediately chilled him as he stood in the blackness of the night.
He turned and looked, it was the unit commander of the Russes looking down at him from behind his respirator. The stare was dead in the darkness.
"There is an emergency," the voice creaked at him, "We must go."
"I don't know if this place is secure, though," the officer protested. The tank commander, as if drained by what few words he had managed to speak pointed to the officer's scanner, still held clenched in Melchoir's hand. He hadn't even time enough to put it away.
The officer looked down at the device. It was still on.
He did a quick search of the area. As best he could tell, that was all of them. One last mass attack by everyone who was left on this little square of this forsaken planet.
"Come," the half-electronic voice grated at him.
"But my men," Melchoir protested.
"Later."
Unsure of what was happening, but content that the mission was complete, Melchoir reluctantly obeyed the tank commander's summons. He crawled up the hand-holds on the side of the tank until he was up next to the turret.
The commander gave the marshal a stare void of any human feature. Silently, he nodded and pushed a button on a small console in front of him. A tone wafted up from somewhere within the lumbering behemoth, and the mass of tank began to move out into the night.
To where, Melchoir wasn't entirely certain.
***
Melchoir plopped down onto his collapsible desk chair with a sigh. He was exhausted.
He had gotten a ride to the nearest base camp, wherein he was whisked off by valkyrie to a general officer's meeting for all guard units in the area. The news was grim.
Though the planet was now nearly entirely in loyalist hands, some sort of great bloom of the enemy had somehow unfurled itself all over the sub-sector. Somehow, what had been a contained fight on a single planet was now an explosive contagion on all nearby worlds. Everywhere there were alarms raised of the inhuman robotic menace, and the traitorous grey marines, as well as warriors of chaos. Everywhere was suddenly and violently devolving around them.
Without a doubt. The Foleran Off-World Army was the nearest Imperial Guard presence to handle the threat. Veterans of the completing campaign would be split up amongst the millions of guardsmen who still hadn't even managed planetfall yet. The fight, far from over, was just beginning, at least, so it seemed.
They were all to get what rest they could. Most of the officers would be up for re-assignment soon, and shipped off to somewhere to be determined.
Melchoir hated not knowing what was going on. Being in the Guard, though, offered little reprieve from this particular nuisance.
The officer rubbed his temples briefly and stared down at the tiny folding desk. There were two large trunks filled to bursting with papers on the floor beneath it, and several large folders containing hundreds of sheets apiece were stacked on top.
All of this had been Sanario's.
They still hadn't found him. The brass had given him up for eaten, but Melchoir wasn't so sure. He actually knew what the priest was capable of. Regardless, all of the priest's effects went unclaimed when he went missing. Rather than turning over his possessions to the Ecclesiarchy, Melchoir had decided to smuggle them away. There were tens of thousands of articles of correspondence. Form upon form in triplicate. Books, notes, endless effects.
Worse, most of it was encoded. Sanario was hiding something. He knew it.
Thankfully his time spent translating ancient Foleran and pushing papers during his brief time as an ADC gave him a knack for this kind of task. All he needed to do was break the myriad of codes and secret sayings.
He would get to the bottom of it all. He knew it.
***
Daemons: 5000+ points
CSM/Black Legion: 5000+ points
Deathwatch/Knights: 5000 points
Order of the Sable Heart
Grave Knights
House Rouen