Focused Dark Angels Land Raider Pilot
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6th Biker Troop, 157th Special Security Detachment, Third Fleet, Fleet Command
“The Knights after the Order of the Eternal Cherry Blossoms”
The Chapter Master Kills His Own Captains
When a man deliberately kills another man he acts in one of three roles. If he kills in combat, he is a soldier. If he kills under authority of the law, he is an executioner. If he kills without justification, he is a murderer. With a single killing, however, the Chapter Master of the Star Fighters would commit all three acts. Actually, he would commit all three acts in three separate killing, but each killing would simultaneously be combat, an execution, and a murder; combat because the enemy of mankind was Chaos and the killings would eliminate a potential soldier of Chaos; an execution because an Emporium judge had secretly authorized the killings after a due consideration of the law and facts; murder because as both the judge and the Chapter Master well knew, each victim was innocent of any offense and all were among the Master’s most loyal officers. Regardless, the killings had to be done.
Since a space marine officer is difficult to kill even for another space marine or imperial assassin, the Chapter Master chose to do the task himself. He invited all his officers, including these three, over to his villa for a formal dining in. The officers spent a glorious evening in their dress uniforms eating the Master’s excellent food, toasting the Emperor, the Emporium, the Codex Astartes, the Ultramarines, the Star Fighters, the Imperial Guard, the Fleet and any other worthy organization, person, or place, and generally enjoying themselves late into the night. Finally exhausted, the officers dragged themselves to their assigned bedrooms. Although as space marines, the officers need only to sleep with a single hemisphere of the brain at a time, most quickly fell into a full brained deep sleep. The three doomed officers fell into the deepest sleep as the Master had ordered his servants to drug these three officer’s meals and drinks.
The Master quietly slipped into the bedroom where the first officer slept. The Master cradled the huge Demon Slayer, an ancient relic blade specifically forged for the killing of Chaos demons and traitors. With a quick swing of Demon Slayer, he decapitated the first. He quietly exited the bedroom and entered the second bedroom. The second killing was as easy. Demon Slayer nearly sang as it decapitated the second.
In the third bedroom, however, Demon Slayer became heavy and clumsy, even for one with the strength of a chapter master. The Master struggled with Demon Slayer until, giving up, he put it down. Instead, he pulled his bolt pistol out of his holster. The Master was troubled.
“It is expedient for us that one man should die rather than the whole people perish,” he silently prayed.
Still the Master hesitated over the sleeping body of the last officer. The Master unexpected felt weary and depressed. Unlike the other two officers who already had shown the signs of Chaos, this officer, Captain Tectonic Plate, was pure and unblemished. Moreover, Plate joined the marines as an orphan after Chaos had raided his hometown murdering his mother, father, sisters, and brothers as well as his neighbors. Plate hated Chaos and was strict in his obedience to the Codex Astartes and to the Master.
In that hesitation, the Master spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Acting on instinct, he fired the bolt pistol into the movement. A broken body fell out of the shadows and, although the blast of the bolt pistol had splattered and torn the body into a bloody burnt mass, enough remained for the Master recognized the uniform of an imperial assassin. He quickly surmised that someone had dispatched the assassin as a backup in case he failed to kill the three officers.
Plate awoke, confused and groggy from the drugs. The Master looked down into the officer’s pure but questioning eyes. The Master knew he should raise his pistol and pull the trigger but he now lacked the heart for this simple act. He would spare Plate. Even as Plate tried to make sense of the carnage around them, the Chapter Master was formulating a plan to save his life.
Creation of the 157th Special Security Detachment.
After Arch-Admiral Isoroku Takano, the powerful commander of the Imperial Third Fleet, got frustrated with dealing with arrogant chapter masters each time he asked for the support of the space marines, he demanded creation of the his own space marine chapter. Since the Arch-Admiral was commander the most powerful armada in the Empire, the emperor’s general staff quickly organized a new space marine chapter from several older ultramarine chapters.
Unlike most of the other chapters, however, the Fleet Space Marines were not at first created from their own gene-seed. Instead, the general staff requisitioned companies of selected space marine chapters to provide one or more of their best space marines to be permanently transferred to the new fleet chapter. The company captains and sergeant, as company commanders throughout history do when given such an opportunity, took advantage of the order to rid themselves of all their troublemakers, hotdogs, and embarrassments. Thus, many of the Fleet Space Marine companies, including the 6th Biker Troop, quickly gained a reputation, unusual among space marines, as an ill-disciplined and unruly unit.
Because of this reputation, Arch-Admiral Takano was displeased with the new fleet space marine chapter. It was rumored that during one planning meeting before a dangerous mission, a staff officer protested that a certain maneuver could result in the complete sacrifice of the 6th Biker Troop. The Arch-Admiral replied, “That wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice.”
The Arch-Admiral stripped the new chapter of many of the trappings of the space marines, specifically the use of the heraldic uniforms and insignia. Instead, the fleet chapter space marines were dressed in a dull camouflage uniform more typical of scouts or Imperial Guards. Rather than the traditional chapter name, the fleet space marines were designated simply as the 157th Special Security Detachment and its companies were attached to the various commands rather than operating as a single chapter. In final insult, the Arch-Admiral refused to name a space marine as the chapter master but instead assigned the position to General Quantum Wells, an aging military bureaucrat who had distinguished his career by avoiding risks, factious attention to obscure regulations, and petty military politics. Thus, assignment to the Fleet Space Marines was a dirty duty with little glory, much boredom, and ugly missions. Many of the individual space marines were bitter at being removed from former chapter which they had devoted their lives and being forced to serve with equally demoralized strangers.
The fleet space marines were especially galled about wearing a camouflage uniform. In the early days of the Emporium, space marines and others became aware that the non-human races such as Orks, Necrons, Tau, Eldar, and Daemons had much different vision than humans. These non-human races were unable to distinguish colors in the human’s visual spectrum. Thus, camouflage uniforms were unnecessary in fighting non-human races. Elite combat armies such as space marines, who regularly fought against the non-human races abandoned camouflage uniforms for bold color heraldic uniforms and insignia. The bold colors allowed space marines to easily distinguish each other in combat, giving them better battle command and control.
The only camouflage worn by space marines was the scout’s camouflaged cloaks and even these were usually uniquely patterned for the vision of each specific non-human race. These cloaks did not appear camouflaged to the human eye unless the space marines were using cloaks specifically made for fighting a traitor human army.
Thus, camouflage uniforms become associated only with armies that regularly fought other human armies, usually on uncivilized planets with no central government. Of the major armies, only the Imperial Guard retained units with camouflage and these represented units that were recruited on more primitive and lawless planets. The space marines and other elite armies came to look upon soldiers in camouflage as little more than gang members or street ruffians. When the Arch Admiral ordered the space marines to wear camouflaged uniforms, many of the fleet marines felt insulted.
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Focused Dark Angels Land Raider Pilot
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More fluff for the army I am building.
Captain Tectonic Plate, Troop Commander, 6th Biker Troop, 157th Special Security, Third Fleet, Fleet Command; Acting Company Commander, Seventh Company, Knights of the Twelve Suns.
Captain Plate was a homeless orphan when he was recruited by the Star Fighters, a strict ultramarine chapter. He was infused with gene-seed HN126-C24. The gene-seed HN126 series had been successful in producing many innovative and aggressive space marine officers and it was expected that the C24 enhancement would produce even more brilliant officers. Unfortunately, the C24 series proved to be highly unstable. Many of the officers, who at first seemed to be among the best and brightest of the space marine officer’s corps, began to have bouts of madness. Most defected to the Chaos. The emperor informally asked that the remaining C24 enhanced officers and soldiers be purged.
Captain Plate’s chapter master chose to do his own killing after inviting all his officers to his villa for a dining in. The chapter master drugged three C24 officer’s meals and drinks since as space marines, their brains normally slept only one hemisphere at a time and they would be hard to ambush. Soon all three officers were quietly sleeping, each alone in his own assigned suite. The master, armed with a bolt pistol and a relic blade, slipped into each C24 officer’s suite in turn. He killed the first two officers quickly, slicing off their heads with the relic blade, Demon Slayer.
When he entered Captain Plate’s room, however, he hesitated. In that hesitation, the master spotted movement. He fired the bolt pistol and killed an assassin, who, unbeknown to the Chapter Master, had been dispatched as a backup to kill the three officers. When Captain Plate awoke, the Master found he lacked the heart to kill this loyal officer.
The next morning, the Chapter Maser told Captain Plate about his defective gene-seed and of his susceptibility to Chaos. He told him that the other officers had to be killed because they had started to succumb to Chaos although he implied without saying that the imperial assassin had done the killing. The Master then told the Captain that he had saved him from the imperial assassin because the Captain had remained pure of Chaos. He charged the Captain to continue to remain pure from Chaos and that he would transfer the Captain to the Fleet Command to lead the new 6th Biker Troop.
“Do not think I that this assignment is a favor,” said the Chapter Master. “You will spend centuries isolated in the stinking hulls of ancient starships. You will be sent to the least glorious and most difficult combat to struggle on some forgotten lifeless planetoid that the Arch-Admiral thinks in necessary to support his fleet. He will give you missions that the rest of the space marine chapters will refuse. As for your troops; even now the space marine commanders are joyful emptying their brigs and barracks of all their problem children to transfer to you. Good luck Captain Plate. You will need it.”
The Chapter Master gave Captain Plate two gifts. The first was the relic blade Demon Slayer. The second was the space marine and High Vostroyan orderly Arjuna. Never had a captain been assigned a High Vostroyan orderly and Captain Plate at first refused the orderly as unbecoming to his position. But the Master insisted. Thus, the captain and the orderly were both sent to the 6th Biker Troop.
The Chapter Master altered Captain Plate’s personnel records to remove the record of the defective gene-seed and hoped that he had not erred in sparing the Captain’s life.
In spite of occasionally bouts of madness, Captain Plate is an effective commander and is well regarded by General Wells, in part because of Arjuna’s help in managing military protocol. Captain Plate controls both his madness and the 6th Biker Troop by strict, almost obsessive, obedience to the Codex Astartes and by constant prayer and mediation. Although a few of the most experienced Space Marine troopers suspect something is amiss, only Captain Plate’s loyal orderly knows his Captain’s dark secret.
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