Been Around the Block
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Steel Wings History
The Steel Wings chapter stands as a cautionary tale, a noble chapter rent asunder by the distant machinations of a lone sorcerer. Many had their victories been as they guarded the edges of the Eye of Terror during the 13th Black Crusade, and played an integral role in pushing back the World Eaters to the Cadian Gate, where the guns of the Guard waited to crush them.
After the long, arduous battle to push the traitor marines back into the Eye, the Steel Wings established a new chapter headquarters upon the blasted world of Arstan, where they first clashed with the World Eaters. The Steel Wings were dangerously close to the edge of several worlds the Chaos Marines still held, but fortified the world significantly, preparing for the inevitable second wave to strike the Gate.
It never came.
Years passed, and the Steel Wings had done much to restore Artsan. The land began to see new vegetation as the wastelands began to heal, and Artsan was reinforced by two regiments of Imperial Guard. The Steel Wings would often seek out neophytes from their ranks, and the warriors of the Imperium enjoyed an excellent relationship. Led by their chapter master Graidix Vaile, the Steel Wings became a major force in the region.
Roughly fifty years after taking Artsan as their homeworld, Vaile began to hear a voice in his mind, and it tormented him in his dreams. It spoke of power and glory at the cost of betrayal. Vaile kept these dreams to himself until he had a vision of murdering the members of the Steel Wings Council, and brought his troubles to the chapters chief Chaplain, Ellir Frost. Frost thoroughly examined the chapter master with the aid of several apothecaries, eliminating medical abnormalities until the only one explanation arrived - demonic sorcery. Frost surmised that their proximity to the Eye of Terror could put them well within reach of Chaotic sorceries. Aside from several skirmishes with the Iron Warriors, the Steel Wings had seen little of any forces for at least a decade, and this sudden attack upon the mind of Gradix Vaile surely was a harbinger of dark times, some new tactic from an unseen enemy.
The voices that plagued Vaile would turn epidemic among the ranks of the Steel Wings, as hundreds of marines from every company stationed near Artsan reported hearing the same voice, whispering the same poisoned promises. Several had mental breaks, violent outbursts that resulted in the deaths of multiple battle brothers. Overwhelmed by the outbreak, Ellir Frost received permission to seek aid from the Inquisition to track and eliminate the source of the spell of madness. Frost feared the heavy-handed methods of the Inquisition, and considered that the entire chapter might be purged, but he was not prepared to allow Chaotic sorcery to turn his battle brothers into violent madmen. Even Vaile had begun to openly question the need for the Steel Wings to guard the Cadian Gate, a sign that the distant enemy manipulating the chapter master was increasing its efforts to corrupt the noble commander.
Help would not arrive in time. The betrayal was sudden, fierce, and devastating. Gradix Vaile, along with the captains of the second, fourth, eight, and ninth companies, lead their forces against those Steel Wings unaffected by the voices. Many loyal battle brothers had been cut down, and the halls within Bastion, the Steel Wings' massive fortress, burned. Ellir Frost barely escaped assassination, and desperately sought to gather those few remaining uncorrupted battle-brothers to push back the traitors. The corrupted marines began to move against the armory to seize the heaviest weapons to employ in their massacre.
As they arrived in front of the enormous gate protecting the heavy armor, the doors flew open, and the flash of melta blasts incinerated the traitors' vanguard as the Dreadnoughts roared to life, revived in time by the Steel Wings Master of the Forge, Vollix Grallen. Forcing the traitors back and outside of Bastion, he gathered the few loyal brothers he could find to push the counter-attack, among them Ellir Frost and the captain of the third company, Thraque Yaro.
As the tide began to turn, and the bloody coup seemed destined to fail under siege from the chapter's heavy guns, the loyalists were greeted by a chilling sight. Dozens of Thunderhawks, twisted into foul beasts of metal, with a seemingly living, writhing skin of metal, descended from the atmosphere of Artsan, and an invasion force of Iron Warriors burst forth, joining the traitor Steel Wings. Frost's heart sank as he realized that his failure to save his brothers was total. They were lost to Chaos, now a part of one of the most powerful traitor legions. Vollix Grallen was able to see a Sorcerer amongst the ranks of the invaders, a rarity in the Iron Warriors. He surmised that vile creature was responsible for corrupting his brothers, and directed the guns to target it. In an instant, the Sorcerer was vaporized, but his hold over the Steel Wings was not broken, nor would it be, as former battle-brothers continued to throw themselves at the gates of Bastion, now aided by an overwhelming force of Chaos Marines. Bastion did not have the strength the sustain such a siege, and those officers that still remained turned over command to squad sergeants to convene an emergency meeting to decide the next steps of the defense.
Yaro had managed to send a distress signal, but discovered that the two Guard regiments stationed on Artsan had been struck during the coup, and were nearly obliterated by the Iron Warriors. Yaro sent a final signal offworld before communication was cut, desperately hoping it might reach the nearby Imperial Fists fleet. Yaro argued that they should hold Bastion for as long as possible in the hopes that reinforcements would arrive. Grallen voiced a grave reality - Bastion would fall before any aid would reach Artsan, and would likely be blocked by an enemy fleet in orbit. Yaro's passion waned, and deferred to Frost to make the final decision. Leery of a suicidal defense, Frost demanded to know what actions the Master of the Forge would propose, and upon hearing the plan, agreed to it. With a course of action, the ramshackle council left to prepare the few remaining Steel Wings to prepare to yield Bastion to the enemy.
The siege had not completely enveloped the southern section of Bastion, and that is where the Steel Wings broke through, charging with all the might they had left into the infant forests of Artsan. With no loyalists to hold them back, the traitor marines poured into Bastion, their conquest complete. Watching the tainted ones flood the halls of Bastion through the eyes of a wounded servitor, Grallen activated the charges in the armory. The explosion was tremendous, with very nearly the whole of Bastion erupting in a firestorm, burned by the Infernus missiles the Master of the Forge armed prior to the evacuation. Artsan would never recover from the wound inflicted by the Steel Wings, but the invasion force suffered a devastating blow, and many of the battle-brothers who had succumbed to the taint of Chaos were now at peace.
The Steel Wings would fight a series of intense battles with the Iron Warriors until the arrival of the Imperial Fists forced them to finally retreat. The Inquisitors would arrive several weeks after that, stunned by the events that played out on Artsan. They immediately set upon investigating the purity of the surviving Steel Wings, fully prepared to exterminate the remaining marines should any of them demonstrate the slightest hint of taint.
The Imperial Fists, led by Captain Lysander himself, remained on Artsan during this process to ensure that the Steel Wings were treated fairly, advocating for those battle-brothers who had fought so hard against the traitors. Having survived the ordeals of a thorough examination for taint himself, he understood the trial the Steel Wings were undergoing. To his credit, it is very likely that Lysander saved those remaining Steel Wings from extermination at the hands of an overzealous Inquisitor.
After they were cleared by the Inquisition, the council met again to discuss the future of the chapter. Joined by Lysander, they decided that rebuilding the chapter was the only option. The gene-seeds had been saved in the evacuation, and there were still traitor Steel Wings amongst the Iron Warriors that needed to answer for their crimes. While naming Captain Yaro as the new chapter master seemed an obvious move, Yaro turned down the position, telling his brothers that his tactical error at Bastion nearly destroyed them all. He recommended that Grallen act as the chapter master and lead the rebuilding efforts. Yaro would act as the field commander of the Steel Wings, leading the survivors, numbering just over a single company, in battle. Grallen would have the final say on all decisions. Despite the horrific casualties, the Steel Wings still had the bulk of its armor, allowing it to remain a potent fighting force.
Withdrawing from the ruins of Artsan, the Steel Wings sought to rebuild on the world of Marrig, a sparsely populated world fiercely loyal to the Emporer and grateful to the Steel Wings, who had helped expel Chaos Marines who laid siege to that world during the Black Crusade. With heavy hearts and an incredible task in front of them, the Steel Wings began the long process of rebuilding and redeeming their shattered chapter.
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