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.

Major Rawk limped through the midnight battlefield, trying to make his way through the heaps of dead and smoking tanks. The ground was thick with veterans of a hundred campaigns. The survivors were dumb with shock. None could have imagined that this world on the very edge of the galaxy would be one of the hardest battles of all.

The assault of a hundred Baneblades had failed to break the enemy lines, and convinced his men were about to fail him, Macharius had driven his Capitol Imperialis out of his lines into the very thick of the enemy. The enemy had swarmed over it like rats. They ripped his eagle banner ripped from its summit, used melta bombs to blow its adamantine blast doors open, slaughtered Macharius’ honour guard, fought their way up to Macharius’ own command chamber.

Blind fury overcome the Imperial Armies then. Each soldier fought with the fury of a hundred space marines. Conquer your fear, and you will conquer death, Macharius liked to say, and they had stared down Death’s gun-barrels as they fought their way through the massed enemy legions, into Macharius’ own command chamber, where the Lord Solar lay wounded.

Major Rawk looked down and saw his left hand had gone, his left leg ripped open by shrapnel. He slumped down against a shattered chimera and looked up at the night sky.
One half was full of swirling stars, but the other was dark.

Dark and empty.

Major Rawk turned to stare Terrawards. The top of his boot beginning to overflow with blood and prayed to distant spot where Golden Throne lay.

That night the weary survivors listened to Macharius’ victory speech. The Lord Solar’s face was strained, his arm was in a sling, but he still burnt with that fervour to reach the edge of the galaxy. ‘Soldiers! Hardship and pain are the price of glory!’

But this time the fleet greeted his speech with silence. Their answer was clear. They would go no further.

In time, twelve great altars raised on the world’s surface, which men called Ultima Prime: Galaxy’s End.

On the monument’s left flank, a mile up, lost amidst the millions of others was carved the name: ‘Major Rawk, 102nd Crinan Panthers’, but in golden letters, so vast they could be seen from space, if ever ships passed this way again, were written the words:

MACHARIUS STOPPED HERE.

wow this is a great story you got here man. i would love to see what other stories you have.

I thought they stopped because the navigators could not see the light from the astronomican anymore from so far away...

nice story.

I thought they stopped because the navigators could not see the light from the astronomican anymore from so far away...

that's what they tell you.....