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The clanking armour of Centurion Sergeant Francis Brecht and his two compatriots were the only sound in the desolate North-Western corner of Hive Tervone. Ravaged by the civil war that had taken over the planet, it had been abandoned by the people. Now it sat bullet-scarred and the smell of cordite mixed with rotting flesh filled the air. Brecht was on mop up duty, finishing what remained of the rebel forces in this sector, accompanying the rest of the 4th company from the Imperial Fists. The foot of his Centurion exo-armour crushed a traitor marine skull underfoot with a nauseating crack as it flattened beneath the tonne of adamantium. The traitor legion of the World Eaters had perpetuated the heresy of Khorne on Agraterra and were still fighting with a bloodthirsty rage, despite their demonic masters being cast back into the warp by several imperial psykers, including the head librarian of the chapter. Francis turned onto another street, his heavy bolters and missile rack hunting for targets amongst the rubble.

A World Eater stood from where he had been hidden, crouched next to a fallen statue of an Imperial Saint. He charged at the trio, his chain axe growling for violence. Without a word the three opened up, heavy bolt shells careening into the power armour of the traitor marine, blowing off plates and his left pauldron. Still he charged, only twenty feet from the centurions now. Calmly, one of Brecht’s brothers launched a krak missile with pin-point accuracy, catching him squarely in the chest. The traitor stumbled to his knees while Francis approached him. His helmet had been partially blown off, showing a heavily disfigured face and a single hate-filled eye that glared at the sergeant. ‘This planet is ours’, the Khornate berserker murmured with an uncharacteristic calm.

Beneath his helmet, which always bore the same stern gaze, an eyebrow on Francis’ face twitched in surprise. His momentary hesitation allowed the berserker to take a swing at him with his axe, grating across the breastplate of the Centurion armour. He caught the axe in his armoured gauntlet and crushed it, along with traitor’s hand. No scream of pain escaped his lips, he simply stared up at his death, and the formerly ferocious snarl had been replaced by a devious grin, a horrific sight from a man with needles for teeth. ‘You have already lost slave to the corpse, soon we will have all that is required to end this petty kingdom, and bathe the universe in glorious chaos.’ The maniacal grin never changed as the space marine levelled his heavy bolter at the heretics face, ‘too bad you will not live to see it’. A single bolt round entered his skull, exploding once it made contact with his brain matter, spraying all manner of bodily fluids onto Brecht’s armour.

A slight grating of metal was heard behind the Fists and they quickly swivelled around, heavy bolter barrels point towards a piece of ceramite, the breastplate from another traitor marine. It toppled forward, exposing two children, a girl and a boy. The boy appeared to be unconscious but the girl whirled around, her face contorting in fear. She had long blonde locks and a dazzling half blue half green iris in her left eye, while the other was a dull brown. ‘Please, don’t hurt us, my brother needs help’. The Centurions dropped their heavy bolters to their sides and Francis lumbered off towards the children, the discarded breastplate rattling with every step. He bent down, turned off his vox-amplifier, and offered an outstretched hand towards the girl, ‘come child, we must get you two out of here, it isn’t safe’. The girl was still cautious, but she managed a pout and said, ‘well sure mister, it’s not like there’s a war going on’. Francis almost laughed at that, but the slight smile could not be seen beneath the eternally stern visage. She gestured to her brother and Francis gathered him up in the giant hands of the exo armour before popping the girl on his shoulder. ‘What is your name’, the sergeant asked.
‘It’s Annabelle, and my sleepy brother there is Orion. He hit his head on a rock when we were running from the bad men, the ones that look sorta like you but smaller, and with more spikes and yelling’. The girl had survived the chaos incursion remarkably well, given that most were driven to madness or killed during such an incursion from the warp. The boy appeared to be fine, albeit with a slight graze on his forehead. The bio-sensors incorporated into the omniscope had calculated the boy’s breathing and heart rate to be well within survivable norms. The party, bolstered by the two children began to clank away to base.

‘Sir, sensors detect major movement in the area, so far I count forty signals, all moving this way’. Brother Tiberius’ voice filled the comm. channels. As quickly as their cumbersome suits would allow they formed up into a wedge formation, each man covering each other’s back so as not allow an enemy to hit the rear mounted power-source. Francis set the children down behind them, where they could take cover behind some fallen rock-crete, ‘stay here and look after your brother, I will come for you when we are done’, the eyes of the child locked with the lenses of his helmet. She nodded, but as she was about to scamper off, she turned back, ‘I can fight the bad men. Please let me help you’. ‘You will be of more help here where you can take care of your brother, let us deal with this’. She swallowed and nodded again. ‘They appear to be moving in from the road ahead, we should gain visual at any moment’. The voice of Brother Tiberius was calm, this was just another day in the office for an Imperial Fist.

Heavy bolters were aimed and ready to fire, each centurion had both frag and krak missiles primed with firing solutions to bring down as many enemies at once. The first sight of the enemy they got was
not pleasant. Gore-soaked Khorne berserkers and chittering cultists came around a slight bend, catching sight of the exo-armoured space marines. ‘Fire’.


‘My Lord, must we really cling to the shadows as the loyalist filth kill our brothers. I know our mission is important but I thirst for blood, as does my axe.’ The lieutenant to Lord Gratborne the Blood Monger was buzzing with impatience. ‘How do we even know that Brother Froyd hasn’t already slaughtered his quarry?’
The powerful chaos lord, one of the chosen of Khorne did not dignify such impertinence with a response, but he did recognise his inferior’s bloodlust. ‘We have almost reached his locator beacon where he said the children would be found and yet he has not come to greet us, I think a hunt is in order’. The lieutenant said, some spittle from his disfigured mouth soiling the Terminator armour of his lord as he spoke. A fist wrapped around the unfortunate marines head and squeezed, pulping his skull and spraying grey matter all over Gratborne.
‘That is what will happen to any who continue to doubt my judgement’, he bellowed to his bodyguard as they turned to witness the gruesome spectacle of their leader holding the crushed head of his lieutenant. The cultists that had joined the band as they marched through the hive whimpered, not wishing to incur their lord’s wrath. ‘Now move forward with some haste maggots, we do not wish to keep Brother Froyd waiting’. The column resumed their previous march, coming around a slight bend only to see three Imperial Fist centurions ready and primed.

Heavy Bolts flew and frag missiles whistled as the combined barrage was unleashed upon the Khornate infantry. The frontline cultists were slaughtered within seconds and traitor marines were hurled about by the detonations of the frag missiles, but were mostly protected by their power armour. Francis could see a more heavily armoured figure moving towards the front of the pack as he continued to pour fire onto them. Several cultists had run into a nearby building and were currently shooting at the centurions from an upstairs window, auto-gun rounds harmlessly ricocheting of their thick pauldrons. The berserkers had begun firing their own bolt pistols as the squad, their mass-reactive shells doing slightly more damage as they hit some weapon servos, causing the third member, Aurelius to lose his aim for a moment. In this slight relent of the downpour the Khornates made their charge towards them, traitor marines bore their trademark chain axe and cultists with pistol and blade in hand. They uttered a bloodcurdling war cry, even as cultists were punched off their feet by the fist sized bolt rounds, and even the power armour of the marines being blown away by the shear amount of fire power. ‘Sergeant Brecht to base camp Alpha, we are in need of extraction. Civilian refugees are in tow and we have major traitor assault on our position’. Francis quickly spoke into the comms mic in his helmet. ‘Roger, sergeant. Stormraven Valour of Defiance on route to your location.’ He praised the emperor and H.Q. for the quick evac, however half the ranks of the Khorne worshippers were about to reach the centurions position. ‘Deploy Krak volley’. Francis felt the missile loaders within his armour switch warheads and fire, twin contrails of krak missiles followed shortly by four more hammered into several traitors, cutting through their armour and destroying both their hearts.

The charge hit home, several chain axes raking across the breastplate and pauldrons of the trio, the ferocity behind the charge forcing them a step back. The lord Francis had identified joined the battle, his sword digging deep into the left leg-plate of Tiberius, severing a servo causing him to stumble. Three more traitors dog piled onto him as he tried to regain his balance, sending him to the ground, at the mercy of the traitor’s weapons. Francis tried to shoot them off, but only killed two before the Chaos lord turned his attentions to him. Only now could Francis appreciated the size of the lord’s blade. A two-metre long great sword wreathed in a shimmering power field capable of eating through armour. The lord slowly approached him, even as berserkers where blown away by heavy bolters or had their arm’s torn off by the powerful arms of the centurion armour. The main swarm retreated slightly, rallying behind their leader. Francis glanced over at Tiberius, who was still trying to stand despite a broken servo. He got to his feet, but had to compensate the majority of the armour’s weight with the right leg. The lord moved first, a quick stride the precursor to an overhead slash that came down on the thick left pauldron of Francis’ armour, Francis lumbered sideways to deflect it and made a grab for the blade. Missing, he instead brought his heavy bolter in line with the lord’s helmet and fired, stunning Gratborne. His colleagues were being overwhelmed and both went down under a sea of Khornate worshippers, hearing they’re grunts and war-cries over the vox-net. He looked up and saw too late the lord thrusting for his breastplate, closed his eyes and braced to feeling the cutting pain that signalled the successful penetration of the armour he wore.

It never came, and after a couple moments he opened his eyes, the subtle glare in front of him blinding him for a second. An invisible wall had somehow prevented the lord from stabbing any further. The lord for his part was still pushing with all his might, albeit with a quizzical tilt from his helmet. Then the wall started to move, picking up all the Khornate warriors and pushing them swiftly down the street. The lord stood his ground the whole way, but he still ended up one hundred feet away with the rest of his men. Francis glanced behind him to see the girl with her hands in front of her, mimicking a pushing action. ‘She’s a psyker’, he thought, with no little amount of relief. He came out his daydream at the sound of twin jet engines sounding the arrival of a 4th company Stormraven. It zoomed past them and hit the regrouping traitors with a salvo of heavy bolts and Hellstorm missiles. The remaining Khornates retreated, vanishing into a small warp tear opened by their lord. The Stormraven slowed, and by vectoring its engines came into a hover above the group. Francis helped up his battle-weary comrades in their tonne of armour the Emperor for their safety. He then gathered up the children, Annabelle visibly exhausted from her use of magic. ‘Are we going to be safe now mister’? She whispered.

‘Yes’ He lied.