Crimson Fury

Chapter 1

This is dedicated to PiperAwesomeness for getting me involved in the first place.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

An armour-clad foot came crashing onto the armoury deck, joining the booted feet of menials and the whirring tracks and wheels of the servitors. Thick armoured fingers curled around the hilt of a huge chainsword, and mag-locked it to a waist joint. It was followed by a plasma pistol, a bolt pistol, and a consecrated boltgun. Lastly, another hand joined it to lift a jump pack over two huge crimson shoulder bells, and strap it on in place of a normal power pack.

“Sir!” came a small voice behind him. 8 feet of ceramite and muscle turned to stare down at the chapter serf.

“Yes, Gorrel.”

“Sir! I am afraid your training ritual will have to be postponed. You are needed on the planet’s surface. We have received a distress call, but we only have a window to launch one pod. We have already engaged the warp drives, and the Gellar field is already active – warp jump is imminent. The captain says head to pod XIV on the war deck. He will send the brief through to your helmet.”

“Understood” He replied, snatching his helmet from the wall as well a few grenades, all ceremony gone from his manner.

“The Emperor protects” The serf ended as Sergeant Cade Forran of the Blood Angels 8th company assault division pounded towards the grav-lifts. He pulled his helmet on as he ran, checking his suit seals and the time left before the cruiser made the jump to the warp. A notification light came on, and with a few blinks he opened the vox-net package;

+++BEGIN_VOX-NET_TRANSFER+++

Sergeant Forran, This is a priority 1 drop. Orks have a small group of guardsmen surrounded around an imperial manufactorum for imperator-class titans. This is the only imperial presence in the Herbaria system. The rest of the planet is completely covered in dense vegetation, and is near impassable. It is too late to stop the warp drive from dragging us into the warp, but as soon as we exit we will prepare to return and assist with the clean-up effort. The reports we have say that while the orks are numerous, they have no supplies and are faltering, hence the renewed offensive. We believe that one squad will be enough to deal with bolstering the defences and rallying the guard’s spirit. But be sure of everything, this manufactorum is vital to the supply line of Armageddon. If the orks destroyed it, or worse, got it working, it would be very costly to the war effort. Your squad is already waiting in the pod. Good Luck. The Emperor protects.

+++END_VOX-NET TRANSFER+++

Cade strode towards the pod after exiting the grav-lift, double checking his armour integrity and vox channel. He opened vox communications to the rest of his squad;

“Squad Forran, check in”

“Sir! Gavla armed and ready!”

“Sir! Hyte, Death to the greenskins!”

“Sir! Berde, For the Emperor!”

“Sir! Khyrech, For Sanguinius!”

Cade stepped under a stone archway, carved with skulls and draped with tattered parchments of consecration and supplications to the Omnissah and the Emperor. He turned and stepped backwards into the drop pod, the harness automatically dropping down and locking him in. devotees of the machine god paced around the room, offering up prayers and offerings in binary code. The harness locked down, secure, and the ramp began to rise, closing in the last marine.  The supplicants splashed oils and unguents on the pod, before exiting the launch bay to avoid decompression. Inside the pod, the squad felt a jolt as the clamps holding them in place disengaged, and then the pod fired.

A red streak shot out from the side of the barge, trailing flame and smoke, hurtling towards the planet’s surface. The barge trembled, and the engines fired, moving the huge cruiser towards an opening warp rift. The rift seemed to pull in the ship, eagerly devouring it, the edges seeming to turn itself inside out and then the rift was gone, the ship speeding through the warp towards Baal. Inside the pod, the space marines’ armour kept them free from the effects of inertia, giving them the ability to prep for combat.

“We’ll be performing an in-flight dis-embarkment, prepare for rapid ejection.” Sergeant Forran informed the squad. The entire pod shook and jolted, jarring the occupants.

“We’ve entered the atmosphere sir!” Khyrech reported.

“Prepare to blow hatches!”

“Manual Sync in 3, 2, 1 – sync!”

“Vox units set to internal”

 “For the Emperor and Sanguinius, Death! DEATH!” the five hatches around the circumference of the pod disengaged and localised charges blew them away from the pod. All five marines activated their jump packs and left the harness' embrace, shooting away from the pod, five red angels against a black sky. Streaks of fire and smoke trailed behind them on their descent to the ground, a conflagration of flame marking the pod’s impact on the ground. The marines shot through the air towards the downed pod, progressing in huge leaps of a few hundred metres at a time. The forest rushed past below them, the individual leaves and trunks blending into a dull carpet of indigo and green, in stark contrast to the flashes of gunfire directed towards them from the pod's landing site.