WARHAMMER 40K LORE: THE BADAB WAR Part 2

[Music] for the glory of the imperium [Music] the badabe war part two terror those of us given the onerous and dire responsibility mother inquisitor and the service of the god emperor of mankind flatter ourselves that we understand terror we face it daily both in the nightmarish enemies we must confront and in the weight of knowledge that hangs heavy on our hearts we use it to our own ends shaping it in the minds of others as a potter might shake clay but in our familiarity with terror we can lose sight of its universal truth that it is perhaps above all the greatest constant in human experience perhaps in the experience of all that lives savage warlike and murderous things stalk the stars of our uncaring cosmos and mankind is one of them we are terror incarnate to the alien and the mutant and the greatest fears of our enemies are reserved for that great and pure distillation of human wrath the space marines how great then is the tragedy and dread when we must turn them on our own the following documentation further as my previous dispatch concerning a true and as far as can be ascertained accurate pressy of the badab war which recently so ravaged the maelstrom zone and whose dire consequences and ramifications are still yet unfolding it contains troops importance forbidden to wider dissemination and beyond the purview of the other adapter and incorporates law about those space marine chapters closely involved in the latter part of the badab war their natures and actions during the conflict as well as technical specifications of their war gear and arts of battle this document details the latter darker stages of the conflict which came after the wider secession had been successfully suppressed but the task of prizing the black-hearted luft huron self-proclaimed tyrant of badab from his stronghold had not yet been undertaken there also remained renegade forces abroad and unpunished in the maelstrom zone but these were no mere heretics or mutant rabble they were space marines and bringing them to judgment would be no simple task even for others of their own kind what was to follow was to be an almost unimaginably brutal and savage conflict worse yet than had gone before and it would see unleash the darkest fury of the angels of death terrible to behold compiled under my seal talos in carmidus inquisitor ordinate ordo hereticus chapter 5 the wrath of the imperium at the close of 909 m41 the badab war had raged for six years what had begun as an attempt by huron the self-proclaimed tyrant of badab notionally to assert the independence of his chapter and his allies from the central authorities of the segmentum had revealed treachery and heresy at the heart of the astral clause chapter and turned into the brutal persecution of a renegade faction by the full weight of the imperium's might the badab secessionist movement had comprised four space marine chapters the astral claws under lufthuron the lamenters and mantis warriors who had formed the maelstrom water force assigned to the area as well as the executioner's chapter who had come to the astral clause aid in payment of an ancient blood debt aiding these space marine forces were a far more numerous albeit less able force known as the tyrants legion which comprised a human auxiliary force directly under the control of the astral claws this was used to garrison and defend their realms under the harshest and most fearsome regime of bloody discipline in order to defeat this extremely powerful enemy the imperium under the direction of the inquisitorial leagues had assembled a mighty force of its own comprising elements of no fewer than 12 loyalist space marine chapters assisted by inquisitorial forces and elements of battle fleet solar overriding tactical and strategic command of the loyalist forces was in the hands of the newly anointed chapter master of the red scorpions carib kulin as majester militant wore first among equals who had proved himself as an able and sophisticated commander whose strategy had seen many of the secessionist gains reversed although not without a great cost in blood and material six-year course of the war thus far had been both unpredictable and brutal rather than a grinding conflict of constant attrition it had been fought in fits and starts on schools of different worlds and war zones and had been a conflict subject to sudden reversals and lightning campaigns to topple one world or another in favor of either the loyalists or secessionist cause the initial conquests and gains of the secessionist chapters had forged for them in effect a pocket empire in the maelstrom zone but thanks to a series of victories by the loyalist forces by 909 m41 the secessionist domains had been fractured and divided robbing them of the strategic initiative and placing them on the back foot a further crashing defeat was inflicted on the secessionist cause in 888 908 m41 when the fleet-based lamentus chapter was effectively destroyed in a savage ship-to-ship battle at octuria by the loyalist minotaur's chapter all but a handful of the chapters forces were either slain or captured in the process after this the maelstrom secession was largely contained however the loyalist commanders were under no illusion that the war itself was over and fighting sporadically continued from the borders of the endomen cluster where elements of the fire angels and the sons of medusa fought to contain the mantis warriors to the edges of their karmaran drift and the pale stars where the reeving ships of the executionist chapter still struck almost at will giving battle against the red scorpions and minotaurs chapters burying loyalist shipping and stymieing attempts to consolidate loyalist gains many accurately judged that what remained would be an even more brutal phase of operations than any seen before in the conflict a time of ruthless planetary purges scorched earth campaigns and apocalyptic sieges the loyalists needed time to prepare for such a campaign and fresh reinforcements if a victory was to be swiftly achieved but lord commander kareb cullen and his advisors knew they could not afford to wait too long before they went on the offensive for every day gave the secessionists further opportunity to entrench and perhaps make good their own losses colin knew he simply could not afford to allow a general of huron's caliber too long to rebuild plan and prepare the cusp of the year 910 m41 proved to be a final deathly calm before the oncoming storm which would see the badab war reach its terrible conclusion on the loyalist side many of the chapters that had fought the imperium's cause had suffered substantial losses and now would be replaced in the order of battle by other space marine chapters of yet darker renown the maelstrom zone would be visited by slaughter unlike anything it had known even in its long and troubled history the face of the enemy by the later stages of the badab war the position of the secessionists was grave they had suffered numerous defeats in the preceding half decade that had shorn them of much of their former strength of the four space running chapters that huron had taken with him into rebellion none had escaped unscathed most woeful of these losses had been sustained by the fleet-based lamenters chapter which having borne the brunt of the ship to ship fighting in the early stages of the war have been brought to full-scale battle against the powerful loyalist minotaurs chapter and effectively destroyed as a fighting force although at a great cost to the minotaurs as well the mantis warriors had also suffered greatly their strength bled away by continuous battle against numerically superior foes despite important victories in their favor they had been reduced to perhaps less than half their original fighting strength and were now hemmed in and dispersed across their ancient domains in the endemium cluster and effectively cut off from the rest of the secessionists crucially they were lacking in heavy warships to enable them to attempt a breakout of any kind as the astral clause thanks to the heretical policies of the tyrant of badap had grown far beyond the dictates of the codex both prior to and during the outbreak of the conflict this was a factor which had alone enabled them to weather the storm of the war and sustain casualties of a degree that would have seen a normal space marine chapter wiped out but even the augmented astral claws could not sustain such losses indefinitely and those space marines that were left to them were now a mixture of bloody handed veterans and relatively untried neophytes raised up to battle having known only huron's war of the secessionist forces the seemingly least reduced were those of the executioner's chapter strangers to the maelstrom zone the executioners had come to the aid of the tyrant's cause not through alliance war fellowship of belief but in payment of an ancient blood debt and did so on their own terms much to the tyrants increasing frustration operating as an elusive reading force that struck at the loyalists lines the length and breadth of the maelstrom zone the execution has remained a persistent thorn in the side of the loyalists and a force perhaps able to turn the tide of the war yet seemingly unwilling to do more than give battle against targets of their own choosing seeking glory and battle rather than fulfilling the tyrants strategic goals the subjugation of galen 4017 910 m41 as is often the case in great wars unexpected battles can spring up and blaze fiercely in often unexpected places and in the early days of 910 m41 one such battle occurred on the overburdened colony world of galen six for six years the isolated galen system had been a prize that had been battled over repeatedly and changed hands between loyalist and secessionist forces several times most significantly the galen system had been the site of a major battle between the fire hawks chapter and a mixed secessionist assault force which had incurred heavy losses on both sides a battle which had seen galen two's life-supporting domes laid waste leading to mass refugee immigration to its neighbor the hard scrabble world of galen six the loyalist forces moved to retake galen's system from the secessionist forces kulen's orders were direct and explicit the galen system was to be brought as swiftly as possible back under imperial control and any hope of future resistance crashed utterly the only caveats to the order were that the planet was to remain habitable and a sufficient core of the population and infrastructure was to be left alive and intact to service the needs of the imperial war effort reasonable the sons of medusa calculated their pattern of attack accordingly and drew their plans to retake the world under the direction of their iron seine and theater commander valund khal on arrival in orbit they targeted and bombarded pre-chosen landing zones on the outskirts of the old city the capital city of galen rendering them little more than craters and smoking rubble into these ravaged zones the space marines made free company strength landing assaults on the edge of galen six's old city encircling it and destroying any immediate resistance on landing with almost cursory ease for free days and nights the sons of medusa remained within the shattered craters landing supplies and troops and fabricating new fortifications and bastions which rose up from the dust and smoke like jagged teeth sliding from a predator's jaw within the old city all had seen and heard the fury of the bombardment from the heavens that had so strangely spared the city in the fiery trails of landing craft and many could guess at just what they portended whispers spread through paramilitary death squads and huddled survivors alike of the dust shrouded hammerings and the crackling actinic flashes of power arcs within the crater's depths and of the vast searchlights sweeping the city around them with death delivered by emerald armored specters to any who strayed too close on the dawning of the fourth day an unnatural and near-total silence had fallen over the old city pregnant with dread with what was to come such fear was a calculated weapon in the hands of the sons of medusa and they did not disappoint the expectations of terror they had created armoured columns of rhino and razorback transports thundering land raiders and the hulking figures of dreadnoughts stalked out of the shrouding dust clouds while the droning shadows of land speeders took to the skies like flocks of carrion crows above alongside the green livery of the sons of medusa vehicles was dotted the crimson of the inquisition and from their chimeras and repressors loud hailers they demanded the immediate surrender of all of galen six's population for immediate judgment those that had taken up arms knew that for them there would be little mercy shown some held themselves suicidally at the embodiment of the emperor's wrath only to be ruthlessly destroyed by the sons of medusa in open battle while others cowered in hastily prepared defensive positions or sought to hide or flee the city those that tried to escape were slaughtered the old city's borders cut down by patrolling land speeders and vulture gunships as they try to break out across the open ground to the perceived safety of the dust barons soon the roadways of the old city were choked with the burnt out wrecks of ground cars and huddled piles of sprawled and torn bodies within the city those that offered serious resistance were first isolated and then destroyed barricaded hab blocks and manufacturer offering little protection from the merciless skill and power of the space marines entire city towers toppled their lower floors blasted out by concentrated fire from demolish a cannon and melter strikes burying their defenders and those unfortunates caught with them in the rubble while wildfires ravaged the ruins only the shattered and abject were spared or but ignored by the giants that stalked the dust fog the wretched civilians waited for death to reach out for them but the sons of medusa stayed their hands as they had been ordered many were reported to have wept openly in joy to be taken up by the inquisition's foot soldiers for processing and judgment the x-stand picked captures from the aftermath it showed line upon line of grey street hollowed-eyed men and women passively awaiting their fate in the holy ordos assai's bastions awaiting them in the imperial landing zones within 56 hours of the commencement of the sons of medusa attack the old city was firmly in the hands of the imperium and just as they had planned news of the massacre had spread across galen six and a shroud of terror now tightened around the planet first hundreds and thousands and then soon in millions the people of galen six native and refugee alike surrendered even though many face death in doing so rather than live in fear of what was to come soon the entirety of the old city ruins were repurposed and rebuilt there's an internment and processing center to handle gail and six's population overall the galen campaign was considered to be an an alloyed success and although much of the population of the old city had been slain the total death toll was light compared to that which would have been the result of a lengthy planet-wide campaign of attrition while the worst recidivists and heretical elements who had sided with the secessionist cause or outright being simply worshipers of the dark gods found on the planet were delivered to the pyre the ordo hereticus was merciful and indentured the majority of the planet's population into a lifetime of penal servitude to pay for their crimes and transgressions as a result a number of fresh penal legions were raised for the department of munitorum from the most hardened elements on the world while the rest were set to work either toiling and galen six itself were deported to aid the rebuilding efforts elsewhere in the maelstrom zone the sons of medusa soon departed galen six leaving it a prison world whose people would pay for their crimes against the imperium for generations to come blood in the dark waters three three two seven nine one o m four one quite unexpectedly a single fire blackened space marine strike crews air bearing unknown livery and transmitting a previously unknown vox identity cipher exited the warp on the outer reaches of the signak system in 910 m41 it was the levitas vex and its coming was to herald the arrival of a force whose name was to become synonymous with the bloodshed and darkest acts of the badab war the vessel making contact with imperial ships set to monitor the signak system identified itself with ancients although still valid imperial authorization protocols it announced the arrival of a space marine force come to offer their swords to the loyalist cause against the heretics claiming to have come in answer to a summons from holy terror itself they identified their chapter as that of the carcaradon astra using the ancient form or space sharks to give their name a more modern rendition in low gothic and formally requested their acceptance and permission to enter the war zone and draw blood after a fearful standoff the naval ship sent communications back to the loyalists center command and upon confirmation the vessel was but the forerunner of an entire fleet of vessels now traversing the edge of the golgothan wastes a formal deputation was dispatched to meet with the head of this war fleet under the direct command of league inquisitor john dace frain himself to ascertain its true intentions frane's personal involvement has led some observers to believe that he had some inkling of just who and what he was dealing with all along others have pointed out that frayne himself had learned to distrust the honor-bound nature of the space marines in such matters after the treachery that had led to the death of varent ortiz the prior master of the red scorpions during a parlay with euron some years before an event the loyalists could not afford to see repeated frane's delegation which contained his ableist servants and savants of the adeptus astartes law along with a lifeguard chosen from the fire angels chapter and several powerful imperial naval vessels met with the oncoming carcardon's fleet at the dead star of null 17 in the interstellar void beyond signaks the precise details of this conference have long remained secret known only to those who were with inquisitor frail as he boarded the carcaradon's flagship the nikkor but it is known that after some tense negotiations and direct inquiries some conducted under the auspices of the sanctioned truth says that inquisitor frane accepted the carcardon's alliance in prosecution of the war what little can be gleaned of this shadowed space marine chapter paints them as having a strange and ancient provenance and much about them seems steeped in archaic ways and secrets best left undisturbed the chapter's ceaseless and perpetual crusade against the enemies of mankind they claimed had taken them away from the settled and established areas of the imperium for centuries perhaps millennia at a time the chapter's existence had long since fallen from the pages of recorded history and only traces of them remained in the apocryphal sources clouded with legend and allegory the carcardon's reappearance as if predators drawn by blood when the badap war was to enter its most deadly stage seemed too many a suspect one at best from the beginning lord commander kulin was weary of these new recruits to the loyalist forces particularly given the independent reports of the fire angels who had accompanied frane as limited as they were which painted the carcardons as barbarous and apparent with little to commend them as even resembling the dictates of the codex astartes frane's ligatine authority was not to be questioned however and in truth the loyalists were in need of just such reinforcement if they were to press the attack in a timely fashion after some deliberation cullen dispatched the carcardons to the ongoing campaign against the secessionists and renegade worlds of the endemian cluster in order to prove their worth the tranquility campaign free free 60910 m41 the bad boy had placed the mantis warriors chapter in an invidious position by the year 910 m41 as one of the maelstrom water chapters they had directly and unquestioningly allied themselves with huron and his astral claws at the outset of the secession being both true to their bonds of blood and alliance with their fellow waters and incensed with what they saw as the administration's wanton breach of authority and protocol over the political matters of the earlier badab schism however as the war progressed it appears they began to harbor grave doubts about the tyrants motives and the increasingly dark practices of the astral clause chapter particularly after the mysterious death of their own chapter master sartak during the notorious incident that became known as the betrayal of grief by this time however the die had been cast and the mantis warriors had been responsible for spilling the blood of a great many loyalist space marines and indeed we're held responsible for the first armed conflict between space marines in the war increasingly worn down by casualties and losses in warships and also increasingly distrustful of their former close allies the mantis warriors by 908 m41 found themselves largely isolated within the familiar battlegrounds of the stars and worlds of the endemian cluster a region of space they had long taken as their domain to defend using their great familiarity with these star systems and worlds the endemic loyalty of their peoples to their ancient protectors and the long-standing series of hidden bastions they maintained here the mantis warriors had successfully fallen back into a seemingly unassailable position here the chapter played to its greatest strengths and expertise fighting guerrilla campaigns against numerically superior foes and frequently employing hit-and-run tactics raids and ambushes such was their power and skill here that they successfully fended off stormtrooper regiments backed by detachments from both the fire angels and sons of medusa sent to hound them out in a series of protracted actions and engagements which became known as the tranquility campaign after the tranquility system where its most frequent and costly battles were fought it was at this time that the figure of arizona radith the chief librarian of the mantis warriors and known to his chapter as the dust prophet rose to prominence effectively becoming chapter master of the mantis warriors until the end of the war guided by the uncanny foresight and cunning leadership of radith the mantis warriors became an ever greater force to be reckoned with determined and ruthless in defense of their honor and the worlds they were sworn to protect the strength of the remaining mantis warriors although considerably weaker from its height at the start of the war by ongoing attrition was such that karab kulin recognized the folly of leaving them undefeated at his flank as the loyalists turned their full force to the invasion of the badab sector particularly as on his other flank the executionist chapter also remained a significant threat the magistar militant had already been considering a change in his deployments in order to mount a renewed offensive against the endemium cluster but with the arrival of the carcardons carab cullen was offered an unexpected asset to deploy and he let loose their savage tied against the mantis warriors in the worlds of their domain the sigard system was the first to taste the wrath and fury of the grey clad space marines and the carcaradon fleet broke out of warp directly above the system on the galactic plane perilously close to sigard's swollen and violent sun using its solar flares as a shield the fleet split up its dozens of striking forces and devastated the numerous belt colonies ship clans and asteroid citadels of the cigar system destroying in mere days and weeks what had taken millennia to build and had withstood the ravages of alien and renegade alike an imperial navy scout vessel the resplendent martyr which swept sigard in the aftermath of the attack reported the entire system littered with wreckage and discordant with the ghostly vox signals of dead and dying ships it also noted that along with the wholesale destruction much had been deliberately plundered and scavenged both in terms of gear resources and indeed human life it has been the conclusion of several authorities since the choice of sigard with its wealth of void colonies and infrastructure had been the carcaradon's first target not simply because it had long connections with the mantis warriors but because after the carcaradon's unknown voyage from the outer darkness they had need of its bounty to replenish themselves in readiness for their part in the war the verdant world of iblis was to be the carcaradon's next target already the giant feudal world had been the site of a great battle between the fire hawks and the encircling secessionists in the war's early stages leaving much of its equatorial veldt a scorched wasteland iblis had repeatedly sided with the mantis warriors in the secession and its petty kings still offered the chapter aid and support despite having suffered punitive raids the carcadons descended on the feudal world and systematically smashed its infrastructure and put its rulers to the sword attacking the planet's scattered settlements and nomadic crawler caravans by night and leaving nothing but bloody wreckage the mantis warriors were swift to respond attempting to distract and divert the carcadons with raids of their own against loyalist targets and split up their attacking fleets by feigned flights and bruises but to no avail the carcadidons would not be stayed and after they had smashed iblis into a disjointed wasteland inhabited only by scattered bands of shell shock survivors the fleet moved on this time their target was the blighted industrial world of endemium prime itself where a small fire angels force was already holding command of the decrepit fog shrouded manufacturer complexes against mantis warrior-led insurgents without recourse to the fire angels dispositions the carcardons assaulted from the skies into the contested sprawl hundreds of drop pods hammering down into the soot caked shanties amid a great slaughter endemian was quickly overrun by a confused planet-wide battle which shattered the insurgency and set great slaves of industrial sprawl of blaze and flooded other areas with millions of liters of poisonous chemical waste from sundered containment vessels the honorable mantis warriors could not abandon the world to its fate and had no choice but to respond coming to endemian's aid with increasing numbers of their chapters battle brothers in an attempt to curb the savagery of the carcaradon's assault the mantis warriors matched the carcaradon's callous slaughter with their own fierce martial skill enlightening hit and run attacks and murderous ambushes but they were too few and could not turn the tide of the assault they would not retreat however even after radith forbade further attempts at reinforcement but those court fought on and died in defense of their ancient pact with the people of endermeon just as the plan that league frane had concocted with the carcardon's leader tiberus had predicted they would the pattern was repeated on the minor worlds of sistal and lagato and then the twin worlds of the tranquility system itself here attacks smashed each world's infrastructure in turn leaving desperate survivors alive to suffer on in the wake of their punishment again and again the mantis warriors were brought to battle and each time although they saw some victories against the onslaught and inflicted casualties of their own each time fewer of them returned to fight again by the end of 910 m41 the stricken cluster's resistance was crushed and the mantis warriors now worn down and scattered had ceased to exist as an effective fighting force but at a great price starvation disease and lingering death were now the only masters of a dozen inhabited worlds and millions were left unburied to rot beneath the sightless stars in the aftermath of the tranquility campaign the fire angels chapter having in prior battles earned for themselves the highest honour in the badab war and suffered heavy casualties sought permission to withdraw from the conflict this unusual act was in no small part owing to the increasing anger of the fire angels against the carcardons with whom they had repeatedly been at odds during the tranquility campaign and whose methods they held in utter contempt rather than risk the growing enmity between two loyalist chapters sparking into full-scale civil conflict blood having already been shed between them in sporadic skirmishes the fire angels departed with honor to their home world to rebuild their sorely damaged chapter with the end of me and cluster no longer a threat to the loyalists flanks the carcaradons redeployed splitting their fleets to patrol the loyalist rear echelons and relieve the minotaurs and red scorpions to consolidate ahead of the expected invasion of the badab sector unfortunately for the people of the endemine cluster the carcarodons would yet return in later years to visit a further calamity on its doomed worlds chapter 6 the tyrant stands alone an increase in corsair activity along the eastern maelstrom zone in mid 910 m41 had led to the belief among those in the loyalist high command that at least one astral clause task force had slipped out of the badab sector itself and was now operating from the edges of the maelstrom proper concerned that this could be the start of a new battlefront opening on their flank imperial navy escort search and destroy squadrons were dispatched to the area to hunt for evidence of enemy operations and quell the attacks traversing even the edges of the maelstrom was a dangerous business and the squadron suffered high rates of crew casualties to madness and storms even without contacting the enemy on the frontier world of rook one of the few worlds of the maelstrom whose puritanical population of ablationist zealots could be relied upon to willingly aid imperial agents they found their evidence here they heard testimony of increased slave raids of nearby systems and attacks by human corsair ships led by an astral clause strike cruiser they identified as the ikania this pattern of attacks was tracked by the squadron's lead navigator the infamous and legendarily skilled owner nostromo by their echo in the warp to the riven star system of lampton and its twin feral worlds of chaplias and scarfell thus having divined that a strong enemy force was massing at lambton the imperial squadron now badly in need of refit and resupply returned to seek reinforcements elsewhere in the war the loyalists and secessionists said once more entered into a period of increased armed engagement in the northern maelstrom zone the cockeredness were enacting the final stages of the tranquility campaign while in the southern zone the minotaurs and sons of medusa backed by imperial guard penal regiments were assaulting isin on the edge of the badab sector itself where the tenacious defense was underway by the tyrants legion during this period lord commander cullen was then marshaling his own red scorpions and the newly reinforced exorcist chapter contingent at sagan in preparation for an assault on the strategic warp terminus of peres a target considered by many to be the gateway to the badab sector overall the loyalist forces had suffered considerable losses since the start of the war and the contingents of many of the space marine chapters which had previously fought for the loyalist course had now departed some such as the howling griffins and marines errants had withdrawn owing to the casualties they had suffered while others such as the nova marines and most recently the fire angels had departed for reasons of their own in short the loyalist forces were stretched thin despite the fresher space marine companies that had recently arrived and lord commander karab kulin could not afford to be drawn into fighting on an increasing number of fronts to be bled dry slowly by attrition as no doubt was the tyrant's plan taking council with his commanders it was the old and famed warrior palace mishan leader of the salamanders space marine contingent who offered a solution to the events on lambton he offered to lead his own forces now a little under a company in strength but very well equipped in armor and weapons in a lightning strike against lampton relying on the element of surprise the arcane skills of owner nostromo to position their attack and the power of their potent battle barge pile of glory to deal a crippling blow to the enemy cullen saw both the inherent risks as well as the potential rewards of this plan and was further moved in its favor when somewhat unexpectedly the grim and taciturn chaplin ivanus in comey who represented the often aloof and secretive minotaurs chapter in the war council offered to take his personal guard and such forces he could master in aid of the mission so approved missions strike force named the gift of fire was further augmented by a pair of imperial navy light cruisers in a frigate squadron this force was dispatched immediately from sagan on the long voyage to the murderous and turbulent vortex of the maelstrom itself and the lampton system there to meet the foe in battle entering real space in the inner sphere of the erratic binary star system of lambton with its serpent-like plume of burning gas coiling between the two suns the loyalists fears were soon realized clearly visible above the feral world of chiprayas a ragged armada of star vessels scours and wrecks had been assembled from scavenged hulks and pirated freighters while all specs scans and augury probes revealed that on the planet below vast camps and training grounds had been raised up beneath the shadow of iron-sided bastion towers and ringed with kilometers of blade wire here on chakras a new army was being formed from brutal and tainted tribal warriors enslaved to the tyrant's cause and was in the process of being tempered into a spear to be held at the loyalists from an unexpected quarter a disposable weapon to kill and be killed at huron's will given the presence of only a few corsair escorts and raiderships in orbit which were quickly scattered by their attack mission deduced that the bulk of the enemy warships were away on some mission of plunder and there would be no better time to strike this swiftly configured attack plan was a bold and resolute one the salamanders and minotaurs would make immediate planet fall to attack the secessionist bastions and training camps while after conducting orbital insertion their ships and naval escorts would sweep immediately out again and set about destroying the armada of would-be troop transports as swiftly and thoroughly as possible thus removing both factors of threat the drop pods and thunderhawks of the two chapters roared down through chaprias's cold crimson skies accompanied by the bombardment from the pyre of glory's macro cannon against what was deemed to be the most heavily entrenched targets once in the atmosphere the two chapters divided to their chosen killing grounds the minotaurs attacked the iron shod bastions where the dark architects of this domain were likely concealed while the bulk of the salamanders forces descended on the heart of the city-sized training camps the secondary force composed of a chosen wing of cester's patent assault rams carrying aboard them a force of salamander fire drake terminators the greatest warriors of their esteemed chapter took on the task of attacking the secessionist landing grounds on their first pass the armored prows and magma melters of the sisters savage the enemy transport craft caught on the ground sundering and burning through their hulls rupturing their fuel tanks the flames soared hundreds of meters into the air in incandescent storms phosphor white against the red skies the fire drakes assaulting from their craft into the billowing black paws of smoke turned confusion and destruction into a massacre their storm bolters and cyclo missile launchers sweeping the panicked foe away before any resistance could be organized elsewhere the main salamanders force led by captain mercen had descended into the heart of the enemy deploying their troops and armor into a defensive ring at the center of the training camps utterly surrounded the salamanders force and under a hundred space marines was outnumbered more than a thousand to one by the horde of savages and mutants the brutal inhabitants of a dozen nearby worlds that rose up before them for any other warriors the position would have been a suicidal one but these were the psions of vulcan and they cared little for such odds staggered by the sudden fury and shock of the assault the great horde all but leaderless and without fort was slow to react and by the time they pressed the attack the savage mass was met by a wall of firepower and thousands fell within the opening minutes of the battle as whirlwind launchers destructor patent predator tanks and the ordered ranks of the salamander space marines let fire at almost point-blank range into a solid mass of flesh and bone killing hundreds the enemy faltered immediately their jagged blades and auto guns a poor answer to the output of the armories of prometheus what few heavier weapons the enemy brought to bear were quickly marked and destroyed by concentrated fire as the broken ground of the training fields was steadily covered with mounds of twitching bodies the horde shying away from the bloodshed only rallied when their task masters took to the field behind them the blood-stained and steel-coloured power armor of astral claws retaliators squads amid the dirty cloth and pale skins of the horde clearly visible to the heightened senses of the salamanders as they kept up their relentless tide of fire as the salamanders marked their true foe amid the carnage missan sprung the second phase of his assault plan into action and free land raiders of the rare and prized achilles patton spearheaded a counter-assault aimed directly at the astral claws contingent the tanks thunder fire cannon blasted a sway through the ranks of the horde and their multimelters lashed into the pack masses of bodies turning scores of savage fighters into screaming explosions of blood and steam with each blast the land raiders thrice blessed hulls shrugged off the last cannon beams and shrieking missiles the astral claws sought to stop them with and plowed a corpse paved path clear through to the center of the astral claws force this achieved the inviolate trio of land raiders swung aside as the fury of the ancients was unleashed six dreadnoughts led by briarth ash mantle known darkly in the chronicles of his chapters the iron dragon stormed into the waiting astral claws like a thunderbolt smashing them asunder and drenching them with purifying flame overmatched and overwhelmed the astral claws did not yield lightly but were slain in glorious combat failing two of the salamanders ancients as the last astral claws died the name of the tyrant was howled with their centurion's dying breath as the iron dragon tore him in half and cast his carcass to the winds with their master slaughtered the horde panicked and broke the tens of thousands that remained alive fleeing in a mindless stampede away from the lords of fire and death at their back crashing and killing more of their own number in the route at the bastion line the minotaurs met with firmer resistance the defense had been built into a range of bastled crags with the astro claws typical diligence and skill and the iron shard towers were studied with heavy cabalter and battle cannon emplacements that covered every inch of ground with interlocking kill zones while quad guns and icarus last cannons guarded the skies above them the minotaur's assault began with low level attack runs by thunder hawk gunships which skim the jagged terrain to focus their firepower on a carefully selected point in the bastion line punching a gap in the firing lines and disgorging assault terminators and devastator squads directly into the smoking wreckage braving the storm of fire the rest of the company's strong minotaur's force deployed directly behind this break point which suffered the brunt of the enemy counter-attack the minotaur's vanguard held the ruined bastion with disciplined furosety not giving an inch of ground to the oncoming secessionist despite heavy casualties the bronzed armored minotaurs clashed in brutal close combat with the astral claws retaliators who advanced undercover of their combat shields through a hail of baltifire to try to retake the sundered fortifications only to be hurled back time and again from the mount of twisted metal and shattered rock creek although in numbers the attacking minotaurs and the defending astral claws at the bastion line were roughly equal the astral claws were well dug in well armed and led and lacked nothing for bravery and fighting spirit the minotaurs however were masters of siegecraft and this blood-soaked close quarter hell was exactly the kind of battlefield in which they reveled with the astral clause counter-attack pinned in place at the shattered bastion the formed up minotaur's second attack line led by an armored spearhead of land raiders and siege dreadnoughts opened up a parallel assault against the next bastion in the chain chaplin in comey personally commanding the jump pack equipped vanguard veterans in storming the second enemy bastion and slaying all within his vox amplified battle cries echoing louder even than the roar of the guns cut off and encircle the astral claw sally force was swiftly isolated and destroyed in detail as the minotaurs began advancing one half of their force to take the next bastion in the line while the other consolidated the previous prize and rearmed in preparation for the next sequential assault the progress was slow and bloody and the astral clause made them pay a price and dead for every fortification the mentors took but the secessionists marshall fury could not stem the loyalist advance and one by one the bastions fell and victory was claimed by the minotaurs deep beneath the smashed fortifications the minotaurs and salamanders soon discovered what secrets they were built to defend a vast natural cavern system housing hero tech laboratories these had been manufacturing combat drugs in vast quantities and attempting primitive gene tampering and experimental surgery on the feral warriors of chapris along with the hundreds of imperial prisoners taken in raids across the eastern maelstrom zone at the lowest levels guarded by a cadre of the hated corpse taker apothecaries of the tyrants legion and their servitors was an armored vault within which was a store of space marine jean seed in parts stolen from loyalists fallen in battle while the battle had raged below the conflict in orbit had also gone in the loyalist favor but not without cost while the makeshift armada had been blasted to scrap and burning debris concealed weapons platforms set to guard the fleet had inflicted damage to the pyre of glory and gutted the sword-class frigate epona which had to be abandoned as a burning hulk less than 11 standard days after the battle was first joined gift of fire departed the lambton system to undertake the perilous voyage back to loyalist held space with over a thousand freed prisoners carried in the holes of its naval light cruisers and the priceless recovered gene seed held in its inner sanctum of the pyre of glory itself gift of fire had claimed a great victory for the loyalists and uncovered and thwarted a dark machination of the tyrants that if left to hatch out could have had dire consequences for the imperium little did any in the loyalist high command suspect however that the attack at lambton would have direct immediate and unforeseen consequences that would unexpectedly alter the cause of the ba dab war the red hour 6270-9114 the gift task force fresh from its victory in the lampton system was unexpectedly struck by a powerful warp squall and scattered on route back to imperial controlled space utter calamity was averted by the skill of their lead navigator nostromo and only a single frigate was lost into the seething in pyrion while the salamanders battle barge pire of glory and the light cruiser admiral gregorius were turned back into the maelstrom riding ahead of the storm front and forced to forward into real space and the relative stability of the callar shawls within the maelstrom's boundary with their gellerfields on the point of collapse and their drives failing the two loyalist vessels limped into the outer orbit of keller's boundaries to repair and refit their arrival at color had not gone unnoticed however and a human raiders ship that had been trading with the scattered orc layers that infested the inner system departed unseen and carried news of their presence to the secessionists the astral clause strike cruiser icarnia was still in the region having found its home base on chapras destroyed and its master the astral claws arch centurion karnak kamodus craved vengeance and a chance to ameliorate his failings in his lord's eyes alone however commodus's single strike cruiser had little chance of taking on the wounded loyalists with success and so he desperately sought assistance in taking on the enemy while they were still isolated his encrypted astropathic message found an unexpected ally in the featon's wrath flagship battle barge of the executioner's chapter and her accompanying gladius-class frigate escorts which had been taking in supplies at the uninhabited ocean world of deluge on the edge of the magog cluster the combined battle group attacked as the loyalist vessels moved towards the warp transfer point at keller to embark again on their troubled voyage their repairs at last completed the battle was swift and hard fought with the admiral gregorius blasted to atoms in the opening salvo of the secessionist's guns although the pyre of glory quickly proved to be far less easy prey repelling the first boarding assaults against her and destroying two of the attacking frigates heavy fire from the futon's raf managed to entirely disable the salamanders battle barges thrusters after a three-hour long running battle leaving it dead in space with the power of glory disabled salsa kane master of the executioner's vox signaled the salamanders vessel and offered them the chance for honorable surrender vouchsafing passage for them from the war zone under oath not to take up arms again in the conflict palace mission commanding the salamanders force conceded to his demands despite the misgivings of some of those under his command knowing that otherwise his force would be destroyed without any ability to strike back at their foe palace michonne was a wise and highly experienced veteran commander and knew that the vainglorious sacrifice of his force would achieve nothing other than to benefit the imperium's enemies having himself fought alongside the executionist chapter centuries before as a scout neophyte he trusted to their oath of offered surety both the fetans raf and icarnia drew alongside the battered pyre of glory and docked thousand personally leading the executioner's boarding party and accepting messiah's sword in surrender as the salamanders stood down their arms it was then elsewhere within the great ship the unthinkable occurred arch centurion commodus had led his own boarding party to seize the power of glory's armories and thanks to the conditions of surrender had been all but unopposed heedless of the consequences commodus sought to breach the ship's sanctum vaults in search of the prize in jean seed he hoped to find there not only that which with the salamanders had recovered from the caverns of chaprius but the sons of nocturne's own recovered stock from the fatalities they had suffered during the war when the salamanders apothecaries resisted the snarling commodus cut them down the arch centurion's vengeful fury unleashed immediately he ordered the massacre of the salamanders they had taken prisoner commanding his corpse takers to strip them of their gene seed whether alive or dead and pitch battle broke out across the decks as reports reached the bridge chamber of what was happening thoughts arcane was incensed to a murderous rage misson seeing this wisely divine that the executioners may not have full knowledge of the enormities of heresy and blasphemy the astral clause had come to embrace perhaps having been deliberately deceived by the tyrant controlling his own outrage misson poured deliberate scorn on the executioner's leader both for this breach of his word and the dishonor of standing by and allowing the tyrant's sins to go and challenge with reports of his executioner's own eyes giving the gravity of truth to messiah's claims kane's wrath was terrible to behold he declared that the blood earth binding his chapter to huron's cause had been violated and the dark stain of infamy the astral clause had brought upon them could only be washed clean by a river of blood though salamander's battle brothers that survived what was to come have since given witness that oblique madness came over the executioners of cain's pronouncement and that they tore into the astral claws with a murderous vengeance heedless of the risk to their own lives satisfied only that their former allies would die by their hands regardless of the cost palace musan rallied though salamanders that yet survived and mounted a defense of the battle by his inner sanctum unleashing the power of breith and his fellow ancients to aid them the corridors and vaults of first the immense and ancient power of glory and then the astral clause icarnia ran red with blood in what quickly entered the legends of the war as the red hour every single astral claw chapter surf and servitor present was relentlessly and savagely slaughtered and the high carnia was left a carnal house of decapitated bodies as a deathly silence fell in the aftermath thousand kane came alone before at the gates of the sanctum his grim armour scorched and torn he knelt in the light of the burning sanctum braziers before the salamanders and offered them no words but from beneath his ragged black cloak he let a single gory object fall and roll at massan's feet it was the head of arch centurion commodus the executioners withdrew without further comment leaving the stricken pyre of glory and the empty strike crews had docked alongside and departed but their modern desire for vengeance had not been satiated and soon its message reached every corner of the maelstrom zone from this point onwards the executionist chapter became a rogue element in the war not only seeking out and descending with suicidal fury on the astral clause and their agents wherever they could be found outside the safety of badab itself but also refusing to surrender to the loyalist forces when encountered the most notorious incident of this kind was the executioner's destruction of the sons of medusa strike cruiser warspite in the grief system in 9811 m41 when battle groups from both forces engaged unexpectedly off the warp transfer point there but there were numerous others beyond this however the executionist chapters attacks on wider imperial shipping ceased almost immediately this development was explained only when some standard months later the near wrecked pyre of glory finally put into port at the loyalist battle station of cern grad with a strange and bloody tale to tell for the tyrant's cause there could have been no more bitter blow than that struck by these allies turned to enemies not only had the severing of the executioners from the secessionist cause robbed huron's forces of much of its remaining strength in warships and radarcraft but as foes the executioners were both implacable and had the advantage of detailed knowledge of many of the secessionists hidden bases and deployments which they put to immediate use in destroying them with first the lamenters and then the mantis warriors shone from the secessionist order of battle and now most bitterly the executioners turned against him luft huron and what remained of the once mighty astral claws were truly alone before the imperium's wrath their dreams of dominion and eternal glory shattered an order for death 911 following what he regarded as the treachery of his former allies huron announced in a recorded message that was relayed throughout the barab sector that the astral clause and their subjects were no longer part of the imperium of man an institution he saw as a bankrupt rotting carcass fit only for the grave not a sovereign state dedicated to survival and the triumph of mankind the tyrant further swore that he and his followers would fight to their last breath to avenge themselves upon those who had betrayed us and maintain their freedom ending this soon infamous recording with the statement that the stronger strongest alone soon afterwards within huron's remaining domains all signs and symbols of imperial authority culture and creed were cast down in a firestorm of iconoclasm and the mass executions on badab primaris of clerics and functionaries most of whom had remained largely ignorant of the true cause and nature of the war were reported to last for many weeks without pause up until this point it is to be remembered that although the badab secessionists had been declared heretic by the imperium within the worlds they had controlled the pattern of established life had gone on much as it had for many centuries and the worship of the god emperor had been maintained those prelates that had fervently disagreed with the secession had been removed and replaced with those more amenable to the tyrant's cause and millions still followed their faith unimpeded while the sector's native defenders believed naturally enough that they fought and died in a battle against heresy rather than in its name no longer however was the truth concealed from the pitiable masses of the badab sector and in the tyrant spite and fury great basilica were toppled and clergy and adepts were slaughtered despite any prior proven allegiances as for the astral claws themselves although the practice was by no means universal many of the battle brothers began to deface any semblance of imperial heraldry and insignia from their armor and war gear scoring it to bare metal or dooring it in reds and crimsons in representation of their blood oath of vengeance until only the symbols of the tyrant remained inquisitorial agents infiltrating the badab sector at this time report that conditions on its principal worlds grew ever harsher famine and want were commonplace and despair shadow fell over all whereas before the population of the badab sector had been controlled with inflexible and savage discipline but was still viewed as a war resource to be maintained and managed now the astroclaws wrath grew ever more arbitrary and brutal as that increasing paranoia and the murderous rages to which huron was becoming prone took their toll on those unfortunates caught within the tyrant's domains on badab primaris for non-astartes to dare to look directly upon the face of one of the astral claws was now punishable by blinding and after an assassin tried to take the life of huron within his own command chamber the assailant being slain by the tyrant himself non-space marines were banned entirely from the precincts of the palace of thorns and pain of death and thousands of civilians were killed in groundless reprisals by the astral clause retaliators after the mindset of the astral clause themselves most it seems had succumbed to a siege mentality they expected death as now inevitable but was spurred on by a bleak desire for vengeance against those they believed had wronged them spite and rage consuming what little remained of their honor the invasion of pirius 3705 911 having waited as long as he thought strategically advantageous to gather forces for a heavy assault lord commander cullen put into action his plans for the invasion and conquest of the period system on the edge of the badab sector loyalist strategic command had identified the perius system as key to the subsequent attack on the central badab system itself thanks to the relatively stable warp route between the two regions villius would be an ideal staging post for an invasion as it already possessed extensive lunar orbital stations and minor shipyards centered around the gas giant kritius these facilities if seized intact would both weaken the secessionist further and be of invaluable assistance to the loyalists as a forward base a plan long in the fruition culling had already set up a series of secondary fronts at isin and decapolis where raids and hit-and-run actions by his own red scorpions chapter along with the minotaurs and exorcists that destabilize much of the region and force the tyrant army to spread their outer defenses thinly the initial attack plan against pirius called for a naval assault to interdict the industrial world of pirius 5 also known locally as yarrow station and a direct space marine assault against the lunar colonies on the second moon of the piries dominant gas giant kritius this attack was to be conducted by the combined forces of the exorcists and red scorpions chapters their strikeforce amounting to an effective strength of six space marine companies the majority of the spaceman in contingent was made up of fresh reinforcements of the exorcist chapter who lord commander cullen had kept him reserved for this closing stage of the war although overall tactical command of the assault was taken up by lord commander cullen himself from the start the invasion of the period system was subject to reversal and unexpected calamity this first reared its head when one of the imperial naval cruisers attached to the task force the spear of mazzo suffered a catastrophic gallifiel failure as the invasion fleet left the lassa system to make the warped transit to pirius hurling all on board screaming to their doom in the imperium further unexpected turbulence in the usually stable warproof further disrupted the ill-fated fleet damaging and scattering several ships and forcing the remainder to arrive piecemeal into real space at the target system's edge further out then had been planned and scattered over a period of many hours thanks to the time distortion effects of the warp far from their chosen attack vector to the system the loyalist ships were forced to reassemble and operate at maximum thrust burn for a number of days to reach the inner worlds of pirius after which time all element of surprise had been lost with little choice but to press the attack the loyalist fleet reassembled itself and made best speed to engage this fleet included some two battle barges and four strike cruisers alongside a single battleship and six cruisers of the imperial navy along with several squadrons of minesweepers and escorts as well as flotillas of planetary assault craft ferrying imperial guard and inquisitorial forces the latter forming of rear echelon intended to consolidate and exploit a successful astartes attack the initial enemy resistance in space as expected proved insufficient to slow the attacking column down sporadically encountered minefields were breached or bypassed without loss and long-range augury has detected only a dozen defense monitor ships and a score of locally produced destroyers copies of the inferior poogias class this defense armada would have been enough to stand off a sizeable raiding force particularly in combination with the chain of orbital weapons platforms which formed a second line around pirius v but against the force lord commander cullen had assembled they stood little chance of long delaying let alone preventing the loyalist assault despite unexpectedly heavy long-range torpedo bombardment which the loyalist fleet was forced to endure for several hours thanks to the enforced distance of their attack run they reached their mission break point intact and split to engage their separate targets without incident the bulk of the imperial naval ships led by the retribution class battleship throne of blood broke off to engage the defense fleet and bombard pirius 5 while the space marine strike force diverted to assault the moon of kritius secondus the fighting above ps5 proved particularly fierce as the defense ships flung themselves almost suicidally against the attackers scoring several hits against the oncoming cruisers before being wiped out they fought as if the tyrant's claw was at their necks and they feared him far more than mere death at the muzzles of our guns as vice admiral kagawa commanding the throne of blood was later to observe the imperial naval ships however were prevented from achieving their secondary objective of close bombardment of ps5 as ground fire from massive emplacements of macro cannon and defense laser batteries on the surface unpredicted in strength and ferocity forced the naval ships back their fury crippling the tyrant class cruiser gauntlet of ages when it strayed too close elsewhere in orbit of christian secundus despite strong resistance greater success was found by the loyalists and between them the combined might of the red scorpion's sword of ordon and the exorcist redeemer smashed aside the moon's asteroid forts in short order landing zones in the vicinity of the lunar colonies main citadels and generator stations were quickly identified and subjected to preliminary bombardment before a full-scale planet strike was initiated via thunderhawk and drop pod assault the space marine's task was to strike hard and with speed to take the lunar colonies and their strategically valuable facilities intact on landing the red scorpions and exorcists were immediately met head-on by the tyrants legion in a strong counter-offensive their enemy's numbers increased several fold by indentured workers in crude breather masks to protect them from kritius's poisonous air driven on by the use of explosive collars and armed with little more than sharpened tools and crude promethium bombs the tyrant legions auxilia and their slave worker allies were killed in droves by the assaulting space marines in hectic close quarter fighting but their numbers alone slowed the attackers down and prevented them from fanning out to their individual targets as planned it was at this point with the bulk of the red scorpions and exorcists engaged but effectively bottled into their landing zones that the astral claws trap was sprung previously silent and long concealed ground batteries fired from the depths of the alien forests that covered the moon striking down thunder hawks and landing craft and ripping into the space marine ships in close orbit above their vessels bellies exposed as they descended to deploy their deadly cargo the sword of ordon barely made it into space and escaped the brunt of the barrage spewing flame and trailing debris from her shattered launch bays while the exorcist strike cruiser aleph argentium having moments before deployed its last forces was caught in a crossfire of converging plasma streams and exploded showering burning wreckage down onto the planet setting ablaze hundreds of square kilometers of tangled vegetation below from within the moon citadels cannons and mortars thundered afresh pelting loyalist space marines with missile and shell indiscriminately targeting the battles where their own forces were engaged at close quarters with the loyalists this was only a heralding barrage however and from bunkers concealed beneath the tiered disc stacked towers scores of land raider tanks and rhino transports bearing the insignia of the star clutching black claw roared forth the astral claws in near chapter strength and with their master huron at their head lord commander karab kulin and those that stood with him were caught between the fire above and the tyrant below the tyrant it seems had long ago divine the importance of the pirious system as a keystone in the barab sector's defense and drew his own plans accordingly likewise through spies and auguries of his own he had been able to anticipate the loyalist plan of attack whether his decision to lead the counter-attack personally it was a stroke of brilliance or folly can be argued in either case but for all his overweening pride and black-hearted heresy euron was now coward and a brilliant commander in the field whose presence in and of itself provided the secessionist force on criticis secundus with a great asset in battle the presence of a concentration of astral claws on criteus and the secret upgrading and cunning deployment of its defenses had not been the whole of the tyrants strategy either and within an hour of the hidden guns on criticis secundus opening fire and cutting off the loyalist spearhead from its supporting ships the tyrant's own war fleet ripped into real space at the edge of the inner pirious system what was to follow was to be one of the largest and last major fleet engagements of the badab war the secessionist armada represented the last excise of their once vaunted naval power its flagship was the final remaining operable battle barge in the astral clause fleet the mighty and storied serif of judgement clustered around which were eight line class vessels these were the last remnants of the secessionist chapter and squadron fleets including two strike cruisers the relic cardinal-class heavy cruiser thoth's hound and the gothic-class cruiser dreadchild captured from the carthan forces seven years before alongside this main force with over 60 other vessels a ram shackle conglomeration of chapter escorts patrol frigates raider craft of unknown provenance and hastily converted armed transports at least a dozen of which proved to be fire ships suicidal weapons packed with volatile cargo and primitive atomic explosives and driven before the main fleet vice admiral kagawa are saying the suddenly shifted tactical situation realized that if the tyrant's fleet could take on the two loyalist forces both of which had already sustained damage and expended considerable stocks of their ordinance separately they might yet attain a crushing victory but if matched against both simultaneously the loyalists would be far more evenly matched against them he immediately ordered his fleet to maximum velocity and moved away from the oncoming enemy ships and via coded channels sent a request setting out his assessment of the upcoming battle to the space marine forces near criticis secundus attempting to demand their compliance he realized would be fruitless and so he appealed to their greatest chance of victory with communications with the ongoing ground war impossible it was with a heavy heart that captain wait ryder the exorcist master of the fleet reluctantly agreed with the vice admiral's dire assessment of the situation and complied with his plan of feigned retreats and rendezvous the space marine ships withdrew at full power sling shotting themselves around the gas giant of criteus using its gravitational mass to boost their velocity with their enemies seemingly in full flight before them the secessionist fleet ravaged into the inner system at full speed their ships differing thrust forces and the general in discipline of their captains soon rendering their formation ragged and drawn out as the slower vessels fell behind and faster raiderships ran ahead these front runners started striking at targets of opportunity such as the ungainly loyalist rear echelon transports these now despite fleeing at their best speed became easy prey to the hunters thousands of the embarked troops aboard dying without ever knowing the cause of their demise the badly damaged loyalist gauntlet of ages her captain realizing that her ship could not keep up with its comrades and turned instead to a glorious and fatal last charge into the teeth of the oncoming enemy deliberately seeking out and engaging the secessionist fire ships before they could wreak havoc on the loyalist main force weathering broadside after broadside and engulfed twice by the sieving nuclear fire of immolating ships the gauntlet of ages still staggered on into the fray her few remaining batteries keeping up sporadic fire until the serif of judgement closed in and crushed her valiant heart below on kritius secundus savage fighting raged on as the two forces of humanity's greatest warriors clashed without mercy now outnumbered by an enemy whose might was their match it was the loyalists who were pushed back onto an ever narrowing defensive circle amid the stacked habitation towers and tangled alien forests with little clear line of sight between the combatants mass bloody hand-to-hand confrontations and indiscriminate fire at half-seen foes was the way of the battle the astral claws came on in savage and bitter fury heedless of their merely human foot soldiers caught between them and the object of their vengeance the red scorpions met them with righteous hatred of their own while the exorcist displayed their usual unnerving calm in the face of overwhelming force as in a battle from ancient myth these gods of destruction clashed and at therefore were the two masters of the war lord commander carib cullen of the red scorpions stud as an unyielding rock amid the storm of battle on which the enemy broke and at his side was severine loft chief librarian of the chapter his armor gleaming with baleful light as he rent the foe asunder with murderous blasts of psychic force luft huron tyrant of batter and master of the astral claws struck the exorcist line like a thunderbolt smashing aside space marines as if they were pieces on a gaming board burning and hacking his way through the crimson armored exorcist with wild almost insane abandon the tyrant's blood spattered personal guard poured into the breach behind him forming a murderous wedge as the tyrant strove to reach his true and chosen enemy carry of the cullen sillius albrecht captain and commander of the exorcist force knew that if he will not stop the tyrant alone might turn the course of the battle and so moved to oppose him leading a counter-assaulting force of his chapter's elite iniquion guard to confront lufthuron head-on intercepting the tyrant's force at the foot of the looming habitation stack the red scorpions were using to anchor their defense there rather than being matched against the tyrant silas albrecht found himself in a jewel with ancient clear tour one of the most feared and infamous of the astral clause dreadnord brethren and suffered terrible wounds which crushed and crippled his terminator armor before disabling the dreadnought's motive systems with his relic mace felling the great beast of adamantine and ceramite as the battle raged on at the foot of the many tiered tower stack in a whirlwind of confusion of blood and metal the two masters of war at last found each other and carob cullen and luft huron match their skills in personal combat there was no organized and formal duel as might be told of in chronicles and legends but a savage free-for-all amid a mass combat with a press of armored bodies about them and the air riven with bolt shells and plasma blast the tyrant came on in fury bellowing his hatred and cursing the golden throne bitterly while cullen fought in grim silence every ounce of his formidable skill needed to wield his relic blade to counter the frenzy of blows rained on him by the tyrant's ghostly claw only this ancient heirloom of his chapter the blade of the scorpion seemed proof against his enemies blows and within moments of euron's onslaught cullen had seen his storm bolter shredded like paper his iron halo flickered and fail and his terminator armor gouged and slashed in a dozen places the wounds caused by the eerie lightning claw the tyrants used were flowing freely with blood in defiance of collins astati's augmented metabolism finally parted from the exchange of blows did cullen answer the tyrants taunts with accusations of his own bellowing that huron was a traitor and a cur a cruel and petty false king no better than a pawn of chaos who had brought ruin to all the astral claws had striven and bled for these ages past for corrupt vanity and pride the tyrant of badab for the maddened and howling inarticulately with rage charged again at the red scorpion who expecting the frenzied attack deftly turned aside allowing the tyrant's momentum to take his terminator armored bulk past lashing out with the blade of the scorpion he slashed deeply into the tyrant's side parting his foe's armor in a welter of blood such a blow should have filled even the mightiest space marine but it did not slay the tyrant of badab euron wheeled around his claw arcing down the ghostly blades punching effortlessly through carob cullen's breastplate and spearing into his chest piercing flesh and bone alike with monumental effort of will cullen fought through his agony and hurled himself backwards onto the bloody ground before the tyrant could close his clawed fingers and rip out the red scorpion's heart snarling in pain quillin slid down a slope of rubble and armored bodies before the looming tyrant whose bitter laughter echoed above him direly wounded culling staggered once more to his feet as the battle thundered on and a new sun burned in the heavens raining destruction down on all below in the cold darkness of the void above criticism battle was once again joined between the now concentrated warships of the imperium and the claw marked renegades of badab the secessionists both outnumbered the loyalists and outgunned them but the loyalists even though many of their vessels were damaged had the greater number of heavy warships in their line of battle and were far the greater in quality of skilled and disciplined crew the rebel fleet came on in a chaotic and ragged attack column and this was to prove their undoing as the combined imperial navy and space marine warships formed into tight formation and crossed laterally in an oblique pass on the enemy column maximizing their broadsides while the secessionists could not fully bring theirs to bear in their chaotic counter-attack several of the secessionists own outlying escorts were caught in the line of fire from the cruisers at the center of the column and were destroyed both sides took heavy damage in this first close pass but the secessionist at the worst of it with the ill-fated dread child spinning out of control from the renegade attack column fires burning within her from stem to stern the courses of the two fleets carried them on sweeping away from each other and so thrusters flaring they both strained to come about tightened into concentric turns and came again to engage head-on weapons blazing neither side holding back in each fleet willing to meet victory or death in a single tumultuous clash of the line the void between them was split by gouts of fire and bright lances of energy as the two sides hurled all their spite at each other fighter craft tumbling and dying as starships exploded around them in storms of radiation and shrapnel these strike cruiser godslayer rammed the thoth's hound and broke her back cleaving the relic ship in two while large strikes bit deep into the sword of ordon disabling her main guns the throne of blood her steering shattered and spewing fire from scores of craters and wounds on her flanks confronted the seraph of judgment on a collision course at point-blank range the venerable battle barge frantically maneuvered to bring her bombardment cannon to bear but the throne of blood unleashed a full salvo of melter-headed torpedoes at the last possible moment their machine spirits all locked onto the pulsing reactors deep within the battle badge's hull in an instant all became flooded with impossibly bright burning white light and when at last it had faded a war machine that had survived a thousand battles a millennia of war was nothing but a smoldering corona of ash and radiation fogged haze and the throne of blood tumbled on its vast armored prow replaced with a scorched and blackened stump the star battle was won for the loyalists with the death of the sarath of judgment but at great cost and there remained a great deal of bloody fighting to do as the surviving enemy ships were put to flight or captured in a series of brutal boarding assaults before this tangled conflict could be resolved a single ship broke free its engines blazing far past their maximum adept as mechanicus prescribed capacity it was the redeemer and it was heading directly for kritius secundus bargaining that the planetary defenses would be half-blinded by the battle above them captain ryder gambled all on a dangerous plan to extract the forces stranded below of all the loyalist warships by a combination of good fortune and the skill of her master and crew the redeemer was among the least scaved and its base had been filled with surviving thunder hawks from across the fleet for the emergency operation the vast battle barge sliced into kritius secundus's thin atmosphere at perilous speed trusting to its void shields and blessed hull to keep it from breaking up under the battering force of reentry as predicted the ground batteries which had previously proven deadly against close range and slow-moving targets could not now quickly respond and panicked when faced with this comet from the heavens the fire blazing around her shields making the redeemer appear as a terrible blazing sun in the sky although all communication to the surface had been jammed librarian talof of the exorcists had locked in on the bright soul of severin loft and the familiar spark of his wounded master albrecht and so the redeemer made for its target as it rode appallingly low in the skies its armored belly shearing off the tops of tower stacks as it passed a pressure wave ran before it like a tsunami and smashed the alien forest flat toppling buildings and armored space marines alike before its fury at this unexpected arrival the astral claws were hurled back amid a storm of dust and debris and below its sky blotting bulk the battlefield where kulin and the tyrants had fought was showered in rubble and flame parting them before their combat could reach a final conclusion in eva's favor immediately extraction operations got underway before the enemy could rally to the defense as the redeemer's guns designed for the epic battles of fleet combat spoke with the voice of an apocalypse rending the ground asunder and pulverizing the towers of nearby citadels in a fraught operation lasting nearly two hours almost three in five of the loyalist space marines that had made the planet for were recovered although most of them were either casualties or fresh wounds or scars to mark the furious combat they had seen not least of the wounded was lord commander cullen who was taken up in the care of the chapter apothecaries the redeemer its tortured hull and over taxed engines protesting under the strain the seals and bulkheads rupturing up and down her superstructure made exit from the moon's atmosphere ground fire tracing vengeful streaks behind her void shields holding just long enough for the mighty ship to break orbit the invasion of pidious was over both sides claimed a victory and both sides tasted defeat for the secessionists the loyalist invaders had been driven off and not one iota of ground had been surrendered to them but in doing so they had gambled the last of their mighty fleet and lost it and with it any hope of maintaining dominion outside the badab system itself fatalities on both sides had been appallingly high and lord commander cullen had seen his attacking force blunted and many of his most powerful ships of the line damaged to the extent that it might take years to repair for a brief time some hoped that the tyrant himself had been slain in the anarchy of the extraction but cullen did not believe it and he was quickly proved right the badab war had arguably been won by the loyalists but there was one last battle to fight and that was likely to be the most terrible of all the final siege of badab the whole system was a heavily fortified death trap the likes of which few had ever encountered but the tyrant could not be left alone in his place of power to fester if the invasion of pirius had a lesson to be learned it was that the tyrant should never be underestimated and nothing was more dangerous than a cornered beast chapter 7 the fall of badab after the tumultuous events surrounding the failed invasion of the pirius system and the unknown status of the executioner's chapter the badab war entered a new and uncertain era the barab secessionists were unquestionably at their lowest ebb but equally the loyalist forces were in no position to immediately exploit their enemy's weakness and press the attack this period of the conflict which lasted from the aftermath of the invasion of pirius to the mid division of 912 m41 became known as the silent war as it was composed of hundreds of small scale and petty engagements cat and mouse jewels between lone vessels and bloody but short-lived skirmishes across the region many of which went all but unreported and unknown the maelstrom zone could not be considered pacified by any means despite the sundering of the secessionist domains and it was only the presence of the loyalist attachments of the minotaurs and sons of medusa chapter that kept the imperial lines of supply viable moreover it was the thinly spread imperial guard and inquisition forces attached to the loyalist command that had kept retaken worlds in the pale stars region from sliding into anarchy or succumbing to civil strife as those in the galen system had information also soon came to light that the tyrants forces were now falling back to the badap system itself stripping defenses from worlds such as ice and and decapolis and abandoning them to their fates while some interdiction was attempted against this the imperial forces simply didn't have the available manpower or ships in the area to prevent less than a handful of convoys and transports from conducting the retreat matters became further confused when it appeared that some of the forces of the tyrants legion and even some small splinter groups of astral claws had abandoned their master turned full renegade and made an attempt to flee into the maelstrom zone while once again corsair and xeno sightings began to increase across the western and southern zones from facing a single unified enemy it seemed to the loyalists that they were on the verge of being left with many fractured foes whose actions could not be readily predicted potentially spread out over a vast area of dangerous wilderness space if the strategic initiative was lost now or the victory was an incomplete one some feared and not without cause that the conflict could spawn a spreading slow canker through the region that might take decades if not centuries to quell in light of this shifting and uncertain situation the injured but still active lord commander carob cullen convened a full council of war in 519 912 m41 at the newly commissioned imperial battle station complex in the veneer system to determine a strategy and divine the future course of the war present were representatives of all the loyalist space marine chapters still involved in the conflict cullen's own red scorpions the salamanders minotaurs exorcists carceradons and sons of medusa despite reservations held by the others the firehawks master and now ailing lazarec on whom some stain of blame and suspicion of descent still persisted was also summoned as an equal inquisitorial legate freyn whose voice was that of the high lords in the council served as arbiter and had frain's personal invitation and deputation of archmagus of the forge world of angstrom was also received and now welcomed as allies to the loyalist cause along with fresh demands that the tyrant be cut off from his place of safety on bada primeros and brought to the emperor's judgment with all dispatched inquisitive frain brought news to the council both good and ill the first order of the council was the acceptance of the formal surrender and repentance of the scattered survivors of the mantis warriors chapter who had finally submitted themselves before the league's authority to avoid the utter destruction of their worlds less welcome news came when freyn further informed the assembled space marine commanders that hoped for reinforcements from the imperial guard segmentum reserves and fresh warships from the navy would not be forthcoming wars and conflicts were everywhere and mata's pressing against the tyranid threat and newly arising zeno's powers to the galactic east claimed priority on all that might be gathered to the loyalist cause on short notice however the inquisitor's agents had at last tracked down fresh allies to whom the badab conflict would have a far greater resonance than any other concern for reasons of their own the darkly legended star phantom space marine chapter were on their way in full strength and would be with the loyalists by the years turning further aid was provided by the adeptus mechanicus of angstrom who both granted a bounty of arms and munitions and also vowed to aid the loyalist attack on badab when the hour of battle came plans and deployments were quickly formulated and entered into and warriors and warships were swiftly redeployed throughout the maelstrom zone in accordance with the loyalist newly formed strategies and with the hard lesson of pirius well learned the ultimate goal of the investiture and siege of badab would now be delayed until overwhelming forces were available in the meantime an enhanced blockade and watch would be maintained there while the maelstrom zone was brought better under its heel the rapturous rex the firehawks immense mobile fortress monastery was brought to the pirious system to form the linchpin of the reinforced blockade and on arrival the loyalist task force found the period system over which so much blood had been shed in a half abandoned shambles the lunar colonies of chris secundus were ravaged and near lifeless and yarrow station gutted and famine struck by its former masters and its population left to their fate a fate which the rapturous wrecks is wrath sealed upon the traitors below by protracted orbital bombardment elsewhere in the maelstrom zone the carcardons were recalled from the endemian cluster their work they're done in accordance with undertakings given to the mantis warriors as part of their surrender agreement now available for redeployment the carcaradon's large fleets along with ships from the exorcists and sons of medusa chapters were assigned into small battle groups alongside imperial navy scouting vessels and dispatched on independent hunter killer missions throughout the maelstrom zone in search of targets of opportunity as forces for the final assault were steadily assembled with the crow's world system chosen as their rallying point the pact of angstrom prior relations between loyalist forces and the notoriously independent adaptus mechanicus presence in angstrom on the maelstrom zone's eastern border had been troubled at best although previously aloof from the conflict which they had considered an internal matter between space marine chapters which did not concern them they had become belligerent to both sides after the notorious angstrom incident of 908 m41 had provoked them to violence a secondary full-scale conflict between angstrom and the loyalists had only been prevented from escalating by the direct and terse negotiations between the archmagus lords of angstrom and the league inquisitor frane further to the issa line of dialogue had remained open between the parties and secret negotiations had been undertaken well in advance of the grand war council in 912 m41 what price or concessions were paid for angstrom's aid have never been fully as of yet brought to light and given that the adaptus mechanicus effectively form a mirror imperium of their own the bargains results may have fed hidden ramifications far removed from the maelstrom zone in any case invaluable aid to the loyalists was indeed granted as the later siege of badab would prove debts of honor 03 838 912 m41 with the bad air war drawing to its bloody conclusion there remained but a few major matters to settle and for some of those factions involved on the loyalist side the greatest of these remain that of the executioner's chapter it came to pass that the sons of medusa and carcaradon forces began to coordinate their efforts to hunt down the chapter and discover its believed center of operations in the denis stella drift with the stated aim of prosecuting a campaign of annihilation against them hearing of this skirmishes and clashes between them began to escalate the salamander's captain peles masan was deeply troubled he believed that for all their fury and bloodletting the executioners had acted with honor during the war and moreover he felt his own chapter owed them a debt not easily repaid following the events of the red hour with his own small and battered force renewed by the arrival of the salamander's vanguard cruiser obsidia and a half company of battle brothers freshly returned from the segmentum solar misshan took it upon himself to seek out the leader of the executioners those are kane and palais uh negotiated end to the executionist part in the war after requesting the search along the maelstrom's own southern periphery lasting several standard mumps the obsidia rushed to respond to reports of battle joined at the fringes of the eridian cataract and there found the execution as battle barge feeden's raf and the infamous nighthag hunting down two damaged sons of medusa strike cruisers in the dense asteroid fields and dust clouds of the turbulent star system acting without second thought as to his ship's own safety mesan ordered the obsidia interposed between the two warring sides and deactivated its own weapons demanding that an honorable discourse between brothers take place after a tense standoff in which the loyalist forces came to the brink of warring among themselves mersan was successful in forcing both sides to stand down and in then negotiating the sons of medusa's departure and the execution of ceasefire bringing the nighthag with kane aboard under the salamander's own personal flag of safety to formal parlay with the loyalist command their voyage to crow's world was shadowed with the warp echoes of prowling carcaradon warships but they were not attacked although many of the loyalists side were minded to arrest or even slay the executioners on site while they were in their power the voice of messiah a respected representative of his first founding chapter was not so easily dismissed nor were the likely consequences should blood be shed dishonorably at this juncture lord commander cullen seeing the strategic wisdom of removing the dangerous and unpredictable chapter all but bloodlessly from the war and mindful of the potential for further civil strife in his own ranks acquiesce to massan's proposal regarding the executioners but with a few added caveats of his own under terms of honorable armistice the executioners was to end all hostilities and quit the region of the maelstrom zone entirely never to return the bulk of their surviving forces were then to travel to their distant home system under oath to remain there until full judgement could later be passed on their actions by a full consistorial court of inquiry their leadeth also kane his chosen honor guard and crew along with the nighthag voluntarily gave themselves over to the salamander's custody and were interned at the salamanders chapter world of nocturne until the end of the war the salamanders chapter themselves would from this point stand as guarantor of the executioner's compliance and conduct although there remain those on the loyalist side who though bound to obedience in the matter would never forget the bad blood between them breaking the steel ring three one one seven nine one three m four one with the arrival of the grim star phantoms chapter fleet carrying a powerful force fully ten companies strong and also a maniple of battle titans of the legio crucius the warmongers brought in by the intervention of the adeptus mechanicus of angstrom and with several heavy warships such as the sword of ordon brought back into full operation at last the final siege of badab could begin the initial attack itself would not be easy as badab's infamous ring of steel space defense globe held sufficient firepower to hold off almost any fleet of attackers and had turned the void between its planets into a deadly maze of minefields and interlocking fire zones no star system could be made impregnable however as history had proved countless times and the loyalist high command had come up with an unorthodox plan to sunder the ring of steel with minimum losses allowing for an immediate planetary assault the key to this plan was twofold and it relied both on the arcane arts of the magus of angstrom and the effects of the tyrant's own growing paranoia the ring of steel's greatest vulnerability was that it was largely static the positions of its various minefields and massively armed star forts were predictable and what few defense ships and armed vessels of any size badap still possessed were insufficient to turn the tide against a concerted localized attack the cornerstone of the outer system's defense was the heavily defended star fort orbiting sigma here loyalist spies had discovered that sentinel sigma was the primary node of control which the tyrant had placed in the charge of one of the few subordinates he truly trusted the infamous astral clause captain korean summatris this was done rather than devolve the star forts and minefields control autonomously in the hands of scores of commanders he thought unreliable if sentinel sigma could be taken intact then the legendary big guns of the badab system could be silenced on 7913 m41 the loyalist assault armada entered real space in the badab system high up on the vertical plane of the planetary system directly on an attack cause for badab six the armada consisted of no fewer than six space marine battle barges and nine strike cruisers along with six other imperial navy ships of the line an adapter's mechanicus war caraval and 84 escorts and strike vessels of various classes at its vanguard was the rapturous rex behind which thanks to the artisan ship of the magus of angstrom was towed a burning stellar core fragment torn bodily from the bail cascade as the war machines of badab sprang to life in response to the threat thousands of gun batteries powered up and drifting clouds of assassin mines woke to murderous intent but as their auger beams and targeting sensoria swept the on rushing armada it was already too late to prevent what was to happen next swiftly reaching terminal velocity the ponderous cyclopean bulk of the rapturous wrecks engaged its main drive at maximum power to alter course straining against inertia to allow the hellish fire of the stellar fragment to pass it by on its collision course with the sentinel sigma battle station while the loyalist armada fell into a spearhead formation a safe distance behind the sentinel sigma station had no hope of escaping the path of the rogue star fragment in time and face certain destruction should it impact if it fell a yearning gap would be blown clear through the ring of steel and the control hub for the entire outer system defenses would be annihilated at a stroke tens of thousands of mass driven projectiles torpedoes and macro shells filled the void hurtling towards the dense amorphous mass of nuclear plasma and elemental force most were spent fruitlessly exploding and incinerating in its superheated corona before they could reach its core blinded by the light of this new and terrible star careening towards them the weapons of the ring could not clearly see let alone target the oncoming armada and legions of mines and weapons platforms their targeting arrays madden by the conflagration set upon each other and set off waves of atomic detonations through the void lighting up the skies of the inner worlds with an omen of coruscating fire only had near point-blank range did the defense lasers and arc cannons of the starfords begin to take a toll on the burning mass their beams tearing gouts of burning mata clear until at last they punched their way deep into the unstable core and the fragment was rent apart in a great wave of energy which washed over the sentinel sigma painting its failing void shield with lamb and flame and burning through the defense ships and fighters in a torrent of destruction there was no relenting from the apocalyptic cataclysm the loyalists had unleashed and hard on the wake of the energy storm came the angels of death boarding torpedoes and assault rams smashed into the reeling sentinel sigma carrying with them the might of the sons of medusa and exorcist chapters and were met in deadly combat amid the station's vaults and corridors by battle servitors and the suicidal fury of the vaunted astroclaw's second company and their master the arch swordsmen call in sumatras as this action rage the battle barges swords of ordon and the star phantom's memento mori led a wing of strike cruisers to assault the burned and blinded star ford network at point blank range taking one after the other intact in a series of brutal boarding assaults which left none they found within alive meanwhile the minotaurs carried out strikes upon the system's other inhabited spheres badab secundus and rigial decapitating their governments and military commands with brutal efficiency lord astrian moloch the darkly famed master of the minotaurs hurled the members of the secundus ruling satrapy from the spire of its oratory cathedral this he did after impaling the astral clause chaplin varna sabine to the front of his personal land raider as an example to the traitors of the fate that awaited them when at last valen carl iron thane of the sons of medusa communicated from atop a mound of broken bodies that sentinel sigma was theirs he was joined by a teleporter by the mechanicus lords of angstrom within hours they had achieved what luft had considered unthinkable the subjugation of the station's silica animus and with it access to the many machine spirits and weapons slave to it incontrovertible override and destruct signals were sent out across the void a function only possible because of the possessive paranoia of a single man to control a system so large in response to the command the outer badab system became a sea of fire the ring of steel was shattered and only bada primeros and the defenses that encircled it remained the final assault three one one eight nine one three m four one with the star system now under loyalist control and surviving defense ships hunted down and destroyed deployments were quickly put into place to surround and besiege bada primeros with the ships of the exorcist chapter along with the imperial navy detachments breaking off to blockade the star system to ensure none would escape what was to come the assault from orbit against bada primeros was to have been spearheaded by the rapturous wrecks but that was no longer possible the strain of the core fragment attack having caused significant structural damage which destabilized the engines of the vast craft making close orbital operations impossible the guns of bada primeros were still to be greatly feared and it was a forlorn hope that even a space marine battle barge would survive long if they could not be silenced quickly by orbital counter battery fire the star phantoms had asked for and been granted the glory of leading the first wave and it was their ancient battle barge the momento mori which would be the first to brave the guns of badab further hazard to the assault was presented by the high guard orbital station which the astral clause had first used as a fortress monastery before huron had descended to take over the palace of thorns below the hastily revised attack plan was to be a three-prong defensive the first axis of attack would be formed by two companies of star phantom space marines attacking the high guard orbital fortress in concert with the smaller fire hawks and sons of medusa contingents for the second the carcardons would descend in full force to the surface of bada primaris hives to crush any opposition the third and most vital attack force would be formed by the bulk of the star phantoms some seven companies in strength assisted by heavy assault elements drawn from across the loyalist chapters and inquisitorial stormtrooper companies this would take the battle to the heart of the foe and besiege the palace of thorns itself the attack was heralded by waves of orbital bombardment and hurled debris from orbit sent to sow havoc below as weapons fire split the heavens above bada primeros the sable form of the momento mori led the attack and was rocked with explosions as he breached the outer atmosphere its own cannons roaring in answer and vortex missiles screaming out from its weapons decks to rip great wounds in the planet's crust behind the dauntless battle barge dozens of other warships swept low to unleash their deadly cargo blazing bright lances of energy pierced upwards and the skies darkened as wave after wave of drop pods painted in midnight black and cold grey rain down in precisely executed assaults brighter yet from the halo edge of space the carcadidon's relic flagship nikkor unleashed the vast plasma destructor weapon concealed in its belly and burned a great trench in badab's surface sundering the bastion wall of primaris main city hive dominar and soon after thunder hawks and assault rams spiraled down to exploit the breach such was the burning pool of smoke swirling cinder ash and choking dust that came up night fell over badab's northern continent as the siege assault raged the darkness riven with meteoric streaks of flame as wreckage fell from high above a full hour had passed since the first shots were fired and still the defense batteries had not yet been fully silenced but many were now choked off or destroyed troop ships and thunderhawks continued to descend perilously through the storm of smoke and fire ferrying their reinforcements and heavy armor down to the turmoil for battle deeming the approach now safe like a hammer of the gods the colossal landing craft of the legio crucia fell to earth outside hive dominar their impact sending a powerful tremor shock through the ground bringing yet more of the breached bastion wall tumbling down vast armored doors opened and slammed buildings flat as titans walked on badab their bellowing sirens echoing like the clarion call of doom come for the beleaguered world the assault moved into its second and then third hour without any sign of relenting and soon hive dominar had become a city of death within its hundreds of kilometers of multi-tiered roadways and vast arched habitation towers the tyrants legion fought an insane and desperate battle against the grey giants that had come among them transit junctions were soon clogged with burning vehicles and shattered rubble and for the wretched civilians trapped within the doomed hive there was nothing for them but terror and death often no chance of surrender or survival the soldiers of the auxiliary bitterly fought on as best they could as the carcarodons fell on them with nightmarish fury savagely hacking through their defense lines and leaving nothing but torn bodies and shattered war machines in their wake in the face of the unstoppable gray red tide that had come upon them all pretense of command and control within the tyrant's legion rapidly broke down as vox sets uttered nothing but screams and unanswered please for mercy fires began to spread out of control and the carnage was only worsened as those isolated legion redoubts and tank squadrons that still survived began to shell indiscriminately into the shadows of buildings their desperate and chaotic attacks were in the vain hope of fighting an enemy that came at them with terrifying speed only to fade away and strike again each time leaving fewer and fewer alive in the northeast of hive dominar lay the palace of thorns built into a mountainous volcanic plateau that rose high above the level of the hive city it comprised a hulking ornate citadel surrounded by wide statue-lined plazas and minaret capped gun towers studied with defense lasers and flak batteries this was the heart of the astro claws domain and the layer of the tyrant of badab above the palace's complex center an arctic bright lightning shield rippled and clashed in the air a vast charged power field that disintegrated anything it touched and shrugged off even the firepower of the warships above the plaza and weapons batteries that spread out beyond the palace were not so impervious however and it was into them the star phantoms descended with unmatched precision and timing their dropped parts smashing down from the ornate sepulchers and toppling needle thin or specks masts as they descended despite the blizzard of fire that had greeted them over 500 battle brothers out of the 700 strong force survived to make landfall and now they set about besieging their heavily protected palace the combat was as fierce as any of the chapter had seen and at every turn the star phantoms encountered death traps and heavily defended gun positions they fought brutal close range engagements with astral claws assault squads who counter-attacked them from concealed sally ports paying him blood for every advance further in land raiders and predators spilled from underground bunkers in the defense of the citadel shield wall their power matched by the deadly accurate fire of star phantom's devastator squads and dreadnoughts firing from the shattered towers they had already stormed the siege soon descended into a bloody meat grinder as the wide open plazas that ring the citadel became lethal killing grounds which offered scant cover to attack her or defender alike for every two gun cigarettes that were taken by the star phantoms another held out or was retaken by counter assault and soon the siege lines became a confused anarchy where the enemy could be encountered on all sides slowly though the bloody siege of the palace's outer precincts began to tip in the loyalist favor as making their way up the volcanic ridges stormtrooper reinforcements join the fray allowing the star phantoms to press the attack while loyalist terminator squads locked onto the star phantom's teleporter homers were dispatched to the surface from strike cruisers braving the much reduced ground fire but despite the massive force brought to bear against it still the citadel held the palace of thorns lightning field remained unbreached and attack after attack was hurled away from its citadel by murderous counter-attack as deadly fire rained down from the walls the attackers losses mounted steadily and even the river titans of the legio crucius alongside fresh sons of medusa detachments could not force the issue indeed the first titan to attempt the attack was disabled as it sought to lend its firepower to the assault its command deck gutted by a well-placed conversion fema blast in the shadow of the citadel the siege of the palace of thorns was at a lethal impasse as true night fell over hive dominar and the palace of thorns the fighting and killing went on unabated spreading out to the planet's sub-hives and industrial zones the pool of smoke from badab's burning cities thickened the night to an umbral black deep enough to fog the all speckses of the ships in orbit and the planet to them became a mass of indistinguishable heat blooms from the fires below titans stalked the benighted and ruined cityscapes their powerful weapons lighting up the darkness like thunderstorms as their footfalls shut the earth crushing any hint of resistance they encountered and systematically smashing manufacturer and habitation blocks the titans machine spirits and crews reveled in the desolation they brought driving waves of screaming refugees and routed legion troops before them in a disordered swarm meanwhile the carcardons haunted the shadows of the badab hives like blood-painted grey specters the city was theirs of euron's actions during the long night of destruction little can be said for certain some reports have the tyrants sighted almost everywhere in the defense of the palace hurling back the rent and shattered bodies of his enemies roaring his defiance while other tales place him alone and silent in the throne chamber impassively watching the destruction of all he had wrought in the flickering light of his hollow sphere regardless of the truth what can be accurately said is that no astral claw surrendered to their fate each fought to the end whether at the palace of thorns in the hive cities of badab or in the defense of the high guard orbital station the astral claws sold their lives in a blaze of fury and spite at the dawn of the second day of the assault the carcardons took matters in their own hands to bring about the end assigned by lord commander carob cullen the task of attacking the planet's infrastructure and preventing an organized defense from taking root they had devised their own plan of doing so and set their own deadly measure to the extremes to which they would go having ravaged the tyrants legion forces defending the cities and setting the hives ablaze they continued the final stage of their plan and dispatched strike teams deep into the hive subsurface there they sabotaged the vast and ancient atomic and geothermal reactors which powered the hives and fed the hungry planetary defense batteries with energy across bada primaris power failed or suddenly spiked adding to the chaos and slowly with inexorable horror the hives began to quake and the towers of badap toppled like felled trees silently and in good order the carcadons began to withdraw from the surface the fatal blow struck the god emperor's judgment on treacherous badab delivered few realized just what had begun and at the palace of thorns the sudden destabilization of power had offered the loyalists a much needed opening in which to strike as the lightning field and the citadel's outer defenses flickered for a moment before drawing power again from their own reactors a star phantom's assault force managed to breach the lower level bunker network and catacombs with captain drew cal and rockley's at its head his force of assault equipped space marines and terminators finally forced their way into the citadel in the heart of the enemy the star phantom's assault was brutal and relentless its passage blasted through by thunderhammer rent bulkheads and charge blown walls while the astral claws that fought against them were the most fanatical and hate-filled of their breed their crimson splattered armor devoid of any sign of their former service as defenders of the imperium chain blades flashed and bolters roared in the closest confines in the under citadel as the ossuaries of the astral clause chapter were blasted apart as each side slaughtered the other in the hellish struggle all over badab the ground began to quake and shudder as high above in orbit augury's registered the massive tectonic upheaval in the planet's subhive structures radiating out across ancient geological fault lines spewing molten magma and radioactive ash up from the earth bada primeros began to die at the palace of thorns the bastion wall was finally breached collapsing the lightning shield the star phantom stormed the citadel much of which was now no more than a rubble-strewn butcher's yard at the height of this desperate last battle at the palace euron was mortally wounded by the dying star phantom's captain and drock lees records recovered after the clash from the auto sense logs of the star phantoms indicate a brutal melee erupting between androgynous forces in the tyrant's personal guard to their near mutual destruction in one of the palace's deep sub-levels and it is likely huron's party was attempting to flee to a concealed escape craft via the subsurface captain androcles was struck down by the tyrant in the confrontation who in his arrogance strode over the fallen hero believing him dead as his life bled from him the grimly determined star phantom captain succeeded in discharging his combi melter at the looming figure of huron at point-blank range the melter blast struck the arcane lightning claw the tyrant habitually wore which catastrophically exploded unleashing a bale for pulse of energy the blast incinerated the tyrant's arm and much of his right side and the remnants of his burning armor collapsing to the ground was the last image recorded by the fallen captain's auto senses soon afterwards when a second star phantom squad entered the vault they found the bloody remains of the melee along with the shrapnel and organic detritus later identified by the magus biologists of the constituent court as belonging to the tyrant the bulk of euron's body however was not found nor were any remains that could be later identified as belonging to the astral clause master of the forge armenius valthex who had also been present in the combat further investigation of the mata or deeper exploration of the lower levels of the palace of thorns proved impossible however as the wider situation on bada primeros began to deteriorate rapidly beneath the hives of bada primeras the cascading destruction of the deep sunk reactor cores was taking its toll tectonic shocks and volcanic eruptions were increasing at an exponential rate an entire high of sectors collapsed into gaping moors that opened in the ground beneath them to be replaced by seas of lava the campaign of purgation and conquest of bader quickly devolved into an arctic retreat and many were caught in the path of destruction whatever they could be found interface vessels of any kind and all kinds were commandeered by loyalist and renegade alike in a desperate effort to flee in the anarchy and ruin that followed the fall of the hive cities the air was filled with toxic ash and fallout the majority of the planet's population are estimated to have been exterminated within a few standard days confusion reigned in the wreckage strewn system several loyalist transports were also shot down by the blockade ships and it is believed at least one small warp capable privateer vessel managed to escape the badap system into the warp later intelligence reports suggest that less than 200 secessionist survivors were on board led by armenius valthex and carrying with them their masters broken body the badab war was over and punishment two eight nine five nine one three m four one in the aftermath of the death of bada primeros the remaining astral claws executioners mantis warriors and lamenters were put on trial by a specially convened consistorial court of their peers with their very existence at stake despite the attempts of legal frayne to have the mata placed fully under inquisitorial remit a conclave of five space marine chapter masters whose forces were not part of the conflict were convened in judgment in accordance with astati's tradition representatives of those that fought on both sides went on to give evidence to the court particularly noteworthy was the testimony of captain mercan of the salamanders speaking out in eloquent and moving defense of the executioner's chapter honor if not their actions also heard at length was the now near dead master of the fire hawks lazarec and his bitter calls to eradicate the vanquished foe without exception garnet some sympathy from the tribunal the last to testify was legate inquisitor frain himself whose impassioned and wise words called on the assembled chapter masters to wave off the deeds of men and the will of the emperor and heed the judgment of history on them a judgment was passed by unanimous verdict confirming the astral claws as traitors most foul guilty of taking up arms against the imperium and deceitfully causing their brethren to do likewise the consistorial court also found all of those chapters who had taken part in the badap secession guilty in breaking with both the codex and ancient covenant it represented in punishment all surviving astral clause in imperial custody were then put to the sword blindfolded and shackled in dishonor it was further judged that the other surviving secessionist chapters would have to each undertake a 100-year penitent crusade to atone for their transgressions and must do so without the right to recruit new brethren during this time their further survival or destruction was left in their own hands and in the grace of the emperor in addition the mantis warriors would henceforth lose all rights to their ancient domains in their endemium cluster with their goods and chattels given over to the firehawks in perpetuity and likewise the lamenters chapter were condemned to surrender reparations in ships and war gear to the minotaurs this in essence being no more than a rubber stamp of approval of actions already taken place the executionist chapter in contrast were granted a measure of comparable clemency and their twin chapter worlds were given over in trust to the salamanders chapter and their own successors rather than forfeited entirely to be returned to them should they endure their 100-year act of contrition and survive as to the men and women of the maelstrom zone caught up in a decade of calamity and bloodshed their lives now belong to the administration alongside them were the adeptus mechanicus and inquisition both of which had their own interest to serve and all would have their due the star phantom's prize 4995-913-m41 as a bloody prize and in recognition for their efforts in the war's brutal closing act the badly mauled star phantoms chapter were given the somewhat pyrrhic reward of dominion over the once proud badab sector along with the task of policing its survivors by edict of legate inquisitor frame this reward was somewhat of a hollow one as the star phantom's chapter had been reduced to under a third of its former strength by the fighting and its new domains were little more than a kingdom of ashes the star phantoms however long fleet-based after the loss of their former home world centuries before grasped this laurel of victory as their just and long labored for reward given the peak of the sector's worlds they chose to bring down their badly damaged battle barge momentum on the surface of the ice moon of jaga in the archaea system which had been all but untouched by the conflict to serve as the core of their new fortress monastery and slowly begin to rebuild the sorrow of tranquility 5997-913m41 with the arrival of a fresh imperial navy task force redeployed to be based at vianah the administrative auditors emplaced on sagan and other loyalist space marine forces having completed their operations in the maelstrom zone began to depart for their chapter worlds and wars afresh the care of the maelstrom zone was now in other hands and the province of new masters it was only when the sword of ordon the last of the loyalist battle barges was taking leave to depart vayner on the long voyage back to zabias minorus the news reached the system of a dark fate that had befallen the tranquility system before departing the maelstrom zone the carcaradon's fleet returned to the endemine cluster there with the agreement of the fire hawks they struck at the tranquility system whose worlds were once the primary recruiting and training grounds of the mantis warriors chapter from these worlds they harvested an entire generation to renew their own losses forcing those selected to fight to the death to prove their worth in order to survive the carcardon's brethren thus paid in blood the carcaradon's fleet departed the last known sighting of them made by an explorator augury beacon which marked them attacking course through the walk ascending the galactic plane into the blackness of the outer void once more explanation 1009 915 m41 i'm returning to holy terror and with his last act before he discharged his legitimate authority inquisitor frane ordered an edict of obliteration to be carried out under the auspices of the adaptus terror in regards to the astral claws the tiger claws and their master luft huron the task therefore began of wiping their accursed name and their sins from the pages of imperial history sanitized and altered versions of the events of the war began to enter the official record distorting nomenclature and reference as the first stage of eventual total purgation while an inquisition enforced data pogrom to unmake extraneous or morally unworthy facts concerning the badab war was conducted the eye of the imperium moved on blackheart 5113927 attacks from coarse air forces operating in and around the maelstrom worsened considerably although other than the pale stars region the rest of the maelstrom zone largely and it appears deliberately remained unaffected vessels and agents sent into the region began to uncover rumors of a powerful new corsair lord operating within the maelstrom leading a war band of crimson dorbz renegade space marines seeming to owe no allegiance to any prior known faction and operating with extraordinary ferocity and tactical discipline the corsair lord is set to style himself huron blackheart thanks for watching everybody i do hope you've enjoyed this there is another big episode to come potentially too i've got to see how things go but the next episode we'll be covering the space marine chapters involved in the conflict in detail and whether i split that up into into two videos i'll just have one big video i'm not too sure just yet i'm going to see how long it takes to make and how long it's going to be but that is coming up soon and we'll be out within a few days of this one being released thank you to everybody supporting the channel you can see your names going by here really means a lot lads really appreciate it really helps me do this sort of stuff if you would like to support the channel as well you can follow the links below and support me either as a youtube member clicking that lovely join button down there you know i mean that one right there or on patreon or on subscribe star which i settled because people asked me to uh yeah i will be back again very very soon the badab war series is so good it's so detailed i mean it really just shows what a what a god alan bloy was the man who passed away who wrote this um unfortunately when he passed away it seems that forge world lost a lot of its a lot of its energy a lot of its momentum with the things that it was doing with the quality of the things it was doing in terms of law writing and so on and alan blaine this and um in the siege of racks in the heresy books uh army books he showed like a great grasp of like not just cool science fiction stuff but also like an understanding of history and uh politics and stuff like this that he folded into this making this law some of the richest and deepest especially compared to some of the stuff that gw main d gw have done especially recently with the uh you know primaris and indomitus and all that stuff they just pale in comparison to the quality of this kind of work and it's it's such a shame and you know the guys i mean he did such great work and like i said i mean as soon as he passed away forge well just took a dive it seems to me just in terms of the output of everything uh he was a powerhouse but uh yeah this is probably one of his finest works so fun so interesting just pulling everything together anyway i'm gonna go like i say there'll be another video coming soon i'll also do a video at the end it'll be a shorter one but it'll be a complete timeline of events so those things are coming up soon and again please do uh if you want to support the channel like these fantastic heroes are please consider using the links below because it really helps me out but if you could share the video with people you think might be interested please do that it really really helps and do just like the video and let me know in the comments what you think i'm gonna go now so i don't ramble have a good one cheers bye

Channel: ABORDER PRINCE

Views: 146,046

Keywords: warhammer, 40k lore, badab war, warhammer 40k lore, warhammer 40k, lufgt, lufgt huron, red corsairs 40k, the maelstrom zone, imperium of man, space marines, 40k history, 40k narration, 40k stories, 40k audio, warhammer audio, warhammer stories, warhammer narration, the astral claws, the carcharodons, salamanders space marines, traitor legions, 40k battles, adeptus astartes, ASTARTES, FORGEWORLD, badab war 40k, badab war lore, BOLTER, WARHAMMER 40K LORE: THE BADAB WAR part 2

Id: VC9A0o2wCFY

Length: 140min 28sec (8428 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 23 2020