Crisis on Ulixia III (Discontinued)

Chapter 5

The battlefield was in turmoil. The downed strike cruiser ablaze, with shrapnel everywhere. Militarum shock troops in skirmishes with ork boyz. Astartes taking the fight to the orks. At the forefront of the astartes force was captain Gorgon.

"Damn green skins!" A terminator spat.

The battle-captain was drenched in blood, along with Daemon Bane. His once mighty cloak reduced to shreds. Odin looked at his brothers. Half of what he had come with. Half a company, gone. Irreplaceable men, wiped from existence.

"Captain! Ork gargants inbound!" A power armoured marine reported.

In the distance, huge footfalls could be heard, the massive ork machines lumbering slowly towards their target. The munitions factory was in ruins, destroyed by an ork contraption. The imperials had made them pay dearly for that. At Odin's feet lay the head of the ork warboss, ironjaw. He had entered single combat with the brute and beaten him to a pulp.

The captain could just make out the shape of an imperial knight among the throng of ork knock-off Titans. These orks must have been to other worlds before this one. Odin was confused. Why had the ork horde not give up and run away when their leader had been bested. They had continued to fight.

"Lord, we should scavenge what we can from the Emperor's Will, before the orks can desecrate it any further."

The captain studied the terminator who had said it. His armour was cracked and worn, scorch marks covered it like a dot painting. His helmet was nowhere to be see, showing the many years of combat paying tribute on his face in the form of scars. He looked right back at the captain with his brilliant blue eyes.

"Aye, Brother-Decius. Organise a boarding party. We're going to strip the Emperor's Will of all weapons and ammunition!" Odin replied.

Decius went about organising the squads once more. Odin's Vox started to crackle to life.

"Battle-captain Odin Gorgon? Are you reading?" A deep voice said.

The captain turned on the channel and replied.

"Yes, who is this? Answer in the name of the Emperor!"

"This is inquisitor Latarbo, of the ordo xenos and leader of the SoecOps regiment. I heard you required assistance." The Vox crackled.

"My lord Latarbo!" He gasped.

The last time Odin had seen the inquisitor was when the SpecOps cruiser, Chrysis, had been overrun by gene-stealers. He had assumed that the inquisitor had died along with his elite soldiers. Apprently, they had survived.

"My lord, how is it you are alive?" He asked.

"The Chrysis crew threw her into an emergency warp jump in the hopes that the gene-stealers would be thrown out of the open air locks. This did not work as they simply got through the doors. Many brave soldiers flew out instead. Eventually, we reached Baal where a blood angels detatchment helped us cleanse the ship. However she was too badly damaged and we had to borrow a small frigate to find out way back to Tigaria. We where thrown out of the warp here and found that your soldiers where warring here so we decided to be of some assistance." Latarbo said in his signature deep, slow voice.

BOOM!

Odin was thrown off his feet into the remains of a wall. The wall crumbled on impact, showering him in rubble.

"What in the name of the Emperor was that!" He asked.

"Sir, the ork gargants have advanced on our position!" Decius said.

"Heavy weapons!" Odin ordered roughly.

Four Terminators marched up to him, three bearing assault cannons, one bearing a cyclone missile launcher. A power armoured devastator squad also marched up. Among their number was a grav-cannon, a las-cannon, a missile launcher and a plasma cannon. The sergeant had a bolter and chainsword. The five other marines behind them wielded standard bolter.

"Your five, move yourselves into the tactical squads. Any heavy weapons from the tactical squad are hereby ordered to take up postion within the devastators." Odin barked.

Three Astartes moved forward. One wielded a heavy bolter while the other two had missile launchers. They positioned themselves with the devastaors in the minimal cover the rubble offered them.

"I may be of assistance here, battle-captain." Latarbo's voice crackled over the vox.

"How so, inquisitor?" Gorgon replied.

"Some of our valkyries survived our encounter with the gene-stealers and the warp jump. We could send them down as additional fire support." The inquisitor said.

Barely a minute later, three jet-black valkyries rocketed over their heads, flying straight towards the gargants. Two of their number opened up with a multi-laser and a las-cannon with wing mounted rocket pods, while the other set to work with a multi-laser and its two hellstrike missiles. One of the gargants fell, its hull covered in scorch marks and smoking. Another started to rain fire upon the valkyries, but they evaded easily, the stubber rounds completely missing.
One of the gargants, a looted Warhound class titan, turned to the astartes force and trained a shoulder-mounted weapon on them. It was a weapon Odin had never seen before. It started to charge up, emmitting a sickly green glow.

"Emperor protect us." Odin muttered under his breath.

Towards the area of gargants, he could make out the forms of the Salamanders detachment, using their flamers to burn through the horde of orks around the wreck machines. At their head, he could see Sha'osha in combat with a group of Nobz, his roaring chainsword rising and falling. With each blow, another ork fell dead. He was too busy to notice the ork come up behind him. He realised a moment too late what was about to happen. He fell to the ground, a crude spear jutting out his back. The ork rose above him, and with one blow from his axe, Sha'osha of the Salamanders was on the ground, headless.

Looking at the looted Warhound Titan, the weapon seemed familiar. He paused here, looking like he was trying to find the right words to say. He started saying "the advanced biology of a space marine was what it targeted. It was like some organ or nerve disintegrating virus. All that was left was puddle of goo and a white fog that was dangerous to be near. It could go right through the breath filters of an Astartes helmet, even terminator, and make them cough and splutter then die. It would melt their lungs." "They mounted it onto their xenos machines and fired it in blasts at us."

"FILTER YOUR HELMETS, EMERGENCY RESERVES!" He yelled.

The Astartes did so without question. This was the weapon that had wiped out the 6th company. The weapon that had killed three of his brothers earlier.

The weapon fired, a blob of white against the smoky sky. The ork machine was thrown off its feet. The orks clearly hadn't known how to engage the position lock. It arked up, then began the descent downwards. It impacted, blanketing everything in a white fog. The orks and un-augmentated humans were fine, the weapon was however, designed for killing space marines. As the fog covered the marines, Odin prayed to the Emperor that his plan would work.