Dark Apostle

More troops would rappel to the surface and smaller, breakaway transports would detach from the massive bulk of the main ships on the descent, dropping in heavier support to bolster the perimeter defences: rapidly moving Sentinel walkers and Chimera infantry transports bearing cargos of specialist Elysians.

Havorn had no doubt that the landing was proceeding smoothly and as planned, and a glance at the data-slates being updated every few seconds with fresh information confirmed this. The perimeter had been established well within the usual expected time-frame, and Sentinels were already scouting beyond the landing zone, seeking out possible threats invisible from the air.

The pict-image flickered again, but it was clear that the last of the mass transports had landed. Dust rose around the ships as their immense weight was lowered onto the earth. Havorn could imagine the rumbling beneath the feet of the men already on the ground as the ships landed and their titanic cargo-doors dropped open.

He raised a hand to his long, greying moustache. Landings were always stressful; the mass transport ships were such tempting targets. He was pleased, though somewhat surprised, not to have had any sightings of the enemy. That was a blessing. A shudder of revulsion ran through him as he thought of the foe that his soldiers would soon be facing.

Chaos Space Marines, the most dangerous and hated of foes: traitors and betrayers who had turned their backs on the light of the Emperor and sold their souls to devils and eternal damnation.

The Space Marines, were the most elite warriors of the Imperium, each genetically modified to become giants among men, perfect machines of death with bodies created to withstand wounds that would kill a lesser man ten times over. In every respect they were superior to regular warriors. They were stronger, tougher and faster. Add to that the awesome protective and strength enhancing properties of their power armour, their unparalleled training and the best weapons that the adepts of Mars could construct, and you had the most powerful fighting force in the galaxy, and the most dangerous.

The Space Marines were meant to be the warrior elite of humanity that brought stability to the galaxy with bolter and sword in the name of the God-Emperor of mankind. But more than half of their number had turned their backs on the Emperor, embracing the sentient darkness and malice of the Empyrean.

The Elysians were soon to face these accursed traitors on this dead-end planet. His men would be fighting the genetically modified monsters, the results of a deadly experiment gone horribly wrong when they turned upon the Emperor. Havorn had fought alongside loyalist Adeptus Astartes many times, and their involvement in those wars had ensured that tens of thousands of Imperial Guardsmen had lived, but he would never trust them as he would trust any of his men.

Why are we on this accursed planet? he fumed, his face impassive. He was not one to question orders from the Lord General Militant, but he resented being left in the dark as to the reasons.

Still, it mattered little. The enemy was here, and wherever it raised his treasonous head, the snake must be cut down. It was just that Havorn knew that this world must be of some hidden importance for the 133rd and the 72nd, in their entireties, to have been drawn off from the Ghandas Crusade to retake it: important, but not important enough, it seemed, to have drawn one of the loyalist Space Marine Chapters to the world.

Tanakreg was a backwater planet dominated by black, acidic seas. There were only two main land-masses on the world, and only one of those was inhabited. An inhospitable and desolate land dominated by salt plains and high ranges of mountains, it seemed to Havorn to be a planet that the hated forces of Chaos could damn well keep if they wanted it so much.

The Planetary Defence Forces had been overwhelmed contemptuously quickly, a fighting force of two hundred thousand soldiers, defeated within days by a force that could not have been more than three thousand. But those three thousand were Astartes, he reminded himself, and he surmised that traitors on Tanakreg had aided them. It sickened him that people could turn on their own like that.

'Brigadier-general,' said Colonel Boerl, 'the perimeter is secured and primary bulk transports landed. The secondary perimeter is being established and will be operational at any moment.'

'Thank you, colonel,' said Havorn. He turned to the representative of the Mechanicus.

'Techno-Magos Darioq, you may order your own transports to descend, if you wish,' he said.

'Thank you, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn,' replied the magos in his mechanical monotone. 'I will leave you now to return to my ship, to oversee the landing.'