Editing Life Bringers (section)

==The Unification Wars==

Not much documentation is preserved regarding the formation of the twenty squads of the [[Sacred Band]], the first experimental combat unit comprised entirely of Space Marines and led by [[Hektor Cincinnatus]] himself. Back in this tumultuous era, the imperial bureaucrats had more urgent matters to attend to than meticulously documenting everything that was going on in the nascent Imperium. This situation was further exacerbated after the Heresy, when all of the relics or documents connected with the Arch-Traitor were destroyed en masse, with no regard paid to their value for the coming generations. Still, what little information is available about this obscure epoch allows the historians to assert with a certain degree of confidence that each of the squads was formed with a certain purpose in mind, based around the characteristics of the geneseed borne by its members. For instance, the geneseed of [[Johannes Vrach]] gifted his children with higher than usual resistance to toxic agents, which determined the role of the Twelfth Squad as hazardous environment specialists. With that purpose in mind, the squad was assigned not one, but two soldiers who received specialist training in field medicine: Edentis Pneuren, a physician of peerless skill, and [[Wilmut Sachs]], a man of impressive theoretical knowledge. Pneuren and Sachs had been acquainted with each other before the formation of the Sacred Band, which contributed to the cohesion within the squad. 

Their leader, Harel Meglin, quickly became the heart of the group. His men were drawn by his undeniable charisma and found a fondness for his signature gallows humour. Under Meglin's leadership, the squad has shown commendable results during the early stages of the Pacification of the Merican Hives. While hardly stellar, their performance was consistently adequate and their meticulous approach to clearing out the Hives drew comparison to surgeons excising a tumour. Reportedly, Hektor was not too pleased with the Twelfth's preferred tactical approach, preferring swift and theatrical operations, even if they required a clean-up afterwards. And so Meglin's men continued playing supporting roles, overshadowed entirely by by their peers in the First Section of the Sacred Band, until the greatest test of their abilities came up: the infamous Infiltration of Tarrant.

===The Infiltration of Tarrant===

The great Hive of Tarrant was the capital of Asphyxia, a petty empire ruled with an iron fist by a deranged alchemist named Hermes Geber. This once brilliant scientist was obsessed with the legendary Emerald Prophesy, stating that the one who would obtain every single chemical element in existence would gain the absolute power over the elements and the ability to transmute one into another at will. Of course, the obtention of new chemical elements was a difficult process requiring a lot of costly equipment and even more expensive raw materials, so he devised a diabolical plan to ensure a stable cash inflow to sustain his deranged experiments. First of all, he seized the power in the anarchy-ridden Hive of Tarrant with assistance from mercenaries he supplied with bullets made from radioactive metal. Once his authority was firmly established, Geber moved on to the second stage of his plan: he repurposed Tarrant's old chemical factories to pollute the air in and around the Hive to the point of toxicity. As a shroud of pernicious mist was enveloping the region around Tarrant, Geber began producing and selling oxygen to its suffocating dwellers. With his laboratories left as the only source of breathable air in the land, the people had no choice but to buy it for the steep price he demanded.

The Emperor required the ancient alchemical equipment gathered in Tarrant for his own experiments, but Geber's fortress was anything but simple to besiege. For one thing, it was permanently shrouded in an thick layer of noxious fog that even the breathing apparatuses of Space Marine power armour could have trouble filtering. To make matters worse, rumours persisted that Geber had much more in store than just poison gas for those foolhardy enough to dare intrude upon his domain. These complications rendered any kind of direct assault so valued by Hektor infeasible, leaving him with only a single viable option: an infiltration of the Hive by a team of hazardous environment specialists such as the Twelfth Squad, who would disable the chemical weapons before the rest of the Imperial forces could begin their offensive.

Meglin and his men realised perfectly well that this was their finest hour, the chance to turn their reputation around and emerge amongst the most glorious squads of the Sacred Band. Outfitted with the best filtering equipment in the armouries of the Imperium preliminary tweaked by Sachs to improve upon its efficiency even further, they used a system of ancient underground passages to enter the Hive from below. Moving swiftly and silently like the shadow of Death, they dispatched Geber's minions one after another, not giving them a chance to use their deadly polonium bullets. Alas, the Twelfth Squad were not a stealthy formation by any stretch of the term, and so they were inevitably discovered right when they began closing in on the chemical weapon depositories. Cursing the incompetence of his underlings, Geber activated Carnivorous Fog - the deadliest tool of death in his arsenal. At his command, a blasphemous alchematron began belching forth clouds of nearly invisible gas that deliberately sought out organic matter and dissolved it with a protein-degenerating reaction.

Meglin was the first one to fall to the deadly vapour. As he walked into its cloud without even noticing it, the Carnivorous Fog trivially bypassed his armour's defences like if they were nothing and started hungrily consuming his flesh. His skin, boiling with pustules spewing blood-tinted rot juices, peeled off in large rancid chunks, revealing his flesh that rapidly decomposed into a repugnant ooze. His bones cracked, letting out sticky streaks of decayed marrow, and his internal organs exploded like putrid grenades, covering everything around in malodorous slime. His best friend Hipocene Bubastus tried to drag his commander out of the toxic cloud, but instead got affected by the gas himself and died an equally horrid death before the eyes of his comrades. The members of the Twelfth Squad were deeply disturbed by the grisly scene they had just witnessed; unable to move, they stood in place and watched the gas turn their comrades into organic slime. Pneuren was the first one to shake off the shock and push his comrades back into the room where they came from before the Carnivorous Fog would reach them as well. But not all of his team members wished to retreat: well-known for his recklessness bordering on disregard for his life, Gaius Martinus Vira grabbed as many grenades as he could carry from the belts of his comrades and rushed back into the corridor. There, he used the blast waves from the explosions to dispel the toxic gas from the area, temporarily allowing him to move forward. While this move was incredibly risky, it ended up working fine in the end. Using grenades to clear his path, Vira eventually reached the chemical weapon depository and destroyed the alchematron producing the Carnivorous Fog.

All that remained to do now was to finish off Geber himself. Aflame with thirst for vengeance, the members of the Twelfth Squad found the man in his personal sanctuary. Alas, they were too late to have their revenge: faced with impending doom, the alchemist finally lost it and began ingesting the samples of all the chemical elements he managed to obtain during his tyranny, hoping that they would turn him into a demigod able to defeat the superhuman giants. The result of his delirious escapade was quite different from his expectations: his flesh simply melted off his bones from the heavy dose of radiation he received from the ingested radioactive elements.

===A New Doctrine===

While the pacification of Tarrant earned the Twelfth Squad glory and admiration of their peers, they were unsure how to proceed from that point. Harel Meglin, their spiritual leader, was dead, and his demise created a void not so easily filled. Theophrastus Salk, late Meglin's second in command, begrudgingly stepped in to at least restore the martial spirit. Famously modest, Salk considered his leadership skills vastly inferior to those of his departed commander and initially planned to step down as soon as a better candidate for this position revealed himself. But while he was in fact hardly Meglin's inferior, the two were indeed as different as life and death. Whereas Meglin was a charismatic leader whose gallows humour did wonders to the morale, his replacement was perpetually sombre and dour, with no sense of humour to speak of. While Meglin was the team's heart, Salk was its brain, and so he began his tenure as the squad's commander with analysing the lessons of Tarrant, hoping to at least partially compensate for the loss of two valuable soldiers with new strategic insights. 

First and foremost, he was deeply impressed with the array of chemical weapons employed by Geber and his minions. The scene of two brilliantly trained, experienced Space Marines dying to something as simple as a cloud of toxic gas stayed with him for the rest of his life. He wisely deduced that if such weapons could bring down Terra's finest warriors with ease, then they would surely be even more effective against anything the technobarbarians could throw at them. With his mind firmly set on turning chemical weapons into an asset for the Twelfth Squad, Salk ordered Sachs to study the captured alchematrons and make them more suitable for usage in Space Marine assaults, while Pneuren was tasked with developing superior means of chemical and biological defence. Both achieved great success, and Salk made a decision to test his new strategy during the pacification of the Cyborgocracy of Xebek. 

Much to his pleasure, it worked out even better than he expected. Scores of cyborgs fell victim to the toxic agents unleashed upon them, and those lucky enough to survive were quickly finished off by the Twelfth Squad protected by the best chemical defence available on Terra. The Xebek operation set new standards for efficiency: the Hive was taken in record time, no enemies survived and the casualties on the Imperial side were trivial and mostly caused by the residual toxic gases inhaled by the Imperial soldiers. At first, Hektor derided the operation, considering the usage of chemical weapons a show of cowardice. However, the Emperor himself was immensely pleased by its outcome, pointing out to his son that not every enemy he would encounter during the upcoming Great Crusade would be deserving of an honourable fight. After considering his notion, Hektor reassessed the performance of the Twelfth Squad and decorated its members. 

With Salk's new strategy an astounding success, his squad continued to implement it with minor alterations throughout the Unification Wars, with largely positive results. Although Vira's recklessness almost cost him his life several times, timely help from Pneuren or Sachs typically kept him off the doorstep of the Underworld, and the Twelfth Squad received no more casualties until the end of the great conflict. Although not without hesitation, Salk finally came to terms with his role as the leader, although his social skills remained just as poor. It was often that the brilliant battle strategies drafted by Salk were explained to the squad members by his right hand man Hashimoto the Red, a much more apt speaker than his commander. Deeply unhappy about this situation, Salk secretly took rhetoric lessons between combat assignment; but, as with most things concerning him, they were only secret in his own mind. His men knew full well about the lessons, but their consensus was that they were completely unnecessary. They came to love and respect their sombre commander the way he was, although it certainly warmed their hearts that he was so eager to improve for them.

Another important event happened near the end of the Unification Wars. The conquest of Terra was nearing its conclusion, and the conquest of the entire Galaxy was to follow. This conflict was promising to be much harder than the Unification Wars, and the Imperial commanders were already looking for ways to prepare for a war on such an unprecedented scale. The suggestions of the members of the Sacred Band were listened to with deep attention, for their skill and experience as warriors were beyond all doubt. Edentis Pneuren, who made a name for himself as a peerless field medic during the Wars, argued before Hektor for the establishment of a school for the medically-inclined amongst Space Marines, arguing that a good field doctor could save enough lives to turn the tide of any battle. His suggestion was met with general approval, and soon enough Hektor announced the opening of Asclepeion - a medical school for Space Marines.

Every single legion sent its representatives to this school, although the greatest number of new students came from the Twelfth Legion, whose members were probably inspired by the example of Pneuren and Sachs. Adept Biologis [[Lyster Larrey]] of Mars was invited to help found Asclepeion once Mars joined Terra in a permanent union. While Pneuren displayed the best medical skills and most dedication, Sachs quickly became the adept's favourite student, for his curious scientific mind reminded Lyster of his own. It was Larrey's idea to unite the positions of field medics and geneseed caretakers due to the numerous similarities and direct overlaps between the two. He suggested the name Apothecary for the new position, and it was ultimately approved by Hektor. Pneuren and Sachs became the first full-fledged Apothecaries to graduate from Asclepeion, thus being the originators of the entire Imperial Apothecarion.

===The XIIth Squad of the Sacred Band===

The men who led the Brothers of Death were among the most durable warriors in the [[Sacred Band]]. Their squads were brutally effective at hive clearing, utilizing flamers and noxious chem grenades developed with input from their own researchers to cause chaos within the structures before marching in themselves. Even for the Astartes, these methods were extremely risky, but none could deny the XIIth's effectiveness, and Hektor himself came to be an admirer of their apparent courage. The squad received numerous accolades during the Unification Wars, which they received with characteristic humility.
 
The members of the 12th Squad:

*Harel Meglin, the Happy Death (deceased; at the Merican pacification)
*Theophrastus Salk, the Somber (deceased; sacrificed himself at the close of the Nuroux campaign)
*Hashimoto the Red (deceased; at the Pulmn Campaign)
*Mafran Marchesani, Brother to All (deceased; at the Pulmn Campaign)
*Whitten Bennedik, the Nightingale (deceased; unknown time after the Unification Wars)
*Hipocene Bubastus, Oathkeeper (deceased; at the Merican pacification)
*Gaius Martinus Vira, the Reaper (survived to become Plague Doctor)
*Vanheim Paracel, the Angel of Death (deceased; unknown time between the Pulmn and Renyl campaigns)
*Edentis Pneuren, the War-Doctor (Survived to become Chief Apothecary) 
*[[Wilmut Sachs]]; (surivied to become High Genetor)