Editing Warhammer 60K: Age of Dusk (Continued) (section)

==Additional background Section 41: The Battle of Corbellus (Part 1)==



<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">The Imperium Pentus’ primary fleet entered the territory of the Travesty not in piecemeal groups, but as one mighty lance thrust, deep into the chaos polluted realm. The grand armada was the largest fleet ever launched by this Imperium; almost half a million ships made up the fleet, including countless troopships, armor transports, factory vessels, escorts and capital ships, famous across the galaxy. These included the fast-battleships Antioch and Sleipnir, the Devil of Catachan and its attendant escorts, and the grand flagship Phalanx, which Vulkan himself commanded.

The fleet traveled through the warp, which had been cleansed of daemons in a particular region of the warp, where the erratic Ophilim Kiasoz had passed by on its way towards the heart of the Eye. In such relatively safe warp currents, the fleet managed to travel through the warp as one, travelling in a relatively tight formation. Their Gellar fields had ingeniously been linked together, forming a single colossal Gellar field which enclosed a seven light second diameter bubble of realspace inside the formless warp. Such a monumental undertaking required the precise coordination of every ship in the fleet, activating their Gellar fields at once, just as they used their warp engines to plunge into the immaterium. Such an action would have been impossible without both a calm warp, and the towering intellects of the four Primarchs who undertook the task. The iron will and great intelligence of Russ, Lion, Khan and Vulkan kept the diverse fleet together, constantly adjusting the relative magnitudes of the shared Gellar field by seemingly minute amounts every seconds; adjustments that meant the difference between life and the dissolution of the entire fleet. It was a risky manoeuvre, but its rewards could potentially be great.<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Pentus Primarchs’ plan was to breech the warp at some vital jugular of the Travesty, before using the conquered system as a jumping off point to attack neighboring systems. Small, fast scout frigates traveled along the warp route ahead of the main force, to assess the strength of the enemy, and to locate suitable targets for their planned initial, devastating assault.

One such scout-frigate was the Rinzell. It was a light Astartes frigate of the Jade Princes Commandery, with the usual compliment of two hundred mortal crew, and three Astartes tactical squads. Command of the scouting mission was divided between the Astartes Sergeant Koror, and the mortal captain of the Rinzel, Lord Matoburo.

Making multiple short warp jumps through the daemon-cleared Kiasoz channel, Rinzell ranged ahead of the Pentus Crusade, and was the first scouting party to break back into the materium.

They entered the Corbellus system quietly; the engine trace of a scout frigate was deliberately shielded, and had a similar profile to a mere fighter craft, to any snooping chaos forces. Even after exiting the warp, the taint of the immaterium still clung to every molecule of the system, for the Imperium of Travesties was doused in the hellish afterglow of countless warp rifts. Even though no such warp rifts were detected by the Rinzell, Matoburo nevertheless advised caution, and kept his gunports open as they investigated the system.

The Corbellus system was a system of six worlds in relatively close orbit with one another. The system had been selected by Koror as it was far from major battlelines, yet seemed close to a warp nexus point, which linked the system to several chaos bastion worlds. The veteran Sergeant gambled that the chaos forces, being allies of the daemons, hadn’t used the stable routes in many years, and might not realise how vulnerable Corbellus was for being used as a staging point. The Rinzell scanned each world from orbit, being careful to mask its approach behind natural satellites to avoid any potential defence laser fire. Fortunately it seemed, the backwater system had already been ravaged long ago.

Each world were cathedral worlds dedicated to the gods, but their surfaces looked like the asteroid-pelted surfaces of airless moons. There had been a war there, perhaps fought during the war between Abaddon and Erebus’ usurpers. The defence lasers were smashed, and what little human life was detected on each of the worlds seemed minimal. They were garrison forces, awaiting the return of their uncaring, daemon-loving patrons. The system was ideal for a swift invasion. However, Captain Matoburo decided to make sure, and destroyed the surface settlements of five of the six worlds from orbit using precision lance strikes.

Corbellus Secundus, however, had a subterranean garrison force, and Koror and two tactical squads were deployed to clear them out, while Matoburo monitored things from orbit.

The Jade Princes moved swiftly, as soon as their drop pods touched down, they located the tunnel entrances and blew them with melta charges, before storming into the darkness below. The dark held no obstacle to Astartes of course, as they activated preysight almost instantly. The first of the garrisons sentry squads were eliminated by knife and gunstock, but soon enough, as they descended, the mortal soldiers, in their robes of mail, reacted to the space marines. They fought superhumans in the dark, with only their torches and greyscale night vision goggles to aid them. Even though the enemy was dug into several heavy weapon emplacements, and had set up elaborate killzones and intersecting lines of fire, they were hideously outmatched by the Jade Princes. Their green-striped power armour was the last thing most of the screaming human cultists saw before their brutal, swift deaths. Koror’s chainsword echoed through the cold halls of the grand, sprawling temple, as he carved down fleeing humans by the dozen. Intriguingly, all the cultists seemed desperate to reach a common objective; they all fled in similar directions, down through the layers to something deep in Corbellus Secundus.

Koror decided to follow the trail, as his auspex marine confirmed an energy source of some sort was located down there. Koror suspected the cultists would try to raise daemons to even the engagement in their favour. He resolved to kill them before they could even attempt this. The nearer they approached to the power source however, the weaker their vox link with the Rinzell became. Koror instructed one of his marines to return to the surface and apprise Matoburo of the situation, while the rest continued onwards.

Meanwhile, in the warp, the fleet continued along its becalmed route. It was eerily calm within the fleet. The crews were quiet. Some were asleep. Most were praying to whatever gods the primarchs permitted them to worship. Aboard the battlecruiser Crato, two Astartes watched the warp swirling past the Gellar field. It was like formless oil. Yet, it was not there. The warp could never be observed in the moment; it was an after image. You were never sure precisely what one saw in the depths. The two Astartes only knew it was their enemy. The two Astartes were castron of the nemenmarines, and Alistor of the Fire beasts. Their Commanderies had been made to share their transports during the coming conflict, and were also expected to fight together seamlessly in the coming war. (In later reports, castron of the nemenmarines would report that, during this voyage, he swore he saw as shimmering ghost ship, keeping pace with their fleet, like a dolphin following a ship’s wake. It looked like ‘a black ship of old, yet it also seemed to move like a shoal of infinitely small fish’ according to the Astartes. This vessel was likely the Tersis. Perhaps this vision was a grim foretelling of the events to come? None can say for certain).

Back in the Corbellus system, Koror’s investigation continued.

The underworld temple of corbellus Secundus was vast, and echoed with the breath of the dead. A civilization had died in its depths, leaving the powdery remains of their bones as the only testament to their existence. That, and the statues of their countless heathen gods, sculpted in brass and steel. They leered down at the marines with hollow eyes in the dark, but the exact forms of the statues were rendered indistinct and fuzzy by the marines’ preysight autosenses. Koror had no time for the religiosity of the depraved and the extinct.

The underground caverns opened up, their great vaunted ceilings lost in the darkness, hiding the full extent of the caverns. As the tactical squads moved through the temple, they divided into two, to assault the power source from the flanks.

The approach to the ritual site was lined with more and more statues, arrayed in row upon row. It must have taken centuries of sculpture by mortal hands, Koror noted. As he considered this, the veteran spotted something in the path of the tactical squad he was leading. One of the statues had fallen into disrepair, and its oversized ceremonial weapon had fallen to the floor. As they closed on the weapon, Koror began to feel uneasy.

It was as if the cultists wanted to die, standing out in the middle of the temple, with no cover. Koror realized then that he had made a mistake.

Over the vox, he heard his second tactical squad engage and slaughter the remaining cultists, moments before he could shout out a countermand. The ceremonial weapon, lying at his feet, was familiar. It took him a fraction of a second to recognize the weapon.

It was a Kai Gun. Instinctively, Koror kicked the kai gun skittering away into the distance. Barely a second later, the disarmed statue suddenly burst into life with an ungodly roar. Fire rose up inside it, revealing it was hollow and full of impossible black flames flecked with orange. In the millisecond it took his men to spin around to aim at the kai bane warrior, it had already leapt from its podium, and slammed a massive boot into the nearest marine, who was hurled bodily away, his ribcage and breastplate shattered. The daemon engine was fast, and snatched the head from another marine, before punching a fist through the melta armed member of the squad. Koror and his squad opened up on the kai bane warrior in a furious flurry of bolter shells. The bolts rippled across the daemonic entity’s metal skin like pattering rain, as it threw itself into the fray. It gored one marine with its tusk baldes, as it ripped another rmarine in two, hurling the pieces aside carelessly. Koror rolled to avoid the sweeping claws of the beast, and slashed his chainsword across the thing’s muzzle. It roared mechanically, rearing up and flinging the sergeant onto his back with a sonorous clang.

This commotion brought second squad intot he fray, who opened fire as soon as they locked onto the fiend. Under sustained bombardment, the kai bane warrior stumbled, its body glowed a ruby red tone under the heat of explosive rounds detonating against its flesh. But still the thing didn’t die, barging two marines to the ground, and stomping on marine’s head till it was flat. The kai bane monster roared again, not in pain but in monstrous glee. Koror finally killed the thing by snatching up the flalen meltagun, and boring a three foot smoudleirng hole through the daemon’s centre of mass. At last, it clattered tot he floor, empty once more.

Only twelve of his marines were left alive, and not one of them had escaped damage. Koror knew he had to escape now; to warn the Rinzell.

Then they felt the entire temple tremble. Then they heard the dead kai bane roar ocne more. However, it was not the dead one which had roared. Nor was the roar which answered it. 

All around them, the statues were lighting up. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Millions of them. They woke up sequentially, like a city power grid reactivating after a blackout. Corbellus secundus was no temple. It was a factory. It was a trap. The kai ban Host closed ranks around them, as the power source began to blaze with daemon fire, illuminating the hall at last. Koror lowered his meltagun.

“Oh Throne...”

(I cannot be sure of Koror’s precise last words, as he was never seen again, but I feel confident my estimation was accurate.)

Meanwhile, Matoburo was getting nervous. The Astartes sent to return word of developments underground had not returned. Captain Matoburo knew something was wrong immediately. He readied his bridge crew to make for the warp translation point. Koror must be compromised he summised. If he wasn’t, the Sergeant would merely be stranded on an empty world. If he was compromised, then the forces of Corbellus were greater than expected; a likely trap.

Matoburo’s instincts were sound, and he might well have averted the entire battle of Corbellus there and then, if his first officer hadn’t turned, smiled at him, before punching his fist through the old man’s head, and fling him from his command throne with a petulant flick of his wrist. The first officer turned to the stunned bridge crew, grinning as he watched them draw their sidearms. The first officer’s body rippled and rand fluid, before becoming Matoburo. As they fired on the imposter, he leapt aside, and their weapons destroyed the captain’s command throne, and all his inter ship vox equipment.

“That’s no way to treat your captain. I see security is required,” the imposter beamed as it took shelter behind a hefty console.

Moments later, a warp rift burst into life in the centre of the room. The rift was gone barely a second later, replaced by a squad of iron Warrior terminators. Without saying a word, the terminators turned their combi bolters on the human bridge crew. Hearing a commotion, Jade Princes burst into the chamber, flinging grenades and firing from the hip. The gun battle lasted approximately three minutes.

The imposter Matoburo stood up, rolling his shoulders carefully before addressing his armoured allies.

“Well-oiled precision, and impeccable timing as ever Sons of Perturabo. How odious,” the thing giggled. “So predictably competent.”

“You will hold up your end of the bargain, Changeling. Enough drama,” the Aspiring Champion of the terminators rumbled.

The Changeling nodded, before vanishing. It appeared to the ship’s beacon-psyker, in the guise of the Captain. The daemon killed the psyker, and stole its form post-mortem.

Thus, when the Rinzell sent its daily telepathic communication to the Phalanx, it relayed that Corbellus was an ideal staging point for the invasion. And, alas, the changeling was ever the convincing liar, and the primarchs were duped.

A few days later, the Pentus Crusade entered the Corbellus system as one. A titanic fleet, including every single troopship and major war vessel of the Pentus armada.

They arrived to find a system full of foes. Every world in Corbellus was a disguised factory world. Some were full of the Kai bane Host, Defilers and Deamon engines of all descriptions. Others had been hollow shell worlds, filled with cruisers and battleships, waiting to be released. Now, there were more enemy contacts than the Phalanx’s sensors could adequately track.

And at their head, were two vessels the Primarchs instantly recognised. The Conquerer, with its distinctive pectoral harpoon spines. The other, a moon-sized behemoth of daemon-forged horror; the Goliath Engine.

Perturabo had anticipated their desire for a staging point, and had enticed them in with a seemingly perfect one. The Demi-gods no doubt cursed themselves for their momentary lapse in judgement.

Vulkan looked across the enemy, unreadable, yet radiating furnace-hot wrath as he began to respond to the avalanche of data being returned by thousands of his ship captains, already planning his next twenty moves. 

The Lion was stoic upon the bridge of the Antioch, calmly ordering his crew to battle stations. Khan was pacing at his side like an impatient hound.

Aboard the Sleipnir, Leman Russ’s lip curled into a foreboding smile, as his lieutenants Hrothnar the Fanged, Commander of the Rout, and Skalvad fenrisborn of the Wolf brothers, snarled like feral beasts. Russ ignored the majority of the enemy fleet, and focused upon the Conqueror and its fang-nosed attendant cruisers. 

A vox signal was received from the Goliath Engine. It was the only communication exchanged between the two fleets, before battle was joined in earnest.

++ Your plan was clever, Vulkan... brother.++ A bitter, rumbling voice said down the vox link, spitting the last word like a venomous curse. ++But not as clever as mine.++

Thus began one of the most pivotal battles of the primarch war. If the Primarchs could not fight their way clear of the ambush, their Pentus Crusade would be strangled at birth.

Defeat was not an option.
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