The Cleansing of Calverna

This article or section has been selected for Exterminatus by the Ordo Editant. The Emperor Corrects.

The Arch-Maniac of Calverna

The border of Segmentum Solar lay a minute sliver ahead on the Galactic scale, and for the first time the Second Legion was about to push beyond humanity's relatively well-mapped "heartland" into the vast unknown. Near the border zone, auspexes detected the former Forge World of Calverna, long lost to humanity. Because the Second Legion was closest to that planet, emissaries from Mars sent a personal envoy to request that the Marines take part in its reconquest. Fighting alongside them would be a moderate detachment of forces from the Red Planet and pre-battle cogitation indicated that a numerical superiority was likely.

Breaking from the main thrust of the Crusade, the Second Legion took a more southerly course. Within a few weeks, their advanced scouts entered visual range of the ancient Forge World. To the horror of the Magi it was visibly ruined even from orbit, with great gouges torn into the crust. The mighty spires and forges had been toppled long ago, reconstructed crudely by Orks for their endless wars. The central citadel yet remained strong, and it was from this fortress that the Warlord no doubt brooded over his vast realm. Mars' fury was apocalyptic, and the Red Planet's iron hordes descended in wrath upon the planet below.

The Second Legion dropped directly into the citadel whilst the Martians cleared away the outer walls of Orkish filth. If a decisive blow could be struck at the cancer's heart, the Orks within the main Forge could be pinned between the walls and cut down en masse. Resistance was intense, but sporadic. One minute the Orks would be striking randomly, even shooting their own allies, and the next they would form into an iron wall of cannons and lay waste to all before them. The battle lines shifted a dozen times over the course of two days as more and more Orks came boiling out of secret passages invisible to auspexes. A thousand Marines lay dead, cut off and isolated from their brethren, yet thousands more fought on.

The Magi authorized orbital fire on the third day, no longer caring much about damaging the already ruined manufactoria of Calverna further. It was horrifyingly obvious that virtually everything had been corrupted or destroyed by the savage xenos. If any machine spirits yet lived, better to put them out of their misery with a clean deathblow than to let them endure in agony. Brilliant lances from space boiled away Ork and metal alike, with only the central citadel remaining untouched. As uncountable Orks vanished into dust, what little coordination they had vanished. Taking advantage of the enemy's confusion, the Marines pressed forward with lightning speed, just as they had learned from mighty Hektor, and the enemy's sanctum lay bare before them.

At last the monster whose mind guided the horde was visible, wired into the endless rows of cogitators left from long-dead Martian technology. The Ork was a colossal, tortured wretch, his brain long since overwhelmed from the torrent of data pouring into his half-mechanical brain. Control over the Forge he had, and all its mighty guns, but no one mind could effectively direct the power. The devastation wreaked outside had shattered what little intelligence the Ork had left, as the surging damage reports cooked his brain from inside out. For all his might, for all his armies, a wounded beast chained to a throne was easily killed. A lone Sergeant rushed to the throne, dodging electrical arcs and insane Grots to end the green demon with a single Krak missile round. Though hundreds had fallen around him, the Sergeant endured where no others could, clawing his way over the bodies of the slain to reach the target. For his heroism in the final action, Second Company Sergeant Tel Bernos became Commander Tel Bernos, riding the Fellblade Fungicidal.

Though devastated and battered by Ork and Imperium alike, it was a joyous day when the Forge World of Magnos Majoris finally shed its Orkish burden and stood alongside humanity again. An enormous task of purging the remaining Orks and rebuilding the ancient forges lay ahead, but the task was gratefully accepted by the Mechanicus, and the Second Legion earned much gratitude for their assistance in the planet's recovery. Within five years, Magnos Majoris would begin tithing its production to the Second Legion. Within a decade, it became a primary Imperial Forge World fueling multiple assaults into Segmentum Tempestus and Pacificus.

While the Second Legion was justly proud of its achievement, the toll had been heavy. Supplies of gene-seed had run critically low during the protracted urban combat, and there was a very real risk that the Legion would bleed itself dry before ever leaving Segmentum Solar. Their salvation lay with the Mechanicus, who in gratitude for liberating a major Forge World stepped in to support the Legion in their time of need. The gene-seed tithes were temporarily cut to 10% of normal, and the Legion received an emergency reserve of heavy equipment, largely aircraft. With these tools, the Legion was able to husband its biological reserves behind sheets of adamantium until such time as manpower rose.