Editing Chosen of Hecate (section)

===Swordbreaker===
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“She’s called Swordbreaker Cap’n”. Higgens, the pilot of the small transport cutter voxed. 
Bruno, who was in fact not a captain, merely a squad sergeant  of the Astral Wardens Legion of Space Marines, stared out the porthole at the derelict ship. It was a Sword-Class Frigate. 
The Swordbreaker was only small compared to many of the ships in his Legion’s fleet, but was still large enough to house a full hundred man company of Astartes. It could easily house their small craft. 
However the ship appeared hobbled and dark. It drifted listlessly through the void, like the corpse of a giant whale in the ocean.
“I have run a preliminary scan Cap’n, no signs of life. Her codifers identify her as belonging to the Pale Hounds, no reports on the status of the rest of her fleet”
Bruno stroked his chin and considered this information. What had befallen the crew of the Swordbreaker? A ship big enough to house an entire company floating dead in the proverbial water. What impact could he and the four men under his command possibly have in aiding the vessel? What was this ship doing so far from home?
Still, the Pale Hounds were allies, elusive and uncooperative, but allies nonetheless. Bruno would not ignore their plight. 
With an exasperated sigh the sergeant pulled his helmet visor over his eyes and hefted his shield and breaching shotgun. 
“Pull ‘er in Higg, we’ll go take a look’n’see” 

Getting on board the Swordbreaker was simple enough, some breaching charges in the right places had gained them entry to the frigate. 
Bruno was not sure what to expect once inside, but he certainly had not expected this. The Swordbreaker appeared empty. Utterly void of life. Not to say there were not signs of a struggle. Blood caked the walls, scorch marks where fire had burned before the oxygen ran out and battle damage was evident on every surface.
“Where the hell are the bodies”? Voxxed Knox.
“Let’s find out. Knox, Beattie secure the crew quarters and report what you find. Higg, Coop you’re with me. We’ll see if we can reach the command deck”.

The command deck was similarly ravaged, if anything far more intensely so. Still there were no signs of what had transpired. Even the Servitors were absent. 
“Higgens get on the comms, I wanna know the last thing they tried to transmit. Cooper find out where they came from or where they were goin’”.
Bruno crouched by a console to inspect a particularly heinous gash carved into the framework.
His keen eye ran over the damage.
“This was done by a power claw, Astartes grade, but it seems heavier, more riggid, not sure how that is exactly”
“Cap’n I got something’ here, puttin’ ‘em on the voxx” Higgens pressed a few buttons and Bruno’s helm filled with the sound of battle, orders being shouted by Astartes officers, mortals screaming in terror. Yet no sound at all from whatever enemy they fought. 
“This was over a week ago and it trails off. Records are saying there were twenty five Astartes on this boat” Higgens continued as the sounds of battle trailed off.
“Over a week ago? Then who set the ships auto course for the nearest planet less than two days ago?” Cooper asked from his work station.
Before Bruno could reply the voxx chimed again.
“Sir” came the gruff voice of the Terran born Beattie “We’ve found the crew, you’re going to want to see this” 

The squad reconvened on Beatties location in the hangar bay. The site that greeted them was shocking. Thousand’s of human corpses lined the floor. All seemingly dumped here after whichever massacre had taken place. An enormous funeral pyre. More concerning though were the glimpses of power armoured bodies strewn among the dead. Dumped with the same lack of ceremony as the mortals, their precious gene-seed unharvested.
The hangar, bereft of any of the smaller spacecraft that could usually be located, was nearly filled with nothing more than these corpses.
“Whole damn crew’s probably here Cap’n, what the hell coulda done this?” Higgens pulled the corpse of a female flight officer from the tangle. “Looks like they didn’t even get a chance to scramble their fighters… So where the hell are they?”
“This ain’t right sir, what’re your orders?” Knox asked taking in the scene in quite disbelief. 
“We gotta do what we can for our battle brothers” Bruno answered “Knox I know you’re no real Apothecary but you’re the closest we got. You and Beattie dig through, there should be twenty five Pale Hounds in all this, do your best to harvest their seed. We’ll deliver it to the legion ourselves with a full report of what we’ve found here. Higg get back to the bridge, find out which planet this lump is aimed at, and whatever else you can find. Coop you’re coming with me, we’re gonna overload the core and blow this ship up soon as the others are done. Let me know the second something goes awry”.

Knox dragged the fifth corpse of a Pale Hound from the pile, Even his superhuman strength and endurance were being tested by the effort. There were just so many dead. Beattie, being terran born lacked the same respect for the mortal populace as most other Wardens and simply flung the smaller corpses aside to reach his targets. The Terran was roughly hip deep in  corpses when he gave a start.
“Knox, this one is alive” 
Instantly onguard Knox brought his shotgun up and locked it to it’s shield brace.
“Higg said there was no returns of life on this rig, can you confirm?”
As he said this he watched as a young man, covered in gore rose to his feet in front of the Terran. Knox reached out to the man with his psychic sensitivity, peering into the man’s thoughts. His mind filled with darkness. Endless, eternal, darkness. There was no thoughts, no emotion. Immediately he knew this man to be dead, yet he could not deny the man was moving. 
“Beattie, get out of there” The Warden bellowed as he noticed the entire pile of corpses begin to twitch and move. He fired his weapon. The round took the man in front of Beattie in the chest, blowing the once mortals corpse to smithereens. 
Beattie attempted to extricate himself but was soon lost from Knox’s sight as the writhing corpses simply engulfed the Terran in the masses. Over the voxx Beattie’s roars of defiance could be heard for several seconds before  ending in a strangled gurgle. Knox continued firing until his weapon was spent, in an attempt to blow a hole through the mass of flesh and free his  brother. Then he began beating against them with his shield, easily pulping the fleshy, animated remains of the mortals. 
Behind him the corpses of the Pale Hounds rose to their feet... 

In the Command Bridge Higgens worked diligently, he’d always had a way with ships. He knew them like the back of his own hands, even before he’d been risen to the ranks of an Astartes. His fingers flew across control consoles frantically searching for any information he could find about what had happened to the crew, his brow furrowed in confusion. The records of battle they had listened to earlier, as Knox had said were logged over a week ago. The death of the Pale Hounds commander Yarvis was clearly documented early in the conflict. And yet, only two days ago Yarvis had locked in the command for the Swordbreaker to set a course for the nearest habitable planet. It simply did not make sense. 
Just as Higgens opened the channel to voice these concerns to Bruno he heard the bellows of Beattie come across and abruptly end, followed by Knox’s yells of fury and the sound of gunfire. 
It was then that Higgens noticed the temperature of the room. During the exchange on the voxx the temperature had risen to an unpleasant hight. The next thing he noticed was the horrific stench. Far worse than that of the hangars corpse pile. He simply could not match it to anything he had ever smelt before in his life. Even his super-human resistances were overwhelmed and he fell to his knees, hacking bile into his helm. 
Mustering the strength just to look up was monumental in its own right. The walls of the Command Deck dripped with condensation, or was that... pus?
The pustules slid to the floor, taking on the form of squat creatures. With wicked, toothy grins and rusted, cruel looking blades. These tiny creatures cappered towards the staggered Marine. Emitting an awful gurgled sound, that Higgens realized was laughter.
They stabbed at him with their foul weapons, most clattering harmlessly against his warplate but those that penetrated burned with infection. The wounds immediately bursting with infection from already rotten flesh.  
Mustering all of his strength Higgens surged to his feet and channeled his will into a force of pure energy. It pushed the tiny creatures back, crushing them and popping them between the pressure of his will and the iron shod walls of the Swordbreaker.
More creatures appeared from the walls, these ones larger, the tiny knives of those that came before replaced by rusted greatswords. Twice more Higgens hurled back his attackers with force of will alone, and when that failed he reaped a toll on them with his shotgun. For each attacker slain though two more took their place. Gore slick blades effortlessly parted his armour as the shotguns ammo drum ran dry with a click, click, click. 

Cooper placed the last melta charge. “Ready to blow sir”
“Soon as we get the word from the others Coop, we’ll set a five minute timer and hightail it”
The next thing Bruno knew Cooper’s head folded back. His arms and legs snapped backwards. With the sound of shattering bones Cooper folded into a perfect cube before turning into a green spark and floating to the ground as a pile of ash.
Bruno spun on the spot, reflexively bringing up a kine shield of will power. Without even the time to think Bruno fired his shotgun on full auto. Pumping all twelve rounds into the figure that had appeared behind them. 
The creature looked like it was once an Astartes, but now it was malformed into something completely different. It had a bestial face, like that of a rodent. Huge leathery wings unfurled from the creatures back. It’s left arm ended it what could once have been a power claw but now a malformed, twisted parody of what it used to be. It’s armour was pale, bone white, trimmed with obsidian black. A tattered, dark green cowl cloaked its body, the hood worn low over it’s beady, rat like eyes. Bruno recognised the iconography worn on the shoulder plate as that of the Chosen of Hecate legion.
Snarling and oozing a green pus from the wounds inflicted by Bruno’s shotgun. The creature laughed.
“A cute trick, little Warden” It hissed. “I respect the power your legion wields immensely” 
“What the hell are you?” Bruno roared, frantically reloading his shotgun. 
“I am Atreus Thyestes and I am the Lord of Death and Decay. I shall bring exactly that to this region little Warden and as amused as I am by your tricks I cannot allow you to interfere”.
Behind Atreus, Bruno noticed the colours of his Legion. Knox and Beattie had managed to get behind the twisted Chosen of Hecate sorcerer. 
“I dunno what happened to you pal, but this ends now”. With that Bruno bought his gun up again and fired. The shells tore great chunks and rents from the Chosen’s armour and flesh. Black coagulated blood sloshed against the walls in a vile spray. Still the creature wheezed in laughter.
“Boys bring this thing down” Bruno screamed.
“Indeed, let us end this game” Atreus hissed and at his gesture the two members of Bruno’s squad moved past. Shambling in their movements. Their armour, Bruno could now see was torn and broken in a dozen places. Blood oozed from greant rents. The two arisen Wardens lunged to attack their former sergeant. Smashing their fists into Bruno’s kine shield. Both were clearly dead and yet still they attacked with a frenzied vigor.
“Enough of that” Atreus said, almost dismissively. Tapping his powered claw against the shield which burst like a bubble.
The revenant Wardens clawed at Bruno, trying to drag him down and bludgeon him with their fists.
“It has been fun, little Warden but playtime is over” Atreus rammed his claw into Bruno’s chest. Tearing a huge, fatal furrow through the Ceremite. Immediately Knox and Beattie hammered their fists into the wound tearing out great handfuls of flesh. 
“Fear not, for when they are done with you, I will rise you up again, to serve as a puppet to a different master”. The rat faced lich hissed.
Time seemed to slow for Bruno as his blood spilled in great torrents from his body. His former brothers indiscriminately ripping into him. Bruno knew with a certainty that he was dead, but yet he had not failed. His shotgun hung limply in his fist and he turned his head to see the charges placed by Cooper. As the last of his strength fled the Astral Wardens sergeant raised his gun, ghostly and pale, pulling his consciousness from his own corpse. Bruno knew he had scant moments. He aimed the ghostly gun at the melta charge. 
“Hasta luego” Bruno uttered through blood caked lips, and pulled the trigger.
The shells impacted with the Melta bomb and Atreus howled in fury in the split second before he was engulfed in the resulting explosion.

The void of space outside the Swordbreaker was lit in a flash as the ship came apart. It’s core ruptured. The spark of the ship’s death was brief in the great void. None would know of the sacrifice made. The Swordbreaker and it’s crew were officially designated as lost in the warp, like so many others.     
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