The Boar Tusk Space Marine Chapter had been tasked to put down a suspected cult uprising on the vast mining colony on Mookarte IV. While the Chapter's transports were in warp-space, they were seized by a massive warp storm that they were unable to break free of for, what seemed to them, months. When they finally were released from the storm's clutches and Emperor-Be-Praised exited the warp, they found themselves in a whole other sector and that five years had passed them by.
The storm the Marines were seized by was but one in many violent shifts in the fickle structure of the warp that moved the obscure planet of Betross I from complete anonymity to a keystone for the region. The planet's binary star tortured surface was now the scene of a titanic struggle between the forces of Chaos and the Empire. The shift in the warp had created an area of space, a "portal", centred on the Betross system that was highly warp-unstable and, for an uncertain but usually fairly long period, allowed the forces of Chaos easier access to the material plane and thus the surrounding regions. The battle was for control of this "portal".
The Boar Tusks exited the warp in the Betross system and a startled, but delighted, planetary expedition commander immediately pressed the chapter into service on the planet's surface. The tortured surface of the planet was nothing but massive mountain ranges split by mazes of deep, sheer walled, canyons created by the millenia-old gravitational struggle between the Betross Major and Minor suns. The Boar Tusks were tasked with advancing up one of these canyon systems to outflank the Chaos forces that were already fully engaged with other Imperial forces.
Lexicanium Librarian Bernadino (a.k.a. Bernie), attached to the Third Company of the Boar Tusk Space Marine Chapter, was riding in his Rhino in the company formation as it advanced down the canyon. Bernie was having a hard time concentrating on the mission, as was most of the chapter, because the terrors of the marooning in the warp and the subsequent knowledge that they had lost years of time was still fresh in his mind. Bernie was a qualified Codicier
Librarian, but during one of his final tests for advancement, while the chapter was stuck in the warp, fate had played a cruel trick. A carefully measured and controlled bolt of energy of Bernie's had suddenly been magnified and torn from his control and struck the chapter's Chief Librarian. Fortunately, the Chief Librarian was in his terminator armour at the time and suffered no ill effects. The same could not be said about his beautifully-decorated armour, whose once mirror-shined lustre had been scarred by the bolt. Bernie had spent all his spare time since then polishing the armour's ruined decorations.
The chapter's First, Fourth and Fifth companies were still engaged in combat in a side canyon, which made Second company the vanguard of the attack up the main canyon. As second company topped a small rise in the canyon, they became engaged with a hastily-scraped-together Chaos blocking force. This force consisted of several platoons of Chaos Space Marines augmented by a few platoons of Nurgle's Plague Marines. The battle was a meeting engagement where the Boar Tusks had run into the blocking force before it got situated and dug-in.
Bernie watched the battle develop on his heads-up display as his company closed on the battle, preparing his psychic powers for combat. Due to the speed of the advance, the Chapter's scouts weren't that far ahead and had only begun to deploy when Second Company's regulars arrived. The scouts judiciously moved toward the right flank to get out of the way as the two battle lines closed. About that time, a volley from a Whirlwind obliterated a Plague Marine Squad at the front of the forming Chaos battle line. Bernie noticed the symbols on some of the Chaos troops in the Chaos rear change to heavy weapons as those troops opened fire. Because of the suddenness of the encounter, a proper battle line had not formed for either side, so the middle of the valley was now turning into a hand-to-hand slugfest.
Bernie's track slowed to a halt and the order was given to bail out and form up for battle. As Third Company formed for battle, a cry was heard over the Company channel, "DAEMONS!". Almost as one, Third Company stopped and looked at the battle. To their horror, in the midst of the hand-to-hand, Plague Bearers were being summoned forth into combat. The daemons were appearing close to the Plague Marines and aided them in their combat. As Bernie examined the action he spotted the cause of all the trouble. A Plague Marine Champion, far more revolting than his squad mates, could be seen in hand-to-hand with a Second Company sergeant. The Champion struck down the Sergeant with a vicious stab of his plague knife and then seemed to step back. Bernie now beheld something that he would forever wish the Inquisition had expunged from his memory. As the Champion stepped back, his body seemed to do a slow motion explosion. Great gouts of gore and rotten tissue poured from his body as he body expanded. His armour split and flew in all directions and yet the body STILL GREW. A collective moan escaped from the Boar Tusks who beheld this, for now, rather than a champion, they faced one of foul God Nurgle's Greater Daemons. Several Marines in close vicinity broke and tried to run from this abomination, but were struck down by their Nurgle foes.
Bernie couldn't believe what he had just seen. Not only the disgust and revulsion of what had happened, but the tactical analysis in the back of his head was ringing bells. Plague Bearers were one thing, but a Greater Daemon was something else. There were countless lesser daemons for Chaos to call upon, but there weren't THAT many greater daemons. To commit this resource to this battle, which was going to be messy but Chaos was going to surely lose, given the weight of an entire chapter was being thrown in, seemed mighty desperate to Bernie.
As one, the Marines of Third Company charged into the combat with a roar of defiance, dodging the occasional Plague Grenade. They had spent months in the warp, listening to and seeing things that mortals should not know, and now they saw a small chance at retribution.
As Bernie charged, he was struck a glancing blow by a Chaos bolter, which spun him around, skidding into a mud hole. He was then knocked from his feet by a charging Marine and landed face first in the mud. It seemed to Bernie that most of Third Company stepped on or kicked him in the next few seconds. Unfortunately, most of the beating was on his legs, which were driven deeper into the mud until his shins came up against a rock spine which was then driven through his leg armour and into his legs, gashing his right and breaking his left leg.
Well, being a Space Marine and all, a broken leg wasn't that big a deal and he was sure he'd cut himself worse before, but that wasn't in the presence of Plague troops. As far as Bernie could tell, a Plague Marine must have wandered by, or through the mud hole or a Plague Grenade had gone off near by, because he could feel something bad beginning to happen in him. His implants were doing their job, but they were slowly losing the viral battle.
After what seemed to be an eternity of struggling, Bernie finally managed to force himself into a kneeling position with his sword, another fallout of his blasting the Chief Librarian, and managed to scrape enough mud off his helmet to look around.
The battle in the middle of the valley was in full swing. The Nurgle daemons were wreaking havoc and occasionally one fell. Bernie couldn't see any Plague Marines left in the melee. The battle seemed to now be between the daemons, the Chaos Space Marines and Second and Third Companies. Bernie looked to the left flank, but the melee extended all the way to the sheer canyon wall. On the right flank, the scouts were tied up with some Plague Marine squads. The Plague Marines didn't seem too intent on mixing it up with the scouts, which compared to the middle melee was kind of curious, however the Plague toxins were slowing Bernie's thoughts down as his fever slowly crept up.
Feeling a rumble through his shins, Bernie looked around and noticed Second and Third Companies armour support pulling up to a halt not far away, unable to use their devastating firepower for fear of injuring Marines in hand to hand.
The little voice in the back of his head had been clamouring for attention, so Bernie finally gave it the floor. The voice pointed out that, as his Chaos lessons said, daemons need "anchors" to stay in the material world, right? Nurgle daemons need Nurgle troops, a champion, a lord, or a sorcerer to stay, right? There wasn't a lord, the champion was gone, a sorcerer would have made himself known before now, and there aren't any more Plague Marines in the melee, right? Now, do you understand the lacklustre performance of the Plague Marines on the right flank? Bernie's conscious mind, fogged by fever and toxins, rallied back with the point that it almost never comes down to eliminating "anchors"! To which the voice calmly pointed out that this was a special occasion, the forces unbalanced, poorly organized and as you noted earlier, desperate, you idiot!
Bernie's training kicked in. He tried to get through on the Squad, Company, and Chapter channels, but they were flooded by the two battles going on. Bernie hesitated, then decided to use the age-old Guard channel. This was the aeons-old last ditch channel, that you only used if Armageddon was here, because everybody was listening to it, including the Chapter's Lord Commander. Swallowing deeply, Bernie switched channels to the Guard channel and called, "GUARD! GUARD! GUARD!"
An instant later, a member of the Lord Commander's staff replied, "GUARD, GO!"
At this point, Bernie stepped back and let his little voice take over. He had to give it credit, it was a whole lot more respectful to the staffer than it was to him. The voice explained itself accurately and concisely, to which the staffer replied, "WAIT, ONE".
After a pause, which Bernie was sure included a lot of screaming and running around on someone's part, the next voice he heard was the Chapter Lord Commander agreeing with the voice's analysis and telling Bernie to watch and report.
Confused, Bernie looked at the right flank in time to see the scouts running for their lives back away from the Plague Marines. Also, the gun line of the armour support swung around to bring all its weaponry to bear. Above all, the noise of the battle was drowned out by the screaming of the daemons as they realized what was happening and what was going to happen as a result.
The concussion of two companies worth of armour firing all at once almost blew Bernie out of the mud. The firing continue for several seconds and then ceased suddenly.
Bernie's audio gear came back on-line and he heard the scream above the battle, but as he listened, it got thinner. He looked down at the melee and saw the daemons FADE?!?! They made great lunges and massive swings, but they passed harmlessly through the target Boar Tusks until they vanished completely. Both sides in the melee then paused, as what had just happened sank in, then the Boar Tusks let out a mighty roar and fell upon the remaining Chaos Space Marines and Chaos's slaughter followed.
On the Guard channel, the Chapter Lord Commander informed Bernie that a report was not necessary, congratulations on a good job, and now get off the Guard channel!
Bernie switched off the channel and passed out...
Bernie awoke to a none-to-gentle shaking of his shoulders. He looked up and saw the Chief Librarian in his terminator armour standing over him, flanked by two Apothecaries. The Chief Librarian leaned over, grasped the back of Bernie's suit and lifted him out of the mud, the mud losing to the terminator's strength. Once Bernie was out of the mud, the Apothecaries each took an arm for support, for the Nurgle toxin had sapped all of Bernie's strength.
Bernie gawked feverishly at the armour that he had spent so many pain-staking hours polishing and realized all the decorations were gone, replaced by scorches and carbon.
Noting the visual inspection and the pronounced slouch afterwards, the Chief Librarian told Bernie, "When the Greater Daemon first appeared, I attempted to warp-jump into the melee from First Company's position. Unfortunately, I vdeviated into the back of the Chaos formation and took a plasma missile in the chest for my troubles, which incinerated the decorations... You know, I never did get into the fight with the daemons, having my hands full with all those hell-spawned Marines!" The Chief Librarian casually picked at some of the scorched decorations on his arm and said, "Fear not, Lexicanium Bernadino. After today, you needn't worry about this... All is forgiven." and then he turned and walked away, heading toward Second and Third Company's mopping-up of the Chaos forces.
"Oh, by the way, Lexicanium Bernadino," said the retreating form, "try to stay on your feet from now on... and after they've got you patched up, be sure to get a replacement shoulder patch with your new Codicier insignia on it... and for Emperor's sake, get yourself a decent sword!"
This time, a much relieved Codicier Bernie passed out...
Postlude?
The uprising on Mookarte IV really was a cult uprising, a Gene Stealer cult uprising. The delay due to to the Boar Tusk's marooning allowed the uprising to complete and all loyal Imperial personnel were killed. Unfortunately for the victorious cultists, the next Imperial force available to deal with the uprising was the exhausted multi-army Imperial Guard force that had finally crushed the Orcs in the Tork and Badine systems. This force had been fighting tooth and nail with the Orcs for more than two years and were on their way home for some massively needed R-and-R when they were diverted.
Needless to say, they were not pleased...
When the massive fleet arrived in orbit, it was determined that due to the deep mines on the planet, and the need to get same very rich mines back into operation as soon as possible, virus-bombing was not an option for the extermination of the cultist infection. Instead, the Imperial Guard was going to have to clean out every square inch by hand.
So the Guard did... The expedition commander unloaded all the forces he had, approximately 50 times the number needed and told them nobody was going home until the Inquisition certified Mookarte IV cleansed.
The cultists never had a chance... Unlike Chaos infection, you have a small chance of being rehabilitated from a Gene Stealer infection in the eyes of the Inquisition, if you were just a follower, with no physical infection. This takes months to confirm... and the Inquisition wouldn't certify the planet cleansed until everybody was dead or confirmed rehabilitated...
It took ten days to get Mookarte IV certified as cleansed. The time from uprising to extermination was so short that the Tyranid hive-mind never had a chance to take advantage of its newest source of nourishment.
Kindly submitted by Scott White