Pacification of Luna

## Rain of Iron and Blood

After years of training, gruelling trials and extensive augmentation the time had finally come to launch the Emperor's Great Crusade. The first objective of the Legion Astartes was to pacify the Gene-Cultists of Luna. The Emperor wished to possess their gene-labs to create his armies of Space Marines on a much larger scale.

The 16th Legion, having already earned a reputation as brutal close quarters shock troops were given the honour of forming the brunt of the assault against the Gene-cultists, as well as forming the vanguard to establish the beachhead for the assault.

Five squads were chosen for the initial insertion. Squad Hellevore, commanded by Sergeant Atanis, included among them.

In their personal arming chambers aboard the *Vengeful Spirit,* flagship of the 16th Legion, they awaited the hour of embarkation. They were to be propelled towards Luna's surface in unpowered assault torpedoes, to minimise the chances of their impending assault being detected, until they were upon the enemy and their fates were sealed.

Before the call was given, they were visited by their Company-Captain, Garrick, who informed them of a last minute addition to their squad. Their cousins in the 8th Legion had sent this new squad-mate, Tyvir, to further instruct the assault companies of the 16th on jump-pack and assault doctrine, a common practice taking place among the Legions to spread fighting styles and techniques. He was to accompany Squad Hellvevore, to assess their capabilities at the time and to ascertain any flaws.

When the call was given the marines of the 16th Legion, and the squads latest addition, made their way to the gunnery decks, where their conveyance awaited them.

Upon arrival, and realisation that none among them were proficient in the piloting of torpedoes, brother Malakai stepped forward to take control of the craft. After their departure, Malakai used his developing Psychic powers to divine the safest route for them to take, resulting in a near perfect landing from the novice pilot.

As the torpedo struck the complex, the squad leapt from their harnesses and erupted from the stationary torpedo into the gene-lab complex. The impact of the their craft, paired with the explosion of the fragmentation charges at it's tip had rendered the occupants of the chamber as little more than shredded bloodied ribbons adorning the floor and walls.

Having been going over the tactical briefing in his mind since the torpedo was launched from the *Vengeful Spirit,* Sergeant Atanis knew that their objective lay to the east of where they had landed and the squad commanded by Sergeant Kastor, his long time rival, lay to the west. He would be damned if he would allow Kastor to take the glory of securing the beachhead before his squad did, as such he ordered a quick march to the east.

Their orders were to secure the beachhead in the centre of the complex before heading into the subterranean levels and purge any opposition along the way, no survivors, so Squad Hellevore began a hasty but methodical purge. At the first door they encountered, they performed a textbook 'Flash and Purge' manoeuvre. Once the dust settled it dawned on them that this was in fact an unoccupied storage closet. They quickly moved on, but not before Tyvir levelled a barb at Darnik.

Moving towards their objective, brother Igorek's auspex began to detect life signs ahead. Soon the sounds of creatures in the ventilaton above them reached their ears. Without prompt, Tyvir leveled his weapon and incinerated the creatures above the squad. The charred and melting remains of strange locust like creatures began to pour from the ceiling around them. Igorek stopped to quickly take samples of their venom and tissues before the team moved onwards.

They encountered a large door, and Igorek's auspex once again started to ping life signs. However, the device indicated thousands of signatures matching those of the strange locust creatures they had just encountered, presumably a large swarm of the creatures. However, it also indicated the presence of multiple larger creatures of an unknown nature. Making a judgement call, Darnik ordered the door sealed. Igorek sealed the entrance to the chamber with his combi-tool and and the squad moved on.

As they rounded the next corner they encountered a large group of strange creatures, with the legs of mantis and scythe like arms enveloped in strange bio-electricity. Behind this group stood three large musclebound mutant creatures, taller even than even the Astartes in their battle plate. The contacts charged the Space Marines but, with the same quick thinking he had demonstrated with the locust creatures, Tyvir brought up his weapon and incinerated a large number of the hostiles. The remaining smaller creatures ran at the armoured warriors, but were expertly felled by precisely placed bolt rounds.

The larger creatures charged charged towards the squad but with a highly drilled accuracy Daevos, the squads devastator, brought the creature low with a destructive salvo of mass-reactive shells to the torso and head. The remaining two made contact with the squad and a brutal melee erupted. Tyvir and Igorek battled one whilst Darnik held the third at bay.

From behind the squad the sound of tearing metal echoed through the corridor as the door they had previously sealed burst open. From within the chamber erupted an enormous swarm of the locust creatures, and a half dozen of the muscled mutants, and they made straight for the Astartes. Aware of the new threats, Daevos, Malakai and Elyas turned to face. The marines unleashed a devastating barrage of shell into the encroaching horde of enemies. Whenever a locust creature was struck it exploded, igniting and taking many of their kin with them.

Whilst the other members of Hellevore dispatched the survivors, Darnik moved in to dispatch his oponent. He had spent the moments before this delivery precise blows to the creature and batting away it's brutal attacks with elegant strikes and flicks of the wrist, but now the time to end it had come. With a leap, he landed on the creatures back and with a mighty thrust he embedded his chainsword in the base of his enemies skull. As he revved the motor of his blade, the creature shuddered and convulsed before dropping to the metalic ground, brackish and soul smelling blood pooling beneath.

After assessing the squad to check for wounded, of which there were none, Darnik moved them onwards. Following the larger corridor from which their enemies had originated they encountered a large doorway. Igorek's auspex could detect nothing on the far side, so the squad prepared to breach and purge whatever awaited them on the far side.

As they made their way into the large chamber on the far side of the doorway, Squad Hellevore's attention was held by the chambers sole occupant. In the centre of the large room, encircled by a ring of data banks and consoles, was a huge isolation chamber. Stood in the glass enclosed space stood a collossal mutated creature, covered in thick bone plates and weilding a devastating looking three-pronged whip rippling with the same bio-electricity that had envelopped the sythes of the mantis creatures they had just dispatched. The creature stood stationary in it's cell, but Darnik would not risk this thing becoming a threat to his squad or any of their allies.

He ordered Igorek to attempt to locate any kind of purge controls for the containment cell, to dispatch this monstrosity before it evolved into a true threat. Despite the unlikliness of the Apothacery finding the correct controls, with his limited technical knowledge, he was successful. As the control was activated, great vents openned and clouds of poisonous gasses and vented plasma started to flood the chamber. The creature, enraged by this, started to smash into the reinforced glass in an attempt to free itself. Malakai attempted to use his Psychic abilites to compell the creature to remain in place, and deal with the beast without violence, but the shear weight of the creature's bio-engineered rage knocked his efforts astray and rooted him in place. Seeing that the beast would break free, the squad fixxed a Melta charge to the cell and detonated mere moments before the mutant would have broken free.

As the beast erupted from the cell, Tyvir leveled his immolation rifle at it's head and opened fire. The wave of super-heated air struck the beast but did little but attract it's attention. In retliation the creature whipped out at Tyvir and threw him across the room, slamming him into the far wall.

Darnik, eager to earn renown and glory for himself and his squad, started to scale the creatures body to drive his bloodied chainsword into the creatures throat. While he attempted to scale the creatures limbs, Igorek rushed over to check on Tyvir whilst Daevos and Elyas emptied shells and grenades into this behemoth. Pushing himself to his feet, Tyvir then charged at the creature and leapt onto it's unoccupied limb and started an ascent of his own.

The beast, fueled by pain and rage, charged at Daevos. Making a split second decision, Daevos stood his ground and emptied his heavy bolter into the beast's face, blasting away it's jaw and awaiting his fate. The behemoth slammed its foot into Daevos and crushed him into the wall he was standing against, cracking open his breastplate and leaving him prone upon the floor.

Seeing his squad member fall, Darnik felt a fury brew in his heart that he had not felt in years and fired his jump pack, propelling himself towards the head and exposed throat of the creature. In the blink of an eye, Darnik rammed his chainsword into the base of the creatures skull in a brutal upwards motion. When the beast did not drop, Darnik braced himself upon it's face and began to repeatedly peirced it's eyes with his blade until the mutated giant dropped limp to the ground.

Igorek quickly moved between the squad tending to the wounded, while they took stock of their surroundings and prepared to move onto their next trial.

## Into the Belly of the Beast

Having tended to the wounded, and having discussed the merits and downsides of impracticle trophy collection, Squad Hellevore moved on towards the east. Igorek once again used his advacned intellect to interect with the security system and allow the squad to move on, despite the complex now being in a full locked down state. Although their repreive was not long lived.

Waiting for them on the far side of the portal was a broad phallanx of Brutish creatures, similar to the muscled constructs they encountered previously but the front row weilding large bone shields. Behind the rows of large enemies stood three more humanoid, but still uncannily differing, strange bio-electricity arcing from their bodies.

Squad Hellevore moved to engage the contacts, but their ballistics were regularly interceded by the strange electric field projected by the humanoid figures, later reffered to as Psions. Bolt shells and grenades flew towards the slowly advancing enemies, with little progress being made. Having had enough of limited success, Daevos levelled his trusty heavy bolter towards the enemy and pulled the trigger, aiming towards the Psions. A number of shells were blocked by the larger creatures, however enough shell made contact witht he Psions to fell them. Without their electrical shield, the Brutes were vulnerable. Malakai focuses his mind and brought forth a great wave of Warp-fire, setting the brutes aflame and locking them in place as they struggled to extinguish themselves. The squad slowly but methodically started to dispatch the creatures one by one, cutting two down as they broke from the flames and charging the squad.

Having become bored with the clinical nature in whicht he brutes where being dispatched, he broke combat discipline and slouched against a nearby wall. Darnik, intollerant of insubordination apraoched him to rebuke him for his carelessness. When Tyvir made yet another snide remark, Darnik's temper met it's end. He through a punch which, luckily for legion relations, deftly parried. Igorek stepped in to break up the fight before it develoved. Frustrated, and eager to make progres Darnik pushed the squad onwards.

A short journey later, squah Hellevore came acorss another sealed door in their path. A quick assessment with the auspex revealed no life signs, but power signitures similar to Astartes Power Armour. Entering the chamber, of course after detonating another photon flash grenade in an attempt to disorientate any automated defences, squad Hellevore discovered the corpses of another squad from the 16th Legion alongside the remains of another Behemoth similar to the beast brought low by squad Hellevore not long previously. It seems that the Behemoth had been brought low by the streams of bolt shells fired towards it's head, but not before ending the lives of Darnik's Legion brothers. Apothacery Igorek went to work collecting their vital prognoids, the vital organs used in the creation of the Astartes, while the rest of the squad went through their supplies to rearm themselves for the trials to come ahead.

After finishing their work, Darnik and his squad made their way towards the centre of the complex. To Darnik's dismay, when they came upon the huge chamber containing the large elevator construct that would take them deeper into the Gene-Lab, however Darnik's rival Seargant Kastor had somehow managed to beat them to the objective.

Darnik and Kastor exchanged barbs while their squads looked on, but their proffesionalism set in eventually and they eventually began to share their knowledge on the varied creatures they had encountered on their seperate appraoches to the elevator chamber. While the seargants talked, Tyvir walkd among the scattered dead in the chamber. To his surprise, one of the creatures he prodded leapt upon him and ensared him with some form of bio-electrical whip. His allies in the 16th saw him come under attack and immediatly ran to his aid, darnik at the front, but before anyone could close with the contact Malakai reached out with his psychic gifts and wreathed the creature in Warp-fire. As it embraced it's demise, the concoction on combat drugs and implants running through it's system ignited and the creature detonated, smearing Darnik's armour in acid.

After the confrontation with the survivor reinforcements from the 16th and their ally legions, the 7th and 13th, began to arrive and secure the area. While the newly arrived forces began to secure the chamber, Igorek gave an in depth ananlysis of the creatures they had encountered to Captain Garrick before the preperations for the assault could begin in ernest. After the tactical briefing was completed, Captain Garrick awarded Darnik for his efforts in their infiltration with the honour of commanding the initial 200 marines breaching the lower levels. Kastor, to Darnik's immeasurable pleasure, was appointed as his second in command.

After a few short words of encouragement to his new command, Darnik and his brothers mounted the elevator and began to make their way to the lower levels. Slowly the great metalic platform descended into the darkness below Luna's surface, conveying it's passengers to the first real battle of the Crusade.

As the elevator slowly ground to a stop, the forces of the Astartes and the Gene-Cultists locked eyes. The space marines stared out across a great chamber, chasmous in it's dimentions, great banks of vital gene-tech dotted the ground before them. Swarming the great chamber before the assembled ranks of the 16th Legion was a great horde of mutant creatures. Groups of the brutish creatures stood in great lines facing the marines as cabals of the Psions stood behind their ranks and interlaced the air with their disruptive bio-electric fields. Filling the open air of the chamber above the facing off armies swarmed great clouds of the locust creatures, waiting to swarm in to pick off the wounded. Stood behind the assembled ranks of the mutant soldiers was an enormous tripedal creature, seeminlgy consisting of nothing but eyes and huge cannons. Sat meditating beneath it was a man, normal compared to every other living thing in this enormous laboratory.

After a brief moment, only recquiring a second to take in the lay of the land and the forces arrayed against them, the brothers of the 16th let out a ferocious roar and charged towards the broad ranks of the enemy, easily outnumbered ten-to-one but eager to grit their teeth.

The two lines closed until they collided with a thunderous crash, chainblades and combat knives making contact with flesh and chitin. At the fore, getting to grips with the enemy where the fighting was thickest, was squad Hellevore, Darnik and Tyvir at the tip of the spear grinning throughout the slaughter.

The battle was brutal, brothers brought low to the left and right of Darnik and his squad, but for every brother knocked down a handful of the mutant creatures were torn to shreds by the blades and bolts of the Astartes. Darnik and Tyvir fought fiercly side by side and they pushed their way deeper and deeper into the lines of their enemy. As they fought, Tyvir and Darnik slammed the shattered corpses of their foes aside while Malakai, Igorek and Elyas supported them from behind. Daevos remained near the entrance to the chamber providing pinpoint accurate covering fire from a lascannon, replacing his faithful heavy bolter to preserve the important technology that was their ultimate objective.

Darnik, eager to earn more glory for himself and his squad, flared his jump pack to life and gritted his teeth. He assumed the meditating figure beneth the giant creature spewing green fire upon his Legion was somehow commanding the forces he and his brothers faced. With a leap and a roar he lauched himself towards the figure, aiming to slam his fist into the figure to bring him low. As he soared through the air, the figure turned his attention towards him. As he was about to make landfall, the figure extended a hand and Darnik seemed to impact upon an unseen obstruction, some unknowable wall projected from the mind of the man. However, through sheer brute strength and force of will Darnik pushed himself through and with a roar slammed his whole form into the man knocking him down to the ground, unconscious.

As the man's limp form slammed into the ground, the mutants seemed to become confused or disorientated, all except the canon weilding tripod creature which now stared directly at Darnik. The creature poised itself to slam it's bulk into the ground upon which he stood. However as the creature dropped its mass towards the ground Darnik fired his jump pack once again and, prone figure of the man in his grasp, propelled himself along the ground armour scraping across the floor.

Out of nowhere, Tyvir leapt onto the creature and started to scale the beast using his flensing knives as anchors. The beast stood and tried to shake him free but when it proved fruitless, it brought it's great cannons to bare on the marine using it's flesh as a rock face ...

## A star is rising

Locked in the heat of battle, Darnik and his squad were fueled by adrenaline and fury as their brothers and enemies fell around them. Tyvir still pinned to the surface of the huge, bipedal, cannon bearing creature that had incinerated so many of his cousins released his grip and drops to the hard ground below and the beast fires it's weapons upon itslef. Green flames envelop the behemoth, joining the combined fire of the Astartes still able to weild their weapons. Bolt shells and Las fire slammed into the creature until eventually the damage done was too great and the mutant exploded in a huge fire blast. Darnik, trying to preserve the tactical asset of the Techrach sheilded him from the blast at the cost of his own safety all but destroying his armour and burning his flesh in the process.

As the beast's remains smoked, the Astartes tended to their wounded. As reinforcements arrived at the scene, they were surprised to find the battle a victory, as Darnik's force had been expected simply to secure a beachead for the rest of the assault, not take the head of the enemy and claim the labs.

Captain Garrick, joining the rest of the forces summoned Darnik and commended him for his effective command, saying that there may be commendations in order. Regretaably, Seargant Kastor was also praised. Darnik went about having his armour replaced while the captain started to organise his company and receive reports from Igorek and the other Apothaceries present.

Before further orders were given Captain Garrick had a private word with Tyvir, after which he snuck away into the darkness without a word. Garrick then ordered Darnik and the remainder of his quad, those not absent or too injured to carry on the fight, to carry on ahead of the main assault as a pathfinding force.

Having rearmed and replacing their damaged armour the squad once again split off from the main assault force and headed deaper into the complex. Soon after making way they came across the elevator that would take them to the lower levels, however soon upon entrance they encountered their first obstacle. The controls indicated 100 levels below the floor upon which they resided. With the total lack of knowledge regarding they layout of the complex and absolutely no way of gaining any readings they decided to start from the bottom and work their way up.

Activating the control for the 100th floor the squad began to descend, ever so slowly. Over thirty minutes passed before the elevator came to a halt, the door opening to a broad hallway with a huge double door on the far side. The team moved forward and once they reached the door they slipped inside.

As soon as they opened the great portal, a great light wormed its way through the opening. As they stepped into the great chamber on the far side they saw something that defied their reasoning of the universe. A star, unbridled in it's burning majesty, rested at the far end of the chamber contaned within a magnetic feild of unimaginable power. The room stood unoccupied, but filled with banks of cogitators and terminals. Under Darnik's orders, Igorek attempted to inerface with one of the cogitator banks, but his attempts went arry and something awoke. The squad pulled Igorek from the machine and made their way to the door on the far end of the hallway. However, before they could make their escape something escaped from the magnetic containment. A figure, formed of nuclear fire and star light stepped through the now deactivated magnetic field and moved towards the squad.

Darnik moved in to stand his ground against the creature to ensure his squad could make their escape. He emptied rounds towards his towering foe but the immense heat from the creature cooked the shells off before they could even make contact with it's form. This, however, was enough to attract it's attention. It moved towards Darnik and he drew his chainsword.

Darnik and the star-creature swapped blows, and Darnik's blade was rendered to molten slag before his eyes, but he had acomplished his goal and his squad had made their way to the door so he broke away from the creature. As he stepped through the doorway he was met with a familiar face. Tyvir, pale and gaunt, carrying a corpse impaled upon one of his iconic flensing knives.

The squad sprinted down the hallway, towards the great bronze door on the far side. They breached into the empty chmaber, the domicile of the corpse now abandoned by Tyvir. Slowly the creature began to melt it's way through the doorway that lead into the generator room.

The squad scowered the chamber or anything uselful and came across a weapons locker full of elaborate and sophisticated weapons. Darnik grabbed the closest sword like weapon and moved to the doorway. Daevos grabbed a strange weapon and took up a firing position at the opposite edge of the room from the open doorway into the corridor.

When the star-creature finally broke through the doorway on the far side all hell broke lose. Daevos opened fire with his new weapon and caused great damage to the creature as parts of it imploded on itself. Igorek crafted a make-shift cryo grenade from his narthecium and gave it to Tyvir to through at the beast, to great success. Darnik waited for the oppotune moment to charge the beast with his new blade. All the while Igorek used the nearby console to attempt to reactivate the magnetic field used to hold the creature at bay.

When the time came, Darnik charged the creature knowing his team needed more time. However, as his blade neared the beast it's super charged power field over-loaded and the blade detonated in his hand. The beast saw this and knocked him hard into the chamber once again, armour melting and non-functional.

At his point his perception blurred, his body struggling to opperte under such extreme strain and damage. But he distinctly recalls Igorek finally reacting the final barrier as the creature stood over the smoking body of Daevos and Tyvir drove home the final blow with a borrowed chainsword.

Then Darnik's vision went dark.