User:Montonius/Sandbox - The Adeptus Astartes Come: With the Noctis Aeterna stealing away the guiding light of the Astronomican, most Space Marine forces had arrived on Vigilus piecemeal, or not at all. Those that made planetfall hit home with punitive force.The elements of the Adeptus Astartes that reached Vigilus first had already been en route from the Stygius System when the Great Rift suddenly appeared. They had therefore made it to the system with but a single Warp translation. This had been fraught and unusually violent, but in comparison to the suffering endured by the other Space Marine Chapters that later headed for Vigilus, it was a relatively short ordeal to endure. The true odyssey was undertaken by those Chapters that would come to the world later.The first Space Marines to make landfall were far from numerous -- small but potent strike forces that were less than Chapter strength even had then been counted together as a single military unit. They were engaged in battle within seconds of setting foot upon the planet, for it is in the nature of Space Marines to attack from above with speed and surety.In the Hyperia hivesprawl, the Brazen Claws set about slaughtering the Ork menace in as efficient and mercilessa fashion as possible, hoping to stem the tide of Greenskins that encroached upon the richest of the false continents -- and its seat of governance.Hyperia Hivesprawl, long defended by the Vigilant Guard and the Adepta Sororitas Order of Our Martyred Lady, had succeeded in holding the Orks at bay for over a Terran year by the time the Brazen Claws arrived. Using the vaststructures of each building as ready-made keeps and conceding the ground floors to the Ork menace when necessary, theallied forces used stairwells, alleyways and crypt entrances as choke points to hold back the green tide.Yet their orders from Vigilus' Aquilarian Council were explicit, and oft repeated -- they were to defend, to hold their position in case of any surprise assault or assassination attempt that might threaten their highborn masters.Because of this, they were robbed of the ability to counterattack -- to land a killing blow upon the reeling foe. As it was, even when beaten soundly, the Greenskins regrouped and always came back for more within a matter of solar days. It was only when the striking red-and-blue heraldry of the Brazen Claws appeared in the streets that Orks were trapped, caught between the hammer of the Space Marine armoured assault on the outskirts and the anvil of the Imperial troops in the city proper. From that point on, the south of Hyperia Hivesprawl remained under Imperial control.The Iron Hands took the fight to Megaborealis, recognising the macro-structures of their Adeptus Mechanicus allies.The Space Wolves concentrated their attacks upon Oteck Hivesprawl, for they had received word of a xenos infestation there that would test their hunting skills.The strike forces hit hard, but so disparate were their attacks they failed to make any global impact -- indeed, for instance, the Space Wolves hardly communicated at all with Kardan Stronos, the leader of the Iron Hands contingent, and did not coordinate their assault in any real way.After briefly communicating their intent to the Planetary Governor's council, a process that in itself provedfrustrating and counter-intuitive, none of the Space Marine Chapters thereafter sent representatives to the war councils of Saint's Haven. Astartes were made to fight, and to kill, and spending hours in debate with Imperial bureaucrats was not their way. Instead they focused their efforts on communicating with their Chapter brothers, no matter how distant they might be.As they made their way from the Vigilus System's Mandeville Point to orbit the planet itself, the ships ofthe Space Wolves, Iron Hands and Brazen Claws had passed several worlds that appeared to be underheavy Chaos attack.The Librarians of the respective strike forces sent psychic missives as best they could to their Chapter Masters, hoping more reinforcements would be sent in time.No mental communion could be attempted without risking dire consequences now that the Great Rift split the Imperium, rendering even the most stable astropathic duct volatile. Even a planet-to-planet communiqués could cause a sender's mind to be rent apart. Nonetheless, all knew that the situation was dire, and the notion of duty was so thoroughly ingrained in the Adeptus Astartes that not one Librarian shirked from the task of communicating with their Chapter to call for reinforcements.From the relative sanctity of the Terran side of the rift, the so-called Imperium Sanctus, word spread of Vigilus' plight and newfound strategic importance in the wake of the Great Rift's birth, and fleets were mustered from a dozen Chapter homeworlds to head out for the mouth of the Nachmund Gauntlet.In the dead of night, whilst en route to Vanantis IX, Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines had been visited by a vision of his old friend Varro Tigurius. He was glad to see that ghostly apparition, at first, for he knew that this was not simply some insubstantial dream -- the Ultramarines' Chief Librarian was reaching out psychically to him in his astral form, and evidently he had a message of great import to convey.The projected image of Tigurius pressed his spectral index fingers against Calgar's temples. In that momentthe terrible knowledge gleaned by the Chief Librarian was imparted,a collage of mental images and powerful symbolism that seared itself into Calgar's mind.That link might have driven a lesser man to madness, but despite the recent ordeal of his surgical enhancement to Primaris Space Marine status, an agonising process known as crossing the Rubicon Primaris, Calgar withstood the mental blitz, parsing and compartmentalising the flood of images almost as fast as they entered his mind.The high council of Macragge had need of him as their sword and shield in the Imperium Nihilus; the Ultramarines Primarch Roboute Guilliman himself had ordered that Vigilus could not be allowed to fall. Then the image of Tigurius faded, tears of blood streaking his cheeks, and was gone. But the deed was done, and soon a new host of angels took flight.Marneus Calgar was well known across the Imperium as a strategic genius, a true successor to his gene-father, Roboute Guilliman. Guided by the advice of his mentor, Ortan Cassius, the Chapter Master defended the empire ofUltramar from countless foes. It was Calgar's strategic acumen that broke Hive Fleet Behemoth as it ventured hungrily across the Eastern Fringe, defended the Imperium against Heretic Astartes, and devastated theNecrons of Damnos. Much of this he achieved in close collaboration with his old friend, Varro Tigurius.In the years before the opening of the Great Rift, Calgar had found his Chief Librarian to be distant, haunted even, prone to staring into nothingness for solar minutes at a time unless spoken to directly. Some said he had glimpsed the true vastness of the void beyond the known limits of the galaxy. Others maintained that in psychically duelling the synapse creatures of the Tyranid species, and even prying into the minds of their fallen, he had touched the Hive Mind, and it had left an indelible mark on his soul.Perhaps it was that latter connection that had alerted Tigurius to the swarming dangers of the Genestealer Cultboiling up from beneath Vigilus' crust; perhaps it was his greater perspective of the shape of the galaxy, and its fate should he fail, that gave him the insight he imparted to his Chapter Master. The Chief Librarian did not say, and never would.Though the Ultramarines had a long and harrowing journey to reach Vigilus, Lord Calgar arrived to lead a full four companies into battle. He aimed to command the fight on every level, from the calculations of the strategic long game to the brutal onslaught of adrenalin-pounding melee.After recovering from Tigurius' strange psychic visitation, Marneus Calgar hastened to gather a relief force of every Adeptus Astartes asset he could requisition, convince or command to his side. Though all forces were already engaged in the active protection of the Imperium and the destruction of its foes, Calgar's sharp analytical mind allowed him to pare off resources from stable fronts wherever possible, repurpose war fleets that had become stranded or misplaced, and enlist several new Primaris Space Marine Chapters from the ongoing Indomitus Crusade. He had ordered his captains and fellow Chapter Masters to brief their Navigators as to what was at stake, and made haste for the Vigilus System.To make the necessary Warp jumps in time to reach the planet before it fell would have been next to impossible were it not for the astropathic link Tigurius had forged with Calgar. Surrounded by his finest Librarian disciples in the depths of the Fortress of Hera, the Ultramarines' fortress-monastery on Macragge,, the Chief Librarian mentally guided the Ultramarines fleet -- and by extension their allies -- through the madness of the Imperium Nihilus.Doing so had a terrible cost. Several Epistolaries died clawing out their own eyes, slowly consumed from the inside by the empyric ritual, just as the psykers that fuel the Astronomican are consumed by the Emperor's psychic might.Others were executed point blank by their attendant Chaplains when the telltale signs of daemonic corruptionappeared upon their bodies. Tigurius himself withered and burned under the strain, but did not falter. He collapsed, at the end, his mortal form aged by solar decades -- but only after Calgar's relief fleet had made translation into realspace and established an orbit around Vigilus.The Ultramarines armada had not reached Vigilus without suffering heavy casualties. Several Battle Barges and Strike Cruisers, each with a storied history of its own, had fallen in battle en route or been swallowed by the roiling tides of a Warp vortex. The admirals, commodores and captains of the remaining voidships gritted their teeth, squared their jaws and kept going.When the Astartes armada finally neared the Vigilus System, Calgar despatched Vanguard Space Marine strike forces to the system's other besieged planets, while his main force pressed on through the remnants of the Ork flotilla to Vigilus itself.Calgar issued communiqués to the Space Marines already on the planet below, though he did not inform the Vigilite Planetary Governor of his approach -- there was no time for diplomatic formality, and he did not wish to become embroiled in protocol and politicking. He had but one thing on his mind: swiftly and efficiently restoring order to Vigilus.The skies blazed as the Space Marines launched their planetstrike, tight formations of Drop Pods hurtling down to the critical locations Calgar had identified. In every false hivesprawl continent the Adeptus Astartes united their efforts with the local military forces, restoring hope with their sheer presence and beginning the long work of stitching the tattered patchwork of Vigilus' defences into a coherent whole.The Lord Macragge himself made straight for the tallest and grandest building of Saint's Haven, for he knew the Planetary Governor would be there in state. Whilst his Battle-Brothers fortified the palace, at times having to pacify its defenders, Calgar made haste to the chambers of the Aquilarian Council.When Calgar flung open the doors to the sumptuous, richly appointed debating hall of the Council of Cogs and demanded an explanation for the war effort thus far, he found evidence not of glory, but of rot and corruption. Ostensibly, the council was a collection of Vigilus' finest, the planet's great and good -- but all Calgar saw was a room full of feckless incompetents. As soon as the initial shock of such an Imperial luminary arriving in the flesh wore off, the council devolved into its usual backbiting, sniping and blame-slinging.Pointing a finger of accusation at the members of the council he believed to be traitors to the war effort, Calgar bade his shieldbrothers round up and remove those he found wanting. One of these malcontents, roughly seized, was exposed to have purplish, knobbled skin under his collar, well-concealed by greasepaint but stark when revealed. Another Genestealer cultist was uncovered soon after, coming to the aid of his fellow with a knife drawn from the flesh of his forearm.It was then that the council hall erupted into a cacophony. The resultant explosion of violence was swift, terminal and definite. Bolters boomed, Space Marine blades flashed red, cultists were executed, council members were bound in chains and exiled, and within the solar hour a new form of planetary governance was declared by the order of Marneus Calgar.At the head of this new order was Calgar himself, grim but purposeful. He had suspected that the Genestealer Cult uprising might have reached the highest echelons of Vigilite society, and he had no intention of allowing such a thing to ever happen again. His fellow Adeptus Astartes commanders took their places with a collection of genetically untainted, hand-picked advisors from what remained of the Aquilarian Council. The corruption of Saint's Havenhad finally been excised, and a new body of governance -- called the Vigilus Senate -- installed in its place. Coherence and comptence would now direct the war effort. Without it, Vigilus would not survive what was to come.