The Equus Crusade

Five brothers advanced with their bolters and chainswords pointed towards a colourful crowd of fleeing enemies. They were the knights of squad Tiberius, they had shed blood in His name side by side for decades, some even for centuries, they were among the best warriors of their entire chapter and now they were hunting down a bunch of disorganized, poorly equipped and untrained pirates. Obviously, the astartes felt like their talents were being wasted.

The armours of the five knights were mostly grey like the walls of the vessel, their black pauldrons were decorated with the symbol of their chapter: a single white hammer pointed upward crossing a grey screaming skull.

Their chapter, the ancient but poorly regarded Star Lords, had sent them on patrol duty around their home planet. Many in the Imperium did not love them, and not many requested their aid unless there was no other chapter available to answer the call of battle. The last great campaign in which they had participated had finished ten years before and since then they had been only protecting their own little turf.

Their enemies, weak and honourless, had fled the moment they had seen the transhuman soldiers and had yet to stop after running for several minutes. Tiberius had always hated the enemies of the Imperium, as all astartes should, but this was the first time he outright despised them, even most Orks had the decency to die fighting.

“This is bad comedy” angrily said Cadriel, the youngest of the five, as his chainsword cut through two men who were running away. His relative youth meant that he the one who was most looking for glory, but there was none to be found in that forsaken vessel.

“Focus on duty, brother, not on glory” Tiberius scolded him as his bolter made quick work of three pirates; their bodies disappeared in a bloody explosion as the rounds hit them.

Even if those unlucky enough to find themselves in that forgettable place made the mental effort to remove the blood and body parts from the corridors of the vessel, they remained an unpleasant sight. Most of the cabling was dangerously exposed to the outside world while the floor and walls were made out of various pieces of looted metals of varying quality and sometimes even out of wood. The entire thing had been covered by mould on the ceiling and on the walls and an unhealthy layer of trash on floor. A scene that could have been taken straight out of a hive where universal poverty was the only respected and enforced rule.

“What are the other squads doing?” Aphaniel calmly asked, his voice a deep and cavernous grumble, as he followed the retreating defenders while shooting them with his bolter. Aphaniel was the oldest brother of the squad, and was expected to succeed Tiberius once the sergeant met his hopefully glorious end. As such, he was the one with the honour of carrying the squad’s banner into battle, but that was not a battle worthy of any banner owned by their chapter.

“Squad Telemachus is cutting its way to the escape pods and squad Titus is going towards the engines, brother, we will be the ones who will take the command bridge” Tiberius explained the mission to the rest of the squad, then shot a man right in the head causing an explosion of blood and bones.

Icarus, the apothecary, had opted for not shooting at the enemies. Instead, he was in the rear, with his bolter ready to strike at any moment, watching his brothers' backs and making sure that their enemies wouldn't attempt to ambush them like the cowards they were. He was comfortable there, in the rearguard where he could watch over his brothers.

Cassius, the techmarine, was right next to Tiberius, firing his bolter in unison with his sergeant. The two of them had been inseparable for as long as they had been brothers and had fought in countless wars across the galaxy, many around them felt like one could not exist without the other.

Once the squad turned around a corner, they were greeted by a firing line of six las-guns doing their best to damage their armour. The defenders were firing everything they had from a hastily assembled barricade. Their most valuable piece of equipment was a machine gun placed at the centre of the barricade. Three terrified men did their best to fire their weapon as precisely as they could even if most of their hits were clearly having no effect on the supersoldiers in front of them.

“Is this the best you have, whelps?” Cadriel shouted as he fired several bursts with his bolter.

The reply came in the form many more las-gun shots coming from the end of the corridor. A great deal of them missed, but even more found their marks in the power armour of the astartes. Such weapons didn’t possess enough power to wound even one of the marines, especially when their numbers were so low, but they did succeed in making Cadriel even angrier and getting him to fire a full burst instead of the single shots he and his brothers had been carefully using until that point.

“End of the corridor, twenty humans” Tiberius said as he joined Cadriel in firing at them.

“I can see that!” Cadriel replied, clearly annoyed by his sergeant, as he kept on firing and killing more men. Most of them would have screamed from the pain of being ripped apart by the explosion, but the bolter rounds had completely pulverized their lungs and throats. All that some of them could produce was a muffled gargle as blood clogged their mouths and stained the floor before dying.

Instead of talking, Cassius simply stepped forward and fired several full bursts from the hip with perfect accuracy. This simple act completely shredded the barricade and machine gun on it. The men shooting the gun were sawed in half as the most of their torsos ceased to exist in the blink of an eye. They didn’t even have the time to look confused because a final burst made their heads disappear.

Cassius always preferred actions over words, he found them to be more helpful during a battle. This habit of not being much of a talker had prevented him from rising too much through the ranks of the chapter or gaining the honours and decorations associated with a brother of the first company, but the knights of squad Tiberius knew they could always rely on him and his skills.

His brothers were right behind him as he then charged at the barricade he had already almost completely demolished with his bolter, their chainswords roaring to terrible life as what was left of the pile of wood was utterly destroyed by the impact of five astartes hitting it at full speed. Behind it, there were almost fifty men prepared to fight for their lives.

The moments that followed were a chaotic blur of blood and fire as the carnage painted the room with blood, gore and bits of shattered bones. “Cleanse them in holy slaughter, brothers!” Tiberius shouted as he cut a spinal cord in half with a single punch and his right hand fired his bolter into the crowd that now seemed to be looking for death.

“Death by our hands is their way to salvation!” Replied Icarus while plunged his chainsword in the belly of a man. The other three were coldly performing their sacred duty without the need to exchange any words, just three killing machines working as intended by their creator.

As the carnage was about end just as quickly as it began, Cadriel asked, “Why did these men decide to fight now? They were fleeing just moments ago”

“I think I know the answer to your question” replied Tiberius “Squad Telemachus, this is squad Tiberius, what’s your status? Over” he asked over the vox.

“This is squad Telemachus, we have reached the escape pods, brothers, we’re holding position as we destroy them, resistance is occasional and ineffective, over” A booming and powerful voice replied.

“Understood, hunt well, over” Tiberius ended the short exchange fo words and reported the news he had just received to his brothers.

“So they are choosing death now that their retreat has been cut off” replied Aphaniel as he ended the fight by cutting the head of a man who was charging straight at him “I do not blame them” he added as the man fell to the ground.

The severed head rolled on the floor for a few brief moments before being crushed like a rotten grape by the sergeant’s armoured foot.

“This changes nothing for us, maintain attack formation and keep moving towards the command bridge” Tiberius said as he fired the last round in his bolter on one of the wounded crawling on the ground.

The fight towards the command bridge was uneventful, the astartes tore down more frail barricades and more men died by bolter and blade. The five knights soon began to find the entire affair to be cripplingly boring, even during the fights. No barricade was a real obstacle and none of the ambushes were inspired or cleverly timed.

These pirates were insulting the art of war, the art the Star Lords chapter tried to perfect with every battle, only to see it defiled by a bunch of honourless scoundrels. The anger that soon began boiling in the veins of the marines quickly became a welcome substitute to the boredom in their minds.

After almost half an hour of little skirmishes and pointless ambushes, the five brothers found themselves in front of a large steel door with a single golden Aquila at its centre.

“They have sealed this one, but it’s a fragile thing, it will not hold for long,” said Aphaniel as he placed his large armoured hand on the door.

“Cassius and Cadriel, stay right by my side, Aphaniel and Icarus, stand ready on the left side” Tiberius ordered then added “as soon as I kick this door in, Aphaniel will throw a grenade, then you will rush in after me and prioritize the sides, I will take care of the centre, is that understood?”

“Yes my liege” the four brothers replied in unison and placed themselves accordingly. Cassius and Cadriel on the right side of the door, right next to Tiberius, and Icarus and Aphaniel on the left side. Aphaniel already had a grenade in his right hand.

As predicted, the door had no chance resist the powerful kick of a space marine and it flew for several metres because of Tiberius’ powerful kick. Aphaniel threw his grenade immediately after, causing many screams form the defenders.

Tiberius led his brothers into the room anticipating only the usual weak and poorly equipped rabble, he was caught completely by surprise when several bolter rounds flew in his direction and exploded right behind him.

They were coming from a man who was clearly in his later years as his weak arms could barely hold the powerful gun, he wore a ragged Imperial Navy officer’s uniform and held one of the bolters that were usually issued to the Adepta Sororitas in his right hand. Despite possessing weaponry infinitely superior to that of his subordinates, Tiberius did not let himself be intimidated and proved him to be just as fragile as the rest of the crew as he made his head explode with a well-placed shot between his eyes.

What remained of the crew quickly disappeared under the volleys of fire from the marines. One of the men desperately attempted to reach for the bolter that had fallen to the ground, but Cassius swiftly cut him down.

The slaughter was over in a matter of seconds. As the last man fell to the ground, Tiberius took some time to analyse to room. A massive portrait of the man who had greeted them with a bolter in hand was hanging between two large windows that allowed the room to receive decent lighting from the void. A black table surrounded by six red chairs, clearly the seat of some pirate council, dominated the small command bridge. Two cogitators near the window hummed quietly now that they were no longer in use.

“At least this room doesn’t look like an underhive” Cadriel said as he reloaded his bolter.

Looking outside one of the two windows, Tiberius recognized the grey and long shape of the battle barge Hengroen, the mightiest vessel belonging to their chapter. It was from that ship that the assault on the pirate vessel had begun.

Looking at the vessel, the sergeant remembered that it was his duty to report his success to his liege, Brother-Captain Galahad.

“Brother-Captain Galahad, this is squad Tiberius, we have reached our target and achieved our objective, no casualties to report, over” the sergeant reported over the vox.

The captain replied almost immediately, his voice stern and authoritative “understood Brother-Sergeant, head to the hangar area of the vessel, a thunderhawk will pick you up once the other squads have finished dealing with their objectives, over”

As the five brothers entered the belly of a thunderhawk, Icarus asked “brothers, do you think it was a rogue officer we found in the command bridge?”

As expected, Tiberius was the first one to answer “Doubtful, brother, an Imperial officer who had turned on His light would have run once he saw a battle barge, this one was too ignorant to know a fight he had no hope of winning”

“What about the uniform, and that bolter?” Icarus insisted as the thunderhawk took off and its door closed with a metallic sound.

“He probably got them in exchange for something else, mayhaps a far better ship than what he had in his last moments” Aphaniel inserted himself in the conversation “he wouldn’t have been the first or the last man to be fooled by a smooth talking merchant”

During the flight to the Hengroen, Icarus and Cadriel were the most talkative brothers of the squad, both expressing their sentiments towards the fight that had just happened, with the latter making sure that all his brothers knew how much disgust still gripped his bones after he had to slaughter the unworthy.

In the void of space, the noise of their discussion became the only discernible sound in the belly of the thunderhawk besides the ones produced by the engine. This greatly annoyed the other three space marines, who were trying to be as quiet as possible.

“I command silence! From the both of you!” Tiberius ordered with all the authority his powerful voice could muster “The moments after a battle are meant for meditation, brothers, not for boasting or bickering, this behaviour is beneath you” he turned away from the two bickering brothers who became very silent immediately after.

The silence ordered by the sergeant set immediately after as each warrior focused on their inner thoughts about what they had done and how they had killed. Paying close attention on where the vessel of their minds sailed after they recalled of particular killing or action and occasionally steering it away from the dangerous waters of satisfaction and vainglory where only damnation waited if one lingered there for long enough.

After letting the mind wander for some time, they took to the helm and guided themselves in the direction of the seas of devotion and dedication to Him, where sacred duty finally found meaning and the mind could rest.

The silence remained in place for the rest of the flight, not a single soul dared breaking it, not even the pilot once he reached the hangar bay of the Hengroen. He simply landed and opened the landing ramp; everyone knew the procedure, there was no need to announce it every time. The only surprise was Brother-Captain Galahad standing outside, clearly waiting for them.

He was not wearing his helmet, his white hairs and red bionic eye were in full view of his brothers “greetings brothers, hunted well?” he asked with a smile.

“It was no hunt, just butcher’s work, a waste of time” Cadriel spoke out of turn, earning himself a stare through the red eye-lenses of his sergeant “My liege” he then added, just to spite his superior.

“As our brother said, there was nothing in that vessel that could have wounded any of us” Tiberius intervened “To what do I owe the honour of your greetings right on the hangar?”

“I am here to proclaim that you will no longer have to face unworthy foes, for now” he announced with pride in his voice.

“You found a target for the company?” Aphaniel asked, but no one reprimanded the old marine for speaking out of turn. Despite his lack of rank, his years had earned him the quiet respect of his brothers.

“Yes, we finally have real orders” Galahad explained “astartes forces have been requested, and the chapter has decided that means us”

Now it was finally Tiberius’ turn to ask a question “May we know who calls for our aid?” .

“The order to deploy come from the homeworld itself, brother, but the request for additional forces comes from the Ordo Xenos, we are going on a crusade”.