Chapter Twenty-Five: Rust and Ruin (Part IV)

Article Six

Dated: (014) 894.M30

It had taken nearly a year of fighting, but the Stormbringers had finally reached the heart of the Krooked Claw Sector. A year filled with war, death, and destruction. Which I documented to the best of my abilities. I'd stood aboard the Thunderhead's bridge as it exchanged fire with Orkish Hulks by the dozen, ridden alongside a squad of Battle-Brothers piloting a Land Raider in defense of a field hospital from Greenskin "Kommandos," and had even watched the full wrath of a Stormbringer artillery barrage rain down upon Underboss Zogim's fortress. In that year, I saw the horrors of war and what it requires for our species to survive in this wretched galaxy. The Orks were brutally ugly beasts of war and oftentimes the Stormbringers were worse.

Orks infest and desecrate whatever they conquer. Reducing it to a profane pile of scrap, filth, and brawling Xenos. The perverted ecosystem of the greenskins at work, tearing apart worlds and remaking them in the image of bestial cruelty. By contrast, the Stormbringers do not defile, mutilate, or otherwise twist where they fight. No, they are much more straightforward in their methods. The sons of Culian destroy the enemy and their lands utterly. I have walked across fields of cooling glass and ashen craters that stretched in miles in every possible direction. Places where once stood ancient human cities turned into Orkish fortresses, now turned to dust. Nothing stands in the way of the Emperor's Storm and everything is broken by its wrath, becoming a clean slate for whatever the Imperium wishes to create.

I still remember the first time I was deployed alongside the Stormbringers. Chieftain Shadrak had assigned me to an Artillery detachment of mixed Astartes and Auxilia firepower. My duty was to follow Captain Cruthin, commander of a combined Artillery, and infantry detachment, and document the Stormbringer's bombardment of an Orkish position under siege by the Legion. The "position" was a sprawling war-camp of fungal organics and mechanical deathtraps built over a cavernous mine. According to what information I could scavenge from the military proceedings around me the Orks were encircled twice over. By an inner ring of frontline armor and infantry, and an outer ring of Artillery where I found myself stationed.

With some effort, I managed to capture Captain Cruthin's attention during a lull and inquire about the purpose of this strategy. Tersely he informed me this was a Boar-Hunt deployment. With the outer ring of artillery acting as flushers. Using overwhelming firepower to fracture and scatter the Ork forces, who would be easy pickings for the Tank and Infantry battalions of the inner ring. This was apparently X Legion standard procedure for assaulting fortified Orks. The snippet of information and attention I got from the Captain was encouraging. It might not sound like much but it was the most I had gotten from an Astartes other than Chieftain Shadrak. Cruthin apparently numbered among some of the more progressive officers of Clan MacSmythe. Tolerating me and even rarely indulging my questions. Feeling it was best not to test my luck. I left the command hub and found a spotter's nest to observe the impending bombardment. The auxilia artillery spotters did not seem to mind me and I kept out of their way.

Eventually, the call came through. All around me vox-links activated and orders were given. According to one of the spotters this section of the rings first shots had been lined up hours ago. Just waiting for the circlet to be complete and the command to open fire. I watched as thousands of barrels pointed towards the sky around me, miles of guns in either direction stretching out in a great ring of firepower. For a moment the world seemed to freeze as if every human across this planet held their breath. Then across a dozen vox-channels, it came. "OPEN FIRE!"

I was instantly deaf, blind, and disoriented. The ground shook and my senses left me. Cybernetic and Organic enhancements reacting to the explosions by shielding my senses and brain. After a few heartbeats, my vision and hearing returned. Filling my mind with the smell of accelerant, the sound of whistling shells, and the sight of raining death. What I would later learn was close to two hundred thousand rounds of ordinance filled the sky. A ring of missiles, directed energy and super-heated metal closed around the Orkish war-camp. Tightening and dropping into a solid mass of death. The impact was too much for my senses and I only caught flickers of atomic light and snippets of the roaring inferno. There was no time to recover as the second and then third volley fired. My augments quickly calibrated to this new extreme and I could watch the onslaught. As the Emperor's wrath was unleashed, I finally had the answer to one of my first questions about this Legion. Why were the X called Stormbringers? As dirty lighting born of billowing ash leaped across the sky and the never-ending thunder of guns shook the earth, I finally understood.

By the time the sun of this nameless dustball orbited had set, nothing was left alive in the War-Camp. The bombardment continued the entire time and the Orks had attempted a breakout at least thrice. Being too far away from those battles I only caught snippets of them. Flashes of las and plasma fire, explosions along the horizon. I never even saw an Ork, the closest I came was the occasional blast of green lighting or roar of an engine too ugly to be Imperial. Still, I never underestimated the foe, some animal part of me feared the slim possibility the Greenskins might break through the inner ring. Those fears were fed by the barbaric war cries of the Xeno which carried on the wind in between bombardments. The danger of the foe was never far from my mind. Especially when I watched the grotesque spectacle of a Rhino Transport hurtled through the air. Far enough away it looked like a Childs toy, the multi-ton armored vehicle was tossed thousands of meters into the air by a lash of green energy. Launched by a grav-weapon and landing in a burning crater after a solid minute of flight.

My first battle ultimately lasted only a few days and I soon found myself back aboard the Thunderhead. My shuttle into orbit gave me a view of the continent-covering ash cloud unleashed by the bombardment. A sight that haunted me as I overheard a squad of Auxilia troopers joking about how this "mop-up operation" was not worth the Crusader Fleets time. Only attracting the Imperium attention to ensure stable supply lines deeper into the Krooked-Klaw Sector.

The Krooked-Klaw Sector, the vestibule of the Golgotha Wastes, and where the Stormbringers spent the first year of my assignment fighting. Scouts and Explorators quickly learned the region is inhospitable but resource-rich. Even sparse desert worlds like the rock I had first witnessed battle on were rare here. Valuable minerals, gases, and ruins were however common. A fact that had drawn prospectors of different generations and species. They had all lived and died trying to exploit the riches of this region. A cycle of boom and bust that ended when Old Night came, and the Orks with it. Records and Imperial Archaeology showed the Greenskins had conquered the sector about two thousand Terran years ago. Enslaving and exterminating the human colonies then plundering these world's riches for themselves. Forming a vast sub-empire of the Wastes, built on the crumbling tombs of long-dead peoples.

Uncountable mining and scavenging settlements dotted the Sector, all scrounging up as much material as possible. Nearly all of it transported deeper into the sector. A great web of scrap moving to the heart of Krooked-Claw. The Stormbringers followed this web, cutting it apart world by world. Pressing deeper to find the core of this Xeno nest, hunting for the unseen center. I am no tactical savant or Astartes Commander but even I could understand the importance of this mission. If an entire sector's worth of material was being ferried to a singular point. That meant the Orks were building something, something requiring huge amounts of resources. Something dangerous enough to get the Emperor's attention and require his Stormbringers.