Blackstone Fortress
The ramp of Talon-14 crashed down with a pneumatic hiss, a blast of acrid smoke and flickering firelight spilling into the hold. The oppressive, malevolent weight of the ancient fortress pressed on every sense, like a drowning man's final breath before the abyss.
The lander had come down hard, its landing struts biting deep into a twisted pathway of scorched ferrocrete and half-melted deck plating — another malformed chamber in a void station long lost to madness.
"Go, go, go!"
Lieutenant Darius Branek was first off the ramp, lasgun raised, visor-HUD cycling through thermal overlays, auspex pings, and fractured void-compartment schematics riddled with interference.
Thirty hardened, gene-optimized void assault troopers followed in disciplined, staggered formation. No panicked shouts. No scattered advance. Only precise vox-clicks, silent hand signs, and the methodical stomp of void-armored boots on tortured decking.
[AUSPEX CONTACT: HOSTILES AT 30 METERS — BIO-SIGNATURES: LOW]
"Cultist rabble. Tactic Dagger Six — clear and move," Branek's order snapped through the vox-net, cold and sharp.
The first scattered cultists came shambling from behind ruined cargo stacks — mismatched kevlar plates, scavenged stubbers, rusted axes raised in trembling hands.
A lesser unit might have faltered. Not Exile soldiers.
"Engage."
Crack-crack-crack.
Lasfire snapped out in synchronized, disciplined pairs. Precision marksmanship drilled to mechanical reflex. Heads burst, torsos pitched back, limbs seared to vapor. The traitors barely registered before their broken bodies fell.
"Contact down."
"Area clear."
"Perimeter check. Mark sectors."
Branek advanced, lasgun steady. Sergeant Vallen Khor fell in beside him, HUD icons flickering.
"Cleared this bay faster than sims, sir," Khor noted, voice dry.
Branek allowed a grim smile. "They're not soldiers. They're vermin."
"Lieutenant, bay secured. No survivors," a squad leader voxed.
"Good. Check those gantries — watch for kill-angles."
Branek keyed Talon-14's command channel.
"Karven, status?"
"Lander's shot to shit, but we've got it locked. Me, Lira, Hadrex, the gunners and two techs holding position. If they try and take her, we'll blow the core. Manual vent-rack override's primed."
"Understood. You hold it or you burn it."
"Wouldn't leave these bastards a bolt shell, let alone this bird."
Branek cut the channel. "Report ammo and integrity."
[First Squad green.]
[Second Squad green.]
[We're ready, sir.]
Professional. No panic. No bravado. Exactly as drilled.
The vox hissed again — a fleetwide broadcast.
[This is Dagger's Oath. Boarding operation at 92.4% troop insertion. All units proceed to primary targets. Sweep and clear to inner sectors.]
Branek's pulse stayed steady. The Command Deck was theirs to claim.
"Khor, move the platoon. Sweep pattern Charlie-Five. No stray gaps. Mark every hatch."
"Copy, moving," Khor confirmed, raising hand signals.
The platoon advanced in staggered fireteams — cover to cover, eyes on ceilings, floors, and bulkheads. The fortress interior was a twisted horror of scorched metal, blasphemous iconography, and the stink of ozone, rot, and ancient violence.
The Exiles moved as a single organism — thirty gene-conditioned killers advancing with cold precision, their weapons an extension of the doctrine that forged them. Standard-issue lasguns formed the backbone of their arsenal, modified and field-weathered, the power packs scorched from countless fire drills. Short-barreled lascarbines hung from sling straps, favored by breachers and point men for tight-quarters killing.
Marksman variants, fitted with long-range optics and focusing coils, rested in the hands of sharp-eyed veterans. Squad support gunners hefted heavy-pattern las-lugers and drum-fed las repeaters — light machine gun version of lasweaponry designed to lay down brutal fields of suppressive fire.
In their hands, the tools of annihilation were wielded without mercy, every trigger pull a calculated execution.
One trooper, Trooper Hadrak, bore the ominous weight of a missile tube across his back. A shoulder-fired tube of battle-scarred plasteel and adamantium fittings.
The weapon was brutal in its simplicity: a single-shot, breech-loaded launcher designed for rapid reloads in the chaos of corridor combat. It was a weapon built for armor killing and rupturing ceramite plate, and every soldier around him made a point of knowing where he was at all times.
A lone Traitor Astartes rounded a bulkhead — chainsword in hand, helmetless, his pale flesh and jagged teeth bared in a rictus grin.
He charged, revving his weapon.
Trooper Narek moved without hesitation. Aiming directly at the astartes forehead.
A lasbolt punched through the traitor's skull, the body dropping in a heap, head a smoldering ruin.
"Good shot, Narek," Khor voxed.
Branek sneered at the corpse.
"Warp-enhanced, ten thousand years of blood, and felled by the oldest rule in void combat, never leave your head exposed."
"Sir! More hostiles, marines!" Khor warned, HUD icons flickering crimson.
Two more Traitor Astartes advanced, clad in battered Mark V suits, helmets in place, crimson optics glaring. The taint of the warp bled from their cracked, blackened plate.
"Flash out!" Branek snapped, hurling grenades.
The flashbangs burst near the traitors' helms, photonic detonations blooming white. The Astartes recoiled, snarling, optics scrambling. But reflex alone drove them — one loosing a wild burst from his bolt pistol, shells hammering into bulkhead cover. Ceramite slugs chewed into a nearby ferrocrete column, dust and shrapnel scything the Exile line.
"Cover! Focus fire on weak points!" Branek barked.
The Exiles rose as one. Disciplined lasfire ripped into neck seals, servo-joints, power connectors. The first Astartes absorbed half a dozen strikes, staggered, then crumpled under a throat shot. The second reeled as a coordinated volley hammered his joints, sparks and smoke erupting from power cables before he fell.
No Exiles dead. A few near-misses. But clean.
Vox channels flared again.
[Division 3th Dagger to all member soldiers, reports of encounter Shinobi strike team remains exhibit signs of warp-taint. Exercise heightened vigilance. Watch for anomalous behavior.]
Branek's gut twisted.
He opened a private channel. "Khor. Warp effect could bleed through."
[Aye, sir. Fortress Gellar field's still holding. Cyberships control system command. Unless they smash the generator, we stay clean,] Khor answered grimly.
Branek took a long breath, steadying himself.
"Good. Eyes sharp. No hesitation."
"Aye, Lieutenant."
They pushed deeper. The fortress spat up fresh cultists.
Overconfident fools expecting mere guardsmen, not gene-conditioned, void-hardened killers. They died just as swiftly.
"Hostile down."
"Sector clear."
The vox pinged again.
[Division Command: Be advised, rising casualties. Several platoons lost to ambushes. Enemy Astartes employing effective small-unit tactics and layered kill-zones.]
"No surprise," Branek muttered. "Bastards spent millennia butchering each other in the warp."
"Lucky the ones we faced took a frontal rush." Khor added, motioning fireteams to breach a sealed hatch
Branek nodded.
"Relay to squads: double-check every intersection. Pre-clear dark zones with frags. Sweep and pace. No split squads."
"Confirmed."
And so, the platoon advanced deeper unto the blackstone fortress.
Step by disciplined step, a cold, professional military formation cutting through the decayed, corrupted arteries of the ancient space fortress.
The sounds of distant bolter fire, las impacts, and something deeper, more inhuman, echoed through the ancient corridors.
The platoon pushed on. They have a mission to finish.