"Get a distress signal out, they've landed somewhere!"
Grids showing proximity of projected decent patterns of the Chaos landing craft flashed across the screen as orderlies ran to carry out General Tran's orders. The Chaos ship had made a near suicidal run across the system and had been badly damaged as it passed by Orlesta III, but it had managed to deliver it's cargo.
From what the computer was showing that cargo would be in range to attack the power stations supporting the defense lasers in less than five hours.
******************
The Foetipper was already en route to the planet when the distress signal arrived. The Space Wolf battle barge had been following the Unholy Tempest since it left the Badab system.
The tooth didn't draw blood as Soti bit his lip with his overdeveloped canine. It was a habbit he had when thinking. His other upper fang had been broken off when his helmet had been knocked off by a heavy bolter round 10 years before. That was okay. Space marines had redundant systems and in the case of piercing weapons they usually carried far more effective ones into combat.
"Make sure that they know we will be there and who is coming," he finally said.
"Broadcast it over all the channels, make sure everyone down there knows."
*********************************
"The Space Wolves are en route."
The words had the metallic twang that Sauk's voice made. The man was more machine now than marine. His vocal chords were no exception. The Blackheart looked at him sharply. He wasn't annoyed with Sauk but he knew they had to move faster to beat the enemy to the grid.
Planetary defense forces had been swept aside but if the marines dropped in before they got to the grid it was going to be a different job indeed.
The lasers had to be shut down then the Red Corsairs could plunder this system with impunity.
*************************
The massive ship slowed and slewed sideways towards the planet. The drop ships used the momentum of the massive ship to accelerate their decent towards the planet. Soon dozens of pods were falling out of the sky.
*****************************************
"Rarely have I seen something so welcome," General Tran said. The trails made the sky look like a jail cell as the drop pods screamed out of the sky and towards the equatorial jungle where the power generators for the laser were.
"The Space Wolves are here, thank the Emperor, we are save!"
**********************************
They could see the jungle canopy moving long before they could see any of the enemy. A rush of animals and a cloud of birds preceded the forces of the Tyrant as they moved towards the waiting Space Marines.
Soti revved his engine. The bike responded perfectly. This would be a glorious day, the clearing they had made in front of their position would allow old Jontar to rake the advancing enemy with assault cannon fire. Jontar was a steady soldier and Soti respected his advice. Although Soti was the commander Jontar was much older and had fought in many more campaigns.
He had advised Soti to not leave the Long Fangs at the front of the clearing but to have them move up to add their weight of fire once it was seen where the best use of it could be. Soti had listened. The commanders talent lay not in tactical dispositions as much as combat leadership. The Wolf Lord led from the front and while he was more than a match for most in strategy he deferred to his betters when he was around them.
But that was all about to become academic. The clearing was soon full of animals running as fast as they could across it. Behind them the very trees were rustling.
Then two bolts of red energy flared from the tree line preceding a raging Chaos dreadnought as it's close combat weapon battered a tree aside and moved into full view of the Space Wolves a superheated burst of plasma arced away from it's massive right arm-cannon.
"Fire!"
"Fire!"
"Fire!"
Soti looked back as he only heard the rattle of bolt guns in response to his order. The sight he beheld shook him rigid in his seat.
The massive form of Jontar was unmoving. Smoke was billowing out of the back and front of the ancient warrior, what seemed to be a critical power cable was slashing around casting sparks onto the ground. Most importantly the assault cannon was not spitting out a lead wall of death towards the enemy.
More massive bodies emerged from the tree line. They weren't as big as the dreadnought but they weren't space marines either. Barrels, blades and saws emerged from the twisted forms as they clomped forward.
Then the ravening hordes emerged from the trees, bolter fire ripping back and forth across the clearing. The Space Wolves had responded instinctively to the new situation. The Wolf Guard on Soti's left had started forward as something terrible rushed through the trees towards them, alternately skipping and stumbling among the vines and undergrowth.
They opened fire and something fleshy exploded in front of them, but even their enhanced reflexes were not quick enough and soon the entire squad as well as brother Hrolf was swallowed up by a tide of living madness made flesh.
On his right the marines moved out of their position to bring more of their bolter fire to bear on the forces of chaos.
The twisted creature's barrels were for more than just show though and as some sunk into the bodies of the monstrous creatures others emerged pumping white hot plasma into Tarn's squad as it came into the clearing.
The searing gas was too much even for power armour and Wolves lost limbs where it struck them, Sajold was struck in the chest straight on and a near perfect circle was burned through his body.
Not that it did him any good now but Jontar had been right about the Long Fangs, the Chaos dreadnought, screaming his litany of hatred crossed in front of their position and paid for his carelessness with his arm. The lascannon sliced a clean hole through the barrel and the mechanical beast turn just in time to receive a full dose of the intense heat of the multi-meltas beam which blasted the plasma cannon apart.
Garšarr ran towards the Chaos machine now and it bellowed indecipherable blasphemies at him as it met him in it's charge. Despite Garšarr's massive servo arm the dreadnought was not fast enough and the iron priests thunder hammer came down smartly smashing steel apart. The machine stumbled and the servo arm reached out and grabbed and held the power arm slowly squeezing. It was not going to be strong enough to prevent the dreadnought from breaking free but it was long enough for Garšarr to aim another well placed hammer blow tearing the arm off of the dreadnought. As the arm came loose the dreadnought's momentum carried it to the ground. It did not rise again.
The servo arm had just barely released the dreadnought arm when a salvo of plasma fire engulfed Garšarr and his servitors. The well worked plate armour held where the plasma hit it dead on, but one burst hit a joint and the iron priest toppled to the ground with his leg shot away at the knee.
His servitors were not that lucky, one of them exploded.
An earth shattering explosion tore trees apart to the right of Soti just then. Another one hit and he saw Pįll of Huroults squad come hurling through a patch of trees. Soti had started to issue the order when the speeder cruised past him, the blasts of heat were effective and the forward movement of the massive chaos engine was ended as three of it's limbs on it's right side were sheared away.
Nikulįs and Oddi had no chance to veer away and take another run though as a hail of bolter fire exploded over their vehicle carrying away the multi-melta and leaving the two stunned with the violence of the fusillade. As the enemy marines were reloading their leader shot his bolt pistol once severing the rear hydraulic cable and the speeder immediately flipped over and dove straight into the ground exploding on impact.
Óleifr brought the young ones up with him and they were now in a position to attack, Soti ordered them to do so and gunned his engines swerving around trees and plowing straight into the Red Corsairs ahead of him.
At the same time the Long Fangs were drawing a bead on the massive twisted forms of the Obliterators and firing first one went down, then another as the air was filled with super heated energy.
Soti had lost track of the battle at this point, all was red in front of him as he hewed limb from torso and led his men into the heart of the fray.
He didn't see the Wolf Guard moving up behind him to reinforce his attack, their bodies covered with fleshy, bleeding chunks and ichor and pus.
The combat was over quickly, the enemy marines had been dispatched and the Wolves had not lost a single man, quickly they jumped into combat with the remaining obliterator but as they did the Tyrant of Badab rushed forward, moving like lightning he scythed down three of the Blood claws with this power weapon, Soti road around the Obliterator and hacked at the massive chaos terminators, bringing two of the monstrous soldiers down, their armour no match for his powersword.
But the other three were on the Blood Claws now and the contest was as uneven as it was fast. Soti looked around only to see the massive fist of the Obliterator come down towards him. It crackled with power as it hit his power pack, the energy ripped the armour away on his back and the fist continued down smashing through his bike flipping him backwards and smashing him off of the massive frame of the chaos monstrosity.
He bounced off of the iron hard skin crashing to the ground on his side. His arms would not move, he could not command his legs to stand, he was paralyzed but sadly not denied the comfort of unconsciousness.
So he watched and saw his Wolf Guard, splatted with pieces of chaos spawn and some even having shattered space wolf shrapnel imbedded in their armour crash into their opposites. Once again Huron Blackheart moved like lightning and his power weapon cut through the tactical dreadnought armour with ease. He seemed to be able to strike precisely enough to bring the warriors down even if he didn't kill them.
The squad leader managed to dispatch the terminator he was struggling with before another of the chaos giants stepped up behind him. Soti watched as the crackling blade emerged from the chest of Glśmr's chest plate and the Space Wolf crashed to the ground.
Still more of his wolves crashed through the line and into the fray. The last of Sajold's squad fired his melta gun into the advancing obliterator and the heat of the cooker burned something inside the behemoth brining it down.
The last of the reserves now crashed into the Red Corsair line. Hróaldr squad aquitted themselves well, cutting down one of the renegades and causing the rest to flee in the violence of their assault. As the enemy ran Hróaldr's men fired into their backs.
Then he saw salvation, or at least a reprieve. A burning light in the sky heralded the arrival of more Wolves. They were dropping in just behind the grid. He could see some of the power points were damaged but it seemed that the grid held.
He heard the Tyrant of Badab curse and order his men back. They stumbled back through the jungle now, some of the ones that had fallen were crawling away, others were not.
The toll would come due, and be very dear indeed.
*************************************
General Tran was amazed still. He has seen marines in action before but each time it was still amazing. His forces had arrived soon after the second wave of Wolves had landed. He ran to the battle field and was barred at first by two of the giant warriors.
The jungle now had a significant clearing in it and there were giant bodies everywhere. Some were in red and black armour but more were in gray.
Lord Soti himself had been badly injured, it looked like he was being prepared to be interred in a dreadnought sarcophagus. Tran thought to himself that they showed a good bit of foresight for bringing a spare dreadnought here like that but wondered how they got it to what must have been the front line so quickly.
