The Macharian Crusade: Angel of Fire

Warhammer 40,000

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

Exhibit 107D-5H.

Transcription from a speech imprint found in the rubble of Bunker 207, Hamel’s Tower, Kaladon, containing information pertaining to the proposed Canonisation of Lord High Commander Solar Macharius and to the investigation of former High Inquisitor Hyronimus Drake for heresy and treason against the Imperium.

Walk in the Emperor’s Light.

When the ork kicked in the door I knew I was dead.

Half again as tall as a man, with a huge chainsword gripped in one massive gnarled fist, the greenskin surveyed the barracks room with eyes the colour of blood. It threw back its ugly head, opened its tusked mouth wide and emitted a bellow of rage loud enough to wake the dead. It grunted something in its brutish language as if it expected us to obey. We would not have, of course, even if we understood it. We were Imperial Guard, soldiers of the Emperor, and orks have always been numbered among His enemies.

The greenskin should not have been so far inside the bunker. That fact alone told me at least a company of men were already dead. Hell, our whole army out there in the Hamel’s Tower trench system might be dead for all I knew.
We had not heard anything from command in days.

Before I could give any orders, the xenos sprang into the room. Its chainsword flickered, taking off Bohuslav’s arm at the shoulder then removing the top of Alaine’s head, sending brain and blood and bone splattering across the chamber. Behind me I heard seats clattering to the ground and tables being overturned and the confused grunts of grey-uniformed men rising from their metal bunks to confront this sudden horror, the last thing they would expect to meet so deep within the fortified complex.

The ork took two more steps that almost put it within cutting distance of me. I brought up the shotgun and I pulled the trigger.