Victory Pointless

The docking clamps snapped open, shedding flecks of ice which scattered into sparkling clouds.  The drop pod hung still for a moment, prisoner of its own inertia, until the allied forces of its thrusters and the planet’s gravity took hold, dragging the tiny vessel out of its bay and flinging it down towards the roiling atmosphere of Armageddon.

The acceleration forces inside the craft would have rendered a normal man unconscious.  Artonius was not a normal man and had no trouble remaining lucid, but even so his vox report was delivered through gritted teeth.  “We are away.”  He checked the readouts in front of him and listened as each other pod in the formation confirmed successful launch.

He took a deep breath and switched to a wide vox-band that would reach every marine in the battlegroup.

“Brothers,” he began.

The craft bucked slightly.  They were entering the upper atmosphere.

“Brothers, we come again to a world touched by the glorious history of our chapter.  We come to fight and bleed over the ground where the illustrious Tycho once fought, and bled.  By his deeds did he keep this world free of the cruel yoke of the Xeno and the Heretic.  By our deeds shall we do the same!”

The pod shook to the simultaneous stamp of the ring of red-armoured marines around him.  “By the blood, it shall be so!” they intoned as one.  An echo of the same phrase came through the vox-link from the other pods.

As they dropped through the thickening atmosphere the pod’s frame began to groan with the stresses and heat of re-entry.  The roar of superheated air against the hull grew louder.  Every buckle, clip or item of equipment that was not rigidly locked in place beat against its neighbours in a staccato rattle of steadily growing intensity and speed.  External monitors showed only dark clouds streaming by, backlit by occasional flashes of lightning and the fiery streaks of their sibling drop-pods.

Artonius had to raise his voice above the clamour to continue.  “Our brethren of Task Force Gorio have requested aid.  We have been oathsworn to deliver it!  We do not know the exact state of things on the ground – warp phenomena have been disrupting vox and auspex.  Besides the request for reinforcement we have had no word for several days.  Assume we are dropping into hostile territory. Assault formation Dexima-Theta.  Find cover.  Secure the landing zone.”

He checked the chrono.  “Eighty seconds to landing.  Sergeant Imarro, if you would…”

The clattering and roaring was overpowered by Imarro’s baritone as he led his squad in a war-hymn of ancient Baal.

“Down from the skies came the Great Angel fair, mighty of muscle and golden of hair…”

The vox-link chimed urgently with a priority transmission from the battle-barge.  “Lieutenant Artonius, this is Epistolary Avelli – I am sensing a massive psychic disturbance originating near your landing zone.  Some kind of gravi-”

The pod jerked violently as if it had been suddenly swatted by a giant hand.  The screens in front of him broke out in a violent array of alerts and warning claxons that indicated a dozen entirely contradictory things.  Those that showed external vid-feeds revealed the clouds around them twisting and deforming into unnatural shapes.  The other pods were similarly affected – some dropping faster, some slower.  Some were being turned and pulled in strange trajectories.  It was hard to tell which way was up and which was down.

It was as though the laws of physics had suddenly gone haywire, and with a sinking feeling Artonius realised that was exactly what had happened.

They were caught in a gravitational anomaly.  In vehicles that were primarily designed to drop.

“Angel’s blood!” He switched his vox back to broad-band.  “Battlegroup!  Grav-storm!  Grav-storm!  Adjust your thrust vectors, keep forma-”

Two of the pods were sent spiralling into one another with an enormous crunch and a spray of ceramite fragments.  They came apart each missing a stabilising fin and spun away into the maelstrom on dizzying trajectories, trailing flames.

The formation broke out of cloud cover and was instantly met by a hail of anti-aircraft fire from below.  Flak spattered against the hull and a few pieces of shrapnel broke through, leaving jagged holes through which thin fingers of reedy sunlight poked and felt their way across the cabin as the drop-pod spun.

It had been known that there were heretic-controlled batteries in the area – it was why they had deployed by drop pod and not Thunderhawk gunship.  Per the Codex, the pods should have been on the ground before the gunners even realised they were there.  But, it seemed, they had been waiting for them.  They had known exactly where to aim.  Worse, those pods buoyed up by the gravitational anomaly drifted down slowly enough that they were easy targets for the flak cannons.  They were shredded as soon as they dropped below the level of the clouds.   Others were instead accelerated downwards, striking the ground with an impact force even greater than that which the pod was designed to withstand.  The rest were simply scattered far and wide.

“Brothers!” Was all Artonius had time to vox.  “Endure and regroup!  Brace!  Brace!  Bra-”

The pod came down at an angle, smashing through the corner of a hab-block and the support of an elevated roadway to come to rest in the shattered remains of an ornamental fountain at the feet of a great statue of a bale-eyed human Commissar, leaving cascading sheets of rubble sluicing down in its wake.  With a final crash the pod doors toppled outwards like the petals of an ungainly metal flower.

A normal man would have been killed.  Artonius was not a normal man.  Within a second of the pod coming to a halt he was out of his harness and on his feet, bolter raised and ready.  His vision filled with glyphs warning about the integrity of both his power armour and flesh.  He dismissed them.

Following the auditory assault of their descent and landing everything seemed suddenly very quiet.  Only two things broke the silence – the tingtingting of rapidly cooling metal and the voice of Sergeant Imarro, which had wavered only slightly as the air had been driven out of all three lungs.  His song had not ceased throughout the entire descent and as the marines stepped out onto the surface of Armageddon Artonius raised his voice alongside, making its final verse his first command on the planet.

“…By the blood are we born, to the blood we return.  So, by the blood, will the heretics burn!”