The campaign is over. The imperial planet of Sweetwater has fallen to the Ruinious Powers, despite an implacable defence by the combined forces of Astartes and Sororitas.
The victory is futile. The sheer ferocity of the conflict has shattered the world, which now teeters on the brink of planetary collapse. As the orbital fleets flee the oncoming maelstrom, all that remains are the abandoned, the forsaken, or those too wrathful to leave a single enemy alive.
Desperate survivors seek a way off-planet, while predators emerge from warp and webway, smelling blood in the water.
On a clear day, you could see as far as the Tegran Oasis,” Baedlara said, pointing out over the plains.
They were standing on the edge of the Bathylic mountains, looking down and out over the edge of a sheer cliff.
Yes,” Skov said. He didn’t look up from the scope pressed to his eyepiece as he checked for signs of movement. “Blueblade grass across the whole stretch. Looked like water, rippling in the wind.”
Baedlara could see him now, the huge weight of his Gravis armour spinning round and throwing up plumes of sickly grey fume. Purple and turquoise beings flickered in and out of view around him, gems that appeared and then vanished in the kaleidoscope of shadow. The rest of his squad was gone.
Sweetwater's sky flickered with red lighting. The plains were heavy with smoke clouds blowing over the burned grasslands. Here and there, gaping cracks had opened in the ground.
The smell of burning stone plucked at Helmzholtz's senses, uncomfortably acrid. He grinned, then winced as the movement pulled at the feeding pipe wedged into his cheek. No matter - pain meant he was alive.
3. The Greatest of These: Adepta Sororitas vs Black Legion
"Set a firewatch upon the gate! Shore up those defences! Sing, Sororitas! They may take our lives today, but they will never silence our faith!"
Mater Prudence's face shone with unquenchable zeal as she ordered her troops into position. They held the Spaceport, but it was useless as a defensive position. Too many civilians, too many ways in, far too many explosives. No, it was better to set up a bastion just outside the port with the bulk of her forces, draw the enemy off and deal with them at a distance.
4. Prizefight: World Eaters vs Drukhari
Aesruin, Archon of Drzok, ran his hand over his scabbarded blade. This was all unutterably tedious, a great deal of effort in order to settle a simple bet. It was costing him slaves, although at least they weren't good ones. Delightful as it was inflicting further ignominies on an already-despairing populace, snatching Imperial citizens from outside Sweetwater's main port was hardly worth his time.
5. Parking Charge: Space Wolves vs World Eaters
It was night, the tanks had been parked in what looked suspiciously like ritual order at the edge of the Berserker lines. They could sneak past, but there was little cover beyond this camp. Baedlara knew they'd probably be spotted and attacked come morning. Without tanks of their own, they'd be easily caught. If they wrecked the vehicles and moved out quickly enough, however, they had a chance.
"Hand out melta charges," he told Skov. "Two minutes, then go."
6. Seismic Matters: Death Guard vs Chaos Daemons
The fire spread fast. Sheets of it raced outwards from the ruin, spreading behind a trio of shimmering shapes Helmholtz recognised all too well. Their disc-like forms shone with barely-trammelled power - screaming servants of the Changer. Cursing, he climbed into the Rhino, ready to order an assault."
Creese stares, dumbfounded... This is it, the end at last. The sky will fall in coloured pieces like the glass in the cathedral, or the stone at his feet will break open and swallow him. The rumble builds to a roar and he falls to his knees, ready for the end. Instead, a huge armoured bike with heavy tyres blasts into view, the massive rider clad in orange power armour with a white helmet.
There weren't many of his Wolves left. He looked round at them in the bay of the Stormfang, strapped in under the thrumming batteries of the massive Destructor cannon. Skov, adjusting the lens of his bolt rifle as though he sat in the peace of the armoury. Fleinn, kneeling in his heavy Gravis armour and pressing the hilt of his sword to his helmet. Eythask, prowling back and forth across the cramped cargo space like a caged bear.
They'd be enough. They had to be.
They'd be enough. They had to be.
Sweetwater is over. It's a corpse planet, core cooling to spent clinker even as the mantle shrivels and falls in. There's nothing left of value beyond cold minerals.
Yet parasites still wage war on its sagging hide, blood-hungry ticks and twisting corpse-worms biting and clawing at one another. The victor gains a useless shell, a husk to stand on and crow over. Nobody will see this victory or hail the triumph. It's as futile as their very existence is.
But what other life can they know?
As a deadly rain of hellish ash began to fall in glowing drifts over the port, there was just one hope left for the few doomed souls still alive. One desperate chance to escape the coming death, if by some miracle they could reach it before anyone else got there.
The last shuttle out.
- And on the last day, there was a noise as of the rushing of waters, and the lands of the spaceport fell in.
- We beheld an abyss, deeper than all oceans, and it seemed to lie both inside and beyond the world, a tunnel that had been under us, all unknown, since the beginning of the world.
- And from out of this great depth came its denizens, which were many in number and exceeding foul to look upon.
- So it was that we knew our time had come to an end, and we were sore afraid.
The Sweetwater Creed
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