Storm Brothers: Fight and Flight

                Captain Tylerion watched from the deployment bay as the troops and vehicles were loaded into the drop containers. Unlike most chapters that had the benefit of the drop pods and thunderhawk gunships, his chapter was not so wealthy. His chapter's meagre resources were stretched thin and provided only one direct means for tactical rapid insertion into battle, large reinforced cargo containers which literally crashed onto the battlefield.
                From aboard the their frigate "Perilious" the Storm Brothers first company prepared to drop planetside as they orbited the planet Derviis IV. Ork raiders had descended upon the factory world and begun dismantling the planet piece by piece. It had been decided that this would be an excellent opportunity to resupply the chapter's coffers and and armoury under the guise of providing aid to the taxed imperial forces on the ground. After the battle even the the ork contructs could be put to good use, reduced to base materials by the forge ship "Indenture".
              The plan seemed infallable as the orks had done a great deal of the work for them and the strained imperial defenders would readily accept any ally without question. Looking at his visor's display the capain realized it was nearly time and headed toward his designated position for the attack. All told, half of 1st company as well as a portion of the tenth were assigned to the operation, while the 9th Recovery and Salvage company would deploy secretly to an unguarded section of manufactory to take everything bolted down or otherwise.
              Far below on the planet's surface Capt. Aurius of the Praetors of Orpheus Chapter waited in the trench for the next ork attack. For nearly a month now the captain and his detachment fought alongside the planet's defence forces attempting to stem the green tide that was quickly overtaking the planet. The orks had come seemingly from nowhere, landing on the planet almost at random. The PDF had quickly become become over ran despite their proficiency, nearly wiped out until if by the emperor's providence The Praetor's astropath heard the distress call. Now more than thirty days into the campaign they were no closer to victory than when their armored boots first touched ground. The Captain listened as the sound of the greenskins grew louder signalling that another ork assualt had begun. Aurius let out a weary sigh, almost missing the rain of flaming vessels falling to the ground.
                At first he thought they were drop pods, but they were far too large and their descent was to controlled to be any ork lander. The orks themselves paused in their charge, awestruck as the burning containers crashed into the ground. These containers landed with thunderous booms upon the front line of the ork attack. The front rank of the xeno attackers were decimated, crushed to pulp under the massive weight of the strange boxes. Ramp like doors blasted open with a hiss of decompression smashing into the ground violently, spraying greasy ork flesh into the crowd. The remaining greenskins howled in frustration as they stared into the stygian darkness inside the containers.
              Aurius stood transfixed on the rectangular containers in the no man's land. "What in the Emperor's holy name is going on" he whispered in a hushed tone as he eyed the red and black containers. The age worn boxes carried the weathered look of long hard use, their gold trim and embossed imperial eagle nearly invisible under the soot and grime.
From within the boxes dark interior came a blinding bright light. The orks reeled and covered their eyes, those that did look saw inside the boxes the large forms of astartes Rhinos, then a sharp flash as their twin storm bolters opened fire on the stunned mobs. Those closest were tore apart under the hail of explosive bolts and fell in droves like threshed grain. Those who had not been slain ran howling in pain back to their lines, where their brethren masters shot them down for their cowardice. The attempt to flee was largely un successful as the odd looking rhinos shot out from the boxy containers, mowing down the xeno filth under their treads with great prejudice. The three rhinos converged on each other, pulling in side by side forming an armored speartip, as the surviving greenskins were moving to rally into one massive horde.
            The Praetor's Captain watched as the strange rhinos drew the attention of the ork warband, leaving the imperial defenders for the most part unnoticed. " All squads, defensive positions, overwatch protocol! It seems we are all blessed to share this victory with our brother astartes, we will hold and see how best to aid them" exclaimed the invigored Aurius.Through the ork tide a swarm of spiraling rockets flew toward the three astartes vehicles. The Praetors watched with anxious stares at the barrage of missiles neared the spear head. The three rhinos broke formation as the hellstorm of rockets raced toward them. Many of the unguided projectiles fell short or otherwise flew off course detonating harmlessly, while the rhino's paired gunners tracked the remaining rockets with bolter fire, making short work of the poorly cordinated attack.
                The sound pounding metal rang from inside the drop boxes, from within the interior of each emerged a squad of marines clad in black and red. The orks were now focused on the rhino carriers and did not notice as the thirty space marines that appeared on their flank. The marines formed a gunline and proceeded to open fire on the greenskin mob. The orks turned to face the astartes warriors firing their crude pistols and drawing their blades as they readied to charge. The largest amongst them roared and charged leading the mob into the fray.The marines unleashed another deadly salvo of bolts, several stepped forward with flamers sending jetstreams of fire into the approaching horde. The torrent of fire and steel had reduced the mob to no more than three dozen.
                The marines braced themselves as the orks leapt at them with crude and rusted blades. The sergeant swept his powerfist forward tearing greenskins apart as he headed toward their leader, a large power klaw wielding ork attempting to behead two other marines. The ork brought his klaw down on one marine cutting one hand of at the forearm and kicked the other in the chest, throwing him backwards. The ork had not regained himself when a line of bolts stitched up his back. The ork turned to see the marine sergeant grinning as he lowered his still smoking pistol. The ork growled in rage and swung his heavy klaw at the sergeant. The sergeant punched the klaw with his powerfist, it's energy field disintegrated the metal klaw  in a flash of sparks. The large ork bellowed in pain, the marine reached up grabbing the ork's topknot and tore off it's head. By the time the marines had finished off the last of the mob, only two of the marines in squad Marik were injured and neither were serious. The assault had been successful, the ork attack lost enough momentum to cause them to pull back for another build up. The space marines mounted onto their rhinos and headed toward the imperial lines.
                The first to greet the astartes was the imperial commander and the Praetor's captain. From the rear hatch of the lead rhino a long haired space marine in artificer armor walked out to meet them. To Aurius, the marine looked very unorthodox; obviously the leader by his dress, but very much the opposite of himself. His long blond hair hung loosely touching his lower back,and on his left hand he wore a odd looking powerfist with some sort of  built in flamer. The marine looked barely old enough to make sergeant and carried the aire of youthful arrogance.
                " The Emporer's blessing to you my brother astartes" Said Tylerion offering his hand to the Praetor's captain. "And to you brother..."said Aurius with hesitantly, clasping forearms with him. "I am Aurius, Captain of the Praetor's of Orpheus seventh company; commander of the astartes forces on Derviis." Tylerion grinned," I am Captain Tylerion of the Storm Brothers first company, Commander of the detachement assigned to aid the imperial forces here. Good to meet you". Aurius steeled his expression, attempting to hide his apprehension at having to work with the strange astartes." I am not familiar with your chapter, but I must say your tactics are quite unique". Tylerion shrugged, " It suits us, our chapter prides itself on our onorthodox battle strategym"." I hope we can work cohesively to crush the the xeno filth.," said Tylerion in his most convincing voice.I have dispatched another element to the south-western continent to protect the major manufactory there and secure a defensible staging area. My ship will be ferrying aid and reinforcements to them." Aurius groaned inwardly," I see, I'm sure you are aware of the risk of spreading your forces to thinly". " They'll manage, I'm sure" Tylerion said with a grin.
                    On the south western continent the element composed of the ninth company was hard at work bolstering the defenses of the landing zone. The area was alive with motion as dozens of chapter serfs and scores more servitors hurriedly scoured the surrounding areas for anything of value while the space marines of the ninth company stood atop the roofs watching for hostiles.
                    "Remember the the protocol for loading the transports; vehicles, weapons, equipment, and basic materials! yelled the Master of the forge as he inspected the operation. Everything was going according to plan and thanks to a lack of ork activity they were well ahead of schedule. By the time imperial forces made it here, they would be long gone with anything of value, the city's remains would be destroyed "as a result of xeno forces" and no one would be the wiser. The details of this plan had been worked out by himself and the chapter master personally. Even with supplies they would use assisting imperial forces ( and maintaining their cover) their profit would more than make up for it. For the next five days they would strip this city bare.
                      From the command bunker Capt. Aurius and Capt.Tylerion looked over maps, planning their next move. "how do you plan to take that bridge? asked Aurius," We don't know anything about the strength of enemy forces or their relative positions inside the compound". Tylerion clicked his vox unit twice, a few seconds later five figures in camou cloaks entered the room, " I have already seen to that" replied Tylerion with a grin. "Arkon, what do you have for me?" The closest of the five to him stepped forward, pulling back his hood he revealed his pallid dark eyed face. " My lord, the bridge complex has roughly two hundred orks, twenty-seven armor units and 19 gun emplacement of various weapon types. With a map I can provide you with an exact layout" reported Arkon in a deathly tone. " like I told you brother-captain, they won't know what hit them" smirked Tylerion as he watched Arkon draw the complex layout on a map in front of them.
                  The importance of the bridge was that it connected the two halves of the continent bissected by a massive fissure. The majority of the ork forces were staged on the far side and had yet to cross the bridge. If it were destroyed it would cut them off from any reinforcements from regroup for weeks. Aurius had his doubts, but the plan seemed theoretically sound. A large hauler ship belonging to the Storm Brothers had already recovered their dropboxes and Aurius wondered what other surprises the strange captain had in store. The convoy of chimeras, rhinos and Captain Tylerion's razorback left toward the bridge. All told Tylerion and his three dozen marines, as well as two platoons of guardsmen and Aurius' command squad were heading for an assualt on the complex. The plan was to bombard the opposite end of the bridge with a barrage of lance shots from Tylerion's ship in orbit. That would lower the possibility of the orks getting reinforcements from the otherside. Aurius and the guardsmen would launch a diversionary attack to lure the orks from the bridge complex. Once a large portion of the orks were drawn away from the bridge Tylerion's two tactical squads would assault them from the rear. The two imperial forces would close in and catch the orks in a two pronged pincer attack. While this was going on Tylerion and his command squad would infiltrate the bridge complex would set up explosives to the remaining bridge struts and use the detonation to cover their escape. "Emperor save us" cursed Aurius under his breath.
                    The sky brightened as the ship's lances fired onto the planet, searing the air and throwing great hunks of molten debris everywhere. The far half of the bridge was nearly destroyed, the only remains were semi-solid slag that once were support beams. The orks would not be crossing that anytime soon.
                    The signal had come, it was Aurius'  time to play his part. Aboard Tylerion's command razorback with two chimeras worth of guardsmen, he raced toward the ork complex. Once in range all three vehicles opened fire, the razorback's assault cannon ripped apart sentry towers and gun nests. The orks did not betray their nature, pouring out on foot or in ramshackle vehicles from a plethora of portals on the fortress walls. Well over a hundred ork chased the now fleeing imperial forces. The imperial convoy lead the orks some distance away from the bridge breaking formation on otherwise unauspicious terrain. The orks in their excitement did not question the manuever, but realised why almost immediately afterwards. Nearly the entire frontline of wagons and buggies were pitched forward as their hulls caught on the camouflaged tank traps set into the ground. The momentum of the orks slackened as the growing detritus of smashed vehicles impeded their fellow's pace. It was then that the hidden rhinos of the storm brothers charged from their concealed positions to the unprotected rear of the ork formation. The marines aboard the rhinos hung from every available hand hold so they could add their fire power to that of the rhino's storm bolters. The withering hail of bolts laid low several score of the greenskin horde. The green tide nearly halted as many of the orks turned to engage the new enemy. Aurius used the confusion to bring the decoy team about and attack the weakened front. The orks were pressed from both sides as the imperial forces hammered the orks with withering firepower. It wasn't long brfore the last ork fell to las and bolt.
                    In the confusion Tylerion and his command squad led by the "nightstalkers" scout squad made their way to an entry point into the bridge. Concealed by camou cloaks, the infiltraition tean entered thfough a gap in the wall. There was a low level of activity near their point of entrance. The clatter and clang of ork equipment rang in the background. All around greenskins ran about, shouting as the performed indiscernable tasks. Their destination; the near side if the bridge was almost in reach. With any luck, they could plant the bombs and exit without the orks even being aware of their presence. Tylerion's luck played a considerable role in his success as a leader, and he would continue to rely on that until it failed him.
                    From across the open square Tylerion could see a large ork engineer(a "mek" by their tongue) and his stunted workers, hastily attempting to repair the bridge. Many of the short greenskins fell or were thrown from the mangled bridge wreck, but their were still too many for Tylerion's liking. It wasn't the mass of little greenskins that bothered him, it was the ork mek. You could never tell what manner of strange weaponry their queerly psuedo-intelligent minds came up with, until they were using it on you. He knew this from experience, having fought the greenskin countless times on the their raider fleets and occupied space hulks. Now there was a rather large one as unpredictable as a cracked meltabomb, standing between himself and the bridge. " I hope this is worth it" thought Tylerion as he gripped his power glaive.
                Something fell behind the astartes squad, clanging as hit bounced of a metal drum. The keen ears of several gretchin caught this, turning to find the source. One grot spotted the marines, pointing toward them he called out to his ork master. Before he could utter a sound his head exploded, spraying gore all around him. This captured The ork's attention, whirling around to see who had interrupted his work. Captain Tylerion stood in the open, his bolt pistol gripped loosely in his hand. "Pardon my intrusion, but I'm going to need all of you to die now" he said with his iconic devilish smile.
                The large ork seemed to take offense to this, roaring and shaking his clawed fist in the air. Bellowing indecypherable curses, it ordered the gretchin mob forward. The grots looked hesitantly at the Large astartes warriors, until the mek grabbed one of them and threw it over the mob at the marine. The little grot fell flat in front of Tylerion and looked up just in time to see a large crimson boot crush it's skull. It's fellow surged forward, the wave of little green monsters swarmed over the marines. Even with the combined effort of the squad's five flamers the gretchin mob was still large enough to impede them. Sharp claws and teeth raked against the marines armour as each marine fought against the nearly numberless mob. Chainswords carved through green flesh and sprayed dark ichor as the marines fought their way through the horde. Every swing took a life and soon the dead piled so high the marines had to trudge through it like a thick marsh. The ork mek grew steadily more agitated at the gretchin failure, he roar louder and louder until his screaming was all that could be heard. Tylerion knew that he needed to kill the big ork before it got the attention of more of it's kind.
                    Kicking and stomping, Tylerion cleared a path to the Mek who now held a crude looking flamer and leveled it at the him. A gout of fire shot toward the Tylerion engulfing his vision, only his adamantine cloak saved 
him from the hellish fire. He had to give the xeno-beast credit, it had good taste in weaponry. Tylerion closed in, the two were only several feet apart only the bodies of dead grots between them . The ork gripped his flamer, the pilot light changed into a constant lance of burning flame. "This can't be good" thought Tylerion as the large ork plodded toward him. Tylerion brought is glaive in front of him readying himself against the Mek if it decided to charge. The Mek eyed him, and Tylerion wondered what the brute could be thinking; again with these "smart" ones you could never tell. Whatever thought process might have occured the baser instincts must have won over. The ork raised his weapon high and charged the marine captain, wielding the strange flamer like a blade he brought down burning lance to split him in two. Tylerion parried with his glaive and pulled the massive greenskin arm away. The Mek's chest was wide open, Tylerion slammed his guantlet into ork and fired the hidden flamer. The burst of intense heat cooked the brute's chest, the Mek fell back and tried to beat the flame off. The captain didn't waste the chance, driving the power glaive into the thrashing ork's neck; beheading the mek where he stood. Together the six marines made short work of the surviving gretchin and headed to toward the bridge.
                Tylerion watched for any roaming orks as his command squad carefully set the meltabombs and retreated back to their entry point.As the others exited the hole Tylerion detonated the bombs, sending the burning remains of the bridge raining down on the complex. "Almost done" whispered the captain to himself. On the other side of the planet, the master of the forge sent an encrypted message to Tylerion detailing that they had completed their mission and were preparing to leave. As planned he ordered them to destroy what was left of the manufactory, " would be reported that the orks had overtaken the area despite the best efforts of the astartes and that the Storm Brothers were presumed KIA".
                Nearly an hour later when Captain Aurius and the imperial forces re-united with the insertion team they found the command squad carrying a litter on which the captain laid. Tylerion's skin was pallid and across his neck was a bloody cloth, his body was limp and the dust of battle covered him. Aurius was stunned, "Is he..." he strained to say. The apothecary only nodded and the procession moved past him to the command vehicle where they laid the captain down. The Apothecary climbed in behind the veterans and banged the side; alerting the driver to get moving. behind them the other two rhinos fell in line and drove toward the descending hauler ship. Captain Aurius watched as the massive ship took off, "He was the strangest marine I have ever known, but I have never seen any with greater honour than he" said the captain aloud to his men that stood beside him.
                As the large hauler entered the frigate Tylerion sat up stretching and yawning, "Are we there yet?". The door opened and outside stood the Master of the Forge in his crimson artificer armour, " I have the figures of our gains and losses, when you are ready to hear them" said Kleptemos. " Get me anything good forge master?" asked Tylerion in an almost childish tone. " All told, we now have enough of the right equipment to begin manufacturing armour and standard weaponry, as well as replacement parts for our transports and tanks. Plus the usual basic materials, and some items of interest to myself and the chapter master. The only accountable losses is that the serf and servitors in the 9th company will need several days of rest before they can again return to full duty. The end net gains of the mission are enough to keep the chapter stablized for a time and give us the opportunity to grow. I think we may consider this to be a complete success" said Kleptemos grinning as he turned, heading off.
                  Tylerion laughed thinking in his mind, "When facing extinction, fighting is only half the battle."