SERGEANT RAPHAEL,
TACTICAL SQUAD RAPHAEL

With combat imminent my senses augment and the world around me slows, allowing me to take in the battlefield and make the optimum decisions for my squad and I to emerge victorious. One cultist has already fallen to Turmiel’s well-placed shot but nine more spring from the undergrowth and unleash a volley of fire towards us.

My Lyman’s ear filters out the other battlefield noise and while the shells are still mid-air I ascertain that the cultists are using autopistols and turn my shoulder towards the shots aimed at me. All three deflect harmlessly off the armour plating and, with their positions now revealed, I return fire at the enemy, my shots both measured and aimed, the plasma pistol’s heat apparent even through my armoured gauntlet. Their dark masters must be watching over them this day as only one of my shots finds its mark and a cultist falls to the ground, briefly spasming before going limp as the rest of his body realises that the right hemisphere of his brain is no longer where it should be.

More fire from the undergrowth, but sustained and accurate this time. A white-haired cultist in a storm coat is directing the fire and appears to know what he is doing.

As one, Squad Raphael sense the subtle shift in the tide of the battle and seek cover accordingly. Nine of us make it in time but Regulus goes down hard, a shotgun blast to the knee robbing him of his balance, and as he raises his head to make a retaliatory shot several well-placed autogun rounds take him through the visor of his Mark V helmet, blood gushing from the cracked lens. He relinquishes his grip on his bolter and his prone form is peppered with yet more fire from the cultists, but it is futile. His identifier rune turns from green to red on my display to indicate that Regulus is dead. Another Dark Angel fallen on the field of battle.

For the merest fraction of a second all combat activity ceases. Imperceptible to most but to a veteran Adeptus Astartes sergeant it registers as an age. ‘Avenge him!’ I yell, and my squad lay down a withering barrage of fire before advancing while the cultists cower behind cover, their tactics evolving in light of the apparent skill of their foe.

While no Space Marine actively seeks his own end, the very nature of what we do means that it is always at our shoulder. In the main, we are the dealers of death, our primary purpose to kill and to kill well; but this brings us into contact with others of like mind, though rarely of comparable skill, and although still rare, the demise of a Space Marine is something that occurs with alarming regularity in these dark times. All Space Marines are conditioned to accept death, be it their own or that of a battle-brother, and while Squad Raphael’s reaction to the slaying of one of their own is testimony to the bond between them, it was an unacceptable lapse during the heat of combat. Once we are back on board the Sword of Caliban I will have Interrogator-Chaplain Seraphicus drill them in the Litanies of Woe and Loss and remind them to channel any sense of grief into acts of violence against the foes of the Emperor.

Sensing that their position is about to be overrun, the enemy’s next move is entirely unexpected. Rather than laying down covering fire and retreating, they do the exact opposite and charge towards the onrushing power-armoured figures.

Brother Heskia wheels around with his plasma cannon and sends a gout of white-hot energy in the direction of four enemy combatants, but they are too quick and all Heskia kills is a large patch of undergrowth that smoulders and crackles as the heat vitrifies the scorched earth beneath.

The cultists continue their charge, clubs and knives raised, and Brother Selaphiel opens fire with his bolter. One of them goes down, his left arm shorn off at the shoulder, the stump spurting thick crimson gore, but three of them remain standing and barrel into the Dark Angel, dragging him to the ground and setting about him with their close-combat weapons.

Selaphiel grips one about the throat and chokes the life from him as he pathetically attempts to bludgeon the felled Space Marine, and Master Balthasar disintegrates the skull of another, but the third cultist is able to jam his serrated blade into the soft seal between Selaphiel’s helmet and chestplate. Selaphiel grips the cultist’s hooded face and pushes his fingers through the eye-slit before penetrating the Chaos worshipper’s brain cavity. In one final defiant act, the bare-chested cultist twists the knife a hundred and eighty degrees, a fountain of blood coating his naked torso.

Another identifier rune flashes from green to red.

In the half-century and more that I have served the Dark Angels as a sergeant, I have only ever lost four battle-brothers under my command and in the space of just a few seconds, I have lost half that number again.

No more.

We are Adeptus Astartes with direct lineage to the first founded Legion. We are no mere successor Chapter, nor one raised during later foundings. We are the sons of the Lion and our Chapter bears the same name as his great Legion did throughout the Great Crusade and the black days that followed. We carry his genetic legacy and with it the pride of knowing that we are the Emperor’s finest, first among equals. Two Dark Angels have laid down their lives this day and that is two too many. More blood will be shed before this battle is through but it will be us doing the shedding; more lives will end here upon this distant world but we will be death’s agents.

I will not rest until the enemy is slain and our mission is through, so swears Sergeant Constantin Raphael of the Dark Angels Fifth Company.