Warhammer : Machinist and The Exile

Captain Vossen shook Branek awake.

"Lieutenant. Up. We're moving."

Branek's eyes snapped open, body snapping to awareness by sheer instinct. His helmet locked into place with a hiss of pressure seals, HUD icons flickering to life.

"Apologies, sir. Didn't expect to drift off."

Vossen waved it off with a curt gesture. "You're not made of steel, Branek. But stay sharp. We've got work to finish. No one else is coming, we are at 89% strength. That is good enough."

The deck beneath them shuddered violently, a distant impact reverberating through the metal bones of the Blackstone Fortress. The overhead vox crackled to life.

[Division wide transmission: Fortress shield integrity at 19.3%. Structural instability increasing..]

Halvra's voice came next, ironclad and unyielding.

[This is Major Halvra. It is time. the Objective: the Command Bridge. Form up. Move out.]

The deck pitched again as another salvo from the Exile fleet slammed home, distant void guns hammering the ancient xenos-bastion's defenses. Branek's HUD displayed a live feed — shield strength indicators flickering red, down to a sliver. Soon it would fall.

And then with sweat and blood they will claim this relic.

He inhaled, steel-scented recycled air biting his lungs, and voxed his platoon.

"Mount up. Staggered formation. No freelancing. Stay tight."

The Exile battalion advanced once more into the teeth of death.

The path ahead was murder.

Every corridor, every intersection was contested. Cultists hurled themselves forward in shrieking mobs, brandishing rusted machetes, clubs, scavenged autoguns. Blood slicked the decks, pooling in ruptured floor grates. Lasfire and bolter shells turned bodies into ruin, flesh cooked and bone shattered.

"Contact front! Multiple hostiles — 50 meters!"

Branek took cover behind a bulkhead scorched black by prior firefights, firing in short disciplined bursts. Trooper Garren beside him took a round to the throat, collapsing with a rattling gurgle. Khor's voice cut through the vox.

"Medic, front-left. Garren down."

Astartes ambush squads struck next — malformed giants in warp-tainted plate, bolters roaring, chainblades revving. The Machinist Exiles countered with plasma volleys, volkite fire liquefying traitor flesh.

"The tanks made the difference," Khor noted grimly over the platoon channel as a Leman Russ Executioner's plasma blast incinerated a barricade. "Burns them out like rats."

Branek allowed himself a faint nod. "Finally some breathing room."

But then the Terminators came.

Without warning, four massive forms materialized in the battalion's center with a flare of teleportation energies. The glow hadn't even faded before they opened fire — storm bolters ripping squads to pieces in seconds.

A terminator wearing power fist slammed at a nearby leman russ.

"Ambush! Teleporters!" a squad leader cried — and died, his head bursting like a melon.

The narrow corridor trapped them. Men scrambled for cover, but there was none.

A Chimera exploded, its magazine igniting in a thunderclap of fire. Another vehicle took a salvo of krak rounds, hull splitting open like a can.

"Focus fire on the bastards!" Major Halvra's voice cracked like a whip across the vox.

Concentrated lascannon fire and melta weapons punched through the Terminators' thick ceramite at brutal cost. When the last fell, headless and smoldering, 30 more Exiles lay dead. A Russ lay crippled, turret blown apart.

Halvra slammed a fist into the hatch rim.

"Damn it! These corridors are death traps!"

Vossen answered without hesitation. "Sir, this is the only approach we can move armor through."

"You think I don't know that? Keep moving!"

Her voice left no room for argument.

Further ahead, a new threat emerged.

A line of makeshift entrenchments manned by better-equipped cultists — former Guardsmen, Branek guessed, moving with practiced discipline. Heavy stubbers and captured multilas turrets raked the corridor with suppressing fire.

"Cover!" Branek shouted, diving behind a disabled Chimera. A shot nicked his helmet, HUD momentarily fuzzing. He heard the solid whump of a missile launcher and the shriek of its warhead striking another tank.

"Plasma up!" Khor ordered.

A squad's worth of Exile troopers shouldered plasma guns and volkite calivers.

On command, they stepped into the open and unleashed torrents of energy. Heat washed over Branek as enemy positions boiled away, flesh flash-fried to charred bone.

"Clear it!" came the order.

They advanced over molten ground and smoking bodies.

And then — resistance thickened.

A barricade held by two dozen Traitor Astartes, armed with missile launchers, heavy bolters, and stolen autocannons. Behind them loomed a Chaos Dreadnought — a grotesque war machine, its clawed fists stained with gore, a half-human scream issuing from its vox-grille.

Halvra rose from her command Chimera, bolt pistol raised.

"No stopping now! For the Machinist!"

"FOR THE MACHINIST!" the battalion roared in return, a single war cry rising over the cacophony.

Shells screamed through the passage. Leman Russ demolisher cannons thundered, demolishing makeshift walls and sending cultists flying. Missile blasts and krak grenades turned Exile troopers into mist.

"Platoon Four, wiped!"

"Delta Squad down!"

A Russ took a direct plasma hit, hull cracking. Its crew bailed as a secondary explosion ruptured its rear hatch.

Branek saw a lascannon strike the Dreadnought's chest, only for the abomination to stagger, shrugging off the blow. It raised a claw, ripping a soldier in half.

"Focus fire!" Branek barked. His men obeyed. Meltaguns screamed. A demolisher shell struck from ten meters away. The Dreadnought vanished in a storm of fire and flying ceramite.

When the dust cleared, the barricade was theirs.

Halvra didn't pause.

"Status!"

"112 dead, 39 wounded, two vehicles lost," Vossen reported grimly.

"Reform platoons. Strip the dead. Redistribute ammo. Leave no corpse behind to rise."

Branek knelt by a fallen soldier's side, collecting tags, handing off pouches of ammo. The air stank of blood, promethium, and scorched flesh. He tapped his vox.

"Form on me."

The remnants of his platoon gathered, faces streaked with grime, visors cracked, armor rent. But alive. Ready.

They pressed on.

Ahead, a towering adamantium blast door marked their final objective.

The Command Bridge.

"Charges up," ordered Halvra.

Demolition teams planted satchel charges against its seams. Detonators wired.

"Clear the blast line!"

The battalion pressed against cover. A final shudder rocked the fortress as another orbital strike pounded its flanks.

"Fire in the hole!"

The explosion shook the entire corridor. Smoke and debris filled the air. When it cleared, the door hung askew.

"Go!"

They surged through.

Inside, chaos.

The last of the traitors made their final stand — Cultists with stolen rifles, a single Techmarine directing defenses, and four remaining Traitor Astartes.

Bolters roared.

Exile troopers fired point-blank.

A trooper aiming missile launcher, fired through the shattered entrance. Its shell turned a marine into wreckage of steel and meat.

Branek's lasgun found targets. So did Khor's.

The Techmarine fought savagely, his servo-arms crushing a soldier before a volley of plasma fire took him down.

When it was done, the bridge was theirs.

"Secure the chamber. Establish a perimeter," Halvra ordered, her voice a rasp.

The survivors — barely 400 now, with 100 guarding their vehicles far behind — held position, setting up lascannon nests, sandbag walls, and mines at choke points.

Branek leaned against a console, exhausted, his lasgun empty.

Then the division vox crackled again.

[To all units: Huron Blackheart has bypassed Second Battalion. He's enroute to the Gellar Field Generator. Prepare for possible warp breaches. No retreat.]

No one spoke.

They reloaded, checked power packs, reinforced barricades.

There was no leaving this place.

Branek set his jaw.

"Hold the line."