Warhammer40k: The Final Crusade

++Lost Brothers++

Pluto had been where the Imperial Fists had fought before, here their Father and Primarch, The Praetorian of Terra himself, Rogal Dorn, had slained a traitor Primarch, Alpharius of the Alpha Legion. That battle had been relatively short but now, the Alpha Legion, with a certain deadly determination somewhat uncharacteristic of them, had decided that here they shall cleanse the shame by conquering the planet on which their Primarch was slain. Erasing that which had been weighed upon their shoulders for twenty millenia.

When the Alpha Legion arrived, with a fleet numbering twice of what they had brought in the First Battle of Pluto twenty thousand years ago, they engaged with such might that the formidable defenses of Nyx, Styx and Kerberos barely lasted for half a day, their weapons platforms being obliterated by their battle barges and warships as hundreds of drop pods ferrying vengeful traitor astartes landed on the dwarf planet, crashing onto the sheets of Nitrogen Ice and falling onto drop zones where the Imperial Fists had laid a trap.

The anti-air defence of Pluto was formidable, the collection of hydras, manticores and rocket launchers wielded mostly by guardsmen and conscripts, funnelled the Alpha Legion into death zones, where enfilading and devastating fire would greet them. However, this defence would not hold for much longer as the Alpha Legion fleet led by the ancient battleships Alpha and Beta bombarded the Plutonium surface, reducing defensive turrets, systems and fortifications to dust.

Yet one should never doubt or underestimate the Imperial Fists ability to fortify positions, for deep into the surface of Pluto, emerged batteries of anti-air, lance, macro and plasma cannons which had been imbued below its icy surface and surprising the Heretics. Yet the Alpha Legion kept pushing forwards, landing hundreds of thousands of disposable minions that nearly overwhelmed the complex trenches and fortifications held by regiments of the Guard with sheer weight of bodies or drowning them in a wave of blood. The white fields of Pluto were stained with dirty red and black of dried blood or the charred bodies of heretics that had the misfortune to encounter the squads of Adeptus Sororitas who had a strange obsession with flamers.

Chapter Master Char Kord had brought the vast majority of his Chapter, The Fists of Dorn, to Pluto, and had been given overall command of the defense of Pluto. They still doned the colours of their chapter but all had taken to painting the armour on their left arm in Imperial Fist yellow and had the left pauldron adorned with the ancient insignia of the Imperial Fists. For the most part, they had taken minor casualties, only the guardsmen and the conscripts were dying in droves though not at rates higher than previously estimated. Thus, he could play his game just as planned. Whenever the Alpha Legion made a move, he would counter it with immense fortifications which they would inevitably tale with disastrous casualties. Even as sleeper cells within the mortal regiments emerged, they could do little to brunt his defences.

While the battle in the void continued above Pluto, small groups of Alpha Legionnaires snuck onto Imperial vessels whether they be battleships, escorts or transports, they snuck onto their bridges and had them plunge into Pluto's surface. Even as the subterranean guns broke dozens of this ships apart, they would still cause unfanthomable damage. But the Imperials were tenacious with their defence, strongpoints were made atop the debris while what salvageable guns were placed back into action by loyal tech-priests. However, one heard of reports of entire regiments of guardsmen turning traitor almost instantaneously with newly conscripted regiments turning on the Emperor upon setting foot on Pluto. No matter.

Yet they could not stop the traitors advance, every move made by Kord was countered by the heretics and for every of their moves, another was countered by Kord. This battle was slowly becoming a great siege in it of itself, all to takeover an astropathic survelliance array and to recover lost pride. Hundreds of thousands, had already shed and spilled blood on Pluto and yet more had yet to spill even a single drop. The Imperium funnelled whatever reinforcements they could to Pluto, to protect the lynchpin of their survelliance systems and to pre-occupy traitorous forces from assaulting Terra.