FSF - I would like it if you wrote a story about a Legion IX Astartes that was the last survivor of an engagement. Victory or defeat is not important, but they're the last one standing.
The exchange of weapons fire was fast and brutal, and in the halls of the battle barge there was scant cover to be found, save the bodies of the fallen. There was no quarter to be given; none had in return. Both sides were composed of men whose lives had been shaped, had been dedicated to one sole purpose: war.
At another time, another place, they might have stood shoulder to shoulder and turned their blades upon the enemy without. That was the truly horrifying part of it, in truth. There was no xenos foe to be found here, no eldritch or unclean touch of the Warp. Instead, men and women in the armor of Astartes hurled themselves into the fray against one another lives claimed and traded with unrelenting fury by the warriors of the Emperor.
The Mater Lachrymarum shook with the force of its guns as it fired a tremendous broadside, the quaking of the decks felt all the way to the core of the ship where blades clashed and bolter rounds popped with explosive force as they pattered against armor and decking. Energy crackled as a conversion beamer powered up to full strength and discharged, throwing one of the bronze-armored attackers backwards as the coruscating violet energy caught him in the shoulder.
“MINOTAURS!” a voice roared. "BLEED THEM DRY!“
“For those we cherish,” a whispered voice crackled over the Lamenters’ vox. "Stand firm.”
Techmarine Levistus stepped back, allowing one of his fellows to trade places with him as the c-beamer began recharging, just in time for the Minotaurs’ charge to hit the assembled squads with bone-crushing force. Twenty marines of the Lamenters had gathered in the access corridor to the Mater Lachrymarum’s central processing - the nerve center of the ship’s network of cogitators and consoles. If the Minotaurs were to take the great chamber, it mattered not if the bridge or the engines held - the battle barge would be as good as theirs.
A small wonder, then, that no less than four of the Lamenters’ techmarines had joined the effort, amongst them Forgemaster Pahaliah herself, her great axe hewing ceramite and flesh and bone even as her mechandrites flailed and snapped and spewed blurts of flame. Nevertheless the Minotaurs came on undeterred, seemingly ignorant to the costs of wounded and dead that their repeated charges paid by both sides, as if by dint of fury the last of them would swim to the processing units atop an ocean of blood if they had to.
Vehuel, a man Levistas had known for near a century, crumpled as a Minotaur battered him with an unrelenting series of blows from a chainsword. Eleleth fell in tandem with another of the bronze-armored attackers, a krak grenade ensuring she did not leave Emperor’s service alone. Ipos, a marine so young his armor still seemed to gleam with the forge’s touch, put his bolt pistol to the mouth grille of his attacker and pulled the trigger, staggering back from the spear that had been put through his side. They were all falling - men and women alongside whom he had stood his entire life, an increasingly doomed last stand to deny the Minotaurs their prize. There was nowhere to fall back to, nowhere but the processors themselves.
A bronze-clad warrior was striking sparks from Pahaliah’s axe, dueling the experienced techmarine with a speed and ferocity that could only be appreciated by the transhuman Astartes, the defenders of humanity. With the great rune ‘3’ emblazoned on one kneepad the Minotaur could be naught less than the captain of the attackers, a fact Pahaliah clearly recognized as she focused her attention upon the man, sweeping a servo-arm topped by a wicked claw towards him, only for the Minotaur to drop back and strike with his chainsword, cutting the weapon from its housing so that the heavy claw rang against the deck.
Pahaliah stepped back to redress with her axe and, in so doing, inadvertently gave Levistas the opening he needed. Leveling his c-beamer, the techmarine fired on the Minotaur captain’s unguarded chest. The beam struck him at the joint of his breastplate where it met the armored stomach of his Mark 8 armor, just below the double-headed eagle worked across his chest. He flew backwards from the hit, sword tumbling from his hand as he folded all but in half.
“CAPTAIN PYLOS!” an outraged voice rang out from the ranks of the Minotaurs, and a moment later there came a roar as one of them hefted his chainsword and charged the techmarine, bellowing furiously. Levistas began to raise his beamer, waiting for the tone that signified a full charge, knowing it would not come in time.
Then a bomb detonated in his ears. Levistas froze along with every other space marine present, some clutching at their heads as a deafening howl rang over the vox. Even the Minotaur that had moments ago been charging towards him with single-minded determination screeched to a halt, a hand clamped to the left side of his head.
Levistas had never heard such a high-level override command.
“CEASE FIRE!” a voice hollered even as the Lyman Ear struggled to dampen the piercing howl. "CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!“
——————
In the end, the Minotaurs’ gambit had paid off - their attack upon the Lamenters’ fortress-monastery had forced the other chapter to react or else forfeit their very home, and already reduced in numbers by the war, against the full strength of the Minotaurs there was scant chance of regaining the upper hand.
A surrender was forced, a knee armored in ceramite striking the deck at the feet of Asterion Moloc.
And the Lamenters’ role in the Badab War was ended.
——————
And in the hall outside the central processing of the Mater Lachrymarum, the apothecaries and their serfs rushed to the fallen as the two differently-colored Astartes chapters stood but a few feet apart and traded hostile glares. Levistas’ own attention was drawn to the fallen form of Ipos and the man bent over him, only to see the Sanguinary Priest to shake his head and begin the grim work of pulling the fallen marine’s gene-seed from his corpse.
Levistas closed his eyes for a long moment. Domonos, Samigina, Vehuel, Eleleth…and now, Ipos. They had all fallen. Young and old alike. For those they cherished. They had died in…glory. Yes.
As he was opening his eyes his attention was drawn by movement nearby, one of the Minotaurs shouldering several of his brethren out of the way as he came to stand less than an arms’ length from Levistas. The techmarine recognized the brute that had roared when his captain fell, and turned to face the man, looking up the half a head’s distance between them.
The man’s nostrils flared as he struggled to breathe evenly, and Levistas could not help but be put in mind of a maddened bull. "If my captain should perish,” he growled, “because of a coward’s blow like-”
Levistas was not to be cowed. "If your captain should perish,“ he said, his voice soft and even, "I have four squadmates who go unavenged.” He shrugged one shoulder. "If not, then I yet have five.“
Shouting erupted across both groups of Astartes as the Minotaur was dragged back by the arms of several squadmates, and for a moment it seemed as if the war might resume, then and there. Several of the Lamenters pushed Levistas back, and a mechanical augment put the final point on the matter as Forgemaster Pahaliah pinned him to the nearest wall. "I grieve with you,” she said, her voice cold. "But you will restrain yourself. The Great Angel would not smile upon this conduct.“
"I apologize,” he said without bothering to hide the scorn in his voice, though he lowered his gaze so that he need not give flagrant insubordination to her face. "I am not feeling very angelic at the moment.“
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The drop-pod hurtles earthwards, but tucked away within the cocoon of ceramite the world is as still as a winter night, utterly without any sense of motion.
The meditation begins, as always, with a simple question: who am I?
The answer begins, I am Levistas.
Like any machine, the pieces begin to fit together. I am Levistas, born of the void, inducted to the Adeptus Astartes Lamenters. I am a defender of humanity.
I am Levistas, a son of Sanguinius. His blood runs in my veins by virtue of my choosing by the Lamenters. I am a son of the Great Angel inheritor of his hopes, his dreams, his nightmares.
I am Levistas of the Lamenters, sent to Mars to learn the ways of the Machine Cult. I am a techmarine. I am a maker of wonders and preserver of my peoples’ knowledge.
I am Levistas, techmarine of the Lamenters, seconded to the Deathwatch. I am a hunter of aliens and a seeker of truth in service to the Inquisition.
I am Levistas, Lamenter techmarine of the Deathwatch. For those I cherish - my race, my chapter, my squadmates, my commanding Inquisitor - I give myself to suffering. In battle, I take up the burdens of Sanguinius, defender of those who cannot defend themselves. In suffering, I take up the glory of Sanguinius, martyr before all humanity.
The pod makes contact with the stratosphere, and the gyroscopic mechanisms of the pod begin to lose the battle with inertia, making the pod shake. A warning mechanism begins to beep as it counts down the last few seconds to touchdown. Behind his thickly-armored helm, the techmarine recites one final sentence.
