Thaddeus stood amidst the chaos of battle, his crimson armor gleaming under the harsh light of Gorgona Secundus's sun. The air was thick with the stench of blood and promethium, the acrid tang of ignited fuel replacing the crude gunpowder of lesser wars. The deafening roar of Ork war cries filled his ears, a cacophony of savage glee. He could feel the familiar pull of the Red Thirst, the insidious urge to lose himself in the bloodlust of combat—a flaw woven into the gene-seed of the Ninth Legion by their Primarch, Sanguinius. But Thaddeus held firm, focusing his mind on the task at hand, his discipline a testament to the rigorous training of Baal's moons.
Around him, his brothers of the Ninth Legion—the Blood Angels—fought with a harmony of ferocity and grace that marked them as the Emperor's chosen. Bolters roared in precise salvos, each muzzle flash a fleeting star that illuminated the gore-strewn ground, their mass-reactive shells tearing through Ork hides with devastating precision. Chainswords keened as they tore through flesh with relentless hunger, their teeth forged from the finest adamantine in the Imperium's arsenals. The Orks were a tide of brutish vitality, their numbers vast and unyielding, their crude weapons—fashioned from scrap and spite—swinging with savage abandon. Thaddeus's enhanced vision, a gift of his Astartes physiology, caught the fall of several comrades—noble warriors clad in crimson, their ceramite shells breached by axe and claw. Time seemed to fracture as he watched a brother's helm split under a warboss's choppa, blood arcing like a comet's tail. Are we losing? The thought pierced his mind, sharp and unwelcome, but he crushed it beneath a surge of resolve. The Blood Angels did not break—they endured, they triumphed, as they had since the Great Crusade began.
Then he saw him—Sergeant Kael, a veteran tempered by countless campaigns across the nascent Imperium, locked in a deadly dance with an Ork Nob. These towering brutes, the largest and fiercest of their kind, loomed over their kin, wielding crude but devastating weapons scavenged from a thousand battlefields. Kael stood resolute, his power sword—a relic blade inscribed with the litanies of Terra—a blazing arc of light, yet the xenos's brute strength was a tide eroding even the mightiest rock. A thunderous strike from the Nob's power klaw caught Kael's pauldron, ceramite splintering with a sound like breaking bone. The sergeant staggered, his footing lost, and the Nob loomed over him, its tusked maw splitting in a guttural roar of triumph.
"No! Brother!" Thaddeus's cry tore from his throat, raw and primal, a sound that drowned the clamor of battle. His vision narrowed, the Red Thirst surging like a tide of molten rage, threatening to sweep away his control—a curse and a strength inherited from Sanguinius himself. Not now, he snarled inwardly, chaining the beast with a will forged in the crucible of discipline.
He charged, a crimson blur cutting through the melee. His chainsword screamed to life, its teeth a blur of adamantine fury, while his bolter in his off-hand barked precise bursts of death, its rounds blessed by the Tech-Priests of Mars. Orks fell before him—limbs severed, skulls shattered—each kill a step closer to Kael. The Nob turned as Thaddeus closed the distance, its beady eyes widening in a flicker of surprise—and perhaps fear—as Thaddeus descended upon it, a warrior of the Emperor's finest legion.
He fought with the ferocity of a berserker, his chainsword rending the Nob's thick hide. The beast retaliated with savage fury, but Thaddeus's wrath rendered him unstoppable. Each strike was a hammer blow, his focus singular: save Kael. At last, with a final, mighty swing, he severed the Nob's head, its hulking form crashing to the earth. Breathing heavily, his armor slick with gore, Thaddeus stood triumphant. Around him, his brothers rallied, their spirits lifted by his valor, driving the Orks back with renewed vigor. The tide shifted, if only for a moment, as the Blood Angels' angelic fury reclaimed the field.
Kneeling beside Kael, Thaddeus's twin hearts clenched—a biological marvel of the Emperor's design. The sergeant's armor was a ruin, his chest a cavern of sundered ceramite and blood. "Hold fast, brother," Thaddeus whispered, his voice thick with anguish. He activated his vox, barking coordinates to the medicae with a precision born of desperation, his signal cutting through the interference of Gorgona Secundus's ion-charged atmosphere. The battle raged on, a distant storm, but here, time slowed to the rhythm of Kael's labored breaths.
The medicae arrived, their servo-arms whirring as they lifted Kael onto a grav-stretcher, rushing him to a field-hospice that doubled as a forge—a mobile sanctum of the Mechanicum's artifice. Thaddeus followed, his gaze never leaving his mentor's broken form. The Orks were regrouping, their war cries a dull roar on the wind, but he couldn't tear himself away—not yet. He removed his helm, the recycled air tasting of ash and iron, and stared at the horizon. You will pay, he vowed silently, resealing his helm as resolve hardened within him, his oath sworn beneath the gaze of the Emperor and Sanguinius.
"We are iron, we are wrath!" he roared to his squad, his voice a beacon in the chaos, echoing the battle-cries of the Great Crusade. The Orks charged anew, Nobs leading the assault, their crude banners flapping in the dust-choked air—symbols of a primitive culture that defied the Imperium's light. "For the Emperor, for Sanguinius!" Thaddeus's cry was echoed by his brothers, and the line held, a bulwark of crimson against the green tide, their unity a reflection of the Primarch's vision.
Later, amidst a rare lull, Thaddeus learned Kael's fate. The wounds were mortal, beyond even an Astartes's resilience, but the Legion would not lose him. In the hospice-forge, techmarines and medicae enacted a sacred rite, interring Kael within a Dreadnought's sarcophagus—an honor reserved for the greatest heroes of the Ninth. Thaddeus watched, his hearts heavy with awe and grief. The chamber hummed with arcane machinery, incense curling from censers as the techmarines chanted litanies of preservation in the binary tongue of the Mechanicum. Kael's flesh was linked to the machine, his mind preserved within a chassis of adamantine and fury. It was a second life, a cold eternity of war devoid of touch or taste, yet Kael's spirit burned undimmed, a testament to the Blood Angels' enduring legacy.
Through the Dreadnought's vox, his voice rasped, strained but resolute. "Duty does not end, Thaddeus. Fight on. Honor our Primarch's legacy." Thaddeus knelt, his helm pressed to the ground in reverence. "For the Emperor, for Sanguinius, brother," he replied, his voice a vow sealed in the blood of their kin.
Returning to the front, he found the suns sinking, bathing the battlefield in a blood-red glow—a fitting hue for the sons of Sanguinius. Reinforcement pods streaked from the sky, their impact shaking the earth, heralding the arrival of the Legion's elite. From one emerged a figure clad in golden armor, his helm a mask of Sanguinius's visage—Brother Azkaellon of the Sanguinary Guard, first among the Primarch's chosen protectors. "I bring the Primarch's will," Azkaellon intoned, his presence a thunderbolt of inspiration, his voice carrying the weight of Sanguinius's noble command. "We hold this line until the Legion's might arrives."
Thaddeus felt a surge of pride, tempered by the weight of their task. The Sanguinary Guard were legends, their golden armor forged in the artisanal fires of Terra, a symbol of unyielding valor in the Emperor's name. Azkaellon's gaze swept the field, assessing, commanding, his every gesture imbued with the grace of their angelic sire. "Tonight, we stand as one," Thaddeus declared, his squad drawing strength from the Guard's arrival. The night unfurled, a shroud pierced by Ork war cries and the distant, eerie chittering of an unseen foe—an omen of the trials to come.
Tyranid Presence
Unbeknownst to Thaddeus and the Blood Angels, a small, isolated splinter of a xenos species—the Tyranids—had made planetfall on the dark side of Gorgona Secundus. These bioforms, driven by an insatiable hunger, were part of a vanguard organism, a precursor to the larger hive fleets that would one day scour the galaxy. The Orks, ever eager for battle, had clashed violently with these creatures, their brutal enthusiasm meeting a foe that adapted with terrifying speed. This conflict had driven the Orks to consolidate their forces, swelling their ranks to face both the Tyranids and the newly arrived Astartes.
(Adjusted for 30k: In this era, the Tyranids are not yet known to the Imperium. This encounter represents an early, isolated incursion by vanguard organisms, a mysterious xenos threat rather than the galaxy-spanning menace of later millennia.)
Caught between these two threats, the Orks perceived the Blood Angels as another enemy to crush. This shift in focus allowed the Tyranid presence to grow, though neither Thaddeus nor Azkaellon were aware of the true nature of the xenos lurking in the shadows—an enigma that defied the Imperium's burgeoning records of the galaxy's perils. The night promised a storm of violence, with the Blood Angels unknowingly caught between the anvil of Ork ferocity and the hammer of an alien menace yet to be named.
Dawn broke, the Orks retreating in a move that defied their nature—a rarity in the annals of the Great Crusade. Azkaellon ordered scouts forward, his voice grim with the weight of command. "This war grows stranger. Prepare for what lies ahead." Thaddeus, exhausted yet unbowed, removed his helm, the Catalepsean Node—a marvel of Astartes biology—granting him rest in fragments. Standing among his brothers, he faced the horizon, ready for the storm to come, his resolve as unyielding as the crimson armor that clad him.