Lord Commander Cassian Vaughn of the 18th Legion set foot on the surface of Stivnich III. He looked around and found a world cloaked in endless green, vast forests stretching beyond sight.
The recognition runes inside his helm flickered unsteadily. Turning to his companion, Lucas of the Shadow of Order, Vaughn said:
"The reports from the Auspex Operators show this world has no major population centers."
"But… it is full of anomalous signal zones. The strongest anomaly lies just ahead."
"The interference disrupts our augers and blinds our auto-sensors," he added. "I imagine your order can perceive the enemy more keenly in such conditions."
The warriors of the Shadow of Order were indeed sharper in their senses than most.
"Lord Vaughn," Lucas scanned the surroundings and pointed at the treeline, "three o'clock direction."
"Advance," Vaughn commanded.
The green-armored Astartes of the 18th Legion surged forward toward the direction Lucas indicated. Ten squads entered the dense forest.
With every step, the signal disruption grew stronger. Their vox channels became thick with static.
After several kilometers, Lucas suddenly spoke in a low voice:
"Xenos."
Vaughn slowed his pace, leading the warriors onward. Soon, a cluster of alien figures came into view.
They had humanoid upper bodies, clutching weapons, but their lower halves resembled scorpions. Their barbed tails arched high, venom-tips glinting with cruel light.
Vaughn's pupils narrowed. He whispered: "Andres."
The 2nd Legion had encountered these xenos in an earlier battle. From their screeches, they had been named Andres, and their physiological details had been passed on to allied forces.
Vaughn recognized them instantly.
"There are humans too, enslaved, tormented," Lucas growled, anger tightly restrained.
Vaughn signaled his warriors to halt and crept forward alongside Lucas.
Moments later, they saw them: several humans laboring under xenos supervision. One woman was forced to pluck fungi from the trunk of a colossal, multi-colored mushroom.
The fungi were spiny, fist-sized caps that tore her hands bloody as she picked them. She carefully placed each into a jar, then reached for another, her face pale from blood loss. Drops fell onto the earth like ripples on still water.
Vaughn's eyes burned with anger. He stepped back, intending to return to his men and assign orders.
But at that moment, the woman accidentally crushed a mushroom in her grasp.
The overseeing Andres shrieked in fury. It seized the jar from her and, with a twitch of its scorpion-tail, impaled her body.
Vaughn raised his bolt pistol and unleashed a shell of pure wrath.
"Attack!"
Lucas donned his war mask, channeling rage into power. His energized blade carved a brilliant arc of blue light, cleaving through alien chitin.
The green-armored Astartes opened fire, their bolters roaring. Explosive shells reduced several Andres to bloody mist before they could even react.
The survivors retaliated, their strange crab-claw weapons shimmering with energy. One blow struck a suit of power armor, the field crackled, sizzling, and split it open.
Lucas smelled scorched ceramite and flesh.
'Energy weapons.'
He parried, twisted, and drove his blade through an alien's skull.
Vaughn roared, his voice shaking the forest. His thunder hammer came down like judgment, the shockwave tearing an Andres to pieces and scattering dust and gore into a drifting cloud.
The 18th Legion advanced with implacable fury, smashing, crushing, killing.
Dozens of xenos fell. When no foe remained in sight, Vaughn still burned with fire in his eyes.
He turned to the freed humans who cowered in shock.
"Tell them," he ordered a techmarine, "we are warriors of Humanity's Master."
The techmarine's mechadendrites tapped on a vox-skull array, which hovered into the air. Loudspeakers broadcast a series of messages in Low Gothic dialects.
"Fellow humans, we come from the cradle of Mankind, Terra…"
The pre-recorded Mechanicum message repeated again and again. At the fifth iteration, one of the ragged colonists hesitantly called out in broken Low Gothic.
"You… you are… humans too?"
The system translated and responded with the standard compliance ritual: Terra, the Emperor, the Great Crusade, and the Astartes as the Emperor's chosen army.
Nearly a thousand colonists of Stivnich stood surrounded by the towering warriors. A pale-faced youth finally stepped forward and whispered.
"You are… Astartes… and human…"
Translated, Vaughn's reply rumbled deep and certain.
"Yes. We are the warriors of the Emperor. From now on, you are under our protection."
The colonists trembled, but a flicker of hope stirred. One pleaded:
"Please… save us…"
Without hesitation, Vaughn promised, "We will. You'll be taken to safety."
The 18th Legion gathered the survivors and began their withdrawal.
As they moved, Lucas bent to pick up one of the jars of strange mushrooms.
'The Andres forced humans to harvest these. Signal disruption is strongest here… they must be important.'
He remembered the 12th Chapter's campaign on Tanis, when they recovered the peculiar flora and fauna for their Primarch.
'Perhaps the Gene-Father will find these of interest.'
He secured the jar and led the way.
Yet the rescued colonists grew uneasy. The green-armored giants hemmed them in, and they remembered how the Andres had done the same.
'Are these giants merely taking us to a different slavery?'
Fear gnawed at them. Then Lucas's voice cut through the air.
"The Andres are coming."
Vaughn thundered, "Hold the line!"
The 18th Legion formed a living wall, bolters raised. They fired in disciplined volleys, unyielding.
Lucas noted how every warrior obeyed, none breaking formation for maneuvers. They fought as a bulwark, as if they themselves were fortress walls.
One green-armored Astartes wielded a thunder hammer at the eight o'clock flank, crushing xeno after xeno. But the swarm was thickest there. A clawed weapon pierced his armor, yet he did not retreat.
Even as he fell, his massive body remained a barrier, shielding the ordinary humans behind.
His brothers expanded the line, sealing the breach.
'Vaughn and his Legion will sacrifice their lives for mortals in a way most Astartes never would. They value human life more than many Legions. Even at Cypra Mundi, Vaughn showed fascination with fortress-shields that could protect entire hive-cities.'
Lucas fought beside Vaughn, their blades and hammer tearing through the swarm until at last, the survivors were secured.
The 18th Legion paid in blood, ten warriors fallen, to safeguard the humans' escape.
Dropships carried the colonists to safety. Many wept as they realized their salvation was real.
Lucas sent a full report to Nareth.
Nareth received the transmission, unsurprised. He knew the 18th Legion, even before Vulkan's return, had always shown extraordinary concern for the lives of ordinary men.
Cassian Vaughn himself would one day fall, holding back Orks on the Taras Cluster long enough to evacuate three worlds' populations. He died there, passing command to Vulkan, who arrived too late to save him. Vaughn's remains were later interred within a Dreadnought.
'Vulkan's kindness, without question, lived on in his sons.'
Nareth then noticed the hololithic projection of the colorful mushrooms.
'The main ingrdient for the Door's Sequence Eight, 'Trickmaster' prismhued fungi.'
.....
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