#Cosrau Yandin

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

Entry.081.InterviewTranscript015.narr

“Tell me about Damat.”

“What about Damat?”

She took a sip. The tea was strong and pungent, the kind that stung the nostrils. It was hard to suppress the grimace, and the marine seemed to notice it.

“You are aware you need not drink it. It is made strong specifically for Astartes.”

“It is…interesting. I have had similar meetings with more than a dozen of your brothers across multiple companies. Every time it’s a different infusion.”

“This is Corinthian Rosemary. Whenever resupply is viable the victualler corps make sure to include whatever the local culture deems an acceptable substitute. Disparate companies and campaigns accumulate their own stocks and I cannot help notice you are still drinking it.”

She smiled sweetly. It was a textbook manoeuvre, only slightly spoiled by the sinus-blasting the tea was providing. “I was taught that acknowledging and participating in a chapter’s individual customs is the best way to integrate and make connections.”

“I do not see remembrancers sharing the ale of Space Wolves.” He gave a harsh bark, the kind you might find if you stripped the sound of laughter down to the bone and removed half the bones. “In any case, it is a Taralan custom, if the ascendants speak truly. Therefore it belongs to neither of us.”

“And yet the custom is observed by the entire chapter, and has been for the best part of two millennia.”

“An irrationality from the dark days, solidified through habit, and the veneration of its practitioners.” He removed the small vessel from the burner and refilled their glasses. They were little things of cut glass, barely thicker than parchment. She couldn’t help but marvel at the elegance and delicacy of his augmetics as he raised the glass in hard digits of silver and plasteel. “Even astartes are prone to nostalgia and sentimentality in extremis.”

She nodded. “I have read the treatises on Lord Avenii. It seems justified to seek reassurance in the familiar when faced with strife of that kind. In my opinion, it humanized him”

That seemed to change something in him. It was like watching the weight removed from a taut cable, a reluctant, almost painful relaxation. He stood up, the fine mail hem of his tunic jingling softly as he turned his back on her.

“We are beyond human. We should not need comfort. We are warriors. Anything that does not serve that requirement is a waste at best, a weakness at worst.”

“A weakness?” She prompted. The phrase had come up many times over her tenure with the Fists. The shadow of Medusa laid heavy around them.

“Flesh is weak.” He replied. There was no feeling in the words. Not even the flat, unshakeable faith that was these marine’s closest analogue of confidence

“So I’ve heard. The human body is frail and imprecise and so on…but the human mind is a different matter, is it not?”

His brow furrowed, eyes flashing for a moment.  “Careful now, Miss Calimorre. You have my favour, but do not test it.” His footsteps boomed over to the wall, lifting a long, weathered bolt rifle off the wall. Her eyes gravitated to the floor, and the glass clasped in both hands. The air had suddenly become very tense. She took solace in another sip. There was a long pause, broken only by a loud clank of metal as he pulled back the arming bolt and began to disassemble the weapon.

025.M42 / 370.120 post TCM.M42

“You wish to know of Damat?” He said eventually. She nodded. “Very well…”

Segmentum Obsucurus

The Nachmund Gauntlet

“It is clear that, whatever masters they serve, this council has no right to let the people of this planet live.”

“Of course they have no right to live! I thought we’d established this weeks ago!”

“My lords, surely another orbital bombardment is the clear solution. Crack their shielding under weight of fire and the Emperor’s Divine Judgement.”

“The Imperial Navy lost its right to put forth suggestions after the mess you made of the landings at Harzkov. The blood of my regiments is still on your hands, Commodore!”

“Agreed. Not even a knight cannot clear a drop zone and clear the skies at once.”

“Those bastards shot down a titan lander on your watch, Commodore. A TITAN LANDER, for Throne’s sake! How does that even happen?!”

“What about the Astartes, then? Do the Emperor’s sons support not even their own these days?”

“Confirm. Probability of optimum resolution projected to increase with the presence of but a single gunship.”

“Tread carefully, adept. The probability of this meeting’s optimum resolution just decreased.”

Cosrau is grateful to be helmed, and stood five paces back from the strategium. Both factors do a very good job at hiding his dismay. The meeting has ticked over into its fourth hour, with nary a resolution in sight, and Captain Exitas is looking almost as frayed as the rest of the mortals around the table. Cosrau has never seen a tech-priest show fatigue, never believed it possible, but the way that Adept Rhomule has been twitching over the last few minutes is beginning to challenge that belief.

“And you are…? Well, I know you’re Second Company, but who’re you to speak for this Trajan?” The Colonel glowers across the table, over his seventh mug of recaf. He is as much of a mess as the Crown-Princess, but he has spent the last three hours synthesizing his fatigue into anger, and has already left two stab-wounds in the holo-table.

The Crown-Princess pulls herself to her feet. Her heavily-ornamented pilot suit is oil-stained and rumpled, and the strain of two straight days on her Throne Mechanicum has left her pallid and slow: “And what of Captain Trajan? I was led to believe his company are specialists in such matters?” She is looking over Exitas’ shoulders, towards the two other marines in the room, towards Cosrau.

“Captain Trajan’s efforts are currently engaged in maintaining the void-corridors in system.” Cosrau finds himself saying. He has taken three paces forwards without noticing. Exitas is looking at him intently.

“That was unnecessary.” Sergeant Ryza grunts on a private vox as Cosrau rejoins him, five paces behind their captain.

“Sergeant Yandin, Colonel. I speak for Lieutenant Tellurion. He was planetside with me during the first wave, and is currently coordinating remedial air defences. He speaks for Trajan.” The Colonel’s glower does not falter, so Yandin continues. “And while I may, I’d like to pass you his compliments. Your second battalion was with us when we took the Astropathic relay, and we agreed that their conduct was exemplary.”

That clears the air a little. The Colonel removes his hand from his sword hilt with a harrumph of grudging acknowledgement, and goes back to concealing his face under his wide-brimmed hat.

“Maybe.” Cosrau sighs.

“The mortals require discipline, not empty platitudes.”

“And the table requires less stab-wounds.” Cosrau is just a little too slow in catching his tongue.

Ryza’s helmet turns just a fraction as he snorts ruefully. “These are not your problems to solve, Cosrau.”

“We have all been trusted to secure this world, Havarris. We’d be remiss to not give our all to the effort.” Cosrau sighs. This place was supposed to be their rally point. Not just for this cocktail assortment of mortal forces, but for the entire chapter.  To present a world in this state for the first assembly of all ten companies in two millenia would be a shame of astronomical proportions.

“Hmf. Politics.” Ryza’s voice is practically dripping with distain for that word. “Emperor knows, it wasn’t this bad on Arx. PDF officers know their place, at least.”

Cosrau chuckles wryly. “And tell me, how many of those officers were still there on our return?”

“++My lords. Conversial tone indicates you are unaware of the insecurity of your vox-link.++”

The third voice jolts both sergeants up to attention. Adept Rhomule has not spoken out loud, has not shifted position, but Cosrau can feel her softly-glowing cyberlenses boring through his own. Ryza has already closed the link before Cosrau can apologise, leaving him to stew in the discomfort of the unmasked, a feeling that is only slightly alleviated by the message beamed into his helmet’s display by a distinctly binaric outside force.

++Conveyance – In spite of occurance: lax EM discipline (addendum – will be reported to Astartes Superior), This one is appreciative of the…Enrichment.++

Cosrau exhales. It’s going to be a long night.

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

OKAY SO,

because the Iron Fists are a (semi) homebrew chapter and therefore by definition a whole CHAPTER of OCs, let's limit the scale of this to five particularly prominent members of the chapter.

Cosrau Yandin

One-time sergeant of the sixth squad (tactical), Second Company, now captain of the Seventh, this boy is our PoV character. He's a lovable little control freak who's read everything in the Chapter's tactical, technical and historical archives because no-one told him not to. As an initiate, his mentor imbued him with a particularly noble view of how a company is supposed to work and what the relationships between ranks are supposed to look like. Cosrau is perpetually disappointed and frustrated by those that don’t honour that picture, least of all himself. He's currently trying to speedrun the Astartes-equivalent of burnout and shake off the feeling that everything that happens to his subordinates is his fault. Career highlight - charging a Chaos Terminator lord with nothing but a combat knife and a meltagun, and not dying. Favourite question: “What do you need from me in order to do your job?”

Samas Tenebra

Cosrau's direct superior during his time in the Second, Captain Samas Tenebra is everything you'd want in a mythologised superior. He's a dyed-in-the-wool assault marine with a flair for the dramatic, an overdeveloped sense of vengeance, and a nothing-but-cheese approach to strategy. He's lead the Second to a number of successes over his seventy-year tenure, which can largely be attributed to two factors. One: he's cultivated a highly competent pool of subordinate leaders, and two: he keeps throwing himself at the highest value objective in the battlespace - often from several miles up. By the time of Cosrau's own captaincy, Samas Tenebra would be raised to First Captain, fail to save both his predecessor and his successor, and would die trying to fight a Chaos Titan as Imperial forces pull back across the Stygius sector. Cosrau's favourite Tenebra-Legend: That time he killed nine terminators atop Eidolon's ruined command bunker on the day the Indomitus Crusade arrived at Taralus. Tenebra's least favourite Tenebra-Legend: That time a Thousand Sons Sorceror prophesied his death, amongst other things Oh, the gates swing wide for Him, do they not? Varl hungers for your sixth, o shadow. Pray to your corpse-god for his sake that it is only the empyrean that comes to swallow him up!

Harcast

Oho, now here's the spooky lad. Sixth Captain Harcast is, on paper, somewhat of a kindred soul to Yandin. While records are hazy, it is known for sure that before his current posting, he was a Sternguard veteran of the ninth squad, First Company, and one of the most experienced kill-team operatives in the Chapter before his promotion. It was a sensible pick - the Sixth have been infiltration and recon specialists since the days of Haya Merojan, and it's rumoured that Harcast had an in with Captain Llameharr, the previous incumbent But even for a black ops afficionado, Harcast is...weird. A scant few, Yandin included, claim him to be good-humoured, level-headed and an excellent teacher, there are many in both the First and Sixth who swear dead-to-rights that they have never seen him out of his armour, or even heard him speak. This is probably fine and normal and has absolutely nothing to do with whatever the fuck the "Legan Schola Incident" was, of which Harcast is the only listed survivor in records so buried and so redacted that ++REMOVED FOR SENSITIVITY++ Favourite/only sentimental attachment: A bespoke bolt rifle of hiiighly questionable origins that, according to legend, was boring holes through skulls a full century before anyone had so much as heard the word 'Primaris.' Leads to interview for more information: Lieutenant Trimer (missing), Ascendant Trazis (asleep), Epistoliary Tyvus (I am not going anywhere near that, and I emphasise, Senile Terminator Psyker, stop trying to get me killed Hester.)

Kastal Verchen

That's CHAPTER MASTER Kastal Verchen, thank you very much. Fifty-Second Lord Commander of the Iron Fists, High Castellan of Taralus, The Arcan Herald, the Silent Hero of Blakkspanna's Bay, etcetera etcetera. Having said all that, as far as Chapter Masters go in general, Verchen is a touch underwhelming. His most glorious accomplishment is a tie between not getting killed by Eidolon and not getting killed by an avatar of Ynnead. But not dying is perhaps Verchen's greatest skill, and one that he's somehow managed to promulgate amongst his subordinates. Granted, there's been rough spots in his relatively short tenure as Chapter Master, but he's brought a mauled chapter of less than three hundred up to more than a thousand in twenty short years. Beneath the tempered, diplomatic pragmatism is a fierce compassion that's somehow escaped the attention of other Iron Hands successors. This comes as no surprise to those with access to Verchen's full history - before his induction into the Arcan Temple, he was the best Savant-Apothecary the Iron Fists had seen in millenia, and he manages the chapter like a patient, rather than an engine of war. Favourite metalore tidbit: Kastal Verchen is one of only two named characters in the breathlessly-few scraps of canon lore on the Iron Fists - he's referenced in passing in the Battlefleet Gothic Armada rulebook "To Cleanse the Stars" as backsassing the Imperial Navy about pirates interfering with the Dudzus landings.

Mokuba Tyros

Mokuba Goddamned Tyros. Also known as "the scariest bastard ever to wear the golden gauntlet", the fifty-first Lord Commander of the Iron Fists has been terrorizing the galaxy for the last seven hundred years. He was at the Feast of a Hundred Duels when the World Eaters attacked, and came back a century later to win the Feast of Blades for the Iron Fists. Tyros led the Fifth Company over the ocean world of Poseidius VIII and personally turned Waaagh! Izdakka away from the borders of Segmentum Solar. He conducted a thousand diplomatic missions to raise support for the reclamation of Taralus, and orchestrated the subsequent campaign down to the slightest detail. When the Noctis Aeternia rolled in, Tyros drew fire away from the chapter's more vulnerable ships and gave more than a million men and women the chance to reach the homeworld's service. And when three thousand unnumbered sons dropped into Taralus' atmosphere to liberate it for good, Mokuba Tyros was the iron point of the spear. Mokuba Tyros is less of a tangible character, more of a living standard for the chapter to aspire to. He is to the common marine what the Iron Hands are to the chapter at large, and so distanced from the line troops that he might as well be a legend, glimpsed only fleetingly at the grandest of events. Even a captain might only experience two or three one-on-one encounters with him during their career, and none have ever gotten a successful read on him. All they've been able to report on the man behind the blades is that "He has given much of himself to the Chapter" - whatever the heck that means.

There was only ever one man who truly knew Mokuba Tyros - a bodyguard of the Arcan Temple, spoken in whispers of as the best Savant-Apothecary the Iron Fists had seen in millenia.

Reblog and tell me about your Warhammer OCs!!!

(seriously, I see so many cool fanart and fanfiction, I want to learn about everyone!!)

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

Entry #001.v2.final

I have had the pleasure of meeting Yandin once before, in the aftermath of the Indomitus Crusade's arrival over Taralus. The navigator records on the Macragge's Honour had listed that dusty old ball of drab rock and snow as an Armoury World, so there was a fair amount of bemusement all round when we got word of a sizeable contingent of Astartes dug in on the planet's surface. Initial communications indicated they'd been holed up for some time in an old ruin near one of the old space elevators. They identified themselves as Iron Fists, and were claiming the planet as their ancestral chapter world. By all account, Crusade Command spent no small effort to screen them for foul play, corruption or infiltration. While the Iron Fists' claim to Taralus was eventually upheld, there was a general interest from higher up in gathering more information about the chapter and verifying some of the accounts that were coming out of Taralus. Remembrancer Anjelika Biscari led the effort, and took a small team down to the planet's surface to conduct interviews, appraise structures and write reports. I was still fairly new to the role then, and my visit to the Godspire anchorage terminal was the first time I worked alone in the field. Biscari had gone down a few hours before me and had emphasised an unusual need for brevity. "Broad strokes only", I believe her words were, and I didn't understand what she meant until I stepped out of the lander and saw the planet surface for the first time. The sights of war stretched all the way out to the horizon, and the ragged landscape of the Godspire mountains were littered with the husks of drop pods, tanks and bunkers. You couldn't walk twenty meters without passing a pile of burning dead, and it was here I first encountered sergeant Cosrau Yandin, sixth squad, second company Iron Fists. The moment stuck in my head rather prominently, as I recall he was helping a couple of disposal operatives clear a maintenace passage. The two men had been struggling with the body of a metahuman, still in its power armour, and as the sergeant reached in and dragged it out, I decided on a  bit of a whim to snag a pict-capture. It was only once I looked up that I realised I'd just got my first ever look at a Chaos Space Marine. Regrettably, I was only able to spend a few hours with the sergeant on Taralus. Broad strokes, Biscari had asked for, so that was all I could really capture. The Crusade did not linger long at Taralus, and before long the Iron Fists were well behind us. It's only been in recent months, as the Grand Conclave of Baal winds down, that I've had the opportunity and freedom to track the Iron Fists down and produce more of a complete history of the Chapter. It also gave me an opportunity to present Yandin, now Captain of the seventh company, with the pict-capt I took on our first meeting. (or rather, a remaster: most of my original pict-logs were scrambled quite badly during a brush with the bleak coil two years ago, so I had a colleague of mine, Artov Ilqar, recreate the pict with oil on canvas. See attached.) I've since had the opportunity to interview Captain Yandin on a number of aspects of his chapter's history, and hope to catalogue some of the more notable testimonies, treatises and accounts here. Throne willing, Hester Vinchix Calimorre, Historiographer-Moderatus, Logos Historica Verita.

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

Entry #005.2ndcompany.v2[avaronedit].txt

--The Second Company, Part 1 of 5-- +Header Item: Pict-Capture, elements of the Second Company, Iron Fists Chapter, during deployments on Crucible, Poros Crusade, 985.M41. The Departmento Photartem formally apologises for resolution losses and degradation encountered during processing.+

Within every Astartes chapter, there is a company that occupies the lion's share of the spotlight. For some, this is the result of years of dutiful service, such as the Dark Angels' fifth company, or a hereditary, prominent position at the tip of the spear in the case of the Space Wolves' Blackmanes. The Ultramarines second company, oft-referred to as the Guardians of the Temple, exemplify this trend most clearly, thanks to their 'crafted...reputation as dynamic heroes'. The test for such prominence is fairly trivial, and requires that one merely browse the galleries of chapter artwork and identify the company heraldry that comes up most frequently. For the Iron Fists, this trend manifests strongest around the Second company, sometimes colloquially known as the black-blades, but more often referred to as simply "The Second". However, unlike the famous companies of first-founding chapters, the Second's prominence in the eyes of the outside world is not the result of a prodigiously long roll of honour, nor a saga of dramatic, galaxy-shaking deeds. It is a quirk of doctrine that makes the Iron Fists' Second stand out. The bespoke organisational layout of the Second dates back to around 350.M39, some half-century hence of the Fall of Taralus during Abaddon's tenth black crusade. With limited resources with which to rebuild the shattered chapter, surviving command staff were compelled to devise novel force structures in order to maximise the utility of what few assets they had. Swiftly-promoted from savant-initiate to captain (a normally unprecedented ascension that owed more to the lack of more senior candidates with more seniority), it was Llewellus Thoca who received the responsibility of reforging the Second.

Thoca deserves a treatise all of his own (which I am told exists but am struggling to locate at present), but his restructuring of the Second was one of the earliest and most immediately effective measures of its kind. The company focused itself around a core of assault veterans who had survived the Fall of Taralus by near-constant ship defence actions. The successful utilisation of these squads would prove pivotal in the company's first actions since the fall, and gradually the company's doctrine would shift towards creating and exploiting scenarios where their effect could be maximised, usually in the form of rapid, pinpoint strikes on key enemy targets. This structure had its fair share of downsides. The Second had significantly less specialised resources at its disposal in comparison to its contemporaries. The company's core strength was bound up in close-range infantry, and if improperly commanded, that infantry would take heavy casualties, especially if tasked to handle threats they were incapable or inequipped to face. These core assault squads also required significant coordination inside and outside the Second, which required company command to establish and maintain high levels of trust and cooperation with outsiders.

Nevertheless, such hardships would foster unique levels of proficiency across the company's tactical, assault and devastator units, creating a company-wide focus on cohesion, diplomacy and quality intelligence gathering. The entombment of select veterans of the company into dreadnought chassis would further this trend by preserving hard-won expertise for future generations to learn from. In particular, the tactical squads of the second company would develop a bespoke reputation for quality, both within and beyond the chapter, and it was not uncommon for individual squads to be placed under the command of other captains in instances where well-disciplined line troops were vital.

Thus, when the Second was suitably managed and supported, their ability to turn the tide of battles or even whole campaigns was profound. Such deployments frequently put elements of the Second in positions of much greater visibility to mortal soldiery and imperial commanders alike, in stark comparison to the other four battle companies who were generally more capable of operating alone. This factor would be further enhanced by the personality of the Second's captains, who were chosen by vote from within the company and were generally selected for their zeal, inspirational abilities and diplomatic candor, all the better to secure the collaboration that made the Second effective.

+Supplementary Log, Cosrau Yandin, Captain, 7th Company Iron Fists+

As a former sergeant of the Second's sixth tactical squad, Captain Yandin had this to say when asked about the prominence of the company. [edited for brevity]

"This is a feature, not a glitch. The Second lives and dies on its reputation. The moment it is perceived as unreliable by those it fights alongside, it is no longer able to draw on the support, intelligence or specialist units that allow it to fight as well as it does. You've only to look to instances like Ibossim to see how the Second fares when fighting alone." "A lot of the training leverages this mechanic. While you always train with your squad, eight times out of ten your squad trains alone. This cultivates an understanding of what happens when you are unsupported. If you make a mistake, you die, and so do those around you. The pressure is extremely fierce, as a result." "This pressure extends to every part of the company . A warrior of the Second bears responsibility for the lives of those they fight beside. But a captain of the Second carries the entire company on their shoulders. It lives and dies with him. He must be considerate enough to soothe his allies, yet passionate enough to inspire them. He must carefully consider his stratagems, yet always be ready to join the fray himself. He must be open minded to new ideas, but throne forbid he make a mistake." "That's not to say it's all as brutal as it sounds. Yes, I mean it, stop looking at me like that. The Second has just as long a history of teaching its members as it does combat-simming them into perfectionists. Sharing knowledge strengthens the whole company. Ascendants teach the sergeants, who teach each other, who teach the rank and file. [Author's note: 'Ascendant' is a term used within the company to refer to those interred in dreadnoughts.] The first squad was a self-contained bladesmanship academy long before it was the captain's personal bodyguard, and those who do make captain often spend decades being prepared for the role by their predecessor. The last captain, Exitas, could trace the teachings he received all the way back into M40, when Hayabusa Shandar was wrestling necrons out of their night scythes."

"That tradition could've continued for another thousand years, had his tenure not ended so abruptly. Exitas died on Kalidos, during the retreat from the Stygius sector, barely thirty years into his tenure and with no suitable successor prepared. Throne, it wouldn't have been so bad if we'd just lost Exitas. Samas Tenebra was right there, Exitas' direct predecessor, the only First Captain in the chapter's history to have risen from the Second. There was literally no better to teach Exitas' successor, but then Saphyre happened, and before either of them were laid to rest in Taralan soil, our beloved Chapter Master bike-slides onto the Tsiolkovan and declares Throne-damned cog-brained Artos Myra as Second Captain and before you know it-"

+Log terminated: storage capacity exceeded+

Saved by the voxcaptor, Hester Vinchix Calimorre, Historiographer-Moderatus, Logos Historica Verita.

+Attached Image: Second Captain Shado Avaron in action at the head of first squad Zaio, second company, during the "Ibossim Bloodbath", circa 639.M41. Recovered from data-fragments extracted from Praetorian XIX regimental datalink.+

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

Entry #029.3.Supplemental.Demeter

--Recovered from the Archive of Engagements aboard the Tsiolkovan-- --Official Action Report, originally created 963.M41.-- +The Demeter Campaign:

Shargen Aurastra and newly-promoted Second Captain Samas Tenebra are called upon to mop up remaining traitor presence in the Demeter sector following the War for Pandorax, encountering a Black Legion warband styling itself “The Obsidian Blade” carving out a domain for themselves in the ravaged Avaricum system, led by former Justaerin member Vayxin the Ravager. Tenebra leads a select cadre of forces to defend a critical mechanicum outpost but is forced back by a short-lived but bloody daemon incursion summoned by Dark Apostle Kabrius on the outpost’s upper levels, at the loss of most of Squad Octavian and the company’s attached librarian. The loss atop the manufactorum buys the warband time to reactivate an old Shadowsword within the manufactorum. Determined to ensure such an asset does not make it offworld, Aurastra leads a daring assault on the manufactorum to end Vayxin and his new toy. The battle is fierce, and Aurastra is almost killed when his command vehicle takes a direct hit from the Shadowsword’s main weapon. Despite the long, storied careers of both Aurastra and Vayxin, the battle is decided by youngbloods:

Neophyte Sergeant Trazis, who despite coming under heavy fire had successfully outflanked the Shadowsword, ingressing through a hull breach in the rear to plant a meltabomb on the Volcano Cannon’s primary capacitor bank.

Savant-Initiate Hastel Glademan, who provided air support from the Stormtalon Hurricane Dragon, catching Dark Apostle Kabrius in the open and flattening his position with a barrage of cyclone missiles.

Brother Cosrau Yandin, who followed Aurastra into a direct confrontation with Vayxin the Ravager. Despite losing many battle-brothers and taking a near-fatal wound from the Ravager’s chainfist, Yandin was able to slay the warlord alone, exploiting a breach in his Terminator armour using nothing but a well-placed meltagun shot and a combat knife to Vayxin’s exposed eye.

--Unofficial Interpretation Fragment #3 of 12# (Please Confirm?), derived from tactical data logs recovered from Redeemer-Pattern Land Raider Tvashtar's Fire during subsequent restoration--

"Sable Exact, this is Tvashtar. We are coming to you." Keldek Mormys clipped over the vox channel and spurred the Land Raider forwards. The turret bustle next to him rattled and shook as the tank’s machine spirit assumed direct control of the twin assault cannons. Mormys watched the weapons' target reticles track jerkily across the pict-feed wired directly into his helmet, just one of a dozen sensor inputs feeding into the cocoon-like driver's position high in the vehicle's interior. If he hadn't been controlling the tank though direct nerve impulse, he wouldn't have needed to lift a finger more than an inch off the controls before he'd be touching the glacis plate, such was the tightness of the confines of the position. All the better to allocate space to armour, armament and passengers. In truth, given the potency of the machine spirit within Tvashtar's Fire, he was barely more than a passenger himself. The tank was an old one, with a bombastic, eager character. He could feel it every time the Land Raider’s treads dug into a rise, like a mountain goat scrambling up a spoil heap. According to the stories, it was fully capable of operating fully autonomously when circumstances were particularly dire. It was only the narrow advantages of the organic mind in pattern recognition and data processing that warranted his presence at all. That and the vox link to the battleforce command network that dispersed its constant stream of data packets in clicks and growls directly into his ears. And right now the network was alive with a hashing, maddening overlap of information, The Mechanicus outpost was a slowly growing silhouette on the horizon, a squat monolith of fortified stores and workshops. The nimbus of warplight had crackled into existence around the outpost’s summit at the exact same time the aetheric interference had started filling the vox-channels, but enough of Gygar Octavian’s final broadcast had made it through the hissing static. It was that broadcast that had spurred every Iron Fists asset on the planet to converge on the outpost.

“Captain Aurastra,” Mormys called on the tank’s internal vox. “We have uplink with reconnaissance elements. Glademan and Trazis are joining formation. We shall reach engagement range in six minutes.”

“Noted, Keldek. Maintain flank speed and mark targets as they appear. Please keep the network link open while I inform our comrades.” The captain’s tone was relaxed, as was the tone of the data packets that briefly flashed through Mormys’ perception on their way from the Land Raider’s internal systems to the other vehicles in the formation. Mormys caught a brief snippet of off-network speech in that same tone beneath him in the passenger bay. A rousing speech, no doubt. That was beneficial. Tvashtar’s Fire was used to hosting terminators, not tactical marines, and the unfamiliarity of their cargo was reflected in the machine spirit’s disposition.

Mormys reached for the panel on the communication terminal, to patch into the squad-level vox net and see if First Captain Aurastra was as good as marshalling those of another company as his own. His finger was on the switch when the Land Raider’s external sensors lit up with alarms. Mormys hammered the switch into the on-position and felt the marines in the passenger bay flinch at his interruption.

“Captain, we have a massive thermal signature reading from within the outpost.”

“More information, please, Keldek.”

Mormys strained closer to the pict-screens, flicking through view options, focusing in on the bloom of heat radiating from the lower portion of the outpost. The metres-thick shell of reinforced ferrocrete yielded precious few answers, but there was a horrible sense of familiarity that was starting to creep out of the more organic parts of Mormys’ brain.

“Uncertain, captain, but the readings align with macro-grade weaponry. Will continue to observe.”

“Understood.” There was another click as the Captain plugged directly into the Land Raider’s internal systems, his next words ringing well-beyond the confines of the tank.

“All elements, this is Shargen Aurastra. We have a potential grandis-level threat spooling up in the bowels of that outpost. Make all haste and stay vigilant. If we see it before it sees us, the advantage will be ours.”

The message was met with a flurry of confirmations from the other force elements. Mormys sent  his own brief confirmation and urged Tvashtar’s Fire to go faster, eyes glued to the rattling pict-screens as the tank ground through the remnants of a walled-off courtyard and summitted the lip of a crater.

“Hurricane Dragon to Niveus Exact, this is Glademan!”

The signal spiked almost painfully through Mormys’ senses, thick with static and interference as it shot into the Land Raider’s vox network. He didn’t even hear Aurastra’s response before the signal continued, and Mormys was just about to start work on a scolding reminder about vox-procedures that the pilots of the Fifth Company were in clear need of, before the rest of the signal drove a pulse of shock up his spine.

“I have my sight on the facility. The lower bay doors are open, we have super heavy armour, I repeat, super heavy armour emerging.”

The Land Raider’s momentum carried it down into the crater and up the other side, its machine spirit taking advantage of Mormys’ momentary paralysis to dig its treads in and climb. It was still moving at speed when it reached the crater lip, so it took a few moments for the tank to come to a stop. A few moments that Mormys spent staring at a gargantuan, slab-sided nightmare of riveted metal that had clawed its way from some unholy bowel of the fortified mechanicus outpost and was now rolling straight towards them. In the face of ordinance designed explicitly to fell titans, vox-procedures went out the window. Mormys’ words were heard in the ear of every Iron Fist within ten kilometers as he jammed the tank’s motors into reverse and screamed “SHADOWSWORD!”

It was too late. Keldek Mormys was imparted with the acute sensation of the Land Raider’s glacis plate, rendered red hot by a billion watts of laser energy, peeling back like the lid of a sardine can, before his world became a unitary point of infinite light and heat.

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

"Privileged to call you kin. If I may offer you some words of encouragement, from one successor to another, know this. When our gene-fathers discuss the weakness of the flesh, there is an assumption that is being made - that iron does not fail. Iron cannot be broken." "This is a lie we know all too keenly. Iron breaks. But even a modest smith can smelt its wreckage down, cast fresh ingots, and grind new edges. Iron may be remade, time and time again, no matter how badly it breaks. And so long as we know how we were broken, how we might be broken in future, so long as we understand our failure, we can bolster ourselves against it." "I wish you the greatest of luck with your own reforging. May your edge cut ever onward, and may you always rise from the anvil anew, to overcome what broke you last time. " - Cosrau Yandin, Seventh Captain, Iron Fists Chapter.

I wanna tell yall about a Iron Hands Successor I cooked up and yall tell me if you’re into it

They’re named the Blood Forged, led by their Chapter Master Morgun Tenkred (Twins… they were…), who wields a modified Mars pattern Heavy Bolter named “War Feeder”

They’re a fleet chapter, their capital ship is named the Holy Petrifier (<- Not the final name), and they float around the systems nearest to Medusa

Their history is tragic, as all things in 40k are. Originally they were known as the Steel Bound and were sent to reinforce Raven Guard in a siege defense. It was a great and terrible battle, a Pyrrhic victory at the most optimistic. Tenkred was almost one of them, and as he woke up in the infirmary he looked out at a sea of marines in black Ceramite and ruined heraldry. He watched blood, coolant, and oil all spill from marines lying lifeless on gurneys, Apothecaries scurrying around trying to save any marines they could. They all looked so similar to Tenkred, and such a thought refused to leave him even after he had recovered. As the council decided what was to be the fate of what Steel Bound were left he threw himself into reading the words of his genefather.

It was there the Blood Forged was born, for his father’s words finally… *Clicked*. He realized it wasn’t bioaugmentation that would make him strong like his father, it was discipline. It was what differentiated a warrior from a soldier, a predatory beast from a man with purpose.

It’s in that moment he felt a great shame, his own augmented arm clicking restlessly as he prayed for some way to repent his weakness. His prayers would be answered in the grimmest way.

He was summoned before the council, and told he was the last ranked officer in his chapter, and seeing as how they didn’t have a chaplain to spare, he was offered to lead what was left of the Steel Bound. He took it gratefully, founding the Blood Forged during (maybe) the Ultima Founding, sparing the new Primaris the dogma he crawled out of

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

Entry #012.3v2.(fennion).uncompressed.

--The Second Company, Part 4 of 9 5 9-- +Header Item: Pict-Capture, Sergeant Harmik Fennion, retrieved from archived sensor-capts, Avaricum Tercius, Demeter Campaign, approx. 963.M41. The Departmento Photartem formally apologises for hue losses and degradation encountered during processing.+

Continuing this entry on, and I quote "names that should be known" (??) within the Iron Fists' Second Company, we come to Harmik Fennion. Chapter readiness records, as delightfully reliable as they are, suggest that Fennion was the sergeant of the seventh squad, second company, from 932.M41 at the latest. This is according to a few cross-referenced accounts of the Emerigo campaign, in which Fennion is described as:

"a proud graduate of the Gygar Octavian School of Unsubtle Grox-Headedness" by one Ensign Ebosan, and

"...adequate..." by the aforementioned Sergeant Gygar Octavian himself.

Despite this...ringing endorsement by his peers, Fennion seems to have enjoyed a fairly successful career as far as space marine sergeants go. His squad attained consistently high kill rates, relatively few casualties, and battle commendations across Demeter, Poros and a number of other campaigns. However, a few noted statements in his log stand out as unusual, and detail explicit rejection of bionics, in apparent confliction with the chapter's general adherence to the teachings of Ferrus Manus. This appears to have even gone so far as to merit him an official warning from Company Command for "deliberately slowing tactical replenishment rates". Odd. What is also odd is that the best-quality pict-capt I could find of Fennion depicts him wielding a power sword of a pattern that is generally not seen outside the armouries of the Ordo Malleus. I;ve asked Yandin about the sword, and he has refused to comment.

+Supplementary Log, Cosrau Yandin, Captain, 7th Company Iron Fists+

"Fennion was...well, you couldn't have asked for a better sergeant, in my books. The line between mechanical obedience and radical initiative is a hard one to walk, especially as a sergeant, but he managed it, and managed it well. He never cut corners, never took shortcuts, but always managed to find little ways of improving things. For example, I remember him wrapping ammunition belts around his wrist rather than using magazines, because 'the burst rate never quire lines up right with the clip capacity.'" "By the time he took me into the seventh squad, his reputation for clean efficiency was known well outside the Second Company. It was a reputation that got him places, no doubt about that. Fennion's reputation put him alongside First Captain Aurastra, when we charged at a Shadowsword on Avaricum Tercius. Fennion's reputation also put him on the plainwards flank of Verchen's rearguard during the siege of Taralus. It put him against two score Kakophoni noise marines of the third legion. It put him in his grave, that day...."

+End log.+ +Addendum. I refuse to comment on Fennion's sword. -Y.+

Throne knows I try, Hester Vinchix Calimorre, Historiographer-Moderatus, Logos Historica Verita.