The sky above the abandoned hive city was burning.
A distress signal cut through the thick smoke and electromagnetic interference, spreading out over the hive city.
“This is Third Company of the Ashen Watchers Chapter.” “Coordinates attached.” “We are surrounded by Chaos forces.
Traitor Astartes units are present.” “Requesting immediate reinforcement from all Imperial forces in the vicinity.” The transmission ended.
Only the continuous hiss of white noise remained on the channel.
Cassian hadn’t expected a response.
Even if there were no Imperial units nearby, they still had to leave a record behind.
That way, when others from the Chapter eventually arrived, they would at least know why they had died.
Amid the crackling static, a low, distorted voice suddenly came through.
“Distress signal received.” Cassian abruptly raised his head.
The other Astartes stopped what they were doing as well.
The voice was heavily distorted, as though the speaker’s communications equipment had been cobbled together from a pile of scrap metal.
Faint arguing and the clang of metal could also be heard in the background.
“The Eleventh Legion is entering the combat zone.” The channel briefly cut out.
Several seconds later, the voice returned.
“Hold on, brother.” The Eleventh Legion?
Cassian tightened his grip on his chainsword.
For a moment, the designation left him confused.
The Legion system had ended long ago after the Horus Heresy.
In the present age, the Astartes were organized primarily into Chapters.
More importantly, the Eleventh Legion was one of the Lost Legions that had been completely erased from history.
Cassian’s first thought was that this was some kind of Chaos deception.
But then the roar of engines thundered above the hive city.
The sound was brutally loud.
It didn’t sound like an Imperial warship entering the atmosphere.
It sounded more like an entire factory falling out of the sky.
Everyone instinctively looked up through the shattered dome.
The massive vessel smashed through the thick cloud cover.
A warship emerged into the burning sky.
Its main structure still vaguely retained the outline of an Imperial vessel, but its outer hull was covered in large numbers of armour plates that had clearly been welded on later.
Some of the armour plates weren’t even the same colour.
A massive golden Imperial Aquila was painted across the prow.
On either side of the double-headed eagle, a white tusk had been welded to the hull, each curving outward.
Rows of guns lined both sides of the vessel.
At least a third of them looked as though they had absolutely no business being mounted where they were.
Cassian had never seen a warship so crude, so chaotic, yet so stubbornly covered in Imperial insignia.
“Identification signal.” He gave the order.
Helix quickly operated the scanner.
Several seconds later, a rare note of hesitation entered the Techmarine’s voice.
“They’re broadcasting Imperial Astartes identification codes.” “Are they valid?” “The encoding format is extremely old.” Helix paused for a moment.
“Some of it dates back to the Great Crusade.” Before Cassian could ask anything else, dozens of hatches opened along the warship’s underside.
A group of abnormally large Drop Pods were released.
Trailing flames, they plummeted from high above.
Normal Astartes Drop Pods used thrusters to correct their attitude and enter the battlefield at a precise angle.
These Drop Pods clearly didn’t possess the same accuracy.
Two collided with each other in midair and went spinning into distant buildings.
Another missed the battlefield entirely and plunged straight into the hive city’s sewage treatment district.
The remaining Drop Pods crashed into the cultists’ positions like heavy artillery shells.
Thunderous impacts rang out one after another.
Huge craters were smashed into the streets.
The shockwaves knocked everyone nearby off their feet.
Before the cultists could recover from the chaos, the Drop Pod closest to the administrative hall erupted in a violent explosion.
Cassian initially thought it had crashed.
The next second, its hatch was blasted off from the inside.
A massive green figure stepped out of the thick smoke.
He stood over three metres tall and wore a suit of dark green power armour.
Two curved white tusks and a bright red Roman numeral “XI” were painted across his ivory-white pauldrons.
Four thick exhaust pipes extended from the back of his power pack, constantly belching black smoke.
He carried a massive power axe in his right hand and an absurdly oversized bolter in his left.
It was an Ork.
An Ork wearing Astartes-style power armour, with an Imperial Aquila displayed across his chest.
More green figures charged out of the Drop Pod.
Their equipment wasn’t completely uniform, but all of them shared the same dark green colour scheme, white pauldrons, and Legion insignia.
As they charged, they shouted in rough voices: “For da Emperor!” “Victory is loyalty!” “Da Eleventh Legion is here!” The Ork veteran at the front raised his power axe high.
Blinding arcs of energy danced across its blade.
“In da Emperor’s name!” “Eleventh Legion, charge!” The Orks crashed into the Chaos lines.
The massive bolter spat fire.
Cultists were blown apart along with their cover.
One Chaos Astartes had barely turned around when three Orks tackled him to the ground at once.
More Orks rushed in, repeatedly smashing him with chainaxes, power hammers, and a hydraulic mechanical arm that looked as though it had been torn straight out of a factory.
For a moment, the Ashen Watchers didn’t even open fire.
They had faced countless enemies.
Orks were hardly unusual.
But a mob of Orks shouting the Emperor’s name, wearing power armour emblazoned with the Imperial Aquila, and claiming to be the Eleventh Legion was beyond anything any tactical manual could explain.
Cassian wondered whether he’d suffered some form of mental corruption during the earlier fighting.
In that brief moment of distraction, a plasma beam shot toward him from the side.
Cassian’s power armour had already suffered severe damage.
He tried to dodge, but the lagging servos in his leg made him a fraction too slow.
A green figure suddenly barreled into him.
The Ork veteran moved in front of Cassian, using his pauldron as a shield.
The plasma beam struck the Ork’s breastplate in a burst of dazzling blue light.
A huge blackened scar was burned into the thick armour.
The Ork veteran took two steps back but didn’t fall.
He turned around and extended one enormous green hand toward Cassian.
“Get up, brother.” His voice came through the speaker in his helmet.
“Astartes don’t fight lying down.” Cassian stared at him.
The Ork wasn’t wearing a fully enclosed helmet.
His crude faceplate had been raised, revealing green skin, enormous tusks, and a face that very clearly wasn’t human.
Cassian slowly got back to his feet.
He raised his chainsword again.
“You’re not an Astartes.” The Ork veteran visibly froze.
He kept his hand extended, apparently having never considered that he might receive such an answer.
Several seconds later, he turned toward his charging comrades.
“He says we ain’t Astartes?” Several nearby Orks stopped at the same time.
“Rubbish!” An Ork carrying a heavy bolter loudly objected.
“I’ve got power armour!” Another Ork slapped the Imperial Aquila on his chest.
“I can even recite da scriptures!” A third Ork pointed at the cultist corpses littering the ground.
“We just saved him!” The Ork veteran turned back and studied Cassian carefully.
His expression gradually shifted from confusion to understanding.
“Brother.” His voice turned grave.
“You might’ve hurt your head.” Cassian stared at him, dumbfounded.
The Ork continued: “After da battle, I’ll take you to da Apothecary.” He pointed toward an Ork nearby who was wearing white power armour and had an enormous bone saw hanging from his back.
The so-called Apothecary was currently attempting to stuff a still-living cultist into a medical transport crate.
Cassian looked at him, then turned back toward the Ork veteran in front of him.
“I refuse.” “Everyone with a busted head says that.” The Ork veteran nodded in complete understanding.
Then he lowered his helmet’s faceplate again, turned around, and raised his power axe.
“Battle-brothers!” “First we smash these Chaos boyz, then we fix da grey brother’s head!” “Waaagh!” The green-skinned Astartes erupted in a deafening cheer.
They charged toward the Chaos positions.
Cassian remained where he was, watching as a Legion banner bearing white tusks and the Roman numeral XI passed beside him.
At that moment, he still had no idea where this absurd Legion had come from.
Nor did he know why they were so firmly convinced that they were Astartes.
The whole story had begun many years earlier.
It began on the day a man from Earth named Gragoth woke up amid a pile of Ork corpses.
It really helps the fic grow!