Crash landing (1)

(Early Merry Xmas, see you guys next week with usual one chapter per day)

As soon as they crewmen saw us, they kneeled almost immediately, a practice done by all of the guardsmen of the Imperium of Man when they are in the presence of an Astarte or a high ranked officer of the Officio Prefectus, especially when that said officer is the Lord Commissar that leads your regiment.

"My lords, what are your orders?

I turned towards Zaraen and I saw that he was smiling at me, sometimes I forget that even if they are less overzealous like their brothers from other chapters, the Lamenters were still Astartes and they like to do their duty more than anything. I could only let out a sigh and pray to the Emperor that we would end up on some Tyranid-infested planet or in some Ork-infested one.

"Prepare yourselves, we will attempt a warp jump without our engines."

Saying that I went to the nearest vox station. Connecting to the whole ship, I've decided to increase my chances of survival in case of a really bad encounter with the Xenos.

"Attention guardsmen this is your Lord Commissar speaking. We are attempting a warp jump so that we could get out of this damned place. I know that you all are scared and exhausted,frek that even I'm exhausted and Emperor forgive me if I rather choose to spend my time in the company of a beautiful lady than here in the warp, but that's the sad thrust. What is the strongest weapon of mankind? The god-machines of the Adeptus Mechanicus? No! The Astartes Legions? No! The tank? The lasgun? The first? Not at all! Courage and courage alone stand above them all! And you are the definition of courage. Even when you knew that fighting against the Chaos Space Marines, you still choose to fight to protect the weak and that requires a tremendous amount of courage, for that, I'm proud to say that I'm your commanding officer."

To be completely honest, I'm glad and maybe a little proud of their courage, but one of the most important things I'd found over the years is that you should always take the time to talk to the troopers as individuals. You'll never make friends of them, except possibly a couple of the officers if you're lucky, and you'll never get the job done if you try, but they'll follow you a damn sight more readily if they think you care about them, and what's far more important, at least to me, is that, if they start to think of you as one of their own, someone they can trust and not an idiot of a commissar that still think that becoming a feared figure would do the job done, they'll watch your back when the shooting starts. I've lost count of the number of times one of the guardsmen around me has taken out a gene stealer or a ganger who would have put a bullet in the back of my head before I would even notice them, and I've returned the favor, too which is why I'm well into my twenties years of life while the graveyards are full of by-the-book commissars who relied on intimidation to get the job done. Those idiots won't ever know who killed them and I'll put my money on an angry guardsman than on any Xenos out there.

By the time I was done with my speech, I could swear to the Emperor that I saw stars in the eyes of the crewmen while Zaraen was looking at me as if I was some chaos spawn, yes I know, I can be pretty inspiring and charming when I want, but as the tau may say it's for the greater good."

Sitting on my throne, I looked at the console that was showing tens of warnings about all kinds of things that aren't working as the Adeptus Mechanicus intended them to work, but as someone that wants to get as far away from this place as soon as possible, I could care less about those errors. Without hesitation, I ordered the crew to start the warp drive and as soon as it was ready the whole ship start shaking as if we were in the forge worlds of the Imperium, but just as suddenly as it appear, this phenomenon dispersed. Unknowingly to anyone on the ship, the moment we used the warp-drive while we were still out of the known route, something strange happened at The Ordo Chronos was one of the Ordos Minoris of the Inquisition that operated within the Jericho Reach.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that we were out of the warp, but unlike what I would have expected to happen, no matter how much I think about it neither Zaraen, nor even the navigator could have predicted that as soon as we left the warp we will appear in front of a huge semicircle shaped thing, possible ship, and not only did we hit, we actually cut the ship in two and while I can't say that we got unscathed from this, our ship was so badly damaged from what I can see, maybe some compartments would need some repairs, but nothing too serious or life-threatening.

By the Emperor the impact sends us flying across the room, well by us I mean the normal humans, as for Zaraen, the Astarte Chief Librarian, he was standing there rock solid waiting for us to hit planetfall. Unfortunately the fall wasn't so nice as I would have hoped and if that wasn't all the fact that there were pieces of that ship that we just crashed into flying all around us.

Fortunately or maybe, unfortunately, that depends on how do you see crashing with a 700 meters ship into a small mountain, for, we managed to survive the planet fall thanks to a mountain that cushion our fall, but at the same time, more than half of our ship was stuck inside that mountain.

Slowly getting up from my throne, I glanced around myself, only to see that most of the crewmen were either unconscious or barely standing and the only people that were still somewhat were Zaraen, one woman that was on the far left side bridge, and yours truly.

Looking at her, I saw that she was a lieutenant, and to be truthful, that kind of surprised me, after all, she was the only one to remain on her feet while the rest of her colleagues were laying on the cold metallic floor of the bridge.

"Report, lieutenant!"

"My lord, we are stuck as you can see, we lost the first two cargo bays, hopefully noting was destroyed too badly due to the rocks destroying the roof of those two compartments. No one was badly injured from what I get through the reports …MY LORD! I've picked some kind of signal coming towards us. Any orders, my lords?"

"No need for orders. Lord Commissar, I'll send two of my brothers and three squads of guardsmen to check the incoming targets, in case they are hostile we may have to send some reinforcements to help them."

"You do that Zaraen while I'll try to get the crew in place to keep the ship standing and not to blow up due to some rocks crushing us."

<Brother Sariel of the Lamenters POV>

"C'mon brother, we have a possible Xenos contact to eliminate."

"Don't be so hasty on your trigger, Darim, we are going to do the Emperor's work if necessary, but remember it's better to assist the situation first than if by any means necessary, fire. We don't want to start a war while we are stranded or they'll just orbit-bomb our position."

"I understand brother, but Emperor knows where we are and I don't like that even a little."

"Neither do I, brother, neither do I"

Just as I grabbed my bolter, a group of thirty imperial guards dressed in some interesting colors. Yellow and some dark shade of black colored were their armors which to be fair was quite a unique choice, after all in my long life, I saw quite a few regiments and most of them wore the same patterns. They resembled the Armageddon Steel Legion but were completely different from what I have managed to learn yesterday when I talked with some of them.

These squads were surprisingly slightly different from your usual squad ,the guardsmen tend to make, rather than having a sergeant and nine normal guardsmen, these squad had a medic, a vox guardsman, and a ratling sniper each one and while it may not seem to differ for an Astarte, this formation could still take down one of us or maybe do some serious damage if they cooperate good enough.

The Platoon Commander approached us, a little wary like almost all of the guards when they are forced to talk with an Astarte.

"My lords, we are ready to assist your excellences."

Before my slightly stupid brother scare the warp out of these guardsmen, I've decided to be the one in charge that will converse with them, much to the displeasure of my brother.

"No need for formalities, lieutenant. We have our orders and I pray to the Emperor to be just some natives investigating the crash landing and nothing that will lead to a fight. Now let's move out."