Chapter 369 - Far Future Ch 79 – The Emperor’s Own Space Marines (1/2)

Beat came down, and BOOM, it was like a gong going off as the Hammer came down. The staggered head exploded, took out its foreparts with it, and Briggs continued right on down to the ground, burning Great Sluggor spraying ahead of and around him. The shocked Sluggor in front of him ate an entire salvo of Blessed Light to the face, blowing it apart in shock, and then Briggs was bouncing off to some bloated, shambling brute three times his size, Beat drumming happily as it flew through arcs almost too fast to follow.

I actually hit the ground after Briggs did, but it didn't make too much difference. I slid under and jumped over a couple blows aimed at me, four limbs went flying, and Pusboys were exploding all around me as burning Spikes drove into misshapen skulls and leering mouths with murderous accuracy. Tracking, charting a path, and off to the races, Chalice a blur of golden glory sliding through small hills of corpulent flesh and leaving burning ruin in her wake.

Riggibuhl's cheerful horde got a bit more depressed as we carved through them with explosive speed and relentless precision. I removed an arm, and Briggs came by to explode a head. He shoulder-slammed a hulking brute with a gut swollen like a tumor, and it staggered down in time for Chalice to whisper through its neck and keep on going.

Rapid Blessed fire was in every direction, and the numberless amounts of Pusboys began to thin out with shocking speed as we carved through the Sluggors and other middling demons with antipathy and Karmic hunger. Briggs met their blows head on and sent them sprawling... I just chopped their weapons apart and followed up lethally.

While all this was happening, the fire from those in the bunker up the hill hadn't stopped, and was also thinning their attackers quickly. The larger demons were increasingly distracted as we tore through their rear, eliminating everything in our path and leaving a burning path as we tore right for them, completely unafraid of being flanked ourselves.

The burning, bloated bulk of the Greater Sluggor behind us was a good indicator of why.

And then one of the defenders within the bunker stepped into the doorway to the bunker after it was blown apart by some necroic blast from one of the demons, unloading plasma into the heaving bulk of the elephantine demon, which by the way its superheated innards went exploding out, it didn't appreciate very much.

It wasn't dead, but Briggs being an opportunistic put two seconds of sustained fire into the gaping wound, and a lot of very pure light went off inside it, and came out of it, too, as it wailed, and collapsed in burning goo and sludge and worse things.

-Huh,- we /said at the same time.

Neither of us had ever seen one in person before, but the style of the power armor was unique, and reserved for them and them alone. Trying to emulate it was a good excuse to eat a bullet.

That there was an Imperial Legionnaire!

-Someone give me a color pattern verification!- I /downloaded the image promptly. Sure, I could go akasha dumping for it, but I had other things to do.

-Green and white patterns, black rank marks... Emerald Bull Legion, from the Boga System! That's halfway across the galaxy... what are they doing here?- was the quick /reply from one of the Goldilocks.

-The Warp works in insane ways,- was my /reply, as I swept off my Band ID to the captain of the company in the doorway. I distinctly saw him freeze when he saw it, dumbfounded.

”Colonel Sama Rantha of Janus Prime?” a deep voice commed over, futzed with static from the Warp. ”This is Captain Iliviar Donnal of the Emerald Bull Legion!”

”The Throne Endures,” I replied kindly, not stopping with my rampage of killing. ”My associate Commander Briggs and I will endeavor to lift this assault if you can keep your defense up another minute or two. We won't be long.”

I could almost hear the ... of his non-reply. Still, the firing of the defense became a lot more energetic suddenly, as the number of enemies attacking was being thinned precipitously.

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Some broken-horned, lurching thing ten feet tall and a couple thousand pounds was the last decent-sized demon left on the field. Well, it wasn't fast enough to run, and Pusboys, Slimers, and Imps were exploding around it as it swung a really big and gory Dire Axe at me. I calmly hacked the head off the spine-haft, continued on to bury Chalice in its chest and rip it open, stepped aside, and Beat came roaring in to explode through it violently and render it into many stinking, burning pieces.

I spun slowly, Tails still shooting and finding targets, but my running about turned into a casual glide as I focused on Paten picking off bouncing Pusboys in constant streams and flashes of golden light, while Briggs planted himself and his autolaser swept the entire hill repeatedly with pulsing, fanned swathes of death.

I bounced thirty feet up to the shattered roof of the bunker, looking in all directions. ”Skies are clear!” I sent a couple more seconds of rapid-fire downslope, popping a few more targets. ”I don't see anybody else wandering this way for the moment!”

”Copy that,” Briggs murmured on comms, for the benefit of the Legionnaires. ”We've got a few minutes before any Warp shift happens, I think, and they'll have to reach us.”

I dropped back to the ground before the carefully watching eyes of a lot of armored men nearly as tall as Briggs, and with armor looking a bit more advanced.

Imperial Legionnaires, the Emperor's Own Space Marines. The most elite of the armed forces of the Emperor, second only to the Coronal Knights in military authority and respect within the empire; the special forces of the special forces, for all intents and purposes.

Six thousand years ago, their Primogenitors had rebelled against the Emperor, and a number of Legions had followed them right into insurrection. Hundreds of billions of people had died before the Primogenitors were driven off or slain, and the corrupted Legions still plagued the galaxy.

It was a huge stain on the honor and glory of the Legions, and led directly to the preeminence of the Coronal Knights and the Umbrans. The sons of the Emperor had failed him, and a shadow fell across all the Legions, even the ones that remained loyal.