Battle of Rai
 This article is about a battle in the /tg/ Heresy project, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40k universe. |
| The Battle of Rai | |
| |
| Date | M31 |
| Scale | Planetary |
| Theatre | Rai |
| Status | Imperial Victory |
| Belligerents | |
| Loyalist Legions | Life Bringers |
| Commanders and Leaders | |
| Cardinal Merik Antoine Antonelle Fabrice Diallo |
Johannes Vrach Wilmut Sachs Nikephoros Galen Tribulus Bercilak |
| Strength | |
| The Entombed Void Angels |
Plague Marines Green Men |
| Losses | |
| - | - |
| Outcome | |
| Life Bringers defeated Green Men betrayed their Legion | |
The Battle of Rai was one of the most important armed engagements of the Scouring. It was intended by Johannes Vrach, the mad Primarch of the Life Bringers, as a death trap for the Entombed and the Void Angels who have been pursuing them since their frantic escape from Terra. Thankfully, the Loyalists managed to prevail in spite of all odds, soundly defeating the Traitors and prompting their battered Legion to split in two. Johannes Vrach himself managed to escape the justice, as did many of his lackeys who still plague the Imperium with their existence to this day.
Background
Johannes Vrach was lost in contemplation. Although he had very high hopes for Hektor, the failure of his rebellion was essentially just a minor setback for the Life Bringers. Their true mission, the complete eradication of disease in all of its forms, had not yet been compromised, and the Primarch had the full intention of resuming it as soon as he had a base of operations. After some deliberation, he chose Rai, his homeworld. It had to be purged of all life due to a dangerous xenovirus buried on it, but now the Primarch had the means of restoring life to it and a Legion of warriors immune to all disease at his disposal, so he decided it was about time to come home.
Much to Vrach's chagrin, the Loyalist Legions turned out to be much more vengeful than he had hoped. As his fleet rushed to Rai, Loyalist forces were hot on his heels, led by the irrepressible Entombed. Sons of Golgothos swore never to rest until the last Life Bringer is dead and buried, and they had every intention to turn Rai into their graveyard. Irked by the importunate perseverance of the Entombed, Vrach decided that they had to be wiped out once and for all before the benevolent work of his Legion could resume in peace. With this intention, he ordered his Genetors to turn the whole planet of Rai into one enormous biological weapon that would grind the bothersome Entombed to dust that they were so fond of. As much as they resented this order, Wilmut Sachs and Nikephoros Galen had to work together on the fortification of Rai, each one trying to top his bitter rival's wicked ingenuity.
The Battle of Rai was fought on two battlefields at once, on the surface of the accursed jungle world as well as in the heavens above it. The combined naval forces of Void Angels and the Entombed strove to destroy Valetudinarium, Johannes Vrach's pestilent void stronghold, while their ground forces fought the Life Bringers in the planet's poisonous thickets.
Plague Marines vs. The Entombed
In preparation for the battle Wilmut Sachs unleashed untold horrors upon Rai. He crafted the Sea of Woe, which was filled not with water, but with countless colonies of pestiferous bacteria. Its shores were stalked by megamoebae, pathogenic germs the size of a Land Speeder that constantly oozed diseased slime. More conventional plagues were also created in anticipation of the Entombed, such as Red Scythe that turned the erythrocytes in the blood of its victim into miniature needles, thus turning his blood vessels into barbed wire, or Strongman's Bane that caused all of the muscles in the body of the diseased to contort to their maximum extent until they ripped his body apart. High Genetor's Plague Marines fortified strategically important positions with walls made from corpses of plague victims glued together with pus. Ever jovial, they spent their time awaiting the arrival of the Entombed sitting around methane bonfires gargling cheerful limericks about terminal diseases.
The fun ended very quickly when the first crypt-shaped drop pods of the Entombed crashed into the pestilent mud of Rai, releasing countless enraged dreadnoughts upon the minions of Sachs. Their leader, the saturnine Cardinal Merik, was obsessed with vengeance for his fallen Primarch to the point of lunacy. Driven to a frothing frenzy by self-flagellation and the Cardinal's fulminating demagogy, the Entombed hit the ranks of the Plague Marines like a tidal wave, shaking off any damage they received in process. The Loyalists ignored mortal wounds, lost limbs and concussions, fighting until the last drop of blood left their veins. Some even continued to rabidly lash out with their chainswords for several minutes after their heads had been sliced off by a corrupted Apothecary's bonesaw. The Plague Marines were pushed back by this irresistible force, but they knew that the time was on their side: no force in the Galaxy could keep up such an exhausting assault for long.
After several hours of ceaseless fighting, it finally appeared that the Loyalists were running out of steam and their offensive was grinding to a halt. With gleeful cackling, Sachs ordered his forces to regroup and begin a counter-offensive, priming to smash the pestersome foe to a pulp. Alas, it appeared that he merely fell into a trap prepared for him by Cardinal Merik. Before his orders were even delivered to the soldiers, the Entombed suddenly pulled back, and from their midst in there rolled an imposing pitch-black Land Raider encrusted with reliquaries. Merik himself rose up from the opened hatch, a strange artefact of clearly Xenos origins clutched firmly in his fist. Although Sachs had no way of knowing the proper name of the peculiar relic or its intended purpose, he could feel the godlike alien power oozing from it, too potent to be contained by ancient technosorcery, and this feeling made him afraid for the first time in a long while. It's been long since he had lost his fear of death, pain didn't bother him and his soul was far too black to fear moral suffering; and yet, the contents of the mysterious artefact Merik held in his hands made High Genetor tremble with terror.
The concept of humour was utterly alien to Merik - he was infamous for killing several people for attempting to joke. And yet, he laughed as he pressed a glyph on the alien artefact's surface and threw it to the ground before the ranks of the Life Bringers. Seconds after the cursed obsidian box touched the ground, it exploded in a beam of star energy, releasing its aeons-old prisoner. The titanic figure that rose up from the explosion was wrapped in a torn shroud that seemed to be weaved from the primordial darkness of the frigid abyss between the stars; its bony hands held a scythe composed of pure negative energy, and the eyes that gleamed from beneath its hood shone with malice unknowable to mortals. This godlike creature was none other than a Shard of the Nightbringer, an ancient star god whose cruelty and madness prompted his own flock to shatter and imprison him millions of years ago. After letting out a bellow of rage that sounded like an explosion of a distant supernova, the Shard descended upon the Plague Marines.
At last, the Cardinal's simple plan became clear. He used the initial assault to make a good dent in the fortifications of the Plague Marines, fought his way into their midst, and then released the shard of the alien god to deal with the hated foe. Naturally, Merik realised full well that after dispatching the Life Bringers the Nightbringer would turn on the Entombed who had no means to control him, but he was fully prepared to die at the hands of the vengeful deity knowing that his Primarch had finally been avenged. Meanwhile, the Shard was slaughtering the Plague Marines by the score: their signature chemical and biological weapons proved utterly useless against a creature of sentient metal. While his soldiers were being massacred, Sachs watched coldly and made notes, trying to calculate the best possible response to this new threat. Finally, he got a brilliant idea. Instead of sending his last remaining reserves against the creature, he ordered his artillery specialists to blast them with the most potent chemical projectiles they had left. As the first projectiles hit the unsuspecting soldiers, Sachs started reading litanies to Nurgle, asking him to accept this modest sacrifice and send one of his servants to deal with the Nightbringer. The Master of Plague was so impressed with Sachs's perfidy that he sent one of his most powerful Great Unclean Ones to assist him - Nilethagh, the lord of all venereal diseases.
As Nilethagh crossed his corroded sword with the Nighbringer's entropy scythe, the Plague Marines were finally free again to finish off the Entombed. But Merik's men were unwilling to give up, and put up a fight that would've made Golgothos proud. As a greater daemon and a star god were furiously fencing in the background, the Space Marines were caught up in one last fight to the death. Even after the massive casualties inflicted upon the Life Bringers by the Shard, they still greatly outnumbered their adversaries, and the fate of the Entombed appeared to be sealed at last. When Sachs was preparing to finish what Vrach had started when he unleashed his genophage virus upon the children of Golgothos, his right flank was smashed by a strike force of the Void Angels who were supposed to be fighting Galen's Green Men. Whatever was the reason behind their sudden arrival, Sachs quickly realised that he had no chance of winning this battle and began frantically thinking of ways to escape.
Once again, he was assisted by his pestilent deity. As Nilethagh finally defeated the Shard of the Nightbringer, reducing him to a pool of liquid metal, he finally turned his attention to the mortals fighting at his feet. Always eager for a fight, he disembowelled himself with his sword, letting out the hordes of Nurglings living inside his belly. While the Loyalists were too busy dealing with the daemonic infestation, Sachs and the remaining Plague Marines quickly boarded their shuttles and joined with the rest of the Life Bringer fleet on the orbit. It was the time to flee again.
Green Men vs. Void Angels
While Wilmit Sachs took on the Entombed, Nikephoros Galen was tasked with stopping the numerically superior Void Angels. His opponent's advantage did not bother him very much, though, for he was sure that the planet's malicious flora would even out the odds. While reconstructing Rai's biosphere, Galen connected the roots of all the plants into an enormous neural network spanning the planet's entire surface. This essentially turned the whole world into a colossal organic computer programmed to destroy any intruders.
From their first moments on Rai, the Void Angels felt as though the planet itself was attacking them: the tall grass was ensnaring their feet, explosive fruits were falling down on their heads, unseen predators lurking in the canopy picked out their battle brothers one by one. Even before their first encounter with the enemy forces, they had already sustained minor casualties. The first skirmishes also proved disastrous, as the Green Men were much more adept at jungle warfare than their adversaries. Aiming at finishing the weakened enemy, Vertumnus Alraun conducted a blasphemous ritual that infused the trees in the battle zone with spirits of the Warp. When the trees pulled their roots out of the ground and started attacking the Void Angels, crushing them with their mighty branches and tearing their vehicles apart with their roots, their field commanders wisely decided that this was quite enough for the first skirmish. Under heavy enemy fire, they retreated to their fortified landing site and began awaiting orders from their commander, Antoine Antonelle.
Correctly identifying the jungles as the source of the enemy's tactical advantage, Antonelle ordered them burned to the ground via promethium carpet bombings. However, this was easier said then done. Having anticipated this move, Tribulus Bercilak set up an impenetrable air blockade in the skies over the battle zone. The Void Angel pilots took this challenge as an opportunity to prove their superior aerial combat skills and initiated a full-on assault on the enemy airforce. For several hours, the heavens over Rai were filled with fire and explosions that made the sunlight seem dim in comparison. Eventually, the Void Angels emerged victorious out of this inferno, and their bombers unloaded their deadly cargo on the lush vegetation below, turning the lush jungles of Rai into a fiery Gehenna.
Seeing his beautiful creation reduced to ashes really upset Galen. Not even attempting to hold back tears, he made a vox announcement to his troops, promising gene modifications beyond imagination to whoever would bring the one responsible for this floricide to justice. But the Green Men were in little need for motivation: their hearts were already filled with fury, since they considered all plant life sacred. On Rai's orbit, a great deal of warships entrusted to Galen by Johannes Vrach perished in a suicidal attack on Antonelle's strike cruiser, Endurance. However, their efforts were not in vain, as their concentrated fire eventually managed to bring the great ship down. Although this foolish act put the whole of Life Bringers' fleet in great jeopardy, Galen considered it a sacrifice worth making.
Much to his fury, Antonelle managed to survive by escaping the doomed vessel at the last moment. The Equerry to the Primarch decided to make landing on the planet's surface to personally lead his troops to victory. Initially, his presence greatly boosted the morale of Void Angels, resulting in a series of successful skirmishes. Antonelle's forces moved deep into the enemy-controlled territory, seeking to destroy communications and turn the enemy retreat into a rout. Everything was going according to his plan, when suddenly the landscape around them exploded in great fountains of muck and plant litter, and enormous flower buds emerged from under the ground. These buds opened to reveal squads of Green Men that immediately charged the surprised Void Angels. The ensuing fight quickly turned into a slaughter. Antoine Antonelle was challenged to personal combat by Tribulus Bercilak, and, although he was without a doubt a superb swordfighter, his opponent was simply one of the best in the Galaxy. After several minutes of fencing, he was disarmed and thrown to the ground. With a sadistic grin on his lips, Bercilak emptied the entire cartridge of his Brambleseed gun into Antonelle's chest. Much to his disappointment, Antoine didn't flinch even as his chest was being torn open by vicious barbed wire-like vines.
Bercilak was hoping that Antonelle's gruesome demise would destroy the enemy morale and stem the tide of battle. In the short term, his calculations proved correct, and his troops started getting the upper hand against the Void Angels, crestfallen at the loss of their hero. Yet his great mistake lay in forgetting that Antonelle was hardly the only great enemy commander present on Rai on that day. Upon learning of his dear friend and mentor's death, Fabrice Diallo was at once filled with righteous fury, which he managed to share with his soldiers through his famous Colossus Has Fallen speech. Like a tsunami of ceramite, the Void Angels smashed the ranks of the Green Men, sending them fleeing. Neither Bercilak's tactical prowess nor Alraun's sorcery or Galen's biomancy could stop the furious sons of Lumey. Eventually, a realisation dawned on Galen that his forces stood a very real chance of being exterminated to a man in this hopeless battle. After some deliberation, he decided to betray his Primarch and escaped the planet, leaving the remaining Life Bringers to deal with two Loyalist Legions at once.
Aftermath
Due to the skilful actions of his fleetmasters, Johannes Vrach managed to escape from Rai along with much of his remaining fleet. Left with no other place to go, he entered the Eye of Terror, where Nurgle finally rewarded him for his loyalty by granting him Daemonhood. Wilmut Sachs took over the Life Bringers as their de-facto leader, which prompted a further fragmentation of the Legion.
Galen's foul betrayal marked the origin of the Green Men as a separate warband. Like many independent warlords, he set course for the Eye of Terror, where he carved out a sizeable domain for himself. His most notorious achievement was the Great Sowing - the first massive Chaos incursion from the Eye of Terror which is generally considered to be the precursor to the first Black Crusade.
His failure to finish off the Life Bringers when he had a chance finally drove Cardinal Merik over the age, turning him completely insane. The reverence his soldiers felt for him left replacing him on grounds of insanity out of question, and the mad Cardinal remained the Master of the Legion until the Second Founding. Under his leadership, the Entombed have massacred several innocent Imperial worlds suspected of collaboration with the Life Bringers, and only their stellar reputation as the heroes of the Scouring prevented a thorough investigation by the recently formed Inquisition.
To this day, the Void Angels have not forgotten the heroic death of Antoine Antonelle. A lot of their iconography depicts a Void Angel trampling a slain treeman. Bercilak in particular is universally reviled by all of the members of the Legion and its successor chapters, and his execution is considered a holy duty.
The Plague World of Rai was cleansed by several viral bombings, destroying all life on it but keeping many ancient structures intact. The Imperial authorities who carried out the cleansing speculated that the world was spared a full scale Exterminatus because of the ancient Xenos catacombs on it that posed certain interest for the Imperium.