Private After Action Ponderings of Trooper Belisarius of the 2nd Squad, 7th Company Blood Angels, attached to Lord Inquisitor Lucius of the Ordo Malleus.
This is a world were we have to align our self with the Xenos known as Tau against the evilest of evils. The traitors of Horus! Creatures that put the the holy believes into the blood of our beloved Sanguinius to the test!
The Berserkers of the vile Blood God rounded up civilian xenos in one of the Tau villages on Rausina. That these Tau villages even exist on an imperial world is hard to, but not mine, to fathom.
Anyway, the Lord Inquisitor ordered us to not attack the xeno scum but rather help the raisins in fighting. I think he is right, first the bigger evil, that threatens all of life, then…
So we went there by Thunderhawk and radioed in to the Tau, who happened to be abel to receive our frequencies. A small force of them was approaching their village, Nun-Xia on our map, that was being ransacked by Berserkers in Rhinos. It was decided to not risk collateral damage to the civilians and thus not let the Thunderhawk engage in the fighting. It dropped us half a mile southwest of the village.
The warpspit of Chaos Sorcerer who led the raid, was a shrewd fellow. He had posted some Havocs, with 2 lascannon, a rocket launcher and a heavy bolter on to the highest tower of the few tau structures that maid up the place. the Berserkers were happily slaughtering the inhabitants of the village, mostly elderly tau or children while a Dreadnought stood guard. The Tau were approaching from the north western side in a firing line. Their Commander nowhere to be seen, but with support of one of their repulsortanks and of strategically placed battlesuits in the rear. Theses suits are truly frightening, with their giant twin guns they ravage and annihilate everything they target. only the northern of the two must have malfunctioned, it never hit any of the Havocs at was firing at.
So South of the Havocs on the tower, the sorcerer, the berserkers, their rhinos and the hapless civilians were on the town square. The tau kept in cages or imprisoned in their own houses. Only to be dragged outside to do the vile sacrificial work to the dark forces of corruption.
More southern, to our southwestern approach, from the Thunderhawk, there was a corrupted predator tank, one that an earlier imperial expedition must have left long ago. It did not bear all the usual sign of warp stench.
We were approaching fast, over the green flatland, and taking a bit of fire from the launchers on the Rhinos. I was bearable and we were making good progress. Our beloved Captain Cato, in his glorious golden armor attached himself to the first squad, south of mine, the second. Aside from the southern of the two railgun suit, all Tau were north of our approach. Our enlightened brothers of the Deathcompany, soon to be one with our primarch, were coming in as a diversion via their jumpgear. They should bring befuddlement and confusion into the ranks of the slaughtering berserkers!
The Tau and our self had an advancing shootout with the chaos forces, dropping the crazily charging dreadnought before it could come close to us, otherwise concentrating their fire onto the Berserkers and the Predator tank.
The Chaos managed to wound a few advancing brothers and shake the repulsor tank so it was thrown of target. But we were making steady progress through the killing zone.
Then our blackened brothers dropped out of the sky. Even during the landing they already let out a volley from their bolt pistols killing a few berserkers and binding them in one place.
Unfortunately the chaos sorcerer, being obviously a good tactician, had more berserkers in reserve, which came onto our brothers directly out of an approaching rhino. They disembarked and charged our brothers from behind and the moribund had a tough time fighting off the almost 3 times as many raged chaos marines as their own number. After a gory in fight, only 4 brothers of the original eight were still standing. All with mortal wounds, that would have killed any other marine, but still standing.
But their heroic sacrifice, like Sanguinius himself, bought us the time to get to them and into optimum firing range, just at the moment when the last of our valiant (but crazed) brothers fell.
But by then we were reducing the amount of enemies still standing with the fire from pulse and bolter alike. The xeno showed there resolve as the hapless railgun suit fired through one their own buildings to strike down the chaos sorcerer with its mighty railgun.
Unfortunately, we were to slow in falling back first, so the Berserkes got into hand to hand with us. That dropped all of our brothers from the first squad, only the Captain and the Sergeant Erastus were still standing.
My squad finally managed to fall back and thus, fire repeatedly into the jaw of the melting berzerker troop.
When the last of the fell it was only cleanup work to be done. The Tau Battlesuits made short work of the retreating Rhinos. The Tau village was ours!
While we were waiting for the Thunderhawk and giving aid to the wounded brothers, the Tau counted the toll. They were very sad after that, only one civilian was still alive. They lost their mission even in victory over the vile darkness. We won a victory over our evil brothers. That the Tau village will not replenish its inhabitants in short time is no loss.