Eroking
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Chapter 1: Return to the Iron Cage
🕑 Added 2025-10-18 12:20:20 +0000 UTCChapter 1: Return to the Iron Cage
Gunfire echoed through the narrow corridor. An auxiliary trooper, clad in flak armor and clutching a lasgun, ran for his life. He didn't dare look back, just thrust the lasgun behind him, firing wildly.
He should have been holding the last junction, but fear had broken him. It broke him when the silver-grey wall began to move, advancing on their barricade with slow, inexorable purpose.
He swore his squad had tried everything. Lasguns, shotguns—they all just sparked uselessly against that wall of steel. Even a krak grenade had only made it pause for half a step. Command had issued them a flamer. A damned flamer. Using a flamer in this cramped tunnel? The enemy might burn, but the promethium's backlash would roast them alive first, or suffocate them in the superheated air. Throne! They'd been sent in without any real heavy weapons.
As his squad poured everything they had at the advancing wall, it kept coming. It must have reached optimal range. In a single instant, the thump-thump-thump of bolter fire erupted. His Sergeant, and everyone else... their upper bodies simply vanished, atomized into a red paste that coated the bulkhead.
The auxiliary trooper could only run, blind with panic. Perhaps too panicked—he tripped over a body on the deck. He slammed hard onto the metal grating, his lasgun skittering away. Staring at the weapon just beyond his reach, he remembered the words of his Drill-Sergeant.
"Secure your weapon sling, maggot, or I'll shove that lasgun right up your void-hole!"
Too late. The trooper heard the heavy, rhythmic footsteps behind him. The "wall of steel" was here. He turned his head in despair, just in time to see a massive iron boot descending.
"Emperor!"
Petros Kalaxis brought his boot down with crushing force, stomping the trooper's chest. Ribs and flak armor collapsed into a wet ruin. The young soldier didn't seem to realize he was dead, his mouth still gasping, uselessly trying to pull air into lungs that were now pulp.
Ignoring the wretch, Petros advanced, boarding shield locked. His Battle-Brother fell in beside him. Who was on his left? Petros paused. Right, Andros. A self-important new blood, assigned to Petros's Tactical Squad as a replacement before this engagement. This was his first taste of real combat. A pity he'd be dead in ten seconds.
...Seven, eight, nine, ten. The squad reached the corner. The thud-thud-thud of a heavy bolter opened up. Andros was a fraction of a second too slow on the turn, exposing a sliver of his side to the gunner down the hall. A deafening CRACK. First, the heavy bolter shell sheared Andros’s shield-arm clean off. The next one obliterated his helmet and chestplate.
Petros had told him countless times: stay tight, overlap shields, leave no gap in the wall. But Andros thought he knew better.
Replacements like Andros, part of the "Swift Siege Cohort," were all the same. Flawed. They thought their hypno-indoctrination made them veterans. But hypno-learning only tells you what to do; it doesn't bridge the vast chasm between knowing and doing. Petros laughed grimly to himself. As if he wasn't a product of the Cohort himself. His first engagement had been on a world called Tallarn. He'd just been luckier, learning the real skills before one caught him.
As Andros’s body collapsed, Petros squeezed the trigger, his bolter spitting fire to suppress the yellow-armored enemy. The Battle-Brother behind him immediately moved up to fill the gap. Brother Antonius was on his left now. Petros felt a wave of relief. Antonius was solid. He had crawled out of the blood-pits of the Siege of Terra alongside him. They would survive this.
He advanced by muscle memory, shield locked, ignoring the dull thud of heavy bolter rounds impacting his shield. At tactical range, he pulled a krak grenade, lobbed it over the shield wall. A muffled WHUMP. The mortals behind the barricade were painted across the bulkhead. The squad pushed up, firing dispassionately.
The fight was over quickly. The enemy retreated, leaving the corpse of one of their own in yellow armor. They had retaken the corridor. For now. Petros took a deep drag of the recycled air from his helmet's filter, ordering the squad to fortify the position.
He knew it was all meaningless. In thirty-six minutes, the Imperial Fists would take this position back. Half an hour after that, Petros would be ordered to storm it again. This exact exchange would be repeated dozens of times over the next week in these same corridors. By the end, they'd be using corpses for cover and scavenging plates from the dead to patch their armor.
Back then, Petros had stared at the body of the fallen Imperial Fist, wondering if he would soon end up the same. He knew fear was a failing in an Astartes, but that assumed one's death would have honor and dignity.
He knew even then that this was a pointless meat grinder. This world had no strategic value, no resources. It was all happening purely because of the bitter stubbornness of two Primarchs.
And Petros knew he was dreaming. He just hadn't expected to dream of this place again. To return to the "Iron Cage."
But he had a meeting to attend. He forced his consciousness, willing himself to wake.
Upper decks of The Ironclad, Astartes quarters. A massive, naked man rose from a plasteel slab, shaking his head to clear the last vestiges of sleep.
The warrior stood in the cramped cabin, his head nearly brushing the ceiling. He was 2.3 meters tall, and his gene-forged body was one of the largest even among his kind. The knotted muscles were like those of an extinct Terran Grox, making his standing form resemble a solid wall. Only the numerous neural interface ports and countless scars marred the physique.
His severe, gene-crafted features were dominated by a high-bridged nose. Two thick eyebrows sat low over his eyes. His short hair, black with the first few flecks of silver, was slicked back. This combination, set in a granite-hard expression, made him look less like a man and more like a severe, living statue.
Petros walked to the data-screen and tapped the comms rune.
"Antonius. Inform all the brothers. Meeting in the bridge briefing room in thirty minutes. We've arrived."
"Aye, Captain."
He didn't correct Antonius's use of the title. Cutting the comm, Petros walked to the side door. As the hatch hissed open, auto-lumes flickered to life, illuminating two hunched, twisted figures in the corner. They stirred.
The creatures stood, vaguely human in outline but with pale, bloodless skin. Their arms had been amputated at the shoulder, replaced with augers and power-clamps. Thick cables pierced their torsos to power the tools, and an opaque tube was fed directly through their mouths into their stomachs for nutrient delivery. Servitors. The half-flesh, half-machine tools of the Mechanicum, lobotomized and void of all emotion, they knew only their mechanical tasks.
In his small personal armory, a bolter, a combat knife, and a deeply scarred boarding shield hung on the wall. On a table, seven or eight loaded magazines and several grenades were neatly arranged. Beside them was a crate of fresh bolt-rounds. And a skull. A yellowed skull, placed incongruously among the wargear. Its abnormal size hinted at its former owner's identity.
But the centerpiece of the room was the suit of power armor on its frame: Mark III 'Iron' Pattern. The suit was a geography of old battles—pitted, scarred, and cracked. It had seen him through the Tallarn Campaign, the Siege of Terra, and the Iron Cage. More than a third of its components had been replaced over time.
He was lucky. The 'Iron' pattern's heavier frontal plating had saved his life more than once, even when rounds had punched straight through to his flesh. Had he been wearing another mark, he'd be long dead. He had considered repairing the armor and shield, but given their tight supply of materials, he'd decided to leave the scars, so long as they didn't compromise integrity.
He raised his arms. The servitors silently began to dress him in the wargear. As they locked the left pauldron into place, Petros saw the emblem: the iron mask set within the eight-pointed star. It still shone.
Now, it just sickened him. After the meeting, he would have it scoured off.
Petros sealed his helmet, closing himself off from the Legion he had been.
Because they were no longer the "Swift Siege Cohort," no longer expendable assets, no longer Iron Warriors, and no longer slaves to Perturabo.
Now, they were The Forged Steel Brotherhood.
