The Siege of Veritas Prime

The Siege of Veritas Prime

Veritas Prime, a towering Cathedral World dedicated wholly to the worship of the God-Emperor, became a battlefield of divine reckoning when its spiritual leaders were revealed to be corrupted by the Fane of Glory, a grotesquely zealous Chaos Warband devoted to Slaanesh.

The traitor Cardinals and Ecclesiarchs, once paragons of Imperial worship, incited the planet's PDF to turn against the loyal, while the Fane's daemonic allies tore through sacred shrines and reliquaries like rapturous carrion beasts.

Into this horror descended the Hospitallers' Strike Force Lucerna, their power armour gleaming amid ash and fire, joined by the devout 1st Cantorian Guard, a regiment raised on Cantoria Minor and steeped in Imperial Cult doctrine. Known for praying before battle and anointing their lasguns, they saw this as a holy war.

The extent of faithlessness burned at the hearts of the defenders rallying them to hold firm in what was increasingly a losing battle. They dug in at the Plaza of Ascendant Flame, protecting thousands of Imperial Citizens cowering in the catacombs below the Grand Basilica. Casualties mounted. Men, women and children were herded behind consecrated barricades and ushered below. Vox relays screamed for salvation. In the emptiness above, the Imperial Navy reinforcements were locked in a brutal void battle, unable to dispatch saviour pods and rescue ships.

Then came the flicker.

A single transmission was relayed and identified as the loyalist Astartes Chapter known as Spectres of Mamucium. More Imperial Forces were on the way!

Hope soared and the defenders awaited thunderous drop pods, gravitic descents of salvation. An hour passed, then two and three... no one came. Thousands more died. Astartes too were among the fallen. The Grand Basilica trembled as hordes of Cultists and Daemons surged onward in cries of debauched extasy, giddy at the prospect of defiling the Emperors Cathedrals as well as the bodies of its defenders.

But somewhere in the shadowed corridors of enemy command, voices fell silent. Apostate Cardinals were found with throats opened seemingly by silence itself.

Vox-hubs erupted in static and feedback, then died.
Forward munitions dumps detonated in chain reaction.
The more organised enemy lines began to falter and then fracture as orders were replaced with silence, uncertainty then death

It was only after the tide turned, the enemy routed in confusion and terror, that the truth was revealed.

The Spectres had come not to charge, but to undo.

In the hours the Hospitallers and Militarum waited for aid, the Spectres’ two Kill Teams (designation Oculus Tenebris and Umbra Manus) had slipped unseen into the corrupted Ecclesiarchal structures, assassinating key command figures, sabotaging supply lines, and collapsing leadership from within.

The Hospitallers, though victorious, emerged bitter.

Brother-Captain Seraphan of Strike Force Lucerna personally decried the Spectres’ failure to "stand beside their fellow sons of the Emperor." He believed that, had the Spectres joined in the front assault, tens of thousands more could have been saved. To the Hospitallers, whose values are rooted in direct protection and martyrdom for the innocent, the Spectres' strategic detachment was a cold betrayal of duty.

Exerpt – Sanctial War Journal, Entry 871.B

Designation: Transcripted Audio-Vox Extract, Post-Siege Intercession
Location: Basilica of the Final Benediction, Veritas Prime
Recorder: Adept-Scribe Halven Marr, attached to Strike Force Lucerna
Classification: Tier D — Ecclesiarchal Archive Submission

[Audio crackle. Smoke. Auspex readings fluctuating. The ruins of the Grand Basilica remain structurally unsound. A recording servo-skull hovers silently nearby.]

Captain Seraphan (Hospitallers):
“You came late, Spectre. Thousands burned while you lingered in the dark. You could have saved them.”

[Pause. An unknown figure emerges further from the fractured nave shadows. Markings consistent with known 3rd Liberation Company of the Spectres of Mamucium. Identification not granted. Armour dull grey, eyes aglow green.]

Unidentified Spectre Operative:
“We saved you, Captain”

Captain Seraphan (anger laced with weariness):
“you saved us? What of the lives lost while you crept in the shadows?Of souls of the innocent defiled by heretic and daemon?”

Spectre Operative (tone: even, unemotional):
“Had we met you in open battle, you would be a martyr by now, forgotten beneath a planet’s ashes. Instead, you stand. You remember. You avenge. That is not failure, Captain. That is victory purchased in silence.”

[Adept’s note: The Spectre withdrew without another word. Auspex systems peculiarly registered no further trace. Local vox-channels resumed static.]

End of interaction.

Filed under Controversia: Inter-Chapter Strategic Disparity. To be reviewed under Subsection C: Tactical Autonomy vs. Ecclesiastic Expectation.

Exhortation 19: On the Spectres of Mamucium

From the personal commentary of Captain Seraphan, Strike Force Lucerna, Hospitallers Chapter
 Timestamp: 871.M41, Day 5 post-purging of Veritas Prime

“They moved like smoke across a battlefield we bled to hold. Not a word of warning. Not a cry of allegiance. No honour roll. No thunderous descent to raise the faithful’s spirits. Only silence... followed by death ... followed by absence.”

I looked into the eyes of one, what little I could see behind that helm of ash-grey plate and green lens glow, and found a man but nothing I recognised of a Battle-Brother. No pride. No grief. Not even satisfaction. Just function. Cold, efficient function... as though warfare were not a righteous struggle, but simply subtraction.

And yet...
I live.
I endure.
Because they acted where we did not see. Slayed what we could not reach. Struck where we could not breathe.

Still, I struggle with this truth. How many more might we have saved, had they fought beside us? How many souls fell into the void of damnation while those shadows crept behind the curtain?

I cannot call them cowards. But neither can I call them kin.

The Spectres of Mamucium fight for the Emperor in a way I will never understand, and perhaps, I am not meant to. But I fear a day may come when such shadows grow too deep, even for the light of Terra to redeem.

— Seraphan, by the Emperor’s Grace and the Blood of the Faithful, Shield-Commander of Lucerna