Campaign of Mercy

""Mercy System. Segmentum Pacificus. Terra Nullius. Ideal for colonisation."

- Astropathic message to Terra following the Massacre of Mercy

History
The Mercy system within the Segmentum Pacificus, long neglected by the Imperium and its agents, had fallen prey to the predations of the Chaos Warband, the Reavers of Archeros. Rather than simply ravaging the system and plundering its resources once, the vicious renegades demanded tithes of both resources and slaves in order to stave of the populaces annihilation. This extortion of the systems wealth went unchecked for standard several centuries, until a waylaid imperial navy vessel made warp transition in system. Thinking the vessel the Reavers returned early, the populace pleaded with the navy vessel for more time as the ship tried to negotiate resupply and information. After much confusion, the Imperial vessels Captain was eventually made aware of the system wide extortion, and promised to return with aid.

Quite by chance, as the vessel made its way back to its home fleet, it crossed paths with the Strike Cruiser, Gertrans Faith, along with its escort ships as it patrolled the reaches of space. Relaying the systems plight to the Astartes warships, they pleaded with the Marines to answer the Mercy systems plea, and free them from the stranglehold of the renegades. They curtly agree to investigate, and the Navy vessel resumed its homeward journey, unaware of the fate they have consigned the inhabitants of Mercy.

The Wings of Salvaxes made warp travel to the Mercy system, and found the system already occupied. A small Chaos fleet was orbiting the systems Primary agri-world, Mercy II, and were already beginning countermeasures. However, the fleet did not move to flee, and it became apparent that the Majority of the chaos forces present were planetside, exacting their annual tithe from the populace. The Wings made haste to trap them on the planets surface.

Gunships and Drop pods rained upon the surface of Mercy II and battle was met between the traitorous marines and the loyal Wings of Salvaxes. Likewise above, a wrathful firefight erupted between the two fleets, chaos arms and armour facing off against imperial Plasteel and cannons. Though boths sides suffered heavy losses, both refused to back down, and a bloody toll was exacted from both loyalist and heretic alike. On the surface, the warped Reavers did battle with the mounted charges of the Wings of Salvaxes. Mercy II's fertile agri-plots provided excellent ground over which their bikes and speeders could roam and seek out the enemy, and provided little in the way of defensive fortifications for the traitor forces. However, what truly spelled doom for both the chaos forces on the ground and in the skies was the remorseless, unfeeling and unstoppable Death Company.

Used as a blunt instrument, the Terminator armour clad psychopaths were let loose upon the foe. Whether they were teleported onto enemy ships or crudely delivered by Caestus assault rams and land raiders, they were sent to their deaths with a callousness that would make a commissar baulk. However they performed their role well. Despite the hopeless doom the Death company faced wherever they were sent, they unleashed pure fury into the ranks of those who opposed them, taking dozens or even more enemy marines down with them in every brutal, bloody conflict. For every Death company terminator sent to die, a score of traitors would fall with them, and it was not long before the insides of the Traitor ships, and the bastions of the traitor marines, were little more than gore splattered tombs. Within days of fighting, the guns of the Traitor ships ceased, and all that could be heard aboard the chaos vessels was the bellows of madmen that had run out of victims.

It did not take long for the ground forces to succumb in a similar manner to their ships. Those Death company terminators who survived the carnage were captured once more, the power packs within their terminator armour deactivated, and reducing their thick ceramite plates to little more than dead weight, and so encumbered they were reclaimed alongside the dead, whose plate would be repaired and provided to the next to fall to the fatal curse. As the sun rose on a imperial victory, the populace of Mercy II emerged from their hiding places and cheered for their liberators, these crimson and black Marines that had been sent to deliver them from the oppression of the chaos raiders. They received nothing but stony silence from the Marines as they collected their dead and wounded, and reclaimed those vehicles both functional and debilitated. Once the post battle necessities were complete, a single message was broadcast over every frequency.

"You stand guilty of colluding and aiding elements traitorous to the Imperium. The punishment for this crime is death. May the Emperor forgive your souls, for you shall receive no mercy from us."

What followed this message was a massacre on a system wide level, every man, woman and child was put to the sword. All guilty of the charges laid by the brutal astartes. Great pyres burned for the dead as every living inhabitant of the system was executed and incinerated to purge any lingering taint. This genocide complete, the marines burned those fields and agri-plots that remained, purifying all in holy promethium. This complete, a single message was sent to the Adeptus Terra.