Purgation of the Envoy of Depravity

"I swear by the Blood of Dorn that flows through me, you who have defiled the Imperium will face justice for your crimes."

- Lord Commander Reinhard.

For millennia have the Traitor Legions at the direction of their Unholy Masters assailed the Imperium, to be cast back into the Eye of Terror time and again. But individual warbands, fleets, and other Chaos forces often slip by. They are pursued when possible by the Imperials, hunted like the dogs they are. Were they disciplined enough they could cause great havoc but fortunately for the Imperium they all too often indulge their desires for rape, looting, and murder giving the Hunter-killer Task Forces the perfect opportunity to strike.

History
Eight years after the start of the so called “Ghost War”, the Seventh of Abaddon the Despoiler’s Black Crusades against the Imperium, the Space Hulk Envoy of Depravity emerged from the Warp on a cruise of debauchery and destruction through Segmentum Obscurus. This would not be tolerated for long, with local Imperial Navy Commanders calling on the aid of the Adeptus Astartes to purge and then destroy the accursed amalgamation of Warp fused warships. Two chapters answered the call, the fleet-based Imperial Sentinels and the Daemon Hunters of the Ordinators chapter. After six months of searching the Envoy was finally located, assailing the Cardinal World of St. Carellius. The orbital defenses had been laid low by the Space Hulk’s many and various weapons, the Heretic Astartes Crew having gone to the surface and butchered the local Sororitas and PDF garrison by the time the Ordinators and Sentinels arrived.

Retribution was swift and merciless; the dozens of Astartes warships battered the Hulk’s shields down while the Space Marines descended to the planet below to visit the Emperor’s absolution on them. Caught in heinous and depraved acts there was no coherent defense against the onslaught of righteous fury brought by the black armored loyalists. Both sides wore ebony colored power armor but those lacking the icons of the Dark Prince were decidedly winning when the remaining traitors fled through a Warp rift back to the Hulk.

There would be no respite, however, as the combined Imperial fleet, lead by the Sentinels’ Battle Barge Blade of Retribution, crippled the Envoy of Depravity. Seconds later dozens of Terminators from both chapters, borne across the void by Boarding Torpedoes, Assault Rams, and Thunderhawks, boarded the disgusting pleasure barge. The Templar Brethren of the Sentinels stood shoulder to shoulder with the Evocati Praetorian Ist Cohort of the Ordinators. Scores of cultists were killed on impact or by the melta-warheads, and those were the lucky ones. Eventually the shock and awe began to wear off and the Daemonic defenders charged, slithering in unholy ecstasy. They were met by disciplined volleys of Storm Bolter-, Assault Cannon-, and Cyclone Missile Launcher-fire.

Room by room, corridor by corridor, deck by deck, the Emperor’s righteous fury was visited upon those who had forsaken Him for the Ruinous Powers. The blood of heretics and traitors ran like water down the uneven passageways, past the armored feet of the Terminators. Guided by Techmarines the strikeforce located the largest of the reactors aboard, deploying Cyclonic charges at those points for later. As the slaughter continued those Cultists left alive and with any semblance of their mental faculties fled at the sight of black-coloured ceramite. They did not get very far, dying from a bolt round to the back rather than the front, but dying nonetheless.

When the Astartes were satisfied the bulk of the enemy had been slain they retreated back from the Envoy, detonating the explosives once they had reached a safe distance to watch the fireworks.