| abstract | - In the initial explosion of Expeditionary Fleets departing Terra during the early years of the Great Crusade, the XVIII Legion was left behind to rebuild its strength, having fought in their first major battle for which they became publicly identified; the Assault of the Tempest Galleries in the dying days of the Unification Wars on Old Earth. In this, the Legion alone achieved a victory against impossible odds and survived, although barely, taking savage losses which reduced the newly invested Legion's active strength from around 20,000 to little more than 1,000 warriors, although in doing so they secured themselves a place of glory and honour in the roll of the Imperium's forces. The XVIII Legion was often deployed piecemeal as fresh Chapters of the Legion were readied and pressing demands called for Space Marine involvement. This meant that for the first few decades of the Great Crusade, Legionaries of the XVIII were assigned across a considerable number of different reinforcement battle groups and specialist units. In particular, they were used to add the might of the Astartes to emergency interdiction taskforces sent in to deal with sudden threats arising "behind the lines" of the advancing Crusade, such as deadly Space Hulks appearing without warning from the Empyrean, or in response to xenos corsair raids and rising dangers unexpectedly disturbed by a fresh human colonising presence in a star system. In many of these cases, the warriors of the Legion would be the only Space Marine contingent taking part in the conflict, forcing them into close co-operation with other human forces (often in a command and spearhead role), and inevitably plunged them directly into the heaviest fighting and most hazardous theatres of battle. Seldom then did the XVIII Legion fight on a battlefield of their own choosing, and while Imperial Compliance actions for the Legion during this time were few and far between, its roll of battle honours was extensive, as was the diversity of its foes and the victories it secured. For the XVIII this created a paradoxical reputation both as saviour but also a herald of bloody deeds, forlorn hopes and last-ditch holding actions. It was during one such campaign that the newly discovered Primarch Vulkan came to his Legion in the hour of their need. The XVIII, led by their Lord Commander Cassian Vaughn, had become embroiled in the rear-guard defence of a cluster of colony worlds near the Taras Division against a wave of Ork marauders. With the bulk of the Legiones Astartes either engaged with the Expedition Fleets breaching space towards the Eastern Fringe or committed as reserves against the horrors of the Rangda Incursion from the Halo Stars to the Galactic North, the XVIII was the only Space Marine Legion able to respond to the crisis. Fighting against vast and overwhelming odds, the Legion's primary force, numbering some 19,000 Space Marines, had marshalled the local defenders and held out for nearly a standard year in a series of running battles against well over a million Ork raiders scattered across hundreds of ramshackle voidships, "Rok" asteroid vessels and dozens of Space Hulks. The actions of the XVIII Legion had allowed the evacuations of three entire planetary populations to the nominal safety of the Taras System, but at a terrible cost. As the conflict progressed, they suffered the grievous wounding of their commander, while the remainder of the Legion became all but trapped on the Dead World of Antaem -- a lightning-rod drawing the Orks to them for battle. Taras was far from the embattled frontier of the expanding Great Crusade, and assistance from other Legions would have been difficult to obtain, but regardless such aid was not asked for by the XVIII, who had determined to succeed alone or die in the attempt, knowing that by bleeding the Ork marauder fleet of its strength, countless human lives would be saved. Their Primarch, however, learning of their plight, refused to stand by and brought his plans to join them to rapid fruition. When Vulkan arrived he did not do so alone, for he brought with him 3,000 new Initiates -- the first of the XVIII Legion to be raised from the new Legion homeworld of Nocturne -- along with a host of new warships, war machines and arms, all fabricated to the Primarch's own exacting specifications. They fell upon the Ork marauders like a thunderbolt, and shattered the largest of the Space Hulks orbiting Antaem, Vulkan leading his warriors within, purging the vast conglomeration of wreckage and rock with fire and planting Seismic Charges at its heart to destroy it. Spurred on by this unexpected aid, the rest of the XVIII hurled themselves in renewed fury at the Orks besieging them, slaughtering and scattering the greenskinned xenos before them, heedless of their depleted munitions and manpower, leaving nothing for a reserve should they fail. Caught between this hammer and anvil of savagery that over-matched their own, the Ork horde was broken and put to flight, and the survivors were relentlessly pursued and consumed by fire. In the aftermath, the two halves of the XVIII Legion met and were unified upon Antaem's dead coral plains. As their saviours removed their helms and the Terran Legionaries looked upon the faces of their brothers and he that was their gene-father, they could not help but know that they were one and their Primarch had come to claim them. The survivors of the Terran XVIII knelt immediately, it is said, before their Primarch, but Vulkan bid them rise, saying that all his sons were equals and he was no petty king needing shows of obedience. Instead, it was he who knelt in honour of the lives they had saved and the price they had paid. Then, seeking out the mortally-wounded Lord Commander Vaughn, he conferred the formal transfer of the Legion's mastery by presenting the fallen warrior with the broken Power Klaw of the Ork Warlord who had struck him down to seal the pact between him and his Legion -- they would fight for him, but he would fight for them in turn. Such was the honour and esteem in which Vulkan held this warrior, who had commanded his sons with unflinching honour and self-sacrifice, he undertook to fashion for him the Dracos Revenant, a unique Dreadnought sarcophagus of unsurpassed sophistication and resilience. One of a number of unique wonders wrought by Vulkan, it was forged of a nigh-impenetrable and unknown alloy, a relic it was said from deep beneath Old Earth that none but Vulkan was able to master and shape to his will. But as the years went on, though the Dreadnought who had been Cassian Dracos' will to fight was undimmed, his mind grew increasingly unclear and dislocated outside of the battlefield, and he was allowed to remain in slumber for longer periods, awoken only in the direst of need and to participate in the gravest of conflicts. During the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V, Cassian Dracos fought with unmatched fury, first spearheading the attack against the enemy then, as the second wave showed their true colours, standing fast though all around him were slaughtered. Dracos rampaged through the Traitor lines, reliving his first death as the XVIII Legion once again faced oblivion. Eventually, even his thick Dreadnought armour was burned through and pierced in a dozen places by a blizzard of heavy weapons fire, but he fought on, crashing into the encircling foe and leaving a trail of devastation in his wake. Leaving a trail of dead behind him, Dracos was only stopped by an orbital lance strike that glassed an entire battlefield. Horus and his generals left Istvaan V certain that the old warlord's life had been ended along with his Primarch and Legion.
|
