Operation poopypants

“Sir!” “...” “Your Omnipotence!”

“...”

“Lord Primarch!”

Navigator subofficer Trusk was trying to wake up his primarch who was sitting in main bridge in his tactical command throne. Even sound asleep the primarch was an imposing figure in his gigantic dark purple full body armor, long pitch black hair and pale skin. At both sides of the sleeping lord commander stood silently Legio Penetratus astartes in terminator armour like ancient statues in guard.

Tusk added some volume to his requests, but clearly was not sure if he actually wanted to wake the sleeping behemoth up.

“Krhm.. SIR, PLEASE WAKE UP, WE HAVE ARRIVED!”

Hurumhab woke up gasping air and quickly looked around to orientate himself to his surroundings.

“Gasp, krlbgh, mmhh.. Yes, yes, what is it?”

“Sir, we have arrived from warp to eastern fringe. Our starmaps indicate that nearest habitation is a Dark Angel supply depot within 1283.8 parsecs. What is your command lord?”

Hurumhab narrowed his eyes and leaned forward to look at the dark glass map of the surrounding real space. Supply depot.. the fleet could surely use supplies before engaging tyranids or the loyalist main force. Boltgun shell situation was dire. Also, the more demonic passengers of the fleet were hard on slave population even with rationing. It would be just a matter of a time until they were forced to feed cultists to their horned allies.

“What is the force calculus of the defenders?”

“Unclear sir, the maps and intel are from age before the rebellion, estimated force strength ranges from anywhere between one scout squad to 2-3 warhound class titans.”

Primarch leaned back in his throne and looked at the ceiling. There was really no viable options in his force for a scouting mission. Whatever strengths his force possessed, subtlety and stealth not amongst them.

It would be regrettable to commit a raiding force to the planet just for titan’s target practise.

Suddenly his face cleared.

“Dark Angels you said?”

“Yes, sir. Dark Angels”

“Get me and astropath and wire it to a vox!”

After 2 minutes the doors opened, and a communications officer dragged a withered astropath clad in grey rags from its hair in front of the primarch. The wretched thing looked more like a spectre than a living being, its skin nearly translucent, its mouth open with drool dripping to the steel floor of the command bridge.

Comms officer attached a vox caster microphone to a connector at the back of the astropaths head and handed the device to the primarch.

Primarch looked at the astropath and said: “Get me my brother on the line. Get me Lion El'Jonson!”

Astropath’s bulging eyes turned around and small wailing escaped it’s scarred lips as it started the long distance call to Caliban.

Soon the vox caster crackeled and a booming godlike voice filled the deck:

“El'Jonson residence, Lion speaking, Glory to the Emperor!”

Hurumhab cleared his throat and lowered his voice by and octave.

“Lion, it is I, your father, the emperor of mankind!”

There was a long silence at the other end, then:

“Father? Is this true?”

“Krhm. Yes, it is me, the god emperor, bringer of light and ruler of all men! I have healed from the terrible wounds that bastard Horus inflicted on me.”

“But.. can this be? Is it really you lord emperor, I can’t believe it!”

“I told you so, didn’t I. I’m fine now, gotta use a crutch for a while and peeing hurts, but otherwise I’m fine. What about you, what have you been up to?”

“I.. I.. I have been conquering the galaxy for your honor and cleansing the taint of chaos. I have been carrying your word and your flame as my chapter has been..”

“Yes, yes, excellent. Listen, there is a reason I called. Do you still have that supply depot in planet..”

Hurumhab quickly looked at the navigator and waved with his hand. The navigator looked at his dataslate and formed the word “Gaylord 7” with his lips.

“..in planet Gaylord 7?”

“Yes? But..”

“Fantastic, what kind of force you have there to guard it?”

Again, a silence before Lion answered.

“Force power ratio is 1750 I believe, but father, what has this to do with..”

“Hush, listen, I have a really important mission to you Lion.”

“Yes..?”

“Call them now, and tell them to put all their weapons into a pile, their armour into another pile, walk 500 meters away, pour promethium on themselves, and set themselves on fire.”

“...”

“Hello, did you hear me?”

The voice at the other end sounded panicky, almost like in tears.

“But why, oh why would you like to treat my geneseed so harshly, what have we done to deserve such a reprimand?!”

Hurumhab knew that he just should nail this thing, and not milk the situation more. But, on the other hand, why shouldn’t he enjoy the himself. Not like his mood could not use a bit of lifting.

“Lion, I can’t believe that you turn against me, your own father. If it was Leman whom I asked this from, the planet’s atmosphere would smell burned wolf hair already. I was going to name this mission “Righteous purifying flames of truth”, but because of your disloyal attitude, I will call it the “Mission poopypants”, yes, go execute mission poopypants you heretic!”

Up until now, the whole bridge crew had been holding their laughter back as well as they could. But with the declaration of mission poopypants, ensign Moffet at the 7th targeting computer could not control himself anymore. He had just taken a mouthful of tanna, and was trying very hard to keep it in. This was noticed by ensign Kreidl at 6th targeting computer, who started making funny faces to his shipmate to push him over the edge. So, ensign Moffet bust into a frantic laughter and sprayed the dark tanna to a servitor in front of him. This incident acted as a catalyst to the whole bridge crew, and everyone started rolling on the floor laughing like madmen.

Hurumhab knew that the situation was lost, but had still to bite his lip to keep himself from giggling.

“What? What is happening? Is thi.. Is this a jest? Who is this?”

“Well who do you think you moron!”

“Wait.. is that you Hurumhab? You cursed chaos worshipping corrupted filth, burn in righteous flames! I should have known!”

“Well, yea, anyone with even half a fucking brain should have known, but you didn’t did you?”

“I will rain down on your impure legion with my Dark Angels and bring end to you and your seed, the venegeance through purifying...”

Hurumhab flicked the voxcaster to mute with his thumb. He started to lose interest. He flicked the vox back on, but Lion kept on raving non stop about blasphemy, chaos and vengeance, so he looked to the terminator at his right.

“Cut the transmission”

Immediately the terminator raised his reaper autocannon and unleashed a single shell to the torso of the kneeling astropath. Shriveled human disappeared into a puff of blood and rags with a terrible boom.

The primarch shielded his face from the blood splatters with his elbow and looked the terminator slowly.

“Autocannon, really? You thought to use autocannon to kill a fucking stickperson?”

Terminator lowered his head and shrugged ashamed.

Primarch shook his head and looked at the navigator.

“Set course to Gaylord 7, full speed. My brother is giving a small contribution to our cause”