Vilamus was a world in the Ultima Segmentum upon which the otherwise fleet-based Marines Errant Chapter established a fortress to protect its priceless gene-seed repository and Chapter relics.
As a crusading Chapter, the Marines Errant were very cognizant of the fact that they could easily be wiped out with no way to recover more gene-seed when their dispersed fleets were apart from each other for standard years and sometimes solar decades. As such, they established this well-defended fortress to ensure that there was always a supply of gene-seed from which the Chapter could be reconstituted.
Unfortunately, in 999.M41, the fortress fell to a concerted attack by the Heretic Astartes of the Night Lords and Red Corsairs, who successfully stole the repository.
History[]
Fall of Vilamus[]
During its existence, the Marines Errant Chapter has never established a formal fortress-monastery nor has it designated a specific Chapter homeworld. Instead, the Chapter has known little rest as its members travel the entirety of the Imperium, and often far beyond its boundaries, to constantly expand the boundaries of the Emperor's realm. While this limits some of the fellowship between Space Marines assigned to different companies of the Chapter, the additional tactical flexibility has served them well in fulfilling their designated role.
The Marines Errant lack the resources or need to maintain a traditional homeworld. Instead, their battle barge serves as their primary location for command operations and Chapter coordination. This mobile fortress-monastery grants the Chapter a greater level of flexibility for those instances when it becomes necessary to assemble multiple companies prior to embarking upon a crusade.
There are, however, a few limitations that the Marines Errant Chapter has needed to address over the course of their existence. The most vital of these is finding a secure storage location for their gene-seed. Even a mighty battle barge may be lost or destroyed during the course of a crusade. These vessels also suffer from exposure to the Warp and potential Chaos contamination at a much greater level than a more stable planetary body.
Because of this, the Chapter designated the world of Vilamus in the Ultima Segmentum as its gene-seed repository. The fortress the Chapter maintains on Vilamus bears massive Void Shields, anti-air Defence Lasers, and a small garrison for defence. The world was also chosen as its location is believed to be relatively stable from Warp incursions. During those occasions when a company of the Marines Errant must rebuild its strength due to an extended crusade or substantial losses, it is usually added to the garrison on Vilamus, so that it can add another layer to the world's defences.
But in 999.M41 disaster struck, as the infamous Chaos Lord Huron Blackheart led his Renegade warband, the Red Corsairs, in alliance with a large Night Lords Legion warband commanded by the mighty Chaos Champion called The Exalted, in assaulting Vilamus in order to capture the Marines Errant Chapter's gene-seed repository.
Over the course of two standard years, the Red Corsairs performed increasingly daring raids on shipping in the sector where Vilamus was located, drawing more and more Marines Errant out on patrol and counter-piracy missions. Soon enough, this left the garrison of the fortress reduced to only 120 Space Marines and a large number of Chapter serfs.
Scenes from the Fall of Vilamus depicting the infamous Chaos Lord Huron Blackheart and his Red Corsairs.
The Renegades' intentions were to use the captured Loyalist Astartes gene-seed to replenish their own ranks with new Chaos Space Marines, as their own gene-seed had long been corrupted by mutations which made it unusable as a result of constant exposure to the energies of the Warp. The Marines Errant's fortress on Vilamus was targeted due to its relatively small garrison size. Luring the bulk of the Chapter's garrison away from the planet, the Night Lordss formed the vanguard of the raid. They were dropped onto the world during a cosmic storm to mask their approach, and infiltrated the defences of Vilamus via poorly defended ventilation shafts.
Once inside the fortress-monastery, they disabled the generatorium, shutting down power to the Void Shields and the defence lasers and other automated defences. With the lasers deactivated and Void Shields down, Huron Blackheart and the Red Corsairs' warships, consisting of cruisers and attack craft, were able to enter low orbit of Vilamus. From there, Huron's Chaos Terminators were able to teleport directly onto Vilamus, wreaking untold havoc. Their main target was the power relays that still pumped energy into the defence bastions. These were still a problem for the invaders, as they operated on a separate power grid, seeing as the lasers were intended to defend against ground assaults. Once the power was cut, the Chaos Terminators diverted their assault to the fortress' Apothecarion, where the Marines Errant's gene-seed vault was located.
With Vilamus' automated defences deprived of power, and the small Loyalist garrison fighting off the enemy Chaos Terminators, Huron Blackheart himself struck the coup-de-grace. He led an attack on the fortress' main chapel, which held many of the Chapter's most prized artefacts. The Marines Errant were torn between defending their gene-seed, which was essential to their survival as a Chapter, or the relics. Thus, the garrison allowed itself to be divided by Blackheart's diversionary assault, and were subsequently slaughtered.
This attack led to the loss of nearly all of the Marines Errant's stockpile of precious genetic material. The loss of virtually all of the Chapter's gene-seed reserves represents an enormous catastrophe that may doom the Marines Errant to a gradual descent towards extinction, unless the gene-seed can somehow be recovered.
Sources[]
- Blood Reaver (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
- Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (5th Edition), pp. 146-147
- Imperial Armour Volume Two - Second Edition: War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes, pp. 8-9, 162