Quick Access to Freelancer - The Void

It was an overcast day on Ptolemy, the land ahead of Captain Knoll's force was pock marked with craters of all sizes. An occasional hill reached skyward upon the wasteland ahead of the patrol force; the hills blasted time and again, perhaps targetted countless times simply because they were not flat ground and thus deemed worthy of shelling. The hills had been shredded to the bone, all dirt long since blasted off the rock core of the once lushly forested hills.

"Such change since the Chaos fleet emerged from the deep of space and beseiged planet Ptolemy" thought Captain Knoll. "No matter, we shall fight them until they are no more" Captain Knoll resolved.

It had been a bumpy ride in the back of the force's Chimerae as the tracks rumbled down the crater pocked road that had led them out to their current position. Reports had been passed down of a splinter Chaos force that had been harrassing Europa supply trains and the forces that had so far been dispatched to track them down and annihilate them; today was the end of that all to well known waiting period that separated the times of horrible and violent battle that made up a warrior's life.

Old Ironsides, the company's Leman Russ Demolisher came to a halt beside the company command Chimera in which Captain Knoll and his staff was riding in. Popping the hatch, Lieutenant Ernst appeared out of the turret of the Demolisher and regarded his commander who was surveying the scenery from out of the top hatch of his command Chimera.

"Sir, Auspex is picking up readings at maximum distance, I'm having a hard time distinguishing the size of the contact, but I'd bet my lucky silver beltbuckle that them's the boys we're sent out here to take care of" Lieutenant Ernst spoke.

Nodding slowly to the overweight tank commander, Captain Knoll returned "Lieutenant Stephens, our sanctioned psyker, senses the presence of Chaos emanating from the warp close by, so I dont think you'd lose your lucky beltbuckle today if we made that bet. Lets get ready to take this scum down..today we've got a suprise for these bandits."

motioning to the Land Raider Crusader, Predator Annihilator, and a fearsome pair of fire support dreadnoughts flanking the Black Templar Column, Captain Knoll signed that contact had been made with the enemy and it was time to deploy.

Keeping silent the communication between the guard contingent and the Black Templars marine force had been Captain Knoll's ploy to suprise the Chaos marines who he hoped were still unaware of the Loyalist Space Marine presence.