Piscina IV

Piscina IV is an Imperial mining planet and was the site of a Dark Angels stronghold.

Piscina IV is a world controlled by the Imperium but in constant battle with the Orks. Each time the Orks seem to be defeated, the Imperial Guard regiments stationed on the world come under fire from a new place under siege. The Orks tend to shore up in old abandoned mine heads and dig themselves in until they attain sufficient numbers to overwhelm the Guard troops that are sent to cleanse the area.

Piscina IV was also the site of a great battle during the Third War for Armageddon, where the site of Koth Ridge became an intense bloodbath between the Orks and many Dark Angels companies. Interrogator-Chaplain Boreas was one of the key players in this battle¹, as was Veteran Sergeant Naaman. The Orks had set up a tellyporta system to bring more of their troops in from off-world, under the direction of the Warlords Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka and Nazdreg Ug Urdgrub. Naaman was one of the Dark Angels whose lives were lost, but he and his Scout Company held off the Ork advance long enough for the Deathwing to arrive and disable the energy relays and destroy the tellyportas.

Piscina IV's stronghold for the Dark Angels is visited more and more infrequently by the Tower of Angels in recent years, only coming once a generation or so to take aspirants gathered from the barbaric world of Piscina V for further testing and modification.

The Dark Angels squad stationed on the planet included:

Interrogator-Chaplain Boreas, leader of the Dark Angels presence on the world

Techmarine Hephaestus, in charge of equipment repair and the annihilus virus weapon under the keep

Apothecary Nestor, keeper of the well-being of his squad and guardian of the gene-seed kept on the world

Battle-brothers Thumiel and Zaul

Veteran Sergeant Damas, who trained the aspirants gathered off-world until their departure on the Tower of Angels

All the members of this squad met their deaths inside their own keep due to an intricate plot by the Fallen Angels led by Cypher designed to steal the gene-seed kept in the Apothecarium vault. The keep's virus weapon failsafe had been activated, and was going to destroy all life on the planet. Boreas realized that the only way that they could keep the planet's population safe was to not break the air-tight seals of the keep's doors, therefore containing the virus inside until its eventual end. Nestor, having been charged with keeping the gene-seed safe, sought to leave and was killed by Boreas, using Hephaestus' plasma pistol. The rest of the Space Marines decided that ending their lives before the hunger or thirst of waiting to die pushed them to leave was the better idea, and detonated meltabombs clasped against their chest as they prayed to their Primarch, Lion El'Jonson.

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Sources

¹Angels of Darkness (Novel), by Gav Thorpe