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From Ashes We Rise: An Alternate Warhammer 40,000 Unification and Great Crusade RP
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2 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Interest Checks
Erosion
Gugann
The vox clicked to life in a wave of static, a constant hiss of white noise rising with each passing moment the vox remained alive. The sound abated with a click as whoever had been transmitting finished their transmission and relief washed over the vox channel as only silence followed.
“Vox is acting up.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Quiet both of you, eyes and ears up, we are not the hunters tonight.”
A pair of flashing runes blinked to life across the Serpent’s helm overlay, a pair of non-audible affirmatives from the bickering legionnaires as they fell quiet.
The soft crunch of stone beneath the ceramite boots of ten legionnaires was the only sound accompanying the squad of Serpent’s as they swept down the tunnel. Night-sight overlays aided their enhanced eyes as beams of light from weapons and armor pierced the murky gloom for any sign of the enemy.
A deeper darkness loomed into the tunnel as the squad found themselves entering a cavern of indeterminate size.
Like the well drilled machine they were the squad of Serpents fanned out into the hollow, a circle forming even as two of its members fell into the center of their squad mates.
A device was unhooked from one of the Serpent’s powerpacks and the duo got to work connecting snaking wires and ribbed hydraulic lines to the device.
Watching the progress on a small overlay on her helms visor Sergeant Mocel blink clicked a runic warning to those working the device, a pair of serpents eating one anothers tails in a spiral.
The device clanked as the two Serpent’s hefted it into the air and with no ceremony spiked it into the cavern floor. The device creaked for a moment, the machine whine of an internal turbine filling the restive silence and the cylindrical machine righted itself on four extending legs and began to pound a flat hammer into the earth with pneumatic hammer blows.
The overlay of her squad working was blinked away in favor of a new overlay, a slowly expanding map of the cavern they were in and the tunnels that snaked beyond it.
The machine worked well, sounding a map out with each hammer stroke, and Mocel allowed herself a small sense of relief as they neared the end of this mission.
The vox crackled to life once more, a static hiss like the death of a star filling the helmets of her entire squad with ear splitting noise before it cut out as quickly as it had come.
A warning rune flickered in her helm from one of her squad, then another, followed in quick succession by four more. Each the same, a four legged animal, similar to the jet black jagara of Hy Brasil, bounding forward.
Movement.
They were felt first, in the way that her helms autosensors struggled to focus and adjust. Then in the thrum of her powerpack as wires corroded and electricity was siphoned off as random heat.
The mission timer counted down in her visor, 27:13, 27:12, 27:11. It would not be fast enough.
A servo whined in protest as one of her own, Xocotl, attempted to reposition to cover a tunnel to her right. The sound was a sweet carrion call to the things that lurked beyond the shadows of the hollow and at once they descended on Mocel and her squad.
Like apparitions of myth, like the tormented souls of Ixhun that haunted the forests beyond the great city-walls, the Hrud appeared. They came forth from every crevice imaginable, from behind every rock and, as Mocel swore on the Fifth Sun, from within the shadows themselves.
Face to face with a slithering blurred beast of chitinous armor and spoils of mucus that had just a moment earlier not existed at all, Mocel opened fire point blank. The harsh report of her bolter set the rest of her squad alive and the hollow alight with the staccato blaze of weapons fire.
The creature before them burst into messy chunks, covering Mocel in its remains as she continued to fire away at the enemy beyond.
She moved her bolter over the xenos with drilled precision and disciplined bursts. Not a single bolt was wasted as each found their mark even as she let loose another at a new target. She slammed a new magazine home and keyed the squad vox.
Static assailed her.
She dropped the connection and blinked clicked a new rune, the closing gates of an Ixhun city state.
Withdraw to safety.
She took a step, servos and fine motors in her armor whining as she did. She could hear her squad moving around her, the tortured screams of delicate mechanisms aging at supernatural speeds echoing just beneath the din of bolter fire.
Weezing permeated the room as the Primarch of the XVII, newly arrived over Gugann, stood over Sergeant Mocel. Mocel looked up at her scion, her features impossibly aged for a warrior of the Astartes as she rasped out breath after pained breath.
“You are one of few yes?” her Scion asked her as she circled her like a predator would wounded prey.
Mocel steeled her features as best she could, pulling her drooping lips tight before she spoke, “Lord, I and two others of my squad exited the caves.”
Her scion continued around her, poking and prodding at her skin as she did, “The rest fell before you could make for safety, I have read that report, I ask of your condition, of your being as you are,” her Primarch motioned toward her body, toward her aged features, her skin pulled taut over her degraded muscles, to her incessant cough.
“Sixteen total, Lord,” answered Chief Apothecary Peña from where she stood against the wall, “Sixteen of your daughters are reduced to nothing more than feeble old women--”
“We still wish to fight,” Mocel interjected before she began a coughing fit worse than any since her Primarch had entered the room.
Nelchitl stopped her prodding and came to rest in front of Mocel, her eyes, those umber pits looking down upon her daughter with pity as she spoke, “You can fight no longer, Sergeant,” she shook her head, “Though I hate to say it, to condemn you to such a fate as the end of your service in His name… I can not allow you to remain in a combat status.”
Mocel swallowed hard, an action that in itself caused great discomfort to her aged countenance, but mercifully managed to keep the reaction from her dismal features.
“Lord, you can’t d---”
“I can do as I please, I should not have to remind you, Sergeant,” her Primarch spoke quickly as she cut off her daughter, “But I understand, the hurt you must feel,” Mocel found sadness then in the eyes of her scion, a deep hurt like no other she had ever known and in that moment she too ached as she never had before.
“I will have you and the others returned with me to Ixhun, I am always in need of veteran daughters to raise the next of us. With any luck, you will be useful to the His purpose yet, Sergeant.”
Gugann
The vox clicked to life in a wave of static, a constant hiss of white noise rising with each passing moment the vox remained alive. The sound abated with a click as whoever had been transmitting finished their transmission and relief washed over the vox channel as only silence followed.
“Vox is acting up.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Quiet both of you, eyes and ears up, we are not the hunters tonight.”
A pair of flashing runes blinked to life across the Serpent’s helm overlay, a pair of non-audible affirmatives from the bickering legionnaires as they fell quiet.
The soft crunch of stone beneath the ceramite boots of ten legionnaires was the only sound accompanying the squad of Serpent’s as they swept down the tunnel. Night-sight overlays aided their enhanced eyes as beams of light from weapons and armor pierced the murky gloom for any sign of the enemy.
A deeper darkness loomed into the tunnel as the squad found themselves entering a cavern of indeterminate size.
Like the well drilled machine they were the squad of Serpents fanned out into the hollow, a circle forming even as two of its members fell into the center of their squad mates.
A device was unhooked from one of the Serpent’s powerpacks and the duo got to work connecting snaking wires and ribbed hydraulic lines to the device.
Watching the progress on a small overlay on her helms visor Sergeant Mocel blink clicked a runic warning to those working the device, a pair of serpents eating one anothers tails in a spiral.
The device clanked as the two Serpent’s hefted it into the air and with no ceremony spiked it into the cavern floor. The device creaked for a moment, the machine whine of an internal turbine filling the restive silence and the cylindrical machine righted itself on four extending legs and began to pound a flat hammer into the earth with pneumatic hammer blows.
The overlay of her squad working was blinked away in favor of a new overlay, a slowly expanding map of the cavern they were in and the tunnels that snaked beyond it.
The machine worked well, sounding a map out with each hammer stroke, and Mocel allowed herself a small sense of relief as they neared the end of this mission.
The vox crackled to life once more, a static hiss like the death of a star filling the helmets of her entire squad with ear splitting noise before it cut out as quickly as it had come.
A warning rune flickered in her helm from one of her squad, then another, followed in quick succession by four more. Each the same, a four legged animal, similar to the jet black jagara of Hy Brasil, bounding forward.
Movement.
They were felt first, in the way that her helms autosensors struggled to focus and adjust. Then in the thrum of her powerpack as wires corroded and electricity was siphoned off as random heat.
The mission timer counted down in her visor, 27:13, 27:12, 27:11. It would not be fast enough.
A servo whined in protest as one of her own, Xocotl, attempted to reposition to cover a tunnel to her right. The sound was a sweet carrion call to the things that lurked beyond the shadows of the hollow and at once they descended on Mocel and her squad.
Like apparitions of myth, like the tormented souls of Ixhun that haunted the forests beyond the great city-walls, the Hrud appeared. They came forth from every crevice imaginable, from behind every rock and, as Mocel swore on the Fifth Sun, from within the shadows themselves.
Face to face with a slithering blurred beast of chitinous armor and spoils of mucus that had just a moment earlier not existed at all, Mocel opened fire point blank. The harsh report of her bolter set the rest of her squad alive and the hollow alight with the staccato blaze of weapons fire.
The creature before them burst into messy chunks, covering Mocel in its remains as she continued to fire away at the enemy beyond.
She moved her bolter over the xenos with drilled precision and disciplined bursts. Not a single bolt was wasted as each found their mark even as she let loose another at a new target. She slammed a new magazine home and keyed the squad vox.
Static assailed her.
She dropped the connection and blinked clicked a new rune, the closing gates of an Ixhun city state.
Withdraw to safety.
She took a step, servos and fine motors in her armor whining as she did. She could hear her squad moving around her, the tortured screams of delicate mechanisms aging at supernatural speeds echoing just beneath the din of bolter fire.
Weezing permeated the room as the Primarch of the XVII, newly arrived over Gugann, stood over Sergeant Mocel. Mocel looked up at her scion, her features impossibly aged for a warrior of the Astartes as she rasped out breath after pained breath.
“You are one of few yes?” her Scion asked her as she circled her like a predator would wounded prey.
Mocel steeled her features as best she could, pulling her drooping lips tight before she spoke, “Lord, I and two others of my squad exited the caves.”
Her scion continued around her, poking and prodding at her skin as she did, “The rest fell before you could make for safety, I have read that report, I ask of your condition, of your being as you are,” her Primarch motioned toward her body, toward her aged features, her skin pulled taut over her degraded muscles, to her incessant cough.
“Sixteen total, Lord,” answered Chief Apothecary Peña from where she stood against the wall, “Sixteen of your daughters are reduced to nothing more than feeble old women--”
“We still wish to fight,” Mocel interjected before she began a coughing fit worse than any since her Primarch had entered the room.
Nelchitl stopped her prodding and came to rest in front of Mocel, her eyes, those umber pits looking down upon her daughter with pity as she spoke, “You can fight no longer, Sergeant,” she shook her head, “Though I hate to say it, to condemn you to such a fate as the end of your service in His name… I can not allow you to remain in a combat status.”
Mocel swallowed hard, an action that in itself caused great discomfort to her aged countenance, but mercifully managed to keep the reaction from her dismal features.
“Lord, you can’t d---”
“I can do as I please, I should not have to remind you, Sergeant,” her Primarch spoke quickly as she cut off her daughter, “But I understand, the hurt you must feel,” Mocel found sadness then in the eyes of her scion, a deep hurt like no other she had ever known and in that moment she too ached as she never had before.
“I will have you and the others returned with me to Ixhun, I am always in need of veteran daughters to raise the next of us. With any luck, you will be useful to the His purpose yet, Sergeant.”
Telescopes and Targeting Sights
Veii, Capital Planet of the Republic of San Vesta
Antevestoran System
Outstanding. Simply incredible. Elias fussed over the fine dials of his telescope as he brought into focus this fireworks display the likes of which he had never laid eyes upon in his entire life. He shifted where he stood as he watched the most beautiful blossoms of red and orange bloom to life with regularity. He felt his breath catch in his throat as the odd blues and golds punctuated the display taking place above the largest city of the Republic’s moon, Salernum, and strained to follow the tiny streaks of orange and gold crisscrossing the show as the fireworks streaked to their beautiful conclusions.
“Tessa! Tessa come here! You’ve got to see this… It’s… We’ll I can’t describe it, just bring Sebastian too!” Elias called out as he continued to soak in the awe-inspiring presentation taking place silently above Veii.
He heard the rushed footsteps of his siblings first, followed by the soft voice of his younger brother Sebastian as Tessa dragged him from his slumber for one of his older brother's strange interests once again. He smiled to himself as Tessa insisted that whatever it was, Sebastian would enjoy it just like every other time she dragged him out of bed on Elias’ behalf and stepped back from the telescope as he smiled at them both.
With a finger pointed toward the moon he ushered Sebastian to the eyepiece of the telescope, “Look look, Aquileia must be celebrating! They elected a new governor recently so maybe it’s for that…” his younger brother shrugged at the thought of something so boring as politics as he lowered his face to the telescope, “Maybe,” Elias said again, all too aware that Sebastian was only a ten-year-old, and things like elections held no sway or importance in his mind. He shifted his focus to Tessa as Sebastian began to make interested “Oohs” and “Ahs” from where he leaned into the eyepiece as he watched the spectacle.
Tessa’s gaze was up toward the moon, her lips were drawn about her face in a tight frown, and, for a moment, Elias felt he could see her face in far better detail than he should have been able to at night. He watched all around him as stark shadows stretched across their backyard, an eerie blue light seeming to sprout from nothing as he witnessed daylight return to Veii nine hours early.
His mind struggled to comprehend what was happening, though only a fraction of a second after it began the light receded and darkness returned to the night once more. His ruminations on the matter were cut short as Sebastian began to ask why the telescope had gone dark.
Elias turned from Tessa, her stare still held firmly to the moon above them in silence, and moved his brother from the telescope and peered through the lens. He stared in disbelief at the massive cloud that had taken the place of Salernum’s capital city, unsure of what had happened he pulled himself away from the telescope with a shaky smile.
“Maybe they made one of the fireworks with a bit too much bang,” he joked as he turned to Sebastian and noticed with horrifying clarity the vacant look in the boy's eyes as if his brother was simply seeing straight through him.
“Sebastian?” he asked as he turned to Tessa for help, only to notice his sister too, staring vacantly into nothing as tears streamed down her cheeks, “Tessa?” he asked as his sister turned in the direction of his voice.
This had to have been some bad going-away joke, some last-second "Scare the LT shitless before he rotates out.” sort of extravagant prank. Buzzing him into work to join his Company in the field on his last week on Salernum was just straight cruel. His field fatigues were packed away and awaiting shipment up to the orbital stations for his move back to Veii, and he didn’t have nearly enough snacks or dip stuffed into his pockets to last him a full weekend in the field with his tankers.
Yet here he was, standing on the side of some godforsaken backroad on the outskirts of Aquileia waiting for the inevitable text message “Haha, got you good Sir!” or “Joking joking, go back to the bars!” or any other number of lighthearted messages that would send him angrily packing back to the blonde he’d been chatting up Downtown just thirty minutes before.
Instead of a text message, he turned to the rumbling of tank tracks and several dozen sets of headlights turning onto the road, the feeling of a joke all but disappearing from his mind as he became very suddenly sober.
A number of Goliath tanks rolled by followed by a couple of the Companies Ample armored command vehicles before his own tank, 2-1, or more affectionately named by her crew Cruel Intentions came to a rolling stop in front of him. He scrambled up the side of the tank, hooking an arm around the main gun and hoisting himself up onto the turret before he slipped himself into the open tank commander hatch. With practiced ease, he got himself situated and slipped on the crew helmet as he keyed into the tank's onboard communications system.
“Nice of you to join us, Sir,” Lance Corporal Leon, the Cruel Intentions’ gunner chimed in with a smile as he sized up his Lieutenant’s choice of outfit, “Gray stripes, a bold choice,” he laughed as Lance Corporal Timon, his Loader, joined in with a laugh.
“Gray stripes?” came the voice of Private Flavian, Cruel Intentions driver, from his separated section at the front of the tank, obviously looking for some sort of explanation of what was being talked about in the turret since he couldn’t see for himself.
“Yeah yeah very funny,” Lieutenant Julienne Stavros agreed as he settled himself into his seat, “so what is this all about? Couldn’t survive a weekend of training without me?”
“Think you ought to get up on the net and talk to 6, Sir.”
Stavros obliged, flipping a few switches and keying his mic as he spoke, “2 Actual checking in, can I get some sort of a reason I’m here and not drinking Downtown, Over?”
There was a short lapse of silence before Lieutenant Colonel Calliene came over the radio, “2 Actual, 6. Nice of you to join us, standby to copy brief.”
Stavros recoiled at the derision in his Commander's voice and obliged as she began to talk.
“HADES is on Salernum, it’s a small contingent, first we’ve seen of em here. A training flight spotted them by accident as they were cutting across the Valestides Plains and flew back fast as they could to let Command know. Best Intelligence can give us is a Company minus, some twelve Taurons and around a hundred Canceron and Picon chassis each.”
Stavros shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he listened to his Company Commanders' brief while the Cruel Intentions rolled on behind the column of armor.
“Entire Battalion is out to stop these Shinies before they break the Plains and make for Aquileia. Alpha and Charlie Companies will take our flanks, while we in good old Bravo will make up the center that these assholes break themselves on. Command was even nice enough to send out some engineers and dig us fighting positions while we mustered back at the motor pool. Maintain radio silence from this point forward until we engage. Stick to standard procedure and we’ll come out on top, easily. Good hunting, 6 out.”
The radio fell silent and Stavros sagged into his seat as the implications of HADES’ presence on Salernum set into his mind.
“Can’t be that bad right? Couple hundred Shinies against us? They’ll be smashed to scrap in no time,” Leon quipped as he nervously checked and rechecked his sights calibrations.
“We’ll either kick them back to Halcyon or we won’t have to worry about anything for what could be the short remainder of the rest of our lives, that’s for certain,” Stavros stated as he sat back up in his seat and began to check the Cruel Intentions systems.
“Great,” Leon replied with forced enthusiasm to his tank commander's pessimism.
“Contact, two seven zero, HADES chassis!” Leon called out as Stavros slid down into his seat from his place outside the hatch and pushed his face into the commander's sight. He found himself looking at some twenty HADES chassis coming over a small rise in the field before his company's position.
He licked his lips as he traversed the gun from his position, laying in the sights on the chassis at the center of the formation of drones. It was a Tauron chassis, a massive thing, nearly a story and a half tall and propelled on four clambering legs. It sported four guns to the Cruel Intentions one and seemed to sweep the land in front of it with four vicious red eyes. He watched in fascination as it loped along the plain with almost animal-like movements and waited as it neared its doom.
“GUNNER, SABOT, TAURON IN VIEW!” he yelled without keying his mic as he released control of the turret back to Leon.
“IDENTIFIED,” came Leon’s response as the turret smoothly continued tracking the quadrupedal machine.
“UP!” Timon yelled as he cleared himself away from the cannon and slapped the safety off with a gloved hand.
There was a brief period where Stavros felt as though the drones before him had certainly passed into the kill-zone, that they were being allowed to needlessly close on his tank and his platoon's positions. He itched to let Leon free, to let the Cruel Intentions fulfill her purpose in life, but he held his tongue.
A moment later the radio creaked to life in his ears.
“6 all elements. Weapons free.”
“FIRE!”
“ON THE WAAAAAY!”
The Cruel Intentions cannon barked with fury as it fired and Stavros watched as the Tauron in view lurched over and came to a grinding halt belching flame out of the newly created hole in its front.
“TARGET, CEASE FIRE!” Stavros yelled as he propped himself up in his open hatch and surveyed the two other tanks in his platoon, 2-2 and 2-3, both of which had fired at nearly the same time 2-1 had. He brought his binoculars to his face and surveyed the killing field, a smile growing across his lips as he counted six burning Taurons, twice as many Cancerons in similar states, and a number of Picons being chewed apart by the gauss cannons of the battalions Ample’s.
First blood for the good guys, he thought as he breathed a sigh of relief and the tension in his shoulders released just a little.
“Good shooting, keep scanning,” he stated proudly to his crew as he took up his radio to check on 2-2 and 2-3. He was about to key the mic when someone else came over the battalion net.
“Incoming!”
The world around Stavros diffused into a mirage of flashing lights and heat as the invaders answered for the deaths of their own.[/hr]
Cruel Intentions chewed its way down a residential road in reverse, the jolt of vehicles being flattened beneath her treads and pushed aside like toy cars only an afterthought in Stavros’ mind as he scanned the dead zones between the houses as they flashed by in time with Cruel Intentions main gun.
“All 2 elements, reform Vanix Square at best speed, Battalion is forming a new defensive line.”
He listened as the other two tanks under his command responded and turned himself back to the digital map on the screen to his front. He felt his stomach churning as he updated to the newest positions of friend and foe.
Alpha Company was no longer even counted amongst the friendly units, and Charlie Company was fairing only slightly better, having been reduced to just a single platoon and a few lone Ample’s running amok in the next neighborhood over. Bravo Company had had it the easiest, by far, he realized as he noticed only two tanks lost to his company's name.
It was a miracle, considering what they’d held against. Sixteen regiments had come at them after the artillery barrage. Seventeen hundred Taurons, and far too many Cancerons to count, not to mention the withering rocket and missile barrage from the Virgon chassis that followed a few minutes after. That the entire battalion hadn’t been completely wiped from the face of Salernum was an act of God as far as Stavros was concerned. Unfortunately, God could only do so much for a single tanker and his crew, and so the Battalion had fought for two and a half hours as rear forces rushed to set a new defensive line. Or at least that had been the plan.
He cursed to himself that this had been allowed to happen as the tank came to a grinding halt on the far side of Vanix Square. He took stock of his surroundings with only the tanks of his own platoon coming to rest on either side of him.
“No one’s fuckin here!” Leon called as he raised himself out of his own hatch and surveyed the empty square. The lights were still on, a number of carnival rides stood idle as their lights flashed happily for someone to come and ride them, and somewhere Stavros couldn’t quite see beyond the rides something was on fire deeper in the square.
He turned to the direction they’d just come in and took in the sight in the distance. The orange glow of fires lit the horizon, punctuated by the acrid black smoke of burning vehicles and structures. The view was interlaced with staccato tracer fire and the flash of near-constant explosions. Had he now known any better, he may have considered himself lucky to be witness to such an awe-inspiring sight.
Instead, he pushed himself back down into his seat and took up the radio, “6, 2 Actual, in place at Vanix, over.”
The radio hissed to life in his ear, the return muddled and choppy as the jamming of the HADES drones attempted to cut communications entirely.
“2 Actual, this is 5, 6 is gone. The Company is scattered, attempting to reform at Vanix with haste. Hold, Out,” the radio crackled off and Stavros simply stared for a while at nothing in particular.
“Where’s the rest of the damn regiment! Those dumb fuckin infantry? Where the fuck is everyone?!” Leon exclaimed to the world outside the tank before Timon pulled him back inside.
“They’re not coming,” Stavros stated as a fact, “The entire city is under siege, everyone is fighting, we’re not getting any help here,” he said as he pushed the screen in front of him around for his gunner and loader to see. Their eyes went wide as the realization set in, only for Timon to push the screen away with a forced smile.
“As long as everyone else is just as fucked as we are, I’m good,” he smirked.
“Same here,” Leon at his side agreed, followed by a simple “yeah” from Flavian upfront.
“As long as we’re all in agreement then,” Stavros stated as he sat up in his seat and keyed his mic to organize his tanks into fighting order.
The drones came in at a trickle at first, a Tauron here, a handful of Picons there. A few Virgons that had seemingly lost their escorts even rounded a two-story residential right in the sights of 2-3 at some point, and the resulting detonations had completely leveled half a block of homes.
And though some friendly units managed to slip into the Square, it hadn’t been enough to mount any real concerted defense of the suburbs.
2-2 had been the first hit, a clean volley from a single Tauron tore through the turret and atomized everything within in the ensuing ammunition explosion, 2-3 had returned the gesture in kind a couple of seconds later, leaving the Tauron a burning wreck some 600 meters distant.
Next had been a pair of Ample’s that had taken up positions behind the paltry selection of tanks. They were picked open by a streaking volley of missiles from Virgons somewhere out behind the homes on the other side of the square. Their turrets and roofs came open as if someone had taken a can opener to them, revealing only an inferno within. Stavros didn’t count any crew bailing out, and had turned his attention back to the opposite side of the square as the whining sound of mechanical walkers began to overtake the drone of his own tanks engine.
Sixteen minutes. They had held Vanix Square for sixteen minutes.
Stavros slammed his fist into the side of the turret as he was jostled about where he sat. “2-3, Actual, make for Vanix Elementary. Salernum is lost, over,” he radioed to his only other remaining tank with a scowl.
“3 copies,” came the dejected response from Sergeant Trier, commander of 2-3.
Salernum was lost. He read the priority message again, disbelief fighting with the cold reality he had come to know all too well in the fighting of the last four hours, and felt rage and anguish all at once.
The Western and Southern approaches to Aquileia had held well enough, but the Eastern and Northern defenses had crumbled against a near-endless onslaught of drones. And when Command had finally had the thought to order a redeployment of parts of the Western and Southern defensive lines it was already too late to make a difference as the forces of HADES filtered into the tight confines of the city's suburbs and outer sprawl.
The choice to evacuate, to abandon all of Salernum, had come quickly. Mercifully, even.
There’d been enough time to organize civilians to freighters and transports, and what little resistance that Stavros and his boys put up had easily led to thousands saved. But it hadn’t been enough. Leon had reported civilian cars on thermals several times on the opposite side of Vanix Square, out on the other side of Vestan control, out amongst those quadruped horrors. They’d even tried a few times to signal cars as they screamed by with flashlights, but no one ever noticed or cared enough to stop for the terrifying tanks of their own army attempting to save them.
By all accounts, nearly 60% of Aquileia’s population was already bound for Veii aboard ships, but that still left some three million within the city limits, not to mention those in the smaller cities and towns spread across the moon.
Yet here they were, tearing up residential roads in an all-out sprint to an evacuation site that was dangerously close to the advancing drones.
Cruel Intentions led the way into the remnants of a grade school playground, pockmarked by artillery fire and a number of burning Taurons as Stavros and his small contingent of survivors raced for the maw of a waiting heavy freighter across the Racket Field. Stavros pulled himself up out of the tank hatch and was immediately assaulted by the heat of the spacecraft's exhaust and the roar of its engines.
He could make out vague outlines of people in the cockpit far above his head, and as he rolled in under the freighter he caught the terrified gaze of a crew member as he waved them forward into the cargo bay.
“All elements load in, make it fit, don’t care how don’t care where,” Stavros radioed to the small convoy of vehicles he had scraped together in the past hour. With a lurch, Flavian gunned the Cruel Intentions up the ramp and into the dimly lit cargo bay with a little too much power.
The tank roared forward and over a number of small shipping crates before coming to an inglorious halt against the far-side wall. Behind them, the rest of the surviving vehicles followed in a similar fashion.
Thirty more minutes they spent in Aquileia, in that dying city. As the freighter's crew, his ragtag group of tankers, and a chewed up platoon of infantry they’d picked up along the way chained down the vehicles and took on more survivors. But once the work was done the freighter crew insisted they had to leave.
Stavros had fought this notion at first, arguing that the longer they stayed the more people would come. But as time went on, and fewer and fewer survivors came clambering up the ramp, Stavros finally gave in.
He’d watched the death of Aquileia. From behind the shielded windows of the freighter’s bridge in orbit above Salernum. He’d watched as a small star sprang to life. At one moment there was a city and the next a boiling inferno. He watched as the light faded and the mushroom cloud grew. And then he could watch no longer as the freighter fell out of view of the cloud and the catastrophe it represented.
Veii, Capital Planet of the Republic of San Vesta
Antevestoran System
Outstanding. Simply incredible. Elias fussed over the fine dials of his telescope as he brought into focus this fireworks display the likes of which he had never laid eyes upon in his entire life. He shifted where he stood as he watched the most beautiful blossoms of red and orange bloom to life with regularity. He felt his breath catch in his throat as the odd blues and golds punctuated the display taking place above the largest city of the Republic’s moon, Salernum, and strained to follow the tiny streaks of orange and gold crisscrossing the show as the fireworks streaked to their beautiful conclusions.
“Tessa! Tessa come here! You’ve got to see this… It’s… We’ll I can’t describe it, just bring Sebastian too!” Elias called out as he continued to soak in the awe-inspiring presentation taking place silently above Veii.
He heard the rushed footsteps of his siblings first, followed by the soft voice of his younger brother Sebastian as Tessa dragged him from his slumber for one of his older brother's strange interests once again. He smiled to himself as Tessa insisted that whatever it was, Sebastian would enjoy it just like every other time she dragged him out of bed on Elias’ behalf and stepped back from the telescope as he smiled at them both.
With a finger pointed toward the moon he ushered Sebastian to the eyepiece of the telescope, “Look look, Aquileia must be celebrating! They elected a new governor recently so maybe it’s for that…” his younger brother shrugged at the thought of something so boring as politics as he lowered his face to the telescope, “Maybe,” Elias said again, all too aware that Sebastian was only a ten-year-old, and things like elections held no sway or importance in his mind. He shifted his focus to Tessa as Sebastian began to make interested “Oohs” and “Ahs” from where he leaned into the eyepiece as he watched the spectacle.
Tessa’s gaze was up toward the moon, her lips were drawn about her face in a tight frown, and, for a moment, Elias felt he could see her face in far better detail than he should have been able to at night. He watched all around him as stark shadows stretched across their backyard, an eerie blue light seeming to sprout from nothing as he witnessed daylight return to Veii nine hours early.
His mind struggled to comprehend what was happening, though only a fraction of a second after it began the light receded and darkness returned to the night once more. His ruminations on the matter were cut short as Sebastian began to ask why the telescope had gone dark.
Elias turned from Tessa, her stare still held firmly to the moon above them in silence, and moved his brother from the telescope and peered through the lens. He stared in disbelief at the massive cloud that had taken the place of Salernum’s capital city, unsure of what had happened he pulled himself away from the telescope with a shaky smile.
“Maybe they made one of the fireworks with a bit too much bang,” he joked as he turned to Sebastian and noticed with horrifying clarity the vacant look in the boy's eyes as if his brother was simply seeing straight through him.
“Sebastian?” he asked as he turned to Tessa for help, only to notice his sister too, staring vacantly into nothing as tears streamed down her cheeks, “Tessa?” he asked as his sister turned in the direction of his voice.
This had to have been some bad going-away joke, some last-second "Scare the LT shitless before he rotates out.” sort of extravagant prank. Buzzing him into work to join his Company in the field on his last week on Salernum was just straight cruel. His field fatigues were packed away and awaiting shipment up to the orbital stations for his move back to Veii, and he didn’t have nearly enough snacks or dip stuffed into his pockets to last him a full weekend in the field with his tankers.
Yet here he was, standing on the side of some godforsaken backroad on the outskirts of Aquileia waiting for the inevitable text message “Haha, got you good Sir!” or “Joking joking, go back to the bars!” or any other number of lighthearted messages that would send him angrily packing back to the blonde he’d been chatting up Downtown just thirty minutes before.
Instead of a text message, he turned to the rumbling of tank tracks and several dozen sets of headlights turning onto the road, the feeling of a joke all but disappearing from his mind as he became very suddenly sober.
A number of Goliath tanks rolled by followed by a couple of the Companies Ample armored command vehicles before his own tank, 2-1, or more affectionately named by her crew Cruel Intentions came to a rolling stop in front of him. He scrambled up the side of the tank, hooking an arm around the main gun and hoisting himself up onto the turret before he slipped himself into the open tank commander hatch. With practiced ease, he got himself situated and slipped on the crew helmet as he keyed into the tank's onboard communications system.
“Nice of you to join us, Sir,” Lance Corporal Leon, the Cruel Intentions’ gunner chimed in with a smile as he sized up his Lieutenant’s choice of outfit, “Gray stripes, a bold choice,” he laughed as Lance Corporal Timon, his Loader, joined in with a laugh.
“Gray stripes?” came the voice of Private Flavian, Cruel Intentions driver, from his separated section at the front of the tank, obviously looking for some sort of explanation of what was being talked about in the turret since he couldn’t see for himself.
“Yeah yeah very funny,” Lieutenant Julienne Stavros agreed as he settled himself into his seat, “so what is this all about? Couldn’t survive a weekend of training without me?”
“Think you ought to get up on the net and talk to 6, Sir.”
Stavros obliged, flipping a few switches and keying his mic as he spoke, “2 Actual checking in, can I get some sort of a reason I’m here and not drinking Downtown, Over?”
There was a short lapse of silence before Lieutenant Colonel Calliene came over the radio, “2 Actual, 6. Nice of you to join us, standby to copy brief.”
Stavros recoiled at the derision in his Commander's voice and obliged as she began to talk.
“HADES is on Salernum, it’s a small contingent, first we’ve seen of em here. A training flight spotted them by accident as they were cutting across the Valestides Plains and flew back fast as they could to let Command know. Best Intelligence can give us is a Company minus, some twelve Taurons and around a hundred Canceron and Picon chassis each.”
Stavros shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he listened to his Company Commanders' brief while the Cruel Intentions rolled on behind the column of armor.
“Entire Battalion is out to stop these Shinies before they break the Plains and make for Aquileia. Alpha and Charlie Companies will take our flanks, while we in good old Bravo will make up the center that these assholes break themselves on. Command was even nice enough to send out some engineers and dig us fighting positions while we mustered back at the motor pool. Maintain radio silence from this point forward until we engage. Stick to standard procedure and we’ll come out on top, easily. Good hunting, 6 out.”
The radio fell silent and Stavros sagged into his seat as the implications of HADES’ presence on Salernum set into his mind.
“Can’t be that bad right? Couple hundred Shinies against us? They’ll be smashed to scrap in no time,” Leon quipped as he nervously checked and rechecked his sights calibrations.
“We’ll either kick them back to Halcyon or we won’t have to worry about anything for what could be the short remainder of the rest of our lives, that’s for certain,” Stavros stated as he sat back up in his seat and began to check the Cruel Intentions systems.
“Great,” Leon replied with forced enthusiasm to his tank commander's pessimism.
“Contact, two seven zero, HADES chassis!” Leon called out as Stavros slid down into his seat from his place outside the hatch and pushed his face into the commander's sight. He found himself looking at some twenty HADES chassis coming over a small rise in the field before his company's position.
He licked his lips as he traversed the gun from his position, laying in the sights on the chassis at the center of the formation of drones. It was a Tauron chassis, a massive thing, nearly a story and a half tall and propelled on four clambering legs. It sported four guns to the Cruel Intentions one and seemed to sweep the land in front of it with four vicious red eyes. He watched in fascination as it loped along the plain with almost animal-like movements and waited as it neared its doom.
“GUNNER, SABOT, TAURON IN VIEW!” he yelled without keying his mic as he released control of the turret back to Leon.
“IDENTIFIED,” came Leon’s response as the turret smoothly continued tracking the quadrupedal machine.
“UP!” Timon yelled as he cleared himself away from the cannon and slapped the safety off with a gloved hand.
There was a brief period where Stavros felt as though the drones before him had certainly passed into the kill-zone, that they were being allowed to needlessly close on his tank and his platoon's positions. He itched to let Leon free, to let the Cruel Intentions fulfill her purpose in life, but he held his tongue.
A moment later the radio creaked to life in his ears.
“6 all elements. Weapons free.”
“FIRE!”
“ON THE WAAAAAY!”
The Cruel Intentions cannon barked with fury as it fired and Stavros watched as the Tauron in view lurched over and came to a grinding halt belching flame out of the newly created hole in its front.
“TARGET, CEASE FIRE!” Stavros yelled as he propped himself up in his open hatch and surveyed the two other tanks in his platoon, 2-2 and 2-3, both of which had fired at nearly the same time 2-1 had. He brought his binoculars to his face and surveyed the killing field, a smile growing across his lips as he counted six burning Taurons, twice as many Cancerons in similar states, and a number of Picons being chewed apart by the gauss cannons of the battalions Ample’s.
First blood for the good guys, he thought as he breathed a sigh of relief and the tension in his shoulders released just a little.
“Good shooting, keep scanning,” he stated proudly to his crew as he took up his radio to check on 2-2 and 2-3. He was about to key the mic when someone else came over the battalion net.
“Incoming!”
The world around Stavros diffused into a mirage of flashing lights and heat as the invaders answered for the deaths of their own.[/hr]
Cruel Intentions chewed its way down a residential road in reverse, the jolt of vehicles being flattened beneath her treads and pushed aside like toy cars only an afterthought in Stavros’ mind as he scanned the dead zones between the houses as they flashed by in time with Cruel Intentions main gun.
“All 2 elements, reform Vanix Square at best speed, Battalion is forming a new defensive line.”
He listened as the other two tanks under his command responded and turned himself back to the digital map on the screen to his front. He felt his stomach churning as he updated to the newest positions of friend and foe.
Alpha Company was no longer even counted amongst the friendly units, and Charlie Company was fairing only slightly better, having been reduced to just a single platoon and a few lone Ample’s running amok in the next neighborhood over. Bravo Company had had it the easiest, by far, he realized as he noticed only two tanks lost to his company's name.
It was a miracle, considering what they’d held against. Sixteen regiments had come at them after the artillery barrage. Seventeen hundred Taurons, and far too many Cancerons to count, not to mention the withering rocket and missile barrage from the Virgon chassis that followed a few minutes after. That the entire battalion hadn’t been completely wiped from the face of Salernum was an act of God as far as Stavros was concerned. Unfortunately, God could only do so much for a single tanker and his crew, and so the Battalion had fought for two and a half hours as rear forces rushed to set a new defensive line. Or at least that had been the plan.
He cursed to himself that this had been allowed to happen as the tank came to a grinding halt on the far side of Vanix Square. He took stock of his surroundings with only the tanks of his own platoon coming to rest on either side of him.
“No one’s fuckin here!” Leon called as he raised himself out of his own hatch and surveyed the empty square. The lights were still on, a number of carnival rides stood idle as their lights flashed happily for someone to come and ride them, and somewhere Stavros couldn’t quite see beyond the rides something was on fire deeper in the square.
He turned to the direction they’d just come in and took in the sight in the distance. The orange glow of fires lit the horizon, punctuated by the acrid black smoke of burning vehicles and structures. The view was interlaced with staccato tracer fire and the flash of near-constant explosions. Had he now known any better, he may have considered himself lucky to be witness to such an awe-inspiring sight.
Instead, he pushed himself back down into his seat and took up the radio, “6, 2 Actual, in place at Vanix, over.”
The radio hissed to life in his ear, the return muddled and choppy as the jamming of the HADES drones attempted to cut communications entirely.
“2 Actual, this is 5, 6 is gone. The Company is scattered, attempting to reform at Vanix with haste. Hold, Out,” the radio crackled off and Stavros simply stared for a while at nothing in particular.
“Where’s the rest of the damn regiment! Those dumb fuckin infantry? Where the fuck is everyone?!” Leon exclaimed to the world outside the tank before Timon pulled him back inside.
“They’re not coming,” Stavros stated as a fact, “The entire city is under siege, everyone is fighting, we’re not getting any help here,” he said as he pushed the screen in front of him around for his gunner and loader to see. Their eyes went wide as the realization set in, only for Timon to push the screen away with a forced smile.
“As long as everyone else is just as fucked as we are, I’m good,” he smirked.
“Same here,” Leon at his side agreed, followed by a simple “yeah” from Flavian upfront.
“As long as we’re all in agreement then,” Stavros stated as he sat up in his seat and keyed his mic to organize his tanks into fighting order.
The drones came in at a trickle at first, a Tauron here, a handful of Picons there. A few Virgons that had seemingly lost their escorts even rounded a two-story residential right in the sights of 2-3 at some point, and the resulting detonations had completely leveled half a block of homes.
And though some friendly units managed to slip into the Square, it hadn’t been enough to mount any real concerted defense of the suburbs.
2-2 had been the first hit, a clean volley from a single Tauron tore through the turret and atomized everything within in the ensuing ammunition explosion, 2-3 had returned the gesture in kind a couple of seconds later, leaving the Tauron a burning wreck some 600 meters distant.
Next had been a pair of Ample’s that had taken up positions behind the paltry selection of tanks. They were picked open by a streaking volley of missiles from Virgons somewhere out behind the homes on the other side of the square. Their turrets and roofs came open as if someone had taken a can opener to them, revealing only an inferno within. Stavros didn’t count any crew bailing out, and had turned his attention back to the opposite side of the square as the whining sound of mechanical walkers began to overtake the drone of his own tanks engine.
Sixteen minutes. They had held Vanix Square for sixteen minutes.
Stavros slammed his fist into the side of the turret as he was jostled about where he sat. “2-3, Actual, make for Vanix Elementary. Salernum is lost, over,” he radioed to his only other remaining tank with a scowl.
“3 copies,” came the dejected response from Sergeant Trier, commander of 2-3.
Salernum was lost. He read the priority message again, disbelief fighting with the cold reality he had come to know all too well in the fighting of the last four hours, and felt rage and anguish all at once.
The Western and Southern approaches to Aquileia had held well enough, but the Eastern and Northern defenses had crumbled against a near-endless onslaught of drones. And when Command had finally had the thought to order a redeployment of parts of the Western and Southern defensive lines it was already too late to make a difference as the forces of HADES filtered into the tight confines of the city's suburbs and outer sprawl.
The choice to evacuate, to abandon all of Salernum, had come quickly. Mercifully, even.
There’d been enough time to organize civilians to freighters and transports, and what little resistance that Stavros and his boys put up had easily led to thousands saved. But it hadn’t been enough. Leon had reported civilian cars on thermals several times on the opposite side of Vanix Square, out on the other side of Vestan control, out amongst those quadruped horrors. They’d even tried a few times to signal cars as they screamed by with flashlights, but no one ever noticed or cared enough to stop for the terrifying tanks of their own army attempting to save them.
By all accounts, nearly 60% of Aquileia’s population was already bound for Veii aboard ships, but that still left some three million within the city limits, not to mention those in the smaller cities and towns spread across the moon.
Yet here they were, tearing up residential roads in an all-out sprint to an evacuation site that was dangerously close to the advancing drones.
Cruel Intentions led the way into the remnants of a grade school playground, pockmarked by artillery fire and a number of burning Taurons as Stavros and his small contingent of survivors raced for the maw of a waiting heavy freighter across the Racket Field. Stavros pulled himself up out of the tank hatch and was immediately assaulted by the heat of the spacecraft's exhaust and the roar of its engines.
He could make out vague outlines of people in the cockpit far above his head, and as he rolled in under the freighter he caught the terrified gaze of a crew member as he waved them forward into the cargo bay.
“All elements load in, make it fit, don’t care how don’t care where,” Stavros radioed to the small convoy of vehicles he had scraped together in the past hour. With a lurch, Flavian gunned the Cruel Intentions up the ramp and into the dimly lit cargo bay with a little too much power.
The tank roared forward and over a number of small shipping crates before coming to an inglorious halt against the far-side wall. Behind them, the rest of the surviving vehicles followed in a similar fashion.
Thirty more minutes they spent in Aquileia, in that dying city. As the freighter's crew, his ragtag group of tankers, and a chewed up platoon of infantry they’d picked up along the way chained down the vehicles and took on more survivors. But once the work was done the freighter crew insisted they had to leave.
Stavros had fought this notion at first, arguing that the longer they stayed the more people would come. But as time went on, and fewer and fewer survivors came clambering up the ramp, Stavros finally gave in.
He’d watched the death of Aquileia. From behind the shielded windows of the freighter’s bridge in orbit above Salernum. He’d watched as a small star sprang to life. At one moment there was a city and the next a boiling inferno. He watched as the light faded and the mushroom cloud grew. And then he could watch no longer as the freighter fell out of view of the cloud and the catastrophe it represented.
For your viewing (dis)pleasure.
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Telescopes and Targeting Sights
Veii, Capital Planet of the Republic of San Vesta
Antevestoran System
Outstanding. Simply incredible. Elias fussed over the fine dials of his telescope as he brought into focus a fireworks display the likes of which he had never laid eyes on in his entire life. He shifted where he stood as he watched the most beautiful blossoms of red and orange bloom to life with regularity. He felt his breath catch in his throat as the odd blues and golds punctuated the display taking place above the largest city of the Republic’s moon, Salernum, and strained to follow the tiny streaks of orange and gold crisscrossing the show as the fireworks streaked to their beautiful conclusions.
“Tessa! Tessa come here! You’ve got to see this… It’s… We’ll I can’t describe it, just bring Sebastian too!” Elias called out as he continued to soak in the awe-inspiring presentation taking place silently above Veii.
He heard the rushed footsteps of his siblings first, followed by the soft voice of his younger brother Sebastian as Tessa dragged him from his slumber for one of his older brother's strange interests once again. He smiled to himself as Tessa insisted that whatever it was, Sebastian would enjoy it just like every other time she dragged him out of bed on Elias’ behalf and stepped back from the telescope as he smiled at them both.
With a finger pointed toward the moon he ushered Sebastian to the eyepiece of the telescope, “Look look, Aquileia must be celebrating! They elected a new governor recently so maybe it’s for that…” his younger brother shrugged at the thought of something so boring as politics as he lowered his face to the telescope, “Maybe.” Elias said again, all too aware that Sebastian was only a ten-year-old, and things like elections held no sway or importance in his mind. He shifted his focus to Tessa as Sebastian began to make interested “Oohs” and “Ahs” from where he leaned into the eyepiece as he watched the spectacle.
Tessa’s gaze was up toward the moon, her lips were drawn about her face in a tight frown, and, for a moment, Elias felt he could see her face in far better detail than he should have been able to at night. He watched all around him as stark shadows stretched across their backyard, an eerie blue light seeming to sprout from nothing as he witnessed daylight return to Veii nine hours early.
His mind struggled to comprehend what was happening, though only a fraction of a second after it began the light receded and darkness returned to the night once more. His ruminations on the matter were cut short as Sebastian began to ask why the telescope had gone dark.
Elias turned from Tessa, her stare still held firmly to the moon above them in silence, and moved his brother from the telescope and peered through the lens. He stared in disbelief at the massive cloud that had taken the place of Salernum’s capital city, unsure of what had happened he pulled himself away from the telescope with a shaky smile.
“Maybe they made one of the fireworks with a bit too much bang.” he joked as he turned to Sebastian and noticed with horrifying clarity the vacant look in the boy's eyes as if his brother was simply seeing straight through him.
“Sebastian?” he asked as he turned to Tessa for help, only to notice his sister too, staring vacantly into nothing as tears streamed down her cheeks, “Tessa?” he asked as his sister turned in the direction of his voice.
Salernum, First Moon of the planet Veii
Republic of San Vesta
Antevestoran System
This had to have been some bad going-away joke, some last-second "Scare the LT shitless before he rotates out.” sort of extravagant prank. Buzzing him into work to join his Company in the field on his last week on Salernum was just straight cruel. His field fatigues were packed away and awaiting shipment up to the orbital stations for his move back to Veii, and he didn’t have nearly enough snacks or dip stuffed into his pockets to last him a full weekend in the field with his tankers.
Yet here he was, standing on the side of some godforsaken backroad on the outskirts of Aquileia waiting for the inevitable text message “Haha, got you good Sir!” or “Joking joking, go back to the bars!” or any other number of lighthearted messages that would send him angrily packing back to the blonde he’d been chatting up Downtown just thirty minutes before.
Instead of a text message, he turned to the rumbling of tank tracks and several dozen sets of headlights turning onto the road, the feeling of a joke all but disappearing from his mind as he became very suddenly sober.
A number of “Goliath” tanks rolled by followed by a couple of the Companies “Ample” armored command vehicles before his own tank, 2-1, or more affectionately named by her crew “Cruel Intentions” came to a rolling stop in front of him. He scrambled up the side of the tank, hooking an arm around the main gun and hoisting himself up onto the turret before he slipped himself into the open tank commander hatch. With practiced ease, he got himself situated and slipped on the crew helmet as he keyed into the tanks onboard communications system.
“Nice of you to join us, Sir.” Lance Corporal Leon, the Cruel Intentions gunner chimed in with a smile as he sized up his Lieutenant’s choice of outfit, “Gray stripes, a bold choice.” he laughed as Lance Corporal Timon, his Loader, joined in with a laugh.
“Gray stripes?” came the voice of Private Flavian, Cruel Intentions driver, from his separated section at the front of the tank, obviously looking for some sort of explanation of what was being talked about in the turret since he couldn’t see for himself.
“Yeah yeah very funny,” Lieutenant Julienne Stavros agreed as he settled himself into his seat, “so what is this all about? Couldn’t survive a weekend of training without me?”
“Think you ought to get up on the net and talk to 6-6, Sir.”
Stavros obliged, flipping a few switches and keying his mic as he spoke, “2-1 Actual checking in, can I get some sort of a reason I’m here and not drinking Downtown, Over?”
There was a short lapse of silence before Lieutenant Colonel Calliene came over the radio, “2-1, 6-6. Nice of you to join us, standby to copy brief.”
Stavros recoiled at the derision in his Commanders voice and obliged as she began to talk.
“HADES is on Salernum, it’s a small contingent, first we’ve seen of em here. A training flight spotted them by accident as they were cutting across the Valestides Plains and flew back fast as they could to let Command know. Best Intelligence can give us is a Company minus, some twelve Taurons and around a hundred Canceron and Picon chassis each.”
Stavros shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he listened to his Company Commanders' brief while the Cruel Intentions rolled on behind the column of armor.
“Entire Battalion is out to stop these Shinies before they break the Plains and make for Aquileia. Alpha and Charlie Companies will take our flanks, while we in good old Bravo will make up the center that these assholes break themselves on. Command was even nice enough to send out some engineers and dig us fighting positions while we mustered back at the motorpool. Maintain radio silence from this point forward until we engage. Stick to standard procedure and we’ll come out on top, easily. Good hunting, 6-6 out.”
The radio fell silent and Stavros sagged into his seat as the implications of HADES’ presence on Salernum set into his mind.
“Can’t be that bad right? Couple hundred Shinies against us? They’ll be smashed to scrap in no time.” Leon quipped as he nervously checked and rechecked his sights calibrations.
“We’ll either kick them back to Halcyon or we won’t have to worry about anything for what could be the short remainder of the rest of our lives, that’s for certain,” Stavros stated as he sat back up in his seat and began to check the Cruel Intentions systems.
“Great.” Leon replied with forced enthusiasm to his tank commander's pessimism.
“Contact, two hundred and seventy degrees, HADES chassis!” Leon called out as Stavros slid down into his seat from his place outside the hatch and pushed his face into the commander's sight. He found himself looking at some twenty HADES chassis coming over a small rise in the field before his companies position.
He licked his lips as he traversed the gun from his position, laying in the sights on the chassis at the center of the formation of drones. It was a Tauron chassis, a massive thing, nearly a story and a half tall and propelled on four clambering legs. It sported four guns to the Cruel Intentions one and seemed to sweep the land in front of it with four vicious red eyes. He watched in fascination as it loped along the plain with almost animal-like movements and waited as it neared its doom.
“GUNNER, SABOT, TAURON IN VIEW!” he yelled without keying his mic as he released control of the turret back to Leon.
“IDENTIFIED.” came Leon’s response as the turret smoothly continued tracking the quadrupedal machine.
“UP!” Timon yelled as he cleared himself away from the cannon and slapped the safety off with a gloved hand.
There was a brief period where Stavros felt as though the drones before him had certainly passed into the killzone, that they were being allowed to needlessly close on his tank and his platoon's positions. He itched to let Leon free, to let the Cruel Intentions fulfill her purpose in life, but he held his tongue.
A moment later the radio creaked to life in his ears.
“6-6 all elements. Weapons free.”
“FIRE!”
“ON THE WAAAAAY!”
The Cruel Intentions cannon barked with fury as it fired and Stavros watched as the Tauron in view lurched over and came to a grinding halt belching flame out of the newly created hole in its front.
“TARGET CEASE FIRE!” Stavros yelled as he propped himself up in his open hatch and surveyed the two other tanks in his platoon, 2-2 and 2-3, both of which had fired at nearly the same time 2-1 had. He brought his binoculars to his face and surveyed the killing field a smile growing across his lips as counted six burning Taurons, twice as many Cancerons in similar states, and a number of Picons being chewed apart by the gauss cannons of the battalions Ample’s.
First blood for the good guys, he thought as he breathed a sigh of relief and the tension in his shoulders released just a little.
“Good shooting, keep scanning,” he stated proudly to his crew as he took up his radio to check on 2-2 and 2-3. He was about to key the mic when someone else came over the battalion net.
“Incoming!”
The world around Stavros diffused into a mirage of flashing lights and heat as the invaders answered for the deaths of their own.[/hr]
Cruel Intentions chewed its way down a residential road in reverse, the jolt of vehicles being flattened beneath her treads and pushed aside like toy cars only an afterthought in Stavros’ mind as he scanned the deadzones between the houses as they flashed by in time with Cruel Intentions main gun.
“All 2 elements, reform Vanix Square at best speed, Battalion is forming a new defensive line.”
He listened as the other two tanks under his command responded and turned himself back to the digital map on the screen to his front. He felt his stomach churning as he updated to the newest positions of friend and foe.
Alpha Company was no longer even counted amongst the friendly units, and Charlie Company was fairing only slightly better, having been reduced to just a single platoon and few lone Ample’s running amok in the next neighborhood over. Bravo Company had had it the easiest, by far, he realized as he noticed only two tanks lost to his companies name.
It was a miracle, considering what they’d held against. Sixteen regiments had come at them after the artillery barrage. Seventeen hundred Taurons, and far too many Cancerons to count, not to mention the withering rocket and missile barrage from the Virgon chassis that followed a few minutes after. That the entire battalion hadn’t been completely wiped from the face of Salernum was an act of God as far as Stavros was concerned. Unfortunately, God could only do so much for a single tanker and his crew, and so the Battalion had fought for two and a half hours as rear forces rushed to set a new defensive line. Or at least that had been the plan.
He cursed to himself that this had been allowed to happen as the tank came to a grinding halt on the far side of Vanix Square. He took stock of his surroundings with only the tanks of his own platoon coming to rest on either side of him.
“No one’s fuckin here!” Leon called as he raised himself out of his own hatch and surveyed the empty square. The lights were still on, a number of carnival rides stood idle as their lights flashed happily for someone to come and ride them, and somewhere Stavros couldn’t quite see beyond the rides something was on fire deeper in the square.
He turned to the direction they’d just come in and took in the sight in the distance. The orange glow of fires lit the horizon, punctuated by the acrid black smoke of burning vehicles and structures. The view was interlaced with staccato tracer fire and the flash of explosions near constantly. Had he now known any better, he may have considered himself lucky to be witness to such an awe-inspiring sight.
Instead, he pushed himself back down into his seat and took up the radio, “6-6, 2 Actual, in place at Vanix, over.”
The radio hissed to life in his ear, the return muddled and choppy as the jamming of the HADES drones attempted to cut communications entirely.
“2 Actual, this is 5-5, 6-6 is gone. The Company is scattered, attempting to reform at Vanix with haste. Hold, Out.” the radio crackled off and Stavros simply stared for a while at nothing in particular.
“Where’s the rest of the damn regiment! Those dumb fuckin infantry? Where the fuck is everyone?!” Leon exclaimed to the world outside the tank before Timon pulled him back inside.
“They’re not coming.” Stavros stated as a fact, “The entire city is under siege, everyone is fighting, we’re not getting any help here.” he said as he pushed the screen in front of him around for his gunner and loader to see. Their eyes went wide as the realization set in, only for Timon to push the screen away with a forced smile.
“As long as everyone else is just as fucked as we are, I’m good,” he smirked.
“Same here.” Leon at his side agreed, followed by a simple “yeah” from Flavian upfront.
“As long as we’re all in agreement then.” Stavros stated as he sat up in his seat and keyed his mic to organize his tanks into fighting order.
The drones came in at a trickle at first, a Tauron here, a handful of Picons there. A few Virgons that had seemingly lost their escorts even rounded a two-story residential right in the sights of 2-3 at some point, and the resulting detonations had completely leveled half a block of homes.
And though some friendly units managed to slip into the Square, it hadn’t been enough to mount any real concerted defense of the suburbs.
2-2 had been the first hit, a clean volley from a single Tauron tore through the turret and atomized everything within in the ensuing ammunition explosion, 2-3 had returned the gesture in kind a couple of seconds later, leaving the Tauron a burning wreck some 600 meters distant.
Next had been a pair of Ample’s that had taken up positions behind the paltry selection of tanks. They were picked open by a streaking volley of missiles from Virgons somewhere out behind the homes on the other side of the square. Their turrets and roofs came open as if someone had taken a can opener to them, revealing only an inferno within. Stavros didn’t count any crew bailing out, and had turned his attention back to the opposite side of the square as the whining sound of mechanical walkers began to overtake the drone of his own tanks engine.
Sixteen minutes. They had held Vanix Square for sixteen minutes.
Stavros slammed his fist into the side of the turret as he was jostled about where he sat. “2-3, Actual, make for Vanix Elementary. Salernum is lost, over.” he radioed to his only other remaining tank with a scowl.
“3, copies.” came the dejected response from Sergeant Trier, commander of 2-3.
Salernum was lost. He read the priority message again, disbelief fighting with the cold reality he had come to know all too well in the fighting of the last four hours, and felt rage and anguish all at once.
The Western and Southern approaches to Aquileia had held well enough, but the Eastern and Northern defenses had crumbled against a near-endless onslaught of drones. And when Command had finally had the thought to order a redeployment of parts of the Western and Southern defensive lines it was already too to make a difference as the forces of HADES filtered into the tight confines of the cities suburbs and outer sprawl.
The choice to evacuate, to abandon all of Salernum, had come quickly. Mercifully, even.
There’d been enough time to organize civilians to freighters and transports, and what little resistance that Stavros and his boys put up had led to thousands saved. But it hadn’t been enough. Leon had reported civilian cars on thermals several times on the opposite side of Vanix Square, out on the other side of Vestan control, out amongst those quadruped horrors. They’d even tried a few times to signal cars as they screamed by with flashlights, but no one ever noticed or cared enough to stop for the terrifying tanks of their own army attempting to save them.
By all accounts, nearly 60% of Aquileia’s population was already bound for Veii aboard ships, but that still left some three million within the city limits, not to mention those in the smaller cities and towns spread across the moon.
Yet here they were, tearing up residential roads in an all-out sprint to an evacuation site that was dangerously close to the advancing drones.
Cruel Intentions led the way into the remnants of a grade school playground, pockmarked by artillery fire and a number of burning Taurons as Stavros and his small contingent of survivors raced for the maw of a waiting heavy freighter across the Racket Field. Stavros pulled himself up out of the tank hatch and was immediately assaulted by the heat of the spacecraft's exhaust and the roar of its engines.
He could make out vague outlines of people in the cockpit far above his head, and as he rolled in under the freighter he caught the terrified gaze of a crew member as he waved them forward into the cargo bay.
“All elements load in, make it fit, don’t care how don’t care where.” Stavros radioed to the small convoy of vehicles he had scraped together in the past hour. With a lurch, Flavian gunned the Cruel Intentions up the ramp and into the dimly lit cargo bay with a little too much power.
The tank roared forward and over a number of small shipping crates before coming to an inglorious halt against the far-side wall. Behind them, the rest of the surviving vehicles followed in a similar fashion.
Thirty more minutes they spent in Aquileia, in that dying city. As the freighter's crew, his ragtag group of tankers, and a chewed up platoon of infantry they’d picked up along the way chained down the vehicles and took on more survivors. But once the work was done the freighter crew insisted they had to leave.
Stavros had fought this notion at first, arguing that the longer they stayed the more people would come. But as time went on, and fewer and fewer survivors came clambering up the ramp, Stavros finally gave in.
He’d watched the death of Aquileia. From behind the shielded windows of the freighter’s bridge in orbit above Salernum he’d watched as a small star sprang to life. At one moment there was a city, and the next a boiling inferno. He watched as the light faded and the mushroom cloud grew. And then he could watch no longer as the freighter fell out of view of the cloud and the catastrophe it represented.
Veii, Capital Planet of the Republic of San Vesta
Antevestoran System
Outstanding. Simply incredible. Elias fussed over the fine dials of his telescope as he brought into focus a fireworks display the likes of which he had never laid eyes on in his entire life. He shifted where he stood as he watched the most beautiful blossoms of red and orange bloom to life with regularity. He felt his breath catch in his throat as the odd blues and golds punctuated the display taking place above the largest city of the Republic’s moon, Salernum, and strained to follow the tiny streaks of orange and gold crisscrossing the show as the fireworks streaked to their beautiful conclusions.
“Tessa! Tessa come here! You’ve got to see this… It’s… We’ll I can’t describe it, just bring Sebastian too!” Elias called out as he continued to soak in the awe-inspiring presentation taking place silently above Veii.
He heard the rushed footsteps of his siblings first, followed by the soft voice of his younger brother Sebastian as Tessa dragged him from his slumber for one of his older brother's strange interests once again. He smiled to himself as Tessa insisted that whatever it was, Sebastian would enjoy it just like every other time she dragged him out of bed on Elias’ behalf and stepped back from the telescope as he smiled at them both.
With a finger pointed toward the moon he ushered Sebastian to the eyepiece of the telescope, “Look look, Aquileia must be celebrating! They elected a new governor recently so maybe it’s for that…” his younger brother shrugged at the thought of something so boring as politics as he lowered his face to the telescope, “Maybe.” Elias said again, all too aware that Sebastian was only a ten-year-old, and things like elections held no sway or importance in his mind. He shifted his focus to Tessa as Sebastian began to make interested “Oohs” and “Ahs” from where he leaned into the eyepiece as he watched the spectacle.
Tessa’s gaze was up toward the moon, her lips were drawn about her face in a tight frown, and, for a moment, Elias felt he could see her face in far better detail than he should have been able to at night. He watched all around him as stark shadows stretched across their backyard, an eerie blue light seeming to sprout from nothing as he witnessed daylight return to Veii nine hours early.
His mind struggled to comprehend what was happening, though only a fraction of a second after it began the light receded and darkness returned to the night once more. His ruminations on the matter were cut short as Sebastian began to ask why the telescope had gone dark.
Elias turned from Tessa, her stare still held firmly to the moon above them in silence, and moved his brother from the telescope and peered through the lens. He stared in disbelief at the massive cloud that had taken the place of Salernum’s capital city, unsure of what had happened he pulled himself away from the telescope with a shaky smile.
“Maybe they made one of the fireworks with a bit too much bang.” he joked as he turned to Sebastian and noticed with horrifying clarity the vacant look in the boy's eyes as if his brother was simply seeing straight through him.
“Sebastian?” he asked as he turned to Tessa for help, only to notice his sister too, staring vacantly into nothing as tears streamed down her cheeks, “Tessa?” he asked as his sister turned in the direction of his voice.
Salernum, First Moon of the planet Veii
Republic of San Vesta
Antevestoran System
This had to have been some bad going-away joke, some last-second "Scare the LT shitless before he rotates out.” sort of extravagant prank. Buzzing him into work to join his Company in the field on his last week on Salernum was just straight cruel. His field fatigues were packed away and awaiting shipment up to the orbital stations for his move back to Veii, and he didn’t have nearly enough snacks or dip stuffed into his pockets to last him a full weekend in the field with his tankers.
Yet here he was, standing on the side of some godforsaken backroad on the outskirts of Aquileia waiting for the inevitable text message “Haha, got you good Sir!” or “Joking joking, go back to the bars!” or any other number of lighthearted messages that would send him angrily packing back to the blonde he’d been chatting up Downtown just thirty minutes before.
Instead of a text message, he turned to the rumbling of tank tracks and several dozen sets of headlights turning onto the road, the feeling of a joke all but disappearing from his mind as he became very suddenly sober.
A number of “Goliath” tanks rolled by followed by a couple of the Companies “Ample” armored command vehicles before his own tank, 2-1, or more affectionately named by her crew “Cruel Intentions” came to a rolling stop in front of him. He scrambled up the side of the tank, hooking an arm around the main gun and hoisting himself up onto the turret before he slipped himself into the open tank commander hatch. With practiced ease, he got himself situated and slipped on the crew helmet as he keyed into the tanks onboard communications system.
“Nice of you to join us, Sir.” Lance Corporal Leon, the Cruel Intentions gunner chimed in with a smile as he sized up his Lieutenant’s choice of outfit, “Gray stripes, a bold choice.” he laughed as Lance Corporal Timon, his Loader, joined in with a laugh.
“Gray stripes?” came the voice of Private Flavian, Cruel Intentions driver, from his separated section at the front of the tank, obviously looking for some sort of explanation of what was being talked about in the turret since he couldn’t see for himself.
“Yeah yeah very funny,” Lieutenant Julienne Stavros agreed as he settled himself into his seat, “so what is this all about? Couldn’t survive a weekend of training without me?”
“Think you ought to get up on the net and talk to 6-6, Sir.”
Stavros obliged, flipping a few switches and keying his mic as he spoke, “2-1 Actual checking in, can I get some sort of a reason I’m here and not drinking Downtown, Over?”
There was a short lapse of silence before Lieutenant Colonel Calliene came over the radio, “2-1, 6-6. Nice of you to join us, standby to copy brief.”
Stavros recoiled at the derision in his Commanders voice and obliged as she began to talk.
“HADES is on Salernum, it’s a small contingent, first we’ve seen of em here. A training flight spotted them by accident as they were cutting across the Valestides Plains and flew back fast as they could to let Command know. Best Intelligence can give us is a Company minus, some twelve Taurons and around a hundred Canceron and Picon chassis each.”
Stavros shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he listened to his Company Commanders' brief while the Cruel Intentions rolled on behind the column of armor.
“Entire Battalion is out to stop these Shinies before they break the Plains and make for Aquileia. Alpha and Charlie Companies will take our flanks, while we in good old Bravo will make up the center that these assholes break themselves on. Command was even nice enough to send out some engineers and dig us fighting positions while we mustered back at the motorpool. Maintain radio silence from this point forward until we engage. Stick to standard procedure and we’ll come out on top, easily. Good hunting, 6-6 out.”
The radio fell silent and Stavros sagged into his seat as the implications of HADES’ presence on Salernum set into his mind.
“Can’t be that bad right? Couple hundred Shinies against us? They’ll be smashed to scrap in no time.” Leon quipped as he nervously checked and rechecked his sights calibrations.
“We’ll either kick them back to Halcyon or we won’t have to worry about anything for what could be the short remainder of the rest of our lives, that’s for certain,” Stavros stated as he sat back up in his seat and began to check the Cruel Intentions systems.
“Great.” Leon replied with forced enthusiasm to his tank commander's pessimism.
“Contact, two hundred and seventy degrees, HADES chassis!” Leon called out as Stavros slid down into his seat from his place outside the hatch and pushed his face into the commander's sight. He found himself looking at some twenty HADES chassis coming over a small rise in the field before his companies position.
He licked his lips as he traversed the gun from his position, laying in the sights on the chassis at the center of the formation of drones. It was a Tauron chassis, a massive thing, nearly a story and a half tall and propelled on four clambering legs. It sported four guns to the Cruel Intentions one and seemed to sweep the land in front of it with four vicious red eyes. He watched in fascination as it loped along the plain with almost animal-like movements and waited as it neared its doom.
“GUNNER, SABOT, TAURON IN VIEW!” he yelled without keying his mic as he released control of the turret back to Leon.
“IDENTIFIED.” came Leon’s response as the turret smoothly continued tracking the quadrupedal machine.
“UP!” Timon yelled as he cleared himself away from the cannon and slapped the safety off with a gloved hand.
There was a brief period where Stavros felt as though the drones before him had certainly passed into the killzone, that they were being allowed to needlessly close on his tank and his platoon's positions. He itched to let Leon free, to let the Cruel Intentions fulfill her purpose in life, but he held his tongue.
A moment later the radio creaked to life in his ears.
“6-6 all elements. Weapons free.”
“FIRE!”
“ON THE WAAAAAY!”
The Cruel Intentions cannon barked with fury as it fired and Stavros watched as the Tauron in view lurched over and came to a grinding halt belching flame out of the newly created hole in its front.
“TARGET CEASE FIRE!” Stavros yelled as he propped himself up in his open hatch and surveyed the two other tanks in his platoon, 2-2 and 2-3, both of which had fired at nearly the same time 2-1 had. He brought his binoculars to his face and surveyed the killing field a smile growing across his lips as counted six burning Taurons, twice as many Cancerons in similar states, and a number of Picons being chewed apart by the gauss cannons of the battalions Ample’s.
First blood for the good guys, he thought as he breathed a sigh of relief and the tension in his shoulders released just a little.
“Good shooting, keep scanning,” he stated proudly to his crew as he took up his radio to check on 2-2 and 2-3. He was about to key the mic when someone else came over the battalion net.
“Incoming!”
The world around Stavros diffused into a mirage of flashing lights and heat as the invaders answered for the deaths of their own.[/hr]
Cruel Intentions chewed its way down a residential road in reverse, the jolt of vehicles being flattened beneath her treads and pushed aside like toy cars only an afterthought in Stavros’ mind as he scanned the deadzones between the houses as they flashed by in time with Cruel Intentions main gun.
“All 2 elements, reform Vanix Square at best speed, Battalion is forming a new defensive line.”
He listened as the other two tanks under his command responded and turned himself back to the digital map on the screen to his front. He felt his stomach churning as he updated to the newest positions of friend and foe.
Alpha Company was no longer even counted amongst the friendly units, and Charlie Company was fairing only slightly better, having been reduced to just a single platoon and few lone Ample’s running amok in the next neighborhood over. Bravo Company had had it the easiest, by far, he realized as he noticed only two tanks lost to his companies name.
It was a miracle, considering what they’d held against. Sixteen regiments had come at them after the artillery barrage. Seventeen hundred Taurons, and far too many Cancerons to count, not to mention the withering rocket and missile barrage from the Virgon chassis that followed a few minutes after. That the entire battalion hadn’t been completely wiped from the face of Salernum was an act of God as far as Stavros was concerned. Unfortunately, God could only do so much for a single tanker and his crew, and so the Battalion had fought for two and a half hours as rear forces rushed to set a new defensive line. Or at least that had been the plan.
He cursed to himself that this had been allowed to happen as the tank came to a grinding halt on the far side of Vanix Square. He took stock of his surroundings with only the tanks of his own platoon coming to rest on either side of him.
“No one’s fuckin here!” Leon called as he raised himself out of his own hatch and surveyed the empty square. The lights were still on, a number of carnival rides stood idle as their lights flashed happily for someone to come and ride them, and somewhere Stavros couldn’t quite see beyond the rides something was on fire deeper in the square.
He turned to the direction they’d just come in and took in the sight in the distance. The orange glow of fires lit the horizon, punctuated by the acrid black smoke of burning vehicles and structures. The view was interlaced with staccato tracer fire and the flash of explosions near constantly. Had he now known any better, he may have considered himself lucky to be witness to such an awe-inspiring sight.
Instead, he pushed himself back down into his seat and took up the radio, “6-6, 2 Actual, in place at Vanix, over.”
The radio hissed to life in his ear, the return muddled and choppy as the jamming of the HADES drones attempted to cut communications entirely.
“2 Actual, this is 5-5, 6-6 is gone. The Company is scattered, attempting to reform at Vanix with haste. Hold, Out.” the radio crackled off and Stavros simply stared for a while at nothing in particular.
“Where’s the rest of the damn regiment! Those dumb fuckin infantry? Where the fuck is everyone?!” Leon exclaimed to the world outside the tank before Timon pulled him back inside.
“They’re not coming.” Stavros stated as a fact, “The entire city is under siege, everyone is fighting, we’re not getting any help here.” he said as he pushed the screen in front of him around for his gunner and loader to see. Their eyes went wide as the realization set in, only for Timon to push the screen away with a forced smile.
“As long as everyone else is just as fucked as we are, I’m good,” he smirked.
“Same here.” Leon at his side agreed, followed by a simple “yeah” from Flavian upfront.
“As long as we’re all in agreement then.” Stavros stated as he sat up in his seat and keyed his mic to organize his tanks into fighting order.
The drones came in at a trickle at first, a Tauron here, a handful of Picons there. A few Virgons that had seemingly lost their escorts even rounded a two-story residential right in the sights of 2-3 at some point, and the resulting detonations had completely leveled half a block of homes.
And though some friendly units managed to slip into the Square, it hadn’t been enough to mount any real concerted defense of the suburbs.
2-2 had been the first hit, a clean volley from a single Tauron tore through the turret and atomized everything within in the ensuing ammunition explosion, 2-3 had returned the gesture in kind a couple of seconds later, leaving the Tauron a burning wreck some 600 meters distant.
Next had been a pair of Ample’s that had taken up positions behind the paltry selection of tanks. They were picked open by a streaking volley of missiles from Virgons somewhere out behind the homes on the other side of the square. Their turrets and roofs came open as if someone had taken a can opener to them, revealing only an inferno within. Stavros didn’t count any crew bailing out, and had turned his attention back to the opposite side of the square as the whining sound of mechanical walkers began to overtake the drone of his own tanks engine.
Sixteen minutes. They had held Vanix Square for sixteen minutes.
Stavros slammed his fist into the side of the turret as he was jostled about where he sat. “2-3, Actual, make for Vanix Elementary. Salernum is lost, over.” he radioed to his only other remaining tank with a scowl.
“3, copies.” came the dejected response from Sergeant Trier, commander of 2-3.
Salernum was lost. He read the priority message again, disbelief fighting with the cold reality he had come to know all too well in the fighting of the last four hours, and felt rage and anguish all at once.
The Western and Southern approaches to Aquileia had held well enough, but the Eastern and Northern defenses had crumbled against a near-endless onslaught of drones. And when Command had finally had the thought to order a redeployment of parts of the Western and Southern defensive lines it was already too to make a difference as the forces of HADES filtered into the tight confines of the cities suburbs and outer sprawl.
The choice to evacuate, to abandon all of Salernum, had come quickly. Mercifully, even.
There’d been enough time to organize civilians to freighters and transports, and what little resistance that Stavros and his boys put up had led to thousands saved. But it hadn’t been enough. Leon had reported civilian cars on thermals several times on the opposite side of Vanix Square, out on the other side of Vestan control, out amongst those quadruped horrors. They’d even tried a few times to signal cars as they screamed by with flashlights, but no one ever noticed or cared enough to stop for the terrifying tanks of their own army attempting to save them.
By all accounts, nearly 60% of Aquileia’s population was already bound for Veii aboard ships, but that still left some three million within the city limits, not to mention those in the smaller cities and towns spread across the moon.
Yet here they were, tearing up residential roads in an all-out sprint to an evacuation site that was dangerously close to the advancing drones.
Cruel Intentions led the way into the remnants of a grade school playground, pockmarked by artillery fire and a number of burning Taurons as Stavros and his small contingent of survivors raced for the maw of a waiting heavy freighter across the Racket Field. Stavros pulled himself up out of the tank hatch and was immediately assaulted by the heat of the spacecraft's exhaust and the roar of its engines.
He could make out vague outlines of people in the cockpit far above his head, and as he rolled in under the freighter he caught the terrified gaze of a crew member as he waved them forward into the cargo bay.
“All elements load in, make it fit, don’t care how don’t care where.” Stavros radioed to the small convoy of vehicles he had scraped together in the past hour. With a lurch, Flavian gunned the Cruel Intentions up the ramp and into the dimly lit cargo bay with a little too much power.
The tank roared forward and over a number of small shipping crates before coming to an inglorious halt against the far-side wall. Behind them, the rest of the surviving vehicles followed in a similar fashion.
Thirty more minutes they spent in Aquileia, in that dying city. As the freighter's crew, his ragtag group of tankers, and a chewed up platoon of infantry they’d picked up along the way chained down the vehicles and took on more survivors. But once the work was done the freighter crew insisted they had to leave.
Stavros had fought this notion at first, arguing that the longer they stayed the more people would come. But as time went on, and fewer and fewer survivors came clambering up the ramp, Stavros finally gave in.
He’d watched the death of Aquileia. From behind the shielded windows of the freighter’s bridge in orbit above Salernum he’d watched as a small star sprang to life. At one moment there was a city, and the next a boiling inferno. He watched as the light faded and the mushroom cloud grew. And then he could watch no longer as the freighter fell out of view of the cloud and the catastrophe it represented.
Through Rock and Metal and Time
Gugann
Ipian Cave System
2837 hours local time
Surprise filled her senses. It was a strange sensation. One she seldom felt these days. It reminded her of the first time she’d been permitted to witness the rising of the sun’s rays over the depiction of the Great Serpent of creation; Yahautl. The beams of sunlight had ran like molten gold over the mural of Yahautl as she birthed the sun and gave rise to all humanity, the beautiful mural depicted in the highest chamber carved into the stone of Mount Xanautl’s peak. Or of the first time she’d witnessed the hordes of the Easterners descend upon her city’s walls. The seething tide of baying bodies breaking against the steadfast defenses of Ocotopec like waves. Though unlike the awe she had felt in those moments, now she only felt disgust.
Disgust filled Nelchitl like an overflowing well as she removed the helmet from one of her fallen daughters before her. With a hiss, the helmet lost its hermetic seal and came loose in a wash of stale air revealing the Astartes beneath. Her face was impossibly aged, especially by the standards of the functionally immortal warriors of the Emperor, so much so that the skin of her daughter seemed to crack and fall away as dust where Nelchitl’s fingers brushed her cheek reverentially. She recalled her earliest days with her Father, devouring tens of thousands of years of human history and information to gain His praise in between lessons in combat and tactics, and the memory of the great tyrants of ancient Gyptus entombed in their sarcophagi deep beneath their pyramids sprung to the front of her mind.
She scowled as she placed the helmet back on her daughter to preserve the body within and rose from her position of kneeling. “Leave their armor sealed.” she instructed as she moved through her guard of terminator clad Serpents, “Make no attempt at geneseed recovery, I fear they are too degraded.” she added on angrily as she pushed further down the tunnel and deeper into the vast cave network of Gugann.
Outwardly she exuded a cold rage, her every step filled with murderous intent as she led her daughters on by the stabbing glow of their lumen beams through the darkness. Inwardly she lamented the chain of events that had led her to this point. The Council had waylaid her so completely that she had only been able to read the missives from her astropaths in what was first annoyance at her daughters’ inability to handle these crude xenos. Yet as the missives continued to arrive, her annoyance had faltered into genuine concern. That such a well-stocked and armed fleet as the 691st was having such trouble with these foul xenos spoke to a much larger threat than had been originally gleaned from the astropath’s messages. Her mood had not gone unnoticed by her siblings, and in fact, she was sure it had caused her outbursts in front of Him on more than one occasion, much to her own displeasure.
The bark of bolter fire echoed down the tunnel towards Nelchitl. She paid the sounds no mind as they entered into a large cavern, the ceiling soaring away from them into a vast dark abyss. The cavern itself stretched some several hundred meters to a trio of joining tunnels on the far side.
From the dark maws of the three tunnels came the tell-tale flash of weapons fire, her superhuman senses easily picking out the change in radiance from standard bolters and heavy bolter fire, punctuated by the hot blue flashes of plasma at a rhythmic rate. Her Terminators spread out at her sides as she began to cross the length of the cavern just as the first of the Serpents began to appear from the tunnels at the far side, weapons firing in tight bursts as the Astartes withdrew in superb order from the tunnels and into the caverns. Nelchitl swallowed her displeasure at the sight of Serpents retreating in the face of a foe as the final Astartes exited the tunnels to join their squads.
One Astartes appeared to move slower than the rest as if the joints of their armor were ill-kept or damaged before the Serpent simply crumpled to the cavern floor at the mouth of the tunnel. She marveled at the lack of feedback at the sight. No weapons discharge struck her daughter, no melee weapon pierced her armor, and the strange sensation of witchcraft was absent. The Serpent simply died with no cause to be seen. As quickly as her daughter had fallen their body was pulled into the depths of the darkness at the tunnel entrance as the vile xenos of Gugann spilled from the tunnels.
Nelchitl’s gorge rose as the abominations that were the Hrud xenoforms made themselves known. The bipedal creatures loped toward them, their forms obscured by some form of distortion field making it near impossible to focus on the beings. Explosions of bolter rounds and incinerating plasma amidst their throng seemed to grant them no greater sense of urgency as they moved with the same slow and inescapable inevitability of time itself toward the withdrawing Serpents.
“Standard line.” Captain Nenetl barked to her already obeying Terminators, “My Lord they outnumber us three-to-one.” she added as the assault cannons of her Terminators opened up on the seething mass of xenos and were quickly followed by the other myriad of weapons the veterans carried. Rounds and plasma discharge screamed over the heads of the retreating Serpents, finding their marks with wet detonations in the mass of Hrud surging toward them.
“Six-to-one Captain.” Nelchitl corrected, the grin on her face obvious from her tone as she let fly a group of plasma shots from her pistol.
Nelchitl had gazed upon the dead Hrud with an air of disinterest. Its liquefied body was heaped onto a stainless steel surgery table and was slowly sliding to the tiled floor in an operating theater located far away from the main medicae bay. The harsh white lights of the theater reflected painfully from the white ceramic tiles that lined the room and threw grisly shadows across the Hrud’s vivisected corpse.
A number of grotesque liquefied forms of what could only have once been organs of unknown purpose had been set aside on a smaller table drawn up alongside the operating slab, each in their own steel bowl of varying sizes and arranged in no particular order that she could discern. Standing silent vigil over the organs was the 691st Fleets Chief Apothecary, Peña. Though her helmet remained on, Nelchitl could sense her daughter's bruised pride in the way she stood silently brooding over the organs.
A hiss of augmetics drew the gaze of Nelchitl away from her daughter and to the source of the Chief Apothecarion’s displeasure, Genetor Prata Petruvio, Tech Priest of Mars and member of the Magos Biologis. A trio of mechadendrites hung over his head, moving in slow motions as the tools at the ends probed and cut away at the xenos corpse.
“Tell me Magos, what you have summoned me here for,” Nelchitl ordered as the Magos continued his dissection. Slowly, and several seconds later, as if only just registering the words of the Primarch, the Adept turned to face her while his dendrites continued their work. His face was a gnarl of augmetics, a silver grate replacing his mouth and nose while a number of red lenses replaced both of his eyes. What skin remained of his face was pallid and drawn tight around steel. Where the shadow of his hood covered his neck Nelchitl noted the flash of steel in the darkness and decided that the Magos had likely passed the Crux Mechanicum some decades or greater before this day.
With a whir of memory coils spooling beneath his robes the Adept’s many eyes focused and unfocused in spasming shutters on the Primarch as a soft blue glow filled them, no doubt from the reams of data being recalled to deliver his findings to Nelchitl.
“Statement: Blessed be the Omnissiah and his kith. Wait.” the Magos began as he bowed his head to the Primarch, his augmitter scratchy and seeming to struggle with the words as it continued, “Statement: Hrud xenoform require further examination, data incomplete at this time. End.”
“Then why have you summoned me?” Nelchitl asked, the patience in her voice wearing thin as the Adept seemed to walk around whatever it is he had summoned her for.
“Request: This research requires a live sample, Hrud liquefaction makes study impossible. End.” The Magos’ many lenses all focused at once onto the Primarch, the whir of his data spools winding down at the same moment that a soft red glow filled one of his lenses.
Nelchitl took a short breath as she reigned in her annoyance, “Magos, these xenos are too dangerous to retrieve alive. The nature of their weapons is still unknown—“
“Counter: Incorrect. Hrud xenoform weapons have been discerned with an accuracy of 87.68%. Statement: Hrud do not use weapons. Wait.” the Magos cut off Nelchitl as she spoke, quickly continuing before the Primarch’s rage could overtake his speech, “Hypothesis: Hrud species wield the immaterium to induce accelerated entropy. End.”
Nelchitl, her mind awash at the brazen Adept, took a step forward before halting herself, “These creatures use warp sorcery?” she ventured as she turned to regard the corpse with greater disdain.
“Fact: Hrud age all matter within a 6.2-meter radius. Hypothesis: Hrud utilization of the aether is likely natural to the species. No witchcraft has been noted in all 12,373 battle reports. End.” A new dendrite revealed itself from beneath the Adept’s deep red robes and rose to head height with Nelchitl, a weathered and rusted section of Mk IV plate held delicately in the dendrite as proof of the aging these Xenos inflicted.
“Tell me Magos, how then do we capture such a creature?”
The Adept sat silently, the whir of data spools under his robes once more the only tell that the Magos was not simply staring at the Primarch without any sort of answer for her question.
“Fact: Expedition Auxilia casualties 48.02%. Astartes casualties at 12.39%.” a cold burst of air escaped somewhere under the Magos' robes as some internal mechanism worked overtime to calculate some unknown problem, “Hypothesis: Further losses are acceptable to gain an advantage over Hrud. End.”
Nelchitl scoffed as the Magos’ detached augmitter listed off the casualties, “Magos Petruvio, I will not sacrifice more of my daughters, or the Auxilia, for your science project.”
The Adept seemed to stare once more, light flickering in his lenses as his dendrites continued their work behind him, “Statement: The 691st receives 5,037 containers of munitions every two weeks. 1,024 containers of replacement weapons and mechanical parts every one week, up 536 containers from the last data point. Hrud must be destroyed, losses are unsustainable. The Crusade must go on, the Omnissiah wills it. End.”
Doing her best not to strike down the Adept where he stood, Nelchitl leveled her gaze on the steel and organic form of Petruvio, “I will not risk my daughters for your pet project. We shall exterminate the Hrud and move on. The 691st Expeditionary Fleet will receive an extended refit period once this extermination is complete to recuperate from its greater than average losses.”
“Counter: The 691st will require 5.7 ye—“
“That is not a suggestion, Genetor.” Nelchitl growled, her patience with the Adept finally at its end, “Glean what you can from the dead. Expect no live subjects. Assist the fleet as you always do.”
The Magos bent his head in deference to the Primarch of the Seventeenth, “Statement: Blessed be the machinations of the Omnissiah. End.”
“The Emperor Protects.” Nelchitl replied as she turned from the operating theater with a scowl.
Her daughters flowed through the line of terminators in an intricate dance, each one as precise as it was deadly as the next. They passed the more heavily armored line of Nelchitl’s guard as they ripped off staccato bursts from their bolters and continued for the entrance that their Primarch had only just entered the cavern from.
Nelchitl, herself knowing better than to charge headlong into the mass of Hrud, waved her own Terminators back with one hand as she fired her plasma pistol in the other. As one the terminators moved in reverse, each armored footfall accompanied by the death they spat at the approaching horde of xenos before them.
Where on most battlefields the Scion of the Seventeenth had to worry herself for incoming fire and attack, against the mystifying Hrud she only had to worry of distance, and of that there was plenty for the time being as her daughters cut a swathe through the front of the Xenos advancing on them.
Though sour at the idea of retreat, Nelchitl couldn’t help but to be proud of the performance of her daughters as they withdrew. Their fires were precise, devastating, and outstandingly coordinated. Where one of the Terminators’ fire died to reload the Astartes that had passed through them only moments before took up the task without pause, filling the lull in fire with a fusillade of death as they covered the individual Terminators at every reload.
Their withdrawal forming into a tighter and tighter semi-circle, Nelchitl keyed her vox as the last of the terminators came shoulder to shoulder.
“Take your leave Captain.” she ordered as the Hrud practically filled the cavern. The Terminators, with the Hrud almost pulling in close enough to begin using their warp sorcery, shimmered brightly and became incorporeal before they disappeared completely. If the Hrud felt fear, Nelchitl was sure they would have been overwhelmed by it at the sight of the Astartes that had been hidden behind the massive terminators.
In a semicircle three Astartes deep, devastator squads of the Serpents of the Sun stood as statues. “Flamers.” Nelchitl stated without need for the vox as she stood directly amidst the line of her daughters. Pilot lights licked excitedly at the wide mouths of the weapons before the cavern was ablaze with flaming prometheum, the Hrud simply melting in the ensuing conflagration.
The heat of so many flamers in such a confined space threw temperature warnings across Nelchitl’s visor, a low oxygen warning quickly joining the flashing alerts as the prometheum fires greedily sucked up the oxygen in the cavern and adjoining tunnels to fuel their wrath, a low howl of wind passing into the cavern as the flames ate more and more. The flamers sputtered and died as one as the wall of fire before the Astartes did the work for them, the Hrud simply throwing themselves into its hungry clutches as the mass of Xenos pushed those closest to the flames into them against their wishes.
There was an odd lull in the fight as Primarch and Astartes alike watched in grim fascination as the Hrud shambled to their deaths before them. But the moment ended quickly as the flames began to wane, the low oxygen warnings flashing with more intensity as Nelchitl’s suit warned of possible vacuum and locked her helmet's release automatically.
The Hrud closed once more.
“What do you mean orbital scans are inconclusive?” Nelchitl’s dissatisfaction was evident as the mortal before her offered further bad news.
“My Lord, the Hrud congregate in extinct lava tubes, their position is too deep below the surface to give accurate readings. These systems are vast…” Admiral Antonio Rivera of the 691st Expeditionary Fleet trailed off as he caught the gaze of the Primarch.
A scowl on her lips Nelchitl waved a hand toward a cluster of Army Officers that stood to the side of the strategium, “What of servoskulls and servitors to map the systems?”
The officers passed a few unsure glances between each other before a Major in the colors of the Tallbern Royal Dragoons stepped forward, “Lord, the Adepts of Mars have tried and failed to map the systems, and we have sent several of the fleet’s best scout teams in with heavy losses and little to show for it. It is believed that the Hrud target their attempts, though we have not come to an agreement over if they know the purpose of these parties or not.” he gave a curt salute and stepped back into the safety of his fellow officers.
Waving a dismissive hand at the comments Nelchitl sat forward in her seat as she studied the hololith of the planet before her.
“We hold much of the surface, yet we struggle to take a few cave systems?” she asked incredulously of the assembled staff of the 691st.
“The cave systems of Gugann are vast Lord, immense geological activity has created uncounted interconnected systems that crisscross much of the mantle together beneath the surface. We hold perimeter on many of the entrances at the surface, but still untold thousands are left unsecured.” Admiral Rivera offered an answer with a respectful nod.
Nelchitl, chewing on her lip, took several moments to answer as she studied the data and displays before her. “We have made gains though? I see several units within the tunnel systems themselves. What of these?” she gestured to a number of large clusters of units marked as within the tunnel systems.
“We have had success in several systems, Lord. Elements of the Salvarian Hussars have set up a number of defense bases in large caverns several kilometers into some branches of the tunnels, isolating the tunnels to their rear from those deeper within the planet. The Tallbern Royal Dragoon’s,” the General speaking offered a nod to the Major from earlier as he spoke, “Trippialis Medium Foot Regiments, and several detachments of Armsmen from the fleet have had success using this tactic.”
“We take and secure chokepoints and cut off what territory they can use Lord.” a second General, his body soft with the power of his station and his mind seemingly in a similar condition, added confidently, his demeanor obviously lifted by the other officers who had stepped up to answer the Primarch’s questions.
“I’ve connected the dots myself, General.” Nelchitl stated abruptly. She relished the look of shattered pride on the face of the rotund general as he shrunk back into his safety net of fellow officers. She decided to write him orders to the surface as she watched the wretch do his best to hide from her gaze behind his more talented comrades.
“Armsmen though?” she nodded approvingly, “perfectly suited for the tight confines of cave systems. Though I am wary of reducing the forces present aboard ship.”
“We have replaced the depleted detachments with Auxilia regiments less suited to the cave fighting my Lord. Namely mechanized and armored formations.” Admiral Rivera answered her concerns expertly before any of the other mortals could fumble in the face of a doubtful Primarch.
“As you deem fit, Admiral.” Nelchitl agreed before turning her attention back to the hololith. “We will see these xenos destroyed, of that I am sure.” she looked over the assembled staff and smiled brightly as she rose, “The Emperor protects.”
The room echoed the words in agreement.
A volley of krak grenades rose up from the rear line of Astartes, soaring peacefully through the air before landing among the still burning bodies of the Hrud and their newly surging living comrades. The Hrud advanced, those closest to the krak grenades reeling as they recognized their danger but too committed to avoid their impending doom.
A series of explosions filled the room, and more Hrud melted away in their strange deaths. Lascannons opened up from the third row, their bright red lines spelling the doom of the first couple rows of approaching Hrud.
Smiling, Nelchitl breathed in the smell of burning xenos that her helmets scrubbers couldn’t quite remove from the air as she watched the lances of red death punch through the disgusting xenos with ease. She was about to signal for the company of Tallbern Royal Dragoons situated in the tunnel behind them to bring up the defensive breastworks when lances of multicolored energies too chaotic to look at punched back through the mass of Hrud and slammed into her Daughters.
“Incoming fi—” a Squad leader managed before they were cut in two by one of the bright bolts.
“Find that fire and smother it!” The Emerald Priestess roared as more lances of the vibrant energies struck her line of Astartes.
“The Sigillite sends his regards, and wishes to inform you, Lady Nelchitl, of his hopes for a swift conclusion of this campaign.” the unassuming mortal spoke with a conviction and confidence that belayed their station.
Nelchitl, with a genuine smile on her face, nodded to the human. A woman of some forty or so Terran years, dressed in the muted colors of Malcador’s Order Elucidatum.
“His well wishes are always welcome.” she replied as she read the report that the Elucidatum had hand-delivered to her.
Several hours had passed since the Black Ship had arrived in-system. Its warp signature had heralded its arrival, though no missives or transmissions had been sent to forewarn the 691st, prompting a hasty combat deployment of the picket and a regrouping of the fleets ships of the line as they moved to meet the vessel before it translated into real space.
Nelchitl had been impressed at the speed with which the fleet had reacted. Cruisers had broken their positions at high anchor in only hours, forming into a well-versed formation that spoke of the skill and experience of the Imperial crews aboard. At the same time, the pickets had managed to bring themselves above the plane of the suspected translation point, placing themselves to dive on the ship like circling vultures were the need to arise.
While the bridge crews had worried of the arrival of a Hrud fleet, Nelchitl had felt something else. A foreboding as she watched the viewscreens fill with the aethereal tumult of the warp while the ship translated. Quickly identified as the Black Ship Terra Eternum, a Lunar class cruiser, Nelchitl had realized why her dread had set in as she watched it close to join the fleet, a single launch departing from the many hangars of the vessel transmitting a request for docking with the Sigillite’s own authentication.
They had received the ship with only the barest required formality for such a meeting, and Nelchitl had found herself annoyed and vaguely upset that Malcador himself had not actually been aboard the shuttle. But now she felt different as she read the report in her hands.
“This is true then?” she asked of the Elucidator as she moved the paper over a candle at the table between them.
Regarding the paper with an air of disinterest as it slowly burned, the Emerald Priestess turned it lazily in her hand spreading the hungry orange flame to the entire message.
“The Sigillite himself believes it has been proven enough to warrant this meeting. Though he admits it is not as concrete information as he wishes it to be. Their agents are very skilled, and their processes are as thorough as ours.” the woman admitted with a regretful nod, “as quickly as two of our agents are in place, one is uncovered. The ongoing monitoring has cost the Elucidatum dearly, Sire.”
The Emerald Priestess waved a dismissive hand, “All sacrifices worthy of praise, to ensure His vision endures those most devoted are always ready to sacrifice everything. These operatives have not given their all in vain,” she motioned to the burning paper in her hand with a flick of her eyes, “this message is proof of that.”
There had been a short pause as Nelchitl had regarded the last of the paper before dropping it to the table to let it burn completely. A tiny grin crept over her face as she looked from the small fire to the Elucidator, “If this is true, it means there will be a momentous shift within my Father’s Imperium. Should I expect another Black Ship when such information is uncovered?” she asked, relishing the implications of such a discovery.
“Of course, Sire. Malcador would trust such a task to none other of the Emperor’s children.” the woman replied with a respectful bow of her head. A lie for certain, Nelchitl was sure.
“Then I look forward to the arrival of a second Black Ship, Elucidator.” Nelchitl had said as she stood to leave the room.
“The Emperor Protects.” the mortal woman said with hands folded into the Aquila over her chest.
“Yes, yes he does.” The Emerald Priestess agreed with a wry smile as she returned the salute.
“Pull me the most detailed maps of Ultima available, and be discrete. We don’t need any unwanted attention to such a request.” Nelchitl voxed privately to Admiral Fabrizio on the bridge of the Solstice’s End.
Gugann
Ipian Cave System
2837 hours local time
Surprise filled her senses. It was a strange sensation. One she seldom felt these days. It reminded her of the first time she’d been permitted to witness the rising of the sun’s rays over the depiction of the Great Serpent of creation; Yahautl. The beams of sunlight had ran like molten gold over the mural of Yahautl as she birthed the sun and gave rise to all humanity, the beautiful mural depicted in the highest chamber carved into the stone of Mount Xanautl’s peak. Or of the first time she’d witnessed the hordes of the Easterners descend upon her city’s walls. The seething tide of baying bodies breaking against the steadfast defenses of Ocotopec like waves. Though unlike the awe she had felt in those moments, now she only felt disgust.
Disgust filled Nelchitl like an overflowing well as she removed the helmet from one of her fallen daughters before her. With a hiss, the helmet lost its hermetic seal and came loose in a wash of stale air revealing the Astartes beneath. Her face was impossibly aged, especially by the standards of the functionally immortal warriors of the Emperor, so much so that the skin of her daughter seemed to crack and fall away as dust where Nelchitl’s fingers brushed her cheek reverentially. She recalled her earliest days with her Father, devouring tens of thousands of years of human history and information to gain His praise in between lessons in combat and tactics, and the memory of the great tyrants of ancient Gyptus entombed in their sarcophagi deep beneath their pyramids sprung to the front of her mind.
She scowled as she placed the helmet back on her daughter to preserve the body within and rose from her position of kneeling. “Leave their armor sealed.” she instructed as she moved through her guard of terminator clad Serpents, “Make no attempt at geneseed recovery, I fear they are too degraded.” she added on angrily as she pushed further down the tunnel and deeper into the vast cave network of Gugann.
Outwardly she exuded a cold rage, her every step filled with murderous intent as she led her daughters on by the stabbing glow of their lumen beams through the darkness. Inwardly she lamented the chain of events that had led her to this point. The Council had waylaid her so completely that she had only been able to read the missives from her astropaths in what was first annoyance at her daughters’ inability to handle these crude xenos. Yet as the missives continued to arrive, her annoyance had faltered into genuine concern. That such a well-stocked and armed fleet as the 691st was having such trouble with these foul xenos spoke to a much larger threat than had been originally gleaned from the astropath’s messages. Her mood had not gone unnoticed by her siblings, and in fact, she was sure it had caused her outbursts in front of Him on more than one occasion, much to her own displeasure.
The bark of bolter fire echoed down the tunnel towards Nelchitl. She paid the sounds no mind as they entered into a large cavern, the ceiling soaring away from them into a vast dark abyss. The cavern itself stretched some several hundred meters to a trio of joining tunnels on the far side.
From the dark maws of the three tunnels came the tell-tale flash of weapons fire, her superhuman senses easily picking out the change in radiance from standard bolters and heavy bolter fire, punctuated by the hot blue flashes of plasma at a rhythmic rate. Her Terminators spread out at her sides as she began to cross the length of the cavern just as the first of the Serpents began to appear from the tunnels at the far side, weapons firing in tight bursts as the Astartes withdrew in superb order from the tunnels and into the caverns. Nelchitl swallowed her displeasure at the sight of Serpents retreating in the face of a foe as the final Astartes exited the tunnels to join their squads.
One Astartes appeared to move slower than the rest as if the joints of their armor were ill-kept or damaged before the Serpent simply crumpled to the cavern floor at the mouth of the tunnel. She marveled at the lack of feedback at the sight. No weapons discharge struck her daughter, no melee weapon pierced her armor, and the strange sensation of witchcraft was absent. The Serpent simply died with no cause to be seen. As quickly as her daughter had fallen their body was pulled into the depths of the darkness at the tunnel entrance as the vile xenos of Gugann spilled from the tunnels.
Nelchitl’s gorge rose as the abominations that were the Hrud xenoforms made themselves known. The bipedal creatures loped toward them, their forms obscured by some form of distortion field making it near impossible to focus on the beings. Explosions of bolter rounds and incinerating plasma amidst their throng seemed to grant them no greater sense of urgency as they moved with the same slow and inescapable inevitability of time itself toward the withdrawing Serpents.
“Standard line.” Captain Nenetl barked to her already obeying Terminators, “My Lord they outnumber us three-to-one.” she added as the assault cannons of her Terminators opened up on the seething mass of xenos and were quickly followed by the other myriad of weapons the veterans carried. Rounds and plasma discharge screamed over the heads of the retreating Serpents, finding their marks with wet detonations in the mass of Hrud surging toward them.
“Six-to-one Captain.” Nelchitl corrected, the grin on her face obvious from her tone as she let fly a group of plasma shots from her pistol.
Nelchitl had gazed upon the dead Hrud with an air of disinterest. Its liquefied body was heaped onto a stainless steel surgery table and was slowly sliding to the tiled floor in an operating theater located far away from the main medicae bay. The harsh white lights of the theater reflected painfully from the white ceramic tiles that lined the room and threw grisly shadows across the Hrud’s vivisected corpse.
A number of grotesque liquefied forms of what could only have once been organs of unknown purpose had been set aside on a smaller table drawn up alongside the operating slab, each in their own steel bowl of varying sizes and arranged in no particular order that she could discern. Standing silent vigil over the organs was the 691st Fleets Chief Apothecary, Peña. Though her helmet remained on, Nelchitl could sense her daughter's bruised pride in the way she stood silently brooding over the organs.
A hiss of augmetics drew the gaze of Nelchitl away from her daughter and to the source of the Chief Apothecarion’s displeasure, Genetor Prata Petruvio, Tech Priest of Mars and member of the Magos Biologis. A trio of mechadendrites hung over his head, moving in slow motions as the tools at the ends probed and cut away at the xenos corpse.
“Tell me Magos, what you have summoned me here for,” Nelchitl ordered as the Magos continued his dissection. Slowly, and several seconds later, as if only just registering the words of the Primarch, the Adept turned to face her while his dendrites continued their work. His face was a gnarl of augmetics, a silver grate replacing his mouth and nose while a number of red lenses replaced both of his eyes. What skin remained of his face was pallid and drawn tight around steel. Where the shadow of his hood covered his neck Nelchitl noted the flash of steel in the darkness and decided that the Magos had likely passed the Crux Mechanicum some decades or greater before this day.
With a whir of memory coils spooling beneath his robes the Adept’s many eyes focused and unfocused in spasming shutters on the Primarch as a soft blue glow filled them, no doubt from the reams of data being recalled to deliver his findings to Nelchitl.
“Statement: Blessed be the Omnissiah and his kith. Wait.” the Magos began as he bowed his head to the Primarch, his augmitter scratchy and seeming to struggle with the words as it continued, “Statement: Hrud xenoform require further examination, data incomplete at this time. End.”
“Then why have you summoned me?” Nelchitl asked, the patience in her voice wearing thin as the Adept seemed to walk around whatever it is he had summoned her for.
“Request: This research requires a live sample, Hrud liquefaction makes study impossible. End.” The Magos’ many lenses all focused at once onto the Primarch, the whir of his data spools winding down at the same moment that a soft red glow filled one of his lenses.
Nelchitl took a short breath as she reigned in her annoyance, “Magos, these xenos are too dangerous to retrieve alive. The nature of their weapons is still unknown—“
“Counter: Incorrect. Hrud xenoform weapons have been discerned with an accuracy of 87.68%. Statement: Hrud do not use weapons. Wait.” the Magos cut off Nelchitl as she spoke, quickly continuing before the Primarch’s rage could overtake his speech, “Hypothesis: Hrud species wield the immaterium to induce accelerated entropy. End.”
Nelchitl, her mind awash at the brazen Adept, took a step forward before halting herself, “These creatures use warp sorcery?” she ventured as she turned to regard the corpse with greater disdain.
“Fact: Hrud age all matter within a 6.2-meter radius. Hypothesis: Hrud utilization of the aether is likely natural to the species. No witchcraft has been noted in all 12,373 battle reports. End.” A new dendrite revealed itself from beneath the Adept’s deep red robes and rose to head height with Nelchitl, a weathered and rusted section of Mk IV plate held delicately in the dendrite as proof of the aging these Xenos inflicted.
“Tell me Magos, how then do we capture such a creature?”
The Adept sat silently, the whir of data spools under his robes once more the only tell that the Magos was not simply staring at the Primarch without any sort of answer for her question.
“Fact: Expedition Auxilia casualties 48.02%. Astartes casualties at 12.39%.” a cold burst of air escaped somewhere under the Magos' robes as some internal mechanism worked overtime to calculate some unknown problem, “Hypothesis: Further losses are acceptable to gain an advantage over Hrud. End.”
Nelchitl scoffed as the Magos’ detached augmitter listed off the casualties, “Magos Petruvio, I will not sacrifice more of my daughters, or the Auxilia, for your science project.”
The Adept seemed to stare once more, light flickering in his lenses as his dendrites continued their work behind him, “Statement: The 691st receives 5,037 containers of munitions every two weeks. 1,024 containers of replacement weapons and mechanical parts every one week, up 536 containers from the last data point. Hrud must be destroyed, losses are unsustainable. The Crusade must go on, the Omnissiah wills it. End.”
Doing her best not to strike down the Adept where he stood, Nelchitl leveled her gaze on the steel and organic form of Petruvio, “I will not risk my daughters for your pet project. We shall exterminate the Hrud and move on. The 691st Expeditionary Fleet will receive an extended refit period once this extermination is complete to recuperate from its greater than average losses.”
“Counter: The 691st will require 5.7 ye—“
“That is not a suggestion, Genetor.” Nelchitl growled, her patience with the Adept finally at its end, “Glean what you can from the dead. Expect no live subjects. Assist the fleet as you always do.”
The Magos bent his head in deference to the Primarch of the Seventeenth, “Statement: Blessed be the machinations of the Omnissiah. End.”
“The Emperor Protects.” Nelchitl replied as she turned from the operating theater with a scowl.
Her daughters flowed through the line of terminators in an intricate dance, each one as precise as it was deadly as the next. They passed the more heavily armored line of Nelchitl’s guard as they ripped off staccato bursts from their bolters and continued for the entrance that their Primarch had only just entered the cavern from.
Nelchitl, herself knowing better than to charge headlong into the mass of Hrud, waved her own Terminators back with one hand as she fired her plasma pistol in the other. As one the terminators moved in reverse, each armored footfall accompanied by the death they spat at the approaching horde of xenos before them.
Where on most battlefields the Scion of the Seventeenth had to worry herself for incoming fire and attack, against the mystifying Hrud she only had to worry of distance, and of that there was plenty for the time being as her daughters cut a swathe through the front of the Xenos advancing on them.
Though sour at the idea of retreat, Nelchitl couldn’t help but to be proud of the performance of her daughters as they withdrew. Their fires were precise, devastating, and outstandingly coordinated. Where one of the Terminators’ fire died to reload the Astartes that had passed through them only moments before took up the task without pause, filling the lull in fire with a fusillade of death as they covered the individual Terminators at every reload.
Their withdrawal forming into a tighter and tighter semi-circle, Nelchitl keyed her vox as the last of the terminators came shoulder to shoulder.
“Take your leave Captain.” she ordered as the Hrud practically filled the cavern. The Terminators, with the Hrud almost pulling in close enough to begin using their warp sorcery, shimmered brightly and became incorporeal before they disappeared completely. If the Hrud felt fear, Nelchitl was sure they would have been overwhelmed by it at the sight of the Astartes that had been hidden behind the massive terminators.
In a semicircle three Astartes deep, devastator squads of the Serpents of the Sun stood as statues. “Flamers.” Nelchitl stated without need for the vox as she stood directly amidst the line of her daughters. Pilot lights licked excitedly at the wide mouths of the weapons before the cavern was ablaze with flaming prometheum, the Hrud simply melting in the ensuing conflagration.
The heat of so many flamers in such a confined space threw temperature warnings across Nelchitl’s visor, a low oxygen warning quickly joining the flashing alerts as the prometheum fires greedily sucked up the oxygen in the cavern and adjoining tunnels to fuel their wrath, a low howl of wind passing into the cavern as the flames ate more and more. The flamers sputtered and died as one as the wall of fire before the Astartes did the work for them, the Hrud simply throwing themselves into its hungry clutches as the mass of Xenos pushed those closest to the flames into them against their wishes.
There was an odd lull in the fight as Primarch and Astartes alike watched in grim fascination as the Hrud shambled to their deaths before them. But the moment ended quickly as the flames began to wane, the low oxygen warnings flashing with more intensity as Nelchitl’s suit warned of possible vacuum and locked her helmet's release automatically.
The Hrud closed once more.
“What do you mean orbital scans are inconclusive?” Nelchitl’s dissatisfaction was evident as the mortal before her offered further bad news.
“My Lord, the Hrud congregate in extinct lava tubes, their position is too deep below the surface to give accurate readings. These systems are vast…” Admiral Antonio Rivera of the 691st Expeditionary Fleet trailed off as he caught the gaze of the Primarch.
A scowl on her lips Nelchitl waved a hand toward a cluster of Army Officers that stood to the side of the strategium, “What of servoskulls and servitors to map the systems?”
The officers passed a few unsure glances between each other before a Major in the colors of the Tallbern Royal Dragoons stepped forward, “Lord, the Adepts of Mars have tried and failed to map the systems, and we have sent several of the fleet’s best scout teams in with heavy losses and little to show for it. It is believed that the Hrud target their attempts, though we have not come to an agreement over if they know the purpose of these parties or not.” he gave a curt salute and stepped back into the safety of his fellow officers.
Waving a dismissive hand at the comments Nelchitl sat forward in her seat as she studied the hololith of the planet before her.
“We hold much of the surface, yet we struggle to take a few cave systems?” she asked incredulously of the assembled staff of the 691st.
“The cave systems of Gugann are vast Lord, immense geological activity has created uncounted interconnected systems that crisscross much of the mantle together beneath the surface. We hold perimeter on many of the entrances at the surface, but still untold thousands are left unsecured.” Admiral Rivera offered an answer with a respectful nod.
Nelchitl, chewing on her lip, took several moments to answer as she studied the data and displays before her. “We have made gains though? I see several units within the tunnel systems themselves. What of these?” she gestured to a number of large clusters of units marked as within the tunnel systems.
“We have had success in several systems, Lord. Elements of the Salvarian Hussars have set up a number of defense bases in large caverns several kilometers into some branches of the tunnels, isolating the tunnels to their rear from those deeper within the planet. The Tallbern Royal Dragoon’s,” the General speaking offered a nod to the Major from earlier as he spoke, “Trippialis Medium Foot Regiments, and several detachments of Armsmen from the fleet have had success using this tactic.”
“We take and secure chokepoints and cut off what territory they can use Lord.” a second General, his body soft with the power of his station and his mind seemingly in a similar condition, added confidently, his demeanor obviously lifted by the other officers who had stepped up to answer the Primarch’s questions.
“I’ve connected the dots myself, General.” Nelchitl stated abruptly. She relished the look of shattered pride on the face of the rotund general as he shrunk back into his safety net of fellow officers. She decided to write him orders to the surface as she watched the wretch do his best to hide from her gaze behind his more talented comrades.
“Armsmen though?” she nodded approvingly, “perfectly suited for the tight confines of cave systems. Though I am wary of reducing the forces present aboard ship.”
“We have replaced the depleted detachments with Auxilia regiments less suited to the cave fighting my Lord. Namely mechanized and armored formations.” Admiral Rivera answered her concerns expertly before any of the other mortals could fumble in the face of a doubtful Primarch.
“As you deem fit, Admiral.” Nelchitl agreed before turning her attention back to the hololith. “We will see these xenos destroyed, of that I am sure.” she looked over the assembled staff and smiled brightly as she rose, “The Emperor protects.”
The room echoed the words in agreement.
A volley of krak grenades rose up from the rear line of Astartes, soaring peacefully through the air before landing among the still burning bodies of the Hrud and their newly surging living comrades. The Hrud advanced, those closest to the krak grenades reeling as they recognized their danger but too committed to avoid their impending doom.
A series of explosions filled the room, and more Hrud melted away in their strange deaths. Lascannons opened up from the third row, their bright red lines spelling the doom of the first couple rows of approaching Hrud.
Smiling, Nelchitl breathed in the smell of burning xenos that her helmets scrubbers couldn’t quite remove from the air as she watched the lances of red death punch through the disgusting xenos with ease. She was about to signal for the company of Tallbern Royal Dragoons situated in the tunnel behind them to bring up the defensive breastworks when lances of multicolored energies too chaotic to look at punched back through the mass of Hrud and slammed into her Daughters.
“Incoming fi—” a Squad leader managed before they were cut in two by one of the bright bolts.
“Find that fire and smother it!” The Emerald Priestess roared as more lances of the vibrant energies struck her line of Astartes.
“The Sigillite sends his regards, and wishes to inform you, Lady Nelchitl, of his hopes for a swift conclusion of this campaign.” the unassuming mortal spoke with a conviction and confidence that belayed their station.
Nelchitl, with a genuine smile on her face, nodded to the human. A woman of some forty or so Terran years, dressed in the muted colors of Malcador’s Order Elucidatum.
“His well wishes are always welcome.” she replied as she read the report that the Elucidatum had hand-delivered to her.
Several hours had passed since the Black Ship had arrived in-system. Its warp signature had heralded its arrival, though no missives or transmissions had been sent to forewarn the 691st, prompting a hasty combat deployment of the picket and a regrouping of the fleets ships of the line as they moved to meet the vessel before it translated into real space.
Nelchitl had been impressed at the speed with which the fleet had reacted. Cruisers had broken their positions at high anchor in only hours, forming into a well-versed formation that spoke of the skill and experience of the Imperial crews aboard. At the same time, the pickets had managed to bring themselves above the plane of the suspected translation point, placing themselves to dive on the ship like circling vultures were the need to arise.
While the bridge crews had worried of the arrival of a Hrud fleet, Nelchitl had felt something else. A foreboding as she watched the viewscreens fill with the aethereal tumult of the warp while the ship translated. Quickly identified as the Black Ship Terra Eternum, a Lunar class cruiser, Nelchitl had realized why her dread had set in as she watched it close to join the fleet, a single launch departing from the many hangars of the vessel transmitting a request for docking with the Sigillite’s own authentication.
They had received the ship with only the barest required formality for such a meeting, and Nelchitl had found herself annoyed and vaguely upset that Malcador himself had not actually been aboard the shuttle. But now she felt different as she read the report in her hands.
“This is true then?” she asked of the Elucidator as she moved the paper over a candle at the table between them.
Regarding the paper with an air of disinterest as it slowly burned, the Emerald Priestess turned it lazily in her hand spreading the hungry orange flame to the entire message.
“The Sigillite himself believes it has been proven enough to warrant this meeting. Though he admits it is not as concrete information as he wishes it to be. Their agents are very skilled, and their processes are as thorough as ours.” the woman admitted with a regretful nod, “as quickly as two of our agents are in place, one is uncovered. The ongoing monitoring has cost the Elucidatum dearly, Sire.”
The Emerald Priestess waved a dismissive hand, “All sacrifices worthy of praise, to ensure His vision endures those most devoted are always ready to sacrifice everything. These operatives have not given their all in vain,” she motioned to the burning paper in her hand with a flick of her eyes, “this message is proof of that.”
There had been a short pause as Nelchitl had regarded the last of the paper before dropping it to the table to let it burn completely. A tiny grin crept over her face as she looked from the small fire to the Elucidator, “If this is true, it means there will be a momentous shift within my Father’s Imperium. Should I expect another Black Ship when such information is uncovered?” she asked, relishing the implications of such a discovery.
“Of course, Sire. Malcador would trust such a task to none other of the Emperor’s children.” the woman replied with a respectful bow of her head. A lie for certain, Nelchitl was sure.
“Then I look forward to the arrival of a second Black Ship, Elucidator.” Nelchitl had said as she stood to leave the room.
“The Emperor Protects.” the mortal woman said with hands folded into the Aquila over her chest.
“Yes, yes he does.” The Emerald Priestess agreed with a wry smile as she returned the salute.
“Pull me the most detailed maps of Ultima available, and be discrete. We don’t need any unwanted attention to such a request.” Nelchitl voxed privately to Admiral Fabrizio on the bridge of the Solstice’s End.
In
Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]
→
3 yrs ago
Forum: Nation Roleplay
Been waiting for this to open up again. If there is an issue with History not having a specific tab, let me know, I spent several weeks trying to figure out a good way to make it fit into the NS style and was unsuccessful without it seeming forced. Instead, bits of history are sprinkled throughout other sections to create a more full picture of history.
Revelations and Revivifications
The Solstice's End - Legio XVII Flagship“Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.”
- Assigned to a pre-M1 Terran remembrancer, identity unknown.
Days had passed since the end of the Council’s deliberations and yet still the Solstice’s End and her expeditionary fleet drifted silently over the budding planet of Nikaea. Things had been tense the last time that Nelchitl had set foot on the planet below, and though her own self-imposed isolation from the continued meetings and debates that followed even after the final day had appeared to have been for the best, it had become clear to the Emerald Priestess that now more than ever she needed to make herself available. To strengthen and even maintain her relations with her own siblings was appearing far more vital than it ever had since her discovery 19 years before. She had watched the holovids of the duel between her Augor and Eiohsa, and she had watched and listened as the pictfeeds and the Remembrancer’s data streams set dangerous trends following her brother’s foolish choice to make such an event public. Sides were being chosen between the mortals of the myriad expeditionary fleets over Nikaea, no doubt between the Astartes themselves, and though Nelchitl was starkly lacking the cut of cloth for politics that many of her siblings had been gifted by their Father, she was not so dull as to miss the lines of war being drawn in the sand even as many of her sibling’s legions departed to return to the Crusade writ large.
It was this realization of the precarious position His realm stood in that prompted her to make requests to several of her siblings. A chance to maintain herself in their good graces, and even to figure out where they themselves were beginning to draw their own lines.
Thus she found herself in an Auxiliary bay of the Solstice’s End. Not one for the pomp and circumstance of her favored sister or the theatrics of her practically machine brother she stood with a small hand-picked retinue of her daughters at her side and a single cohort of Solar Auxilia hoisting a number of honor rolls and regimental colors of the 685th Expeditionary Fleet.
Far above her, in the bridge of the Solstice’s End, the officer of the watch would receive a request to land in the auxiliary bay of the mighty warship. Upon examination of the request, the officer would no doubt see the requestor, and automatically approve it. Under these circumstances, the battered iron-grey Thunderhawk of the Tenth, the Pact of the Lance found itself being waved into position by the Army auxilia crew as Nelchitl and her retinue no doubt watched.
As the ship touched down, the access ramp on the side banged open, allowing passengers to climb out, and so they did. Arnulf Wode, clad for once in his powered plate armor, jumped to the deck, the boots mag-locking to the ferrosteel decking with a whump-clang that echoed throughout the cavernous hall. It was a subtle, but entirely intentional disregard of Crusade protocol - it was unbecoming and dangerous for the genefather of a Legion to precede his escort, but Wode did it anyway, for it was his way. Two more forms followed him out, an Astartes in the Pact’s iron-grey plate, and a smaller, human form in an armored vacuum suit. After them, an honor guard of the Saturnyne Auxilia, all of them bearing the close-boarding axe that was one of their feared weapons. They carried no banners or symbols, as was the Tenth’s tradition.
Wode took off his helmet, hooking it to his belt and replacing it with a tattered, ochre-yellow field cap that he had worn since the Salient deserts, and strode across the bay, his countenance grim. He stopped short of his sister’s entourage, and saluted, fist to breastplate.
“Sister.” He said, “Thank you for allowing us to board on such short notice. To get formality out of the way…”
He turned his head as his retinue caught up. “This is Johann Kohl, my… third in command, and Saul Imogen, my sixth.”
The other Astartes nodded, removing his helmet. Thin, white hair billowed from under it, revealing a weather-lined face with a sour expression. Saul flipped the faceplate of his vacuum suit up and smiled, his teeth dazzlingly white against his dark tan Salient complexion.
“I don’t remember if you’ve met them, but here they are.” He smiled, and looked around. “Fine ship you’ve got too, you don’t mind me saying.”
Nelchitl found herself smiling as the tattered Thunderhawk of the Tenth passed through the hangar’s integrity field and touched down, the unceremonious entrance of her brother widening her smile even more as he placed himself out front of the normal Imperial procedures for meetings such as these.
She shook her head and laughed lightly as her brother cut through the formality even further while he quickly introduced his own small retinue.
“I have seen your Saul at the Council floor Wode, though I can not say the same for your Third. An honor to be in your presence again Imogen,” she said as she stepped forward and offered the mortal an armored hand on his shoulder, “And to you, Praetor, a fine day to meet.” she swept a hand out behind her to her own retinue, passing briefly over the few assembled Astartes as she introduced them as the master of the Tenth had.
Saul, boldly familiar with the Serpent’s mistress, placed his hand on hers and inclined his head. “Honored you remembered me. I’ll have to show you the sketches I drew of you in profile sometime, I think you’d like them. I had plenty of time with all the bickering to get them right.”
“I would like that very much.” the Emerald Priestess assured Saul as she slipped an oversized hand out from under his and across the mortals cheek with a genuine smile.
Kohl, for his part, cracked his whipcord smile, an expression devoid of any real mirth or pleasure. “After I watched you fight my father on the pict-recordings, I had to meet you. If it had been me in that chamber instead, you might not have had such an easy time.”
“Can it.” Wode said, casting a withering gaze at his second, though the gaze softened. Kohl simply returned to neutrality, but there was a palpable, smug aura surrounding the Astartes.
“Captain Itzel Mayalen of the Second Company, along with a distinguished Sergeant of hers, Arabel Santino and her squad.” she passed over the assembled Solar Auxilia, aware that they needed no introduction with their regimental colors held proudly before them.
The Pact’s complement of Auxilia held their axes in front of them to silently salute their own comrades, for these men and women had shared the same horrors, albeit in different places. Wode nodded to all of them, beaming at his sister’s retainers. He was about to shake hands with all of them, but his sister quickly disabused that notion. Comradeship would have to wait, given the nature of this meeting.
Turning back to Wode and his entourage her smile became clipped as her tone dropped from it’s earlier levity, “Come Brother, there is much to discuss before I wish you to depart.”
Wode’s face turned grim. He nodded.
“No doubt what you wish to speak of is what I wish to speak of.” He said, replaying the footage of the duel he’d watched, along with everyone else in the Crusade. “We’ll, of course, allow our retainers to speak of this as well? I brought my men here specifically for their input.”
Nelchitl nodded to Wode, a sly grin creeping across her features even as her tone remained serious, “I would ask for nothing more, I find the insight of those I am not accustomed to all the more enlightening.” she affirmed before turning to make for the exit.
In lock-step, Nelchitl’s own retinue of Solar Auxilia, Saturnyne to the last, came to brisk attention and shifted cleanly to allow the Primarch’s and their retinues to pass between them. As if an afterthought Nelchitl turned as she reached the door and addressed the mortal retinues as they were about to be left behind, “Saturnyne, drink and make merry with your kin while your Scions speak, there is alcohol enough to go around on the Solstice’s End. Though do be sure to make it back to your ship before the Lord Wode.”
“Do not.” Wode said, with gravity, “Get anyone pregnant.”
With that, she smiled. Turning to lead on Wode and his retinue with little in the way of a conversation she guided them to a well-adorned chamber of luscious couches and well-stocked tables of food. Reclining in a chair obviously built for her she motioned to a similarly constructed chair for Wode and allowed Captain Mayalen and Wode’s own retinue to chose their own positions.
As the doors shut behind them and the group found their places Nelchitl eyed Wode before she spoke, “This duel, it bodes ill for all. I’m sure you are aware.” she inclined her head to the side and gazed over Saul and the Praetor, “I wish to hear your thoughts, all of you of course.”
Wode sighed, pulling his cap off and running a gauntleted hand through what little hair he had. Saul made a sad frown, and Kohl, ever the stoic, simply gazed straight ahead.
“I admit, I am naive about…” Wode started, wishing he didn’t have to voice what he thought, “...almost everything, concerning our father’s war. I have had to change a great deal. My legion has had to change a great deal, but under no circumstance, no possible situation, can I ever say that what I saw today was favorable for us.”
He looked his sister, beloved Nelchitl, in her eyes. “There was real hatred. It was not like our duel, not even close. Irreconcilable grievance. How could those two ever share a room, let alone a battlefield ever again?”
“It’s like the bickering of merchant princelings on my homeworld. Our homeworld,” Saul said, looking to Wode, “And we both know how that ended up.”
Kohl spat. “Interesting that our father tolerates such behavior, these days. He was not like this in the old times.”
Nelchitl turned her gaze to each as they spoke, her features betraying nothing beyond the vague interest in almost any topic she expressed at most meetings, though her nodding betrayed a more serious intent behind her as she sat slightly forward in her seat.
“I admit, our duel was nothing but the bonding of kin. I had no intent in causing any great harm to you during it, though I took pleasure in doing so anyway.” she laughed slightly, a flash of her violent nature passing across her eyes as she relived the duel with Wode, “But I agree fully. What was on display, for all to see nonetheless, was nothing short of hatred.”
She shifted and turned to Saul, her dark eyes falling upon him as her lips parted in a soft smile, “Your Princelings, they killed and killed did they not? Perhaps not at first, but eventually, they would bring ruination to their rivals, and to their own.” she allowed a small frown to grow as she continued to address the mortal, “That you see the writing on the wall with this, it displeases me.” she admitted.
Saul nodded. “I’m sure you’ve researched our planet since meeting Arnie, but yes. They were well on their way to ruination when the Premier found us. I’m ashamed to say that we were using war to end war ourselves, but…”
He smiled, looking into his lap. “The Legions thankfully made our efforts obsolete. I’m just worried that that solution won’t work again.”
Finally, and without turning to Kohl, she answered his words, “That you believe it is our Father that orchestrated this sits ill with me Praetor. He would allow no such thing, this was our dear sister’s doing, our newly crowned Warmaster’s first blunder if you may.”
Kohl inhaled sharply at this mild rebuke, but nodded, looking towards the deck. “I apologize. But my intent remains the same. In the old times, it would be decimation. Whole legions of good men burned for far less, and believe me when I say that.”
Wode turned to Nelchitl as Kohl finished. “Johann was with our father on Terra. He… well. The stories he tells of that time are disquieting, to say the least.”
“My greatest pride.” Kohl said, the flat disinterest in his voice momentarily defeated, “And in a lot of ways, my greatest regret. The old legions had many good men, and none as fractious as our brothers and sisters now.”
“So, that is our thoughts, sister.” Wode rumbled. “Is this prelude to war? Civil war?”
Nelchitl, her hair entangled in her fingers as she listened, brought herself to sit fully upright as Wode finally brought forth what they had all be thinking of, what every individual in the room feared.
“My… Our Father’s dominion has changed since you last tred upon the dirt of Terra, Praetor, and though I envy you for everything you bore witness to in the footsteps of the Emperor, I am pained to say that the Imperium you once knew is gone.”
The Emerald Priestess leaned forward and snatched up a goblet of wine before rising from her seat and making to walk around the room, “He guides us, as he always has, yet he leaves the Crusade for Terra,” she swallowed a gulp from the goblet and features twisted slightly as it hit with a far more sour flavor than usual, “why I can not say. Though I know he does everything for good reason Praetor. He leaves our dear sister Daena at our head, Warmaster of his armies, surely he knows that she can handle this position if he laid it at her feet. And yet…” she shrugged and waved to the assembled group. “She appears to have allowed our siblings to take a step down a dark path.”
“Civil war.” she shook her head, “I do not see it coming so quick, but I see the signs. I listen to the whispers of the mortals, I see that my own Daughters have been on edge since the pictfeeds, and I fear we are not the only of our siblings meeting as such.”
“Perhaps we are on an unavoidable path, or perhaps we worry too much Wode, perhaps we lack faith.” the Emerald Priestess stopped behind her brother and leaned over the side of his seat, “Do you think me mistaken? Am I wavering in my faith in Father?” she asked in a tone far more personal than her earlier words to the group at large.
Faith. The word had a pronounced reaction in all three Lancers. Wode’s hand flew to his neck, intending to grasp the Catheric cross beneath his shirt, but his armor blocked it. Saul closed his eyes, his face a grimace of pain, and Kohl simply sneered. It was a long time before anyone spoke.
“I have faith in Father.” Wode said, slowly, choosing his words with care. “But I do not have faith in us.”
Saul nodded. Kohl, his humors choleric, chimed in. “Faith is ridiculous where our Father is concerned. He is a man, like any of us, though he is the greatest of us.”
Wode glared up at Kohl with anger. “Can it, Johann.”
The Praetor directed his sneer to his father. “With respect, father, I won’t. Do you expect me to sit here and listen to this Salienti drivel? Have you parade around a ghost of humanity’s past when we’re supposed to be putting it behind us?”
Nelchitl stood to her full height as Kohl directed his ire to his own genefather, sorrow filling her features as she cut into the display, “Perhaps you too, Praetor, should have been left on Terra among the killing fields and the bones of dead empires.” she stated coldly, though her pain was evident as she spoke, “I pity you my nephew, that you lack the vision to behold as we do, to believe as we do. So stuck in your old ways, those wonderful and terrible times long gone, you miss the galaxy marching on without you.” she finished as she slipped around Wode’s seat to sit on one of its arms, cutting only a small sorrow filled smile to Saul as she did.
Wode looked up to her, face filled with worry. Without thinking, seeking the solace of touch, he replaced his arm that had been on the armrest onto her lap. Kohl shook his head, and spoke again.
“I think, Aunt, you speak true.” He eventually said. “But my disgust has never affected my loyalty. I can only hope it brings me death before I witness these great works perish.”
This time turning her attention to her brother she continued her sorrowful tirade, “To lack faith in us, in our own siblings, and in His Warmaster… Is that not to be shaken to the core brother? To have our faith in Him questioned at its most base?” she sighed and placed a gentle hand on his armored thigh, “It pains me to say this, so much so I can not express it, but I see His realm spiraling out of control following our own siblings actions. And I yearn for Him to fix it. Yet here we are,” she smiled softly, “alone and with only one of our own to set right these wrongs.”
Wode sighed, the exhalation implying great pain. “You’re not wrong sister. This Council, our sibling’s duel, I have to say, my faith has been sorely tested. I don’t like seeing our work undone, even if my involvement in it is new. But…”
He gritted his teeth. He looked into Nelchitl’s eyes, then Saul’s, then Kohl’s. He found three different emotions in all of them, but each was their own comfort. He slammed the fist not resting on his sister’s body into the armrest of his chair, startling everyone in the room with a rifle-crack noise.
“But god dammit! War’s what we do, isn’t it?” He bellowed. “Does it matter who we fight? Truly? Saul, you and I kicked every other Salient bastard’s ass on our world, didn’t we? And you Johann, you killed the thunder warriors when you were asked, didn’t you?”
Both nodded. Wode continued his tirade. “And Nelchitl, you damn near killed me. Any enemy. We swore to fight -any- enemy for this crusade. And I don’t know about all of you, but I fucking meant it. For our father’s work, I would kill any god damned thing he pointed me at, whether I was related to it or not. Augor and Eiosha want to start a war with family?”
He leaned forward. “I’ll unmake them, if I have to. For a galaxy that is truly ours, I’ll kill a traitor as gladly as I’ll kill an alien, mark me very god damn well.”
Saul nodded at this, his smile terse but serious, and Kohl merely offered his knife-slit, psychopath’s grin. Wode looked to his sister.
“And you?”
“Was there ever a question of it?” the Emerald Priestess beamed, herself reinvigorated by Wode’s display of his dedication to all they held dear. Silently, she felt foolish for having doubted that she would end up somehow arrayed against her Father, that she could ever truly be shaken to her base and lined up to wage war against that which she held most dear.
“If need be I’ll end even you, my dear Wode.” she smiled as she lifted his arm from her lap and placed it back on his. Standing up she moved back around the room, stopping this time before the form of Wode’s implacable Praetor. With a flash of movement, she had him between her arms, the Terran veteran held aloft from under his arms by the Primarch of the Seventeenth with ease.
“I would expect and hope for no less.” Wode growled, but good naturedly. He grinned as Nelchitl approached, then picked up his frustrating 3IC. Kohl was his most difficult son, but his brilliance could not be denied. That the man’s icy exterior had cracked, even so slightly, at this meeting made Wode’s heart soar with hope.
“Perhaps you have use still,” she stated as she spun him in her hands as if some tool, “You have seen many an upheaval in your time, that you see this any different, I find hard to believe.” she placed the Praetor back down and smiled upon him with the warm of the sun, “Those unnecessary were purged once, to do it again would not be unheard of. You may prove very useful to help us keep our Father’s realm, your Father’s realm.” she finished happily before moving now towards Saul.
Kohl bore this attention with the barely-tolerated demure of a poorly behaved cat, but he did bear it. When she smiled at him, he blinked, nonplussed, but quickly resumed his facade.
“It is the nature of warriors to complain.” He said, quietly, “And the oldest ones complain the most. But I would not have you think of me as anything but the weapon I am. My only desires are a worthy cause, and a worthy death. The details…”
The praetor pursed his lips, nodding to himself. “I’ll leave to you and my father, and our father of fathers.”
“Your father will no doubt use you at your best Praetor, of this I have no doubt.” she replied as she stopped in front of Saul.
Wode beamed at Kohl, his approval for the taciturn Astarte’s words evident in the pride in his eyes. Saul, for his part, looked up at the Emerald Priestess as she approached him, blinking and smiling, seeming confused, even now, as to why she would bother approaching him.
Looking down upon the mortal frame of Saul Imogen, Nelchitl felt a pang of regret at allowing him to attend this meeting, though the feeling quickly passed as she realized the absurdity of it. If one such as Saul could stand at Wode’s side up to this point, then there was no use keeping his mortal mind blind to the wider Imperium that moved around his greatest friend and brother.
“You and I, we share something very precious.” she began as she took a seat on the couch next to the mere man, “Our brother that is.” the massive form of the Primarch loomed over Saul as she brought an arm around his shoulder, “To trust you as he does leaves me no doubt I can do the same. And trust you I do, for who better to ensure my brother’s safety than one with very real reason to fear the maelstrom that may be coming. Your mortality is your strength, and I expect you to wield it where we can not.” she motioned to the other three functional immortals in the room, “And ensure he remains breathing as best you can.”
“I still fear Wode, that what has begun can not be stopped. It is insidious, the nature of these things. It creeps in veiled in righteous fury and bruised pride, and it leaves behind only ashes. Like the great wastes of your homeworld,” she leaned forward and inclined her head toward Kohl, “or even yours Praetor.”
“I trust I can count on you Wode, on your Praetor and the Tenth,” she clenched Saul’s shoulder softly, “And on you as well Saul.”
Saul’s body trembled with emotion, but he choked it down as best he could. He nodded, and when he spoke, it was gravelly with barely contained feeling.
“When I met the Premier, I knew. I saw him before Arnie did, you know. I surrendered to him.” He swallowed. “I was nothing before all of this. No family, no money, no hope, no future. I don’t think what Arnie and I were trying to do would’ve worked without the Premier and what he’s done. He gave us back everything. All I can do now is give him everything. It’s what our Pact means, after all.”
Her gaze remained light as she turned to await the answer of her brother, a hint of anticipation evident as she studied his grizzled features.
“Saul’s right. We can’t go back on our promise.” Wode said, simply. “And now, I make the same promise to you, Nelchitl. I will die before I let the Imperium fall.”
Nelchitl smiled, the warmth spreading through her features as she pulled Saul in close almost out of instinct rather than any sort of grand display.
“As will I, Wode, death before dishonor, or the collapse of all our Father holds dear. To give this Imperium a million years, I’d gladly give myself.” The Emerald Priestess released Saul from her embrace, tears running down her face as she did. With a hint of confusion, she wiped the tears away and composed herself.
“I must ask, though I feel I have asked much, of which of them do you feel more likely? To turn on our Father?”
Wode folds his arms, staring at his knees as he thinks. “I suppose Augor. Though I don’t have great faith in either, I admit, if Augor’s accusation is true. But my brother, with his… machine idolatry, it makes me uncomfortable. The Mars technocracy does great and good works, and there are many good people in my brother’s legion. I certainly couldn’t make war without them.”
He looked up at the ceiling. “But I don’t trust Augor. I don’t like what his legion does - the braining. As for Eiosha…”
He shook his head. “So much talent, but she spreads it so far. Always a great work here, an invention there, a campaign here, psyker magicks there. She spreads herself too thin, and a woman that works with too many tools at once eventually injures herself grievously. They both, I fear, are due for a fall from grace.”
“Augor is chained by his dogma, by his Priesthood. I do not fear him. Though I understand your views.” she paused and waved a lazy hand, “Eiohsa however… She is broken, a craven in a position made for the stalwart. She does not act as we do, only in half measures and broken promises.” she turned to Saul and then her own daughter for the first time since this meeting had begun.
“Mayalen, how many worlds does she possess?” she asked of her Captain.
There was no hesitation as the Serpent spoke for the first time, “777 inhabited worlds, many of which are self-sufficient forges or fortress worlds. She maintains her own shipyards and war industry my Lady.”
“This is what I fear of the two. The one with the means, and the broken mind, to go against our Father. Augor is misguided, but he is constrained by the Martian Priesthood. Eiohsa lacks the restraints he has on him. This is what worries me.”
“Seven hundred and seventy seven worlds?” Wode said, aghast. He put his hand to his temple, closing his eyes. “Forgive me, but I can hardly imagine the scale. I only had the one, and ‘had’ is a strong term. I wasn’t even the master of it until Father came. Seven hundred seventy seven…”
Kohl and Saul seemed to blanch at this as well. Wode grinned at the two of them. “The things we could’ve done with all those worlds, eh?”
Kohl shook his head. “Administration is a waste of our talents, and our lives. Like tying a racehorse to a plow when a grox bull would do.”
Saul laughed at this. “And I’m the beast of burden then, I suppose?”
Kohl looked at the human, and spoke. “You’re wasted on a human’s lifespan, Imogen. If we’d found you as a youth, we would have given you apotheosis, but alas, you had to go and get old before we could get to Salient.”
Saul bowed his head in mock penance. “I’ll do better next time then.”
“See that you do.” Kohl said, and tittered in an odd giggle. At no point did any of this emotion ever reach his eyes, but, it seemed as genuine as the Praetor could get.
“I have to say I agree with my Praetor, Nelchitl.” Wode said eventually, “But I do have something else to say on the matter. Seven hundred and seventy seven worlds fly Eiosha’s banner…”
He leaned forward in his seat. “But do they fly the Imperial eagle? Salient was one world, but it was a fractured world, broken up into city states only loyal to their merchant princes. The concept of loyalty to Salient itself, to view every Salienti citizen as an equal, was an alien concept. True loyalty to the planet, and to the Imperium, was only forged in war.”
He closed his eyes. “I do not believe it is as simple as seven hundred and seventy seven worlds, itself a huge chunk of any given galactic sector, being loyal to our Father’s cause just because the woman who owned them swore fealty. And with all those forges, all of those weapon manufactorums cranking out material, how difficult would it be to amass an army large enough to stall the Crusade? To stop it even?”
“Nothing is ever so simple brother.” Nelchitl agreed as she leaned back into the couch, its frame creaking beneath her armored weight as she did, “A holding so large, and for so long in her hands… I doubt their loyalty has ever truly been in the light of Imperial rule. She bends them to her own needs. It’s Industry already provides for all of her Legion, for all of the units they claim attached as well.”
The Primarch shook her head and placed an arm over the back of the couch, “The armies you speak of already walk the stars. They wave the Imperial Aquilla on their banners, stamp it to their armor and arms. But for how long...?” she trailed off, allowing the others to speak if they wished.
“Not much longer, if recent events are anything to go by.” Wode rumbled. He crossed his arms. “What I’m suggesting, Sister, will be considered traitorous speech if overheard by the wrong people, but it needs suggesting nevertheless. These contingencies I’m going to suggest your legion take as well as mine were thought up by our very own executioner, Praetor Kohl here.”
The Astartes nodded, dipping his head.
“Of all of us, and I include you as well sister, I believe he has the best idea of the internecine nature of Imperial rule.” Wode continued, “I believe in father’s dream, but dreams are rarely realized without acknowledging the nightmares either. I am proposing including within our Legions training for anti-Astartes combat. All the way down to where to stab with a knife, all the way up to the weaknesses of Legiones Astartes tactical and strategic doctrine.”
“This is, not, of course, to suggest that warfare like this will become commonplace.” Saul said, “Just that knowing what that kind of conflict will look like and how to prosecute it may be a boon in the coming days.”
“That’s right.” Wode nodded, “The Imperium of our dreams will be vast, encompassing all of humanity, of all cultures, races, and creeds, including Homo Sapiens Astartes. They will rub up against one another. They will come in conflict with one another, and if a legion as large as the Daughters of Iron decides they’re tired of their gene-mother taking in on the cheek, they can be met without surprise, without shock, with nothing except what a noncompliant world would meet; resolve, and determination.”
“And meeting such…” Kohl began in his reedy voice, “...hopefully they can be brought to their senses before final censure is needed.”
Nelchitl kept the surprise from her features well enough. A hint of her emotions only making itself known in the sudden shift in her position as Wode and his Praetor spoke. She scowled at the Praetor as he finished, the taste of shame rising in her throat as she did.
“You have started this, haven’t you?” she asked, her eyes narrowing, “Your Legion already trains, or is at least prepared to, for Astartes on Astartes then?” she disliked the proposition greatly, some childish part of her believing that deal with only Eiohsa would be enough to solve this problem, but she knew better than that, even if she was remiss to admit it.
“Even before all of this, you have been preparing. How distrusting you must be of us all Praetor,” she slipped her arm down and around Saul at her side, and though the action was simple it carried with it all the promise of violence that the Emerald Priestess was known for, “I wish not for cousins to come to blows if it can be avoided. To cut the head off of the snake is my ultimate goal if it comes to such.” she gently squeezed Saul’s shoulder as she spoke.
“But if it must, if it is unavoidable for my daughters to fight their cousins, I will agree to this. But not yet, there is still time to avoid this.”
Kohl met the accusation with his usual stoicism. If her words bothered him, it would’ve been impossible to tell without biometrics screenings, but nevertheless, he responded.
“My personal company has always trained like this.” Kohl said, “And only recently have I gotten approval to give what I know to the rest of the Lightnings.”
Wode cleared his throat at that, and Kohl dipped his head in response. “The Pact, I apologize. It may not seem sincere, but I have no desire for Astartes civil war either. But my father is, despite his many flaws, a practical man, and eventually he let me have my time in the sun. If this conversation ends, and the only result, Aunt, is that you think less of me for being paranoid, then let it be so.”
Saul nodded, hoping to dissipate the tension in the room. He didn’t recognize fully the danger he was in with Nelchitl so close, but he knew that the paradigm had shifted in a way that was not healthy. He spoke next.
“We are a warfighting legion.” He affirmed, “And it is the job of any group of soldiers to prepare for the conflicts that seem realistic. I think it would be a sad day if the Astartes Legion, the finest weapon produced by man, goes the way of horse cavalry or biplanes because we didn’t accurately predict the kind of wars we’d have to fight.”
“Training is also not warmongering, sister.” Wode said, fixing her with his steel-grey gaze. “The Tenth would never advocate for war to fix the dispute between the Stargazers and the Daughters. Merely that if open conflict does erupt, that the dissent is put down as efficiently as possible, with minimum time and loss of life. If our legions can burn whole systems of aliens and non-compliant cultures, what could they do to our own worlds, many of whom are only guarded by a token levy of Imperialis Militia? And how much destruction could they reap if our response is inadequate?”
“We are all warfighting Legions, Saul. Though some admittedly more than others, and yet I know of no others that think as you do.” she shook her head, a sigh escaping her lips, “Perhaps that is our flaw.” she admitted.
The grip on Saul’s shoulder waned and Nelchitl continued, “I do not think ill of you Praetor, I am just… surprised, that an Astartes can think as you do. My daughters do not imagine a day when they would fight their cousins.”
“We only relish that which takes place in a sparring cage, I must admit.” Captain Mayalen chimed in from her corner of the room. Nelchitl nodded to her daughter and continued.
“My Serpent’s are perhaps the most well suited for the violence of our Father’s Crusade, and yet I admit, I think they would be hardpressed to raise a bolter against a cousin.” Nelchitl’s features became weary as she pulled Saul in close as if for some sort of comfort, “I have no issue putting down one of my own siblings. I would do it in a heartbeat were it to maintain the Imperium, to further His goals. Here I have been, daydreaming of the day I truly fight one of you to the height of our abilities, nothing pulled or redirected. Yet I failed to see the obvious in that eventuality Kohl. I missed the logic that drove your decision.”
“I think you wise beyond credit, even if your area of expertise has a niche application.” she smiled at Kohl now, Saul still being pulled against her armor as she did, “Never could I hate a nephew with such promise.”
“The Serpents I have had great respect for since before they reclaimed you, and it has only grown since then.” Kohl said, with more grace than the two Lancers with him ever thought possible, “...and fratricide is never a quality someone should feel regret for not possessing the capability to do. I too crave the honor of single combat, but in reality, it’s never as simple as simply beating someone in a contest of arms. Every champion slain inspires one of his spears to take his place, and it is those spears he leads who are the true strength in his arms.”
There was silence from the Tenth delegation, until Wode broke it. “I wish I did bring a remembrancer for that line, Kohl. Where have you been hiding that chestnut?”
“Oh, around and about.” Kohl said airily, and he tittered.
Wode directed his attention back to his sister. “As for you, Nelchitl, I understand your fondness for Praetor Imogen, I would hold him that close all the time if I could. However, I do ask that when we leave, you return him to us, alright?”
“Oh, you don’t -have- to.” Saul said from between the Emerald Priestess’s arms, “It’s quite nice here.”
“I have several Remembrancer’s aboard if you’d wish to repeat your wisdom for the masses, Praetor.” Nelchitl smiled deviously as she made the ridiculous offer.
Turning now back to Wode the Emerald Priestess’s mind was made up, her path set in the outcome of all she had garnered from those assembled. “I would like your training regiment, everything you have. Though I wish not to spread it far, I will begin with those daughters I trust most.” she nodded to Wode and then his Praetor.
“And I wouldn’t mind keeping Saul for a while. Perhaps he could even be elevated beyond his kin, I see only wasted potential in allowing you to remain fragile as you are.” she admitted, a sly grin creeping over her lips as she pulled him closer in mock protection at Wode’s request.
The 5th army praetor, a mere human and a short one at that, was held fast by what seemed to be a casual hug. Nelchitl’s muscles were like steel cable, and although they exerted almost no force in the gentle hug, it was like being tied to a hospital gurney. Wode raised both eyebrows at this gesture, then looked to Kohl, who seemed very interested in the point where the bulkheads met the overhead of the space.
“As much as I would like to be abducted by a host of warrior women who are the peak of genetic perfection…” Saul started, and Wode laughed, throwing his head back and bellowing laughter. Kohl closed his eyes and his shoulders shook, and Saul grinned.
“Well, alright, put like that there doesn’t really appear to be a downside.” Saul said, and Wode howled again with laughter.
“What a problem you’ve developed, Saul.” Wode said through tears, “Reminds me of those old terran myths about kings and how goddesses would steal their life’s essence in bed. What an absolutely terrible problem to have.”
“Oh, so I’m a king now?” Saul said, then looked up, craning his neck, to look Nelchitl in the face. “See? I’m royalty. I got prospects, so you wouldn’t even have to be embarrassed.”
Voice wavering with suppressed humor, Kohl spoke up. “If you two would stop thinking with the little spears, I believe we were asked a question? Are we simply to let my aunt steal Saul away because she can flutter her eyelashes at you, Father?”
Wode rolled his eyes, and it was Saul’s turn to laugh, and he did so generously. “In other legions they behead warriors who talk like that to their genesire, Johann.”
“Oh?” Kohl tittered. “I do hope it’s the Stargazers that practice such ways, so they can put a new body on me so I can do it again.”
Saul shook his head and responded. “Dearest Nelchitl, Emerald Priestess, I know you’ve been wooed by my galaxy-level charms, but, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stay as I am. Just a little rejuvenat every so often. Mortality gives me the onus to complete the Premier’s vision, you see. If I have a deadline, I just do better work, you know?”
Nelchitl allowed her brother and his sons their time to speak candidly to one another, enjoying the banter as she held Saul with a waning smile. “A shame to be sure,” Nelchitl stated with dismay as she passed a hand along the curve of Saul’s cheek, “you’ve so many uses only given the time to realize them. A man like you…” she allowed her words to trail off unfinished as she smirked at Wode.
“Besides, I wouldn’t treat you like one of those Terran kings. What use would you be to me if I stole the essence of your soul as you slept, simply a dead husk is worth nothing to me.” she stated seriously, the more subtle meaning of Wode’s ancient reference lost on the Emerald Priestess as easily as such other subtle ideas.
With a sigh, she released Saul from her embrace and stood. Passing her gaze over Wode’s chosen sons and then to Wode himself she frowned, “Were we able to spend more time together, I would have you all stay with me as long as the Council kept us tied up here.” she shook her head and her frown warmed slightly at the action, “But we have all been delayed here too long as it stands. My daughters have their own issues beyond the confines of this system that I must see to personally.” she strode across to Wode where he sat and placed a hand on his shoulder as she stopped at his side, “Next time we meet, I pray that our conversation here was unneeded.” she smiled and took her hand from Wode, “Till next time, my favored nephews.” she finished as she left the chamber, the hum of vox chatter emanating from her suit as she disappeared around the corner.
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