ErosSense
op2024
Snowdrops
Grijs
Breezi
Fetzen
Hos
Little Bill
Master EffeX
LauderAll This Has Happened Before
-After the Siege of Ouran-
His vision shook as their transport bounded over rubble, shattered vehicles, and other people. He couldn’t afford to look back to see what had caused their hauler to jump. He could only say a small prayer for whoever or whatever he’d ran over to get even slightly further ahead. Ahead of him were hundreds, thousands more that were as eager and desperate to escape the carnage that followed. He’d been following the macroway from the other hives in the Pacifican provinces as they fell to Imperial occupation. His wheel swerved left and right as he raced ahead of the competition, if other scared folk could even be called that.
Several of his family members were in the cabin, sobbing or praying to the skies for protection. He desperately wanted to look back at them for even a second. It would’ve bolstered his spirit a hundredfold, but he needed his eyes on the road. An armored combat vehicle sped past him as he refocused, smashing another smaller machine aside in an act of overt aggression. He didn’t doubt for a second that it was one of the military transports owned by their Empire. The turret atop it stared at the sky for a second before disappearing into a great ball of fire.
He turned the hauler hard to the left, nearly tipping over his vehicle in a last second dodge. The military wreck was already disappearing behind him as he sped forward. He didn’t check to see what had destroyed the assault transport, more important things were occurring. His family was screaming. He felt his heart beat rapidly as the sky above them started to blot with unknown, bulky shapes.
Then the first of many explosions hit hundreds of meters away from him. Each strike from the sky tore up the road, upending dozens of vehicles of varying sizes. Groundcars detonated into horrific infernos, scorching the sides of other haulers or wrecking other transports. He janked his vehicle however he could, desperately trying to avoid collisions and aerial assailants. His family never stopped screaming, ringing in his ears as much as the explosions did.
The shadows in the sky finally started to show themselves, screaming on enormous engines of flaming death. They were harbingers of doom, painted in the colors of the Imperium with depictions of an avian on their hull. Missiles were dropped from their wings, crashing into larger vehicles further ahead of his hauler. Heavy, assault weapons opened up on smaller transports, shredding them and their inhabitants into flesh-slag paste. As they dumped their munitions across the macroway, the aircraft tore off away to allow their comrades to begin bombarding anew.
He was scared. Thousands of them across the macroway were scared. Survival was their top priority as they smashed into others, hungrily descending on weaker vehicles to escape the carnage. He moved his sixteen-wheeled hauler to the right, smashing a four-wheeled groundcar beneath to merge forward into a hundred-meter lane. It made it even worse that a storm had been brewing overhead, only just now beginning to rain down upon his fellow escaping Pacificans. All he could think of was where the Empire was? Where was Emperor Dume when they needed him most?
He certainly got his answer as a missile impacted several feet away from his hauler. Time felt like it crawled as an explosion threw asphalt into the air, followed shortly by the front end of his vehicle. He couldn’t stop anything from happening as his view went from horizontal to vertical. A look behind him saw his family upended, their bodies tossed across the cabin by the attack. It was the last thing he ever saw as the Imperial attack began on Macroway 80.
Stormbirds, Stormlancers, Nightbringers, and Hannibals laced the macroway with an overbearing amount of death. Thermonuclear missiles, acid-bombs, high explosive warheads, and more destroyed everything in short strikes that upended hundreds of vehicles. Autocannons, chainguns, lascannons, and heavy stubbers pierced groundcars, tearing metal and flesh in droves. Armored transports on the ground attempted to fight back with sparse anti-air capabilities in vain. Terra was owned by the Emperor and her skies were dominated by the Raptor.
Thousands of vehicles desperately tried to escape, millions more attempted to sprint on foot to either side of the macroway. Traffic jams began to pile up as long stretches of the macroway were cluttered with wrecked groundcars or fortified by Pacifican blockades. Pacific-Imperial Tanks roared forward on treads, crushing those they swore to protect, their turrets aimed backwards to engage. Mechanized assault chassis crawled on four-legged mounts, their arms stretched to the sky with barrels that sang death. Self-propelled artillery desperately tried to stop where they could, unload, and move again at the urging of their commanders. Pandemonium was the flavor of Macroway 80.
It was a flavor that Lord-Commander Crucias delighted in when it affected his enemies. He stood within the wide cockpit of his superheavy behemoth as it raced across three lanes of the Macroway. His throne was an austere seat with snaking conduits and a variety of voxhailers on either arm. Ten members of his staff worked the terminals around him, each with their eyes glued to a pict-screen and their hands slaved to a runeslate. Fifteen other souls captained his fearsome vessel, operating other vital tasks throughout the tank.
He was not alone in his hunt. Hundreds of vehicles chased beyond his reach, dozens of others rushed alongside him with their cannons ablaze. Malcadors rumbled forward on grinding treads. Warwalkers sprinted out on bipedal feet of steel. Dracosans screamed out with their cabins full of auxilia. Minotaurs lumbered behind with heavy, artillery cannons. Basilisks roared to life with the horrendous boom of their carronades. Baneblades menacingly crawled behind, their turrets filling the streets with death. It was one of the largest Imperial armored convoys that Wolfgang had ever seen.
It wasn’t even close to the amount the Astartes had brought. Hundreds more dared ventured beyond his reach. Raider assault tanks carrying genewarriors screamed forward, their main cannons demolishing the Pacifican retreat. Predators roared out with their guns, reaching what the Malcadors couldn’t. Rhinos paved over thousands of wrecks, their prows blunted by burning metal. Assault bikes barked, whirling forward with the excitement of their seated Space Marines. Mastodons followed shortly behind the mortal convoy, their hulls filled to the brim with known and unknown giants.
If Wolfgang had been a more compassionate man, then he would have agreed that this was overkill; however, Lord-Commander Crucias drank in the sight of Imperial victory. He reflected on the days where they could amass a convoy of twenty vehicles at most. Now, he could understand the vision that the Emperor foresaw with a force as mighty as this.
A thermonuclear explosion erupted thousands of miles away, visible as a mushroom cloud in the sky. The cockpit rumbled violently as a shockwave passed over their armored hull. Dozens of groundcars floundered into the Imperial convoy, mulched beneath gun and tread. Their own vehicles were better off, each expecting the detonation to shake the macroway. The trap had been set. The aeronautica division had accomplished their goal.
+‘Command Primus to Battlegroup Pacifica. The Pacifican retreat has been cut off by the brave pilots of the Imperium. As of this moment, Operation Thundering Annihilation is now in effect. All commanders are now detached to their subcommand. To the hunt!’+ Lord-Commander Crucias stated as the voxhailers were activated, spreading his word across the entire battlegroup. Dozens of men and women responded with their war cry, others affirmed with simple responses. His eyes were pulled to the cartolith forward of his throne, observing as different groups of vehicles separated.
In particular, Wolfgang watched as three separate groups of Astartes-manned vehicles detached from the main force and accelerated down the macroway. He didn’t need an adept to tell him who they were. The Fifth, the Eighth, and the Thirteenth Legio Astartes spoke for themselves. Their Mastodons remained behind, crewed by dozens of other Legios who have yet to taste combat. A smile crossed his lips as the Dunesong, Raider Assault Tank of the Thirteenth, led the charge into the enemy.
+‘Good hunting, old friend.’+ A final vox was sent out before Lord-Commander Crucias adjusted his gaze to the battlefield immediately around him.
Legion Master Zaid hovered over the pilot and co-pilot as their Raider charged through a groundcar several times smaller than them. Metal and flesh were crushed beneath the giant treads of the assault tank. He grit his teeth as he felt the primary cannon open up, annihilating a Pacifican tank with superhuman ease. His nostrils filled with the smell of ozone as lascannon sponsons pierced through armored transports, spilling bodies out into the macroway. They were excelling against the Pacificans.
They were also out of their element. His Scorpions were not tank commanders or ace pilots. They were weapons of carnage in the dark places of Terra that needed them. His warriors were meant for annihilating foes with claws, daggers, and bolters. Metal boxes did not suit them. He started to grow envious of those on assault bikes before his indoctrination quelled myriad emotions. His eyes snapped to the auspex on the center console, enlightening him to the vehicles around.
Five other Raiders formed a speartip around the Dunesong, trailed by ten Predators, and flanked on both sides by dozens of assault bikes. Every vehicle was roaring with the songs of battle, their armaments singing death to the retreating Pacificans with glee. Bike-mounted Astartes particularly followed this dirge, slamming powered weapons into drivers and causing chaos in spaces the main convoy could not. Zaid nodded in approval. The serpent that dances is the serpent that eats, he thought with annoyance. Fresh words from beyond.
+‘Legion Master Zaid to all other Astartes formations, rally on the Dunesong and prepare for annihilation. We aim for the throat of the retreat. Ready yourselves for a purge.’+ He spoke across the interlegionary vox, finally taking the reins of the subdivision that Crucias had handed him. It was a last minute decision by the Battlegroup, a choice made purely by experience and time over expertise, or perhaps it was the Lord-Commander’s attempt at mockery.
His thoughts came to a close as the pilot perked up. Zaid switched his view away from the auspex to the feed outside of the vehicle. Another blockade had been rallied several hundred meters away from them complete with artillery pieces, tanks, movable bunkers, and several bipedal mechanized chassis ready for them. He snarled beneath his helmet as the Dunesong rapidly approached the blockade.
+‘Give them no quarter. Murder them all.’+ Legion Master Zaid ordered over the vox, his muted aggression evident in his tone and his actions. The formation began to fan out from a speartip to a wide line of assault vehicles, their weapons ready to unload.
As reports of exchange of fire and casualties and reports of munition expenditures ran across the screens of and HUDs of the detachment of the Fifth, they knew that their time was coming. Relative to the assault bikes and aircraft of the nascent Imperium, the termites were glacially slow. But they were unstoppable, and they would reach out to their destinations eventually. Rising, rising, rising, they got ever closer until the explosions on the surface could be felt as gentle vibrations in the seats of the Legionnaires. Closer, closer, closer. Finally the drill tips of their vehicles pierced the earth and triumphantly came upon light of the day.
They would appear right in the middle of the formation of the fleeing Pacificans, eating out the heart of the retreat. The attackers would in some cases appear with such precision that they would be right beneath vehicles of the Pacific folk. Tanks, trucks, and much larger artifice would be flipped over, or in the case of some particularly super-heavy constructs the termites would bore right into them before they would empty themselves of their deadly contents.
Typically, the Fifth had an aversion to melee combat. Most of its commanders reasoned it was better to kill the enemy from the comfort of your own position. But in this instance, hundreds of its warriors would charge with paired chainaxes, hopping onto vehicles to rip off their hatches and slaughter their inhabitants or simply drop a krak grenade into an exhaust pipe. Where before there was an attempt at an organized retreat with fire returned towards the sky and ground alike, the Pacificans suddenly found Imperial transhumans right in their midst. Vehicles trailing smoothly suddenly found themselves forced to brake, often causing a pile-up as the ones behind them could not slow down safely and crashed into one another. Air-defence vehicles previously focusing on maintaining fire skyward while being relatively safe from ground troops now had inhumanly fast beasts rushing into the gunner’s seat to turn them into mulch.
But the proverbial cherry on top would be brought by specialist teams dislodged from the termites, sprinting across the battlefield (or riding captured vehicles) and simply leaving behind themselves trails of mines. Similarly some would use piloted tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to fire on adjacent ones creating a wave of panicked friendly fire. At last, these specialists would (if time and opportunity would permit) simply push destroyed vehicles with hands to present their widest parts to the oncoming procession of other Pacificans. Great unavoidable barricades forcing there a crash, or for the retreating foemen to funnel themselves into tighter and tighter lines to make them more susceptible targets for Imperial artillery and air strafes.
Legion Master Pho Scraphurst was in many ways similar to his counterpart in Legion Master Zaid in that tank warfare was generally not his domain. However, as he stood with his hands held behind his back while observing the vast array of combat data that was being steamed to him from his position in the Raider ‘Wrath Dragon’, he couldn’t help but find the destructive power of the armored tanks at his legions disposable rather enduring.
While the 8th’s armored core was currently intermingled with that of Scorpions in the pursuit of the destruction of the enemy, Legion Master Scraphurst was considering the wider tactical picture. This action was clearly a show of force from the Imperium and he was all for that, but having lived almost all of his mortal life inside of a hive city, Legion Master Scraphurst understood some fundamental truths about them.
One of which was that even under the best of circumstances, the logistics of basic commodities required for human life tended to be a hectic affair. A hive city under siege that had just prior to said siege being flooded with refugees from a different hive… it was a recipe for revolts, riots and infighting as the desperate and hungry masses turned on each other to live.
So it was that the Legion Master of the 8th sent a private vox message to Legion Master Zaid, since for all intents and purposes the man was in charge of this operation.
+‘Possible secondary objective. Having enemy strongholds being overwhelmed by combat worthless refugees would be beneficial to future actions. Requesting that we capture refugees so that they can be grouped by the hundred so that ninety nine of each group can be blinded while the last can have both hands removed instead. Goal being to have the blind led by the handless towards remaining Pan-Pacific hives to deny conscription and waste enemy resources.’+
“Fools,” Master Zaid exclaimed with a snarl. His order had been explicit. The younger legions never seemed to meet his expectations. His view was disrupted by the arrival of the Fifth, breaking through groundcar and Pacifican barricade alike with termite assault drills. He was duly thankful that the Eighth were obedient enough to keep in formation. That’d be enough for their part. The pilot of the Dunesong moved his head slightly to affirm their destination. “Activate chaff launchers and plow through those that have given themselves to the Emperor as willful weapons. Evade as required. Their sacrifices will be noted.”
The Dunesong took the lead as impact cannons and stubberfire peppered the Astartes’ mixed armored convoy. Launchers on the prow exploded outwards, ejecting fragmentation across the crumbling asphalt. Both of its lascannons pierced through a battle tank. They would never know if it was a captured ally vehicle or truly an enemy. The rest of the Thirteenth followed behind in assault transports of their own, spitting assault cannons and blaring heavy flamers from their sponsons. Their machines stretched across the entire length of Macroway 80 as a line of vengeance and death. Groundcars were demolished beneath tread, refugees and soldiery butchered by churning chainsword, and blockades annihilated by concentrated fire far beyond their expectations.
They weren’t without consequences. Assault bikes were flipped, torn into explosive fireballs by stray cannon shots. Predators were grounded to a halt by spike traps. Rhinos were upended by mines, placed by ally and foe alike. The Astartes of the Fifth were run through without thought by the Thirteenth. Raiders crunched over the carcass of the termite assault drills, blackened by Pacifican fire and Space Marine obliteration. Only those that had scattered in time or entered captured vehicles were lucky. The others were flung across the macroway, squished by assault tank tread, or caught unaware by overlapping lascannon fire. Their screams and cries were drowned out by hundreds of monstrous, promethium-chugging machines. As the formation pushed through the blockade and the Fifth’s arrival, they continued unattested on the next stretch.
+‘Denied. Double your efforts on the slaughter. The more that die here, the less reinforced the Jade Palace will be. I’d expect a Legion Master to know that,’+ Zaid responded in the private vox, hostility plain on his tongue. The objective would’ve been adequate for any other techo-barbarian state. Ursh and the Pan-Pacific Empire were different, more than willing to turn refugees into monsters. Better for them to die as smears on asphalt than become twisted creatures. He was reminded that psycho-indoctrination could only do so much for these warriors. The Legion Master switched his vox frequency with a blink, returning to wider force communications.
+‘Third, begin flanking runs on the Macroway onboard ramps. Fifth, account for your losses and fall into formation. Eighth, prepare long ranged munitions for vehicle pile-ups.’+ The Legion Master of the Thirteenth growled over the interlegionary voxnet. He watched the expanse fill with Pacifican transports and tanks that had begun to fallback. Several hundred meters of open lanes were ripe for exchanging fire. A toothy grin grew over his lips as he realized they were beginning to enter a zone mortalis. We still have more to throw at you, he thought with pride.
+‘Ninety-Ninth, Hundredth. You are clear for bombing runes from Zone Astartes-Primus to Zone Omega-Egress. Destroy their offramps. Funnel them further in and bring them to me.’+ He barked across the vox, instantly switching the frequency to air command with a blink. The zone began to close as the Pacificans furiously churned towards the advancing Astartes machines.
The voice that answered over the comm was a female voice, tinged with an accent from the former lands of the Ethnarchy, and level with concentration as she answered, +‘Roger that, directing runs on your targets. We shall have them hemmed in before you know it.’+
The orders that came from that woman, the ever dutiful Commander Marta Kodrikadze, were just as simple as that. Destroy the offramps, box the convoy in. Captain Iakob Svanadze liked orders that were as simple as that. And even better than that was the fact that there was practically nothing in the sky to oppose them. Any scattered fighter opposition was well off their course, being beaten back by their sibling unit and all the other fighter wings in the area. So confident was the Imperium in its air superiority that some of their fighter escort was even carrying missiles and bombs to carry out strafing runs alongside them.
A fact which Captain Nadia Savchuk of the 99th certainly seemed to be unhappy about. Even now, she couldn’t help but get a word in edgewise over the vox, “Running with so many weapons makes me feel like I’m all tied down…”
Captain Svanadze scoffed at that to himself, marveling at how much she was able to complain about that, whilst not sparing a thought to how dangerous the job of the bomber crews was. But he wasn’t about to entertain it, so he scolded his escort’s captain with a simple, “Cut the chatter.” Then, switching from the vox to the internals, he asked his navigator, “Pilot to navigator, have we got our waypoint from HQ?”
The navigator answered affirmatively, “Roger, pilot, waypoint just came in. Marking target…now.”
On Iakob’s console, the direction toward their designated offramp lit up, telling him exactly what heading they needed. Seeing that they were already on course, his co-pilot commented, “Oh, this is going to be easy.”
Iakob scolded the co-pilot at that, “Don’t you dare get complacent on me, Ramaz. You know damn well how many things can go wrong, and you know damn well it only takes one to end up dead. Head on a swivel, stay as focused as ever.”
Ramaz nodded weakly, not coherent enough to say anything back. Fine by Iakob, he would rather have his head in the game than in chewing out a complacent crew. And head in the game he was, as he took the ship in for the approach. And sure enough, as they approached, scattered flak fire was aimed up at them, a largely vain attempt to stop their run. Iakob knew they were already too close, with too little opposition, for the run to be stopped. Nevertheless, that didn’t discount the possibility that he could lose people. Wanting to avoid that if at all possible, Iakob made sure to check with the crew member that had the best visual of the ground, “Pilot to ball turret, SITREP.”
“Ball turret to pilot, we’ve got plenty of active AA down there! Going to have to make this quick!”
Iakob swore. It could never be all that simple, could it? He knew it couldn’t. “Roger. Bombardier, how soon to target?”
“Bombardier to pilot! One minute to target!”
“Roger, bombardier. Your ship, then.”
This was it, the approach to deliver their nuclear payload. Around them, the 99th dove in to rain missiles and light bombs onto the offramp below, drawing a good deal of the flak away from the bombers. It almost felt karmic that this time, Savchuk was more likely to take losses than he was.
But before Iakob could think any more about how it felt to have the roles reversed, one of his squadron’s pilots called out, “Captain, my ship’s taken a hit! Ball turret’s fused shut, AA’s bearing down on us!”
Iakob had to make a call. Wave that ship off and ensure their payload would not reach its target, or keep them moving and potentially sacrifice their ship entirely. He knew that the “orthodox” approach would have been the sacrifice play.
Iakob decided that the orthodox approach would get a ship and all its crew killed. That was a price he wasn’t going to pay this time. If anyone had any problems with that, he’d take full responsibility. The hell with it. “Get out of there. Dump your payload and make your escape.” The ship obeyed, dropping its payload of bombs short of the target, and veering off.
The rest of the ships continued the approach, and Iakob had nothing to do but wait until bomb release from the bombardier. Even as they approached, the ship was rattled by flak, with shrapnel even lodging itself in the hull at one point. But finally, mercifully, the call came in, “Bombardier to pilot, bomb release!” The payloads streaked downward toward the offramp, and the whole thing went up in ash and smoke, cratered from the incredible ordnance that had rained down on it.
Receiving control of his craft again, Iakob banked away from the scene of destruction, and called back over the vox to the ground forces, +‘This is the Hundredth, we’ve boxed them in some more. Give them hell.’+
The troops of the Fifth had little that could truly be called formation, so the order to come into one was met to outright laughter in their ranks, though one soul just about managed to reply with a “Confirmed.” shortly after it was issued. A few still had functional termites to retreat to, once more submerging themselves after cursory repairs and collection of the wounded. For a lot of them, coming into formation simply meant holding onto the speeding vehicles of allied troops by a single hand while the rest of their bodies flailed or even dragged in the dirt as their other hand was preoccupied holding a weapon of some sort. Still, those that could would enter the captured vehicles of the foe, albeit after making brief markings on them and entering them into the Imperial IFF records. A few however, remained behind. Carrion, picking over the fallen for interesting pieces of technology, and of course, people.
Master Scraphurst didn’t seem to respond to the rather angry snarls of his superior beyond a simple +‘Understood’+ before swapping from the private channel with the emotionally unstable Master Zaid and turned towards the channel for the 8th legion forces present.
+‘All 8th forces maintain formation while preparing long range munitions. The Legion Master of the Scorpions has made it clear that this is a purge mission. Spare no one and be through.’+
Pho went quiet as he simply paid attention to the battle reports coming in. Zaid’s belittlement hadn’t annoyed him as much as it could have, largely because he had dealt with idiots like him before all his life. Zaid’s time would come, but for now he would show that he and his legion could follow orders and get the job done.
… A fact that put them above the Fifth in his eyes. They seemed so willing to throw away their lives for stupid shit and clearly couldn’t follow an order worth a damn. They reminded him of dens of chem heads, because you couldn’t really call a bunch of idiots too high on who knows what a ‘gang’.
The zone mortalis between the oncoming Astartes and the stalwart Pacifican armored rearguard shortened until there was no distance between the two. The techno-barbarian tanks shot off with a level of desperation that was correct for their situation. Many shots went wide, veering from sheer terror or imprecise calculations made in the final seconds of the Imperial advance. The few that managed to land saw their own captured vehicles explode, assault bikes engulfed in explosive clouds, or Raiders riddled with enough fire to peel the first layer of their reinforced hull.
The quickly adapted rearguard was never meant to last. A final struggle to defend those they were sworn to protect. The lead Astartes vehicles rammed into the Pacifican armor with the force of a demigod. Raiders crunched over smaller Pan-Pacific buggies, captured tanks of the Fifth annihilated armored transports, and the long ranged fire from the Eighth saw the rearguard shorten significantly. Cannon blasts from Predators saw tanks flip, skid, or outright explode. Shots that had appeared to miss their tanks zoomed past the guard, detonating into the mass of groundcars still desperately fleeing. The damage on their morale was visible as stubberfire responded in vain to the Astartes vehicles.
It was a wholesale slaughter. Each of the desperate armored vehicles of the Pan-Pacific Empire were crushed by brutalistic zeal. Those that attempted to survive through evasion maneuvers only suffered boarding by the raucous battle bands of the Fifth. Those that managed to escape far enough away from the Fifth were crushed by the Eighth’s devastating munitions. There was no escape. Only death awaited them face-to-face with the Astartes of the Imperium.
They broke. Some vehicles raced off of the macroway by attempting to smash through the safety barricades. A few were successful, falling off the massive highway to explode far below in the ruined depths. Most simply collided with ceramic blockade, disabling their transports and suffering a quick death by Imperial tread. The battle appeared to be won for the Imperials as the rearguard was annihilated, allowing free reach into the thousands of meters of unprotected citizen-piloted groundcars.
Legion Master Zaid nodded in satisfaction. After the initial roping in of the other legions, the rest of the assault was progressing as planned. He could feel both of the Fifth and Eighths' frustrations through their single worded replies in the way only a genewarrior could understand. To him, it was enough that they continued to fight with some semblance of a coherent combat force. The newbloods will learn eventually, he thought as fleeing groundcars entered his view.
As the Dunesong began to accelerate into the first of the hundreds of thousands of vehicles, Zaid felt something prickle on his neck. He realized that the Pacifican response had been lackluster. Where were their biomechanical monstrosities, genewarrior blademasters, or their legendary quadrupedal machine-titans? Where were the macroweapon tanks, their offshore bombardment fleet, or their dive-bombers? His eyes widened as the epiphany grew on him. The Legion Master’s teeth grit together in frustration. They’d always planned to sacrifice their people.
+‘Battlegroup Astartes, we’ve fallen into a trap-’+ Legion Master Zaid had started to say over the vox as something fired from an impossibly far distance. His enhanced sight honed in on the projectile that had launched. It was neither a missile nor was it a bomb. It was a shell with a diameter large enough to flatten a significant portion of a hive city. He barely had time to react before the macroway behind them collapsed under the weight and explosion of the macroround.
Dozens of automated responses filtered through his helmet as lifelines were flattened all across the Battlegroup. The voxnet was filled with chaos as a macroweapon had exploded an entire section of their own mega-infrastructure. Reports came in instantly from both ends of the theater. Astartes and mortals alike suffered a wealth of casualties. Only the Fifth were saved from the carnage as they rallied forward on captured equipment. Zaid felt his blood boil.
+‘Hundredth! Ninety-Ninth! Expect oncoming resistance. Get me eyes on the oncoming Pacificans! All other units, accelerate or evade in the name of the Emperor!’+ He cursed himself for becoming lax in the height of an assault. Zaid hadn’t even considered that Hongol would fire on the macroway. The Astartes felt he had to compliment their Emperor on his efforts. It was something their own Emperor would do.
Of the Legions, the 8th suffered the brunt of the casualties of the Macroweapon. Having hung back in order to provide long range support, they had been somewhat closer to the impact zone. In an instant, almost three fourths of their force was gone, wiped from the face of existence in a flash or plummeting down into the abyss as the macroway gave out under them.
Of those that remained, a distressing amount of armored support were either rendered inoperable or were now stuck on the wrong side of the chasm that used to be a macroway. The damage that the blast had done hadn’t erased them from existence like those who had been closer to the impact, and as such survivors were slowly pulling themselves out of the wreckage in various states of stunned. The Raider ‘Wrath Dragon’ itself exploded in a wave of further devastation, killing or wounding those who had been unfortunate enough to be near it…
Which made the fact that its ramp was forced upon and Astartes pouring out of the wreckage all the more impressive. The crew was dead, but of the twelve Astartes that had been traveling within ten managed to get out in various states of combat readiness. One of which was Legion Master Scraphurst, alive, well and recovering from the utter shock of what had happened.
Shaking his head before slapping his helmet a few times to knock some screws back into place, he barked over the vox +‘Status report! Who's still alive?!’+
After a few moments of reports coming in from those in a variety of states of shock, Pho had a fairly solid idea of the situation… and taking a moment to compose himself, he swapped back to the private vox channel with Zaid. +‘Zaid, I’m giving you direct command of what armour we’ve got that’s still operational. You’ll be interacting with my second in command, Commander Vaarars from now on. I’ll be continuing on foot and won’t be able to command the armour as quickly or accurately from this position. Give those Pacifican fucks my regards while we clean up the stragglers.’+
With an order over the vox, command of the 8th’s armour was transferred over as those that could move and fight surged forward in order to keep up with the tank forces of the other legions while Pho rallied those who now had to go on foot. “Gentlemen… I am in a really bad mood right now. Let’s go and make it someone else’s problem. Praetor Muckstead, with me.”
After internal bickering and the vaguely most popular leader was selected, a very simple reply came from the appointed commander of the Fifth present, given that Captain Hjaller was now a small black stain on the battlefield. “Are present forces truly sufficient? It might be wise to retreat given the… predicament our allies are in.” The voice finished, chuckling. They’d proven they were no cowards, indeed going for nigh suicidal efforts. But this could be outright futile if another salvo of that mystery weapon came forth.
Legate nic Leir raised the magnoculars to her eyes with a grimace. Was this truly the best the Imperium’s vaunted Astartes had to offer?
Her force had debarked the previous morning and driven through the night, sleeping in shifts, with infantry desanting on the hulls. The ridge they’d arrived on had been some kind of public park, once, but was now pockmarked with rubble, shattered boughs, and shell craters. It wasn’t a perfect position, but it was better than driving into a killbox.
+“We’re not wedging ourselves into that suicide rush. All vehicles take extreme spacing. I don’t want to lose half our force to a single shot from that monster.”+ She clicked the vox on her chest, +“Towed artillery, mark target zones ahead of the convoy, staggered intervals. Fire at discretion as it approaches. Maximum yield. All tanks, elevate main cannon for indirect fire. Select targets; fire at discretion. Infantry, you’d better get back and plug your ears.”+
The force dispersed itself as ordered, lighter tanks moving forward to provide screen against any stragglers while the infantry kept their distance; within a minute the force was ready, and the deafening report of an ungodly quantity of heavy artillery rolled across the wastes.
Volkite and nuclear ordnance slammed into the causeway, obliterating swathes of civilian targets, sending vehicles careening, trucks flipping up onto their sides and rolling, metal crumpling as shrapnel shredded through drivers and passengers alike. Impacts gouged holes in the highway, causing further casualties by simple loss-of-control. They had far more free rein in their massacre than they had any right to-–no one on the highway had expected another force to arrive in the midst of the battle and begin raining death down on them from the flank, and many of the fleeing Pacificans were too locked into the adrenaline-fuelled fight-or-flight haze to even register that the fire was coming from anywhere but behind or above, as it already had been.
+”This is Legate nic Leir to whichever Imperial forces aren’t dead on that highway; I’m buying you some breathing room. Don’t waste it.”+
Meanwhile, up above, Captain Kotrikadze found himself in a bit of a predicament. With that thing on the field now, their ability to get back to base was now in jeopardy. Never mind that the macroweapon had now bought Pacifican flak guns plenty of time to start pelting his unit’s ships as they tried to RTB and rearm. Yes, there would be a wave coming in after them, but that would matter only so much if his wave all bit it. He had to know how far until they made it back, “Pilot to navigator! How far until we can RTB safely?”
His navigator responded, “Too fucking far, to put it simply! Flak guns are all opening up on us, we’re not gonna make it at this rate!”
Suddenly, the top turret gunner called out, “Alasania’s ship just took a hit! An engine’s on fire!”
Iakob cursed, but tried to keep his cool, “Are they bailing?”
After several agonizing moments, the gunner confirmed, “Yes, sir, looks that way! I see parachutes!”
Here was hoping they could make it back to Imperial lines. Iakob shuddered to think what would happen if the Pacificans got them instead. But that was a “later” concern. Right now was for getting the hell out of there.
A task made more complicated when the flak suddenly stopped. Iakob knew this part all too well, “Keep an eye out for those fighters…”
The top gunner called out just moments later, “Incoming on our six! Lots of ‘em!”
Several of the 99th’s fighters turned back to engage, but it was all they could do just to keep the bombers mostly untouched. A few fighters got through them anyway, and Iakob simply could not blame them…for once. His ship’s guns opened up, and several enemy fighters went down under the hail of fire, but even more were making it past and delivering hails of fire. One ship burned up and exploded right in front of Iakob, and he had little choice but to steer past the wreckage. He didn’t even bother asking whether anyone had seen parachutes; no one could have survived that.
One of his Lieutenants, Abakelia, then came in over the vox, +“Captain, we aren’t going to make it home to rearm at this rate. I’m breaking off with my element to engage the macroweapon.”+
Iakob’s eyes bulged wide at that, +“Are you insane?! You will get yourselves killed for nothing! You don’t have the firepower!”+
+“We have the mass, sir. And you’ll get to go home.”+
+“You won’t!”+
+“Affirmative.”+
Iakob could sense that the Lieutenant had accepted this, and would not be swayed. Gritting his teeth, he accepted the loss too, +“Solid copy. Make them hurt.”+
As Abakelia’s element broke off and turned around, Iakob saw the fighters leave his remaining people be, leaving them a clear path back to base. Those four ships now barreled toward the macroweapon, covered by the 99th’s escort fighters. They now had a much easier time covering the remaining ships, ensuring that they’d reach their ramming target.
As Iakob exited the hot zone, putting the combat behind him, he vowed to make sure their sacrifice would be worth it.
A brave sacrifice. Comradery was staunch amongst the bombers of the Hundredth as they passed over the convoy. Flak riddled their underbellies as they sailed up and down over Macroway 80. As the heavy aircraft reached the point of no return, they crept dangerously into the forward portions of the macroway. Fleeing civilians, armed escorts, and myriad military vehicles continued to fill the stretch as they were bombarded by the Meallans from afar. Small arms fire tried to stop the sacrificial members from afar to no avail, simply watching as they grew closer and closer to their target.
A wide wall of dense, black smog blanked their destination. Hundreds of rising silhouettes grew as they sailed through the air. Walls as wide and tall as the smallest mountains of the Himalazians rose beneath them. Great square bastions with sloped roofs stared out every several thousand meters across the leviathan curtains. Unknowable weapons of titanic build situated themselves on these heavily fortified castles, aiming out at everything and anything that dared.
Even these paled in comparison to the spires. The first aircraft witnessed their palatine beauty through the smog as they were shot down. Crisscrossing fire of volkite, las, and ballistics saw them crash into ravines that served as a hive-city moat. The assault came from everywhere. Habblocks, spires, passerbys, guardians, and more opened up on those that sought to dare. The final few perished as the wall-mounted macroweapons unloaded their insane ordinance into the sky with advanced precision. Those brave souls of the Hundredth perished unable to complete their objective. They never even got close to Narthan Dume’s advanced domain.
As the final aircraft began to crash into the ravines, they witnessed a titan of a gatehouse begin to rumble. Gates as large as several superheavy tanks stacked fifteen high slid apart. The final members of the kamikaze attack would’ve thought it’d be for the fleeing civilians. No such sympathy existed in the Pan-Pacific Empire. Thousands of vehicles were instantly vaporized or crushed beneath the quadrupedal legs of a mechanical nightmare. The ground rushed to meet them as it sped out of Hongol’s gates at unknown speeds.
+‘Legate nic Leir, you’re heard by Battlegroup Pacifica lead, Lord-Commander Crucias of the Tenth Excertus Imperialis.’+ Wolfgang said over the vox as he held a hand against his head. The sudden bombardment from Hongol had seen the entire armored convoy, stretched out over five-hundred miles of macroway, sliding to a sudden stop. An open wound bled slowly from his temple. It was the least of his worries as several officers lay unconscious or perished from the collision.
It had all happened in several seconds as the stretch between the main force and the genewarrior vanguard disappeared into an atomic plume. Chaos ensued as dozens of his forward tanks, armored transports, and artillery had disappeared into the depths of Terra’s ruins. Thirteen of the sixteen lanes had been demolished in the attack, nearly forcing them off the macroway completely. The numbers were still coming in from the wounded, dead, or missing that had been lost in the attack. It was a miscalculation to think that Narthan Dume wouldn’t have attacked his own infrastructure.
Now, as his officers of the Fangs of the Wolf recovered, Lord-Commander Crucias had to rapidly adapt their strategies. Especially now with the two forces divided by thin bridges of Macroway 80. It’d take several days to repair, refit, and continue on their way to Hongol. His hands were weaving across the hololith as he adjusted the routes of his convoy, leaving several hundred vehicles behind to take shelter away from Narthan Dume’s defenses. Every single tank, transport, support train, and artillery piece were micromanaged across the chasm on careful treads. He found himself thankful that the Meallans hadn’t fully integrated into their command structure. If they had, then no doubt they would have suffered the same fate ahead of them.
+‘The Pan-Pacific Empire won’t stop at that. Be prepared for anything. Continue to hamper the enemies movement as we establish a reinforcement corridor with Battlegroup Astartes.’+ He continued speaking after sending a datapacket flying through their interconnected systems. It was less an order and more of a statement. The Lord of the Black Wolves had no time to dance on professionalism between autonomous forces. If the Sigilite’s information had been correct, then even the foreign Meallans would have access to their command network. A small part of him wanted to scowl at the thought that they served equal to him, yet he pushed it aside in the name of Unity.
+‘Command Primus to Battlegroup Pacifica. All orders have been dispatched via datapacket. Follow as required and watch the skies. Anticipate swift enemy retaliation. All airwings, prepare for bombing runs on Hongol.’+ Lord-Commander Crucias spoke through the command vox, responded by several affirmations by dozens of armored platoon commanders. The airwings were slower to respond, knowing full well what the Imperial commander was requesting. There was little that the ground force could do to halt further attacks from a macroweapon. It would prove sufficient enough as the Battlegroup entered a phase of repair and recuperation.
+‘Legion Master Zaid, you and the other Astartes are now the bulwark against the oncoming Pacifican threat. I wish you luck, old friend,’+ He switched communications to the legionary vox. Crucias understood the order that he was giving. As a commander, he’d given out several hundreds of times before. Stop the enemy advance, no matter what it is. Wolfgang didn’t have the courage to say the last words. Die well, he thought grimly as his superheavy tank rolled forward.
+‘Acknowledged.’+ Legion Master Zaid responded to Pho as the Dunesong accelerated through the debris of the Pacifican rearguard. The sudden launch of artillery from the east was a welcome sign of competency from the Meallans. As much as he dreaded their abhuman existence, Zaid acknowledged their achievements in Ouran. He didn’t have a choice in that matter. Alim had said the words himself during his surgeries.
The interlegionary vox was alive with the sounds of countless reports. He could only ignore it all as the Pacificans dared to make a push against the hampered Astartes. The only statistic he could afford to watch was the number of active vehicles and active infantry still roaming their side of the macroway. Across sixteen lanes they’d spread out in an attempt to recover from the macroweapon attack. Zaid was thankful that it was only a single shell and not a cavalcade of enormous ballistics. Narthan Dume still had a use for his infrastructure.
What affected him most was Wolfgang’s final words. An unsaid goodbye that was common through wartorn Terra. He’d known the commander for long enough to smell a sacrificial order. Zaid would’ve done the same. His lips curled into a snarl as he blink-activated the vox again. The Legion Master reinforced his soul for the rebellious replies by the other Astartes.
+‘Battlegroup Astartes, we’ve been tasked to be the bulwark into Hongol. All pursuit from this moment forward is null. Make peace with yourselves for we stand against Narthan Dume’s counterattack.’+ Legion Master Zaid ordered. He was never afraid to throw away lives when necessary. This, however, was different. To the Lord of the Thirteenth, it felt like he was being pushed into a last stand. Miles of Pacificans ahead with no offramps to egress, each destroyed by bombers and artillery. Thousands of Imperials behind him slowly lumbering their way over the macroweapon-made crevasse. A coiled serpent caught in black sands.
The first wave came to them as a smattering of tanks and transports that managed to somehow evade the onslaught from the Meallans. They were few in that wave, battered beyond repair and limping to achieve their mission. Those Astartes that still had functioning vehicles made quick work of them from a distance. Their treads had since stopped, maneuvering into a defense line across the sixteen lanes with Raiders at the front, Predators between, and Rhinos behind. Those devoid of vehicles prepared themselves for inevitability, unholstering heavy weapons from those transports that remained.
Legion Master Zaid anticipated the enemy as they arrived. It was impossible to not see the lumbering thing as it barreled down Macroway 80. From nearly a hundred miles, emerging from the far-off smog that clung to Hongol, it came. All sixteen of the lanes were encompassed by its leviathan mass. Four great legs of advanced, reinforced plasteel drove on tens of wheels across the highway. A tremendous, blocky torso with an unfathomable amount of weaponry swiveled on a ball-joint midriff. Four arms extended out into chimeric cannons of ballistics, las, and plasma with underslung excavator chainsaws. Artillery and missile pods loomed from its hundred meter wide shoulders. Several glowing, crimson lenses stared out from the center cockpit. Volkite, missiles, and artillery from the Meallans erupted several meters away from it in shimmering air. Groundcars, tanks, and transports were destroyed as it raced towards the Astartes. It cared little for friendly fire.
+‘By Him of Himalazia… incoming!’+ The Lord of Scorpions roared out across the vox. Battlegroup Astartes unleashed a cacophony of armaments that dared to cross the distance. At this range, only missiles, artillery, and lascannons could reach the machine as it screamed towards the Astartes. Each attack disappeared into nothingness as it attempted to cross shimmering air. Zaid bristled in frustration. It had a powerful shield of some kind. He leaned down to the pilot of the Dunesong as they spat death towards the machine. They would need to be within the barrier to properly destroy the machine-titan. Just like Abbaba, he thought with distaste.
“Forward!” Legion Master Zaid ordered, preparing himself for the suicidal task of attempting to break the titan. The Dunesong lurched as it accelerated on bruised treads. The black-bronze vehicles of the Thirteenth rolled with their lead vehicle as the machine-titan began to react to their forces. His hearts rapidly beat against his chest as the arms of the Pacifican gargantuan started to aim at several different things all at once.
Then it fired. The noise alone threatened to break the soundbarrier in terms of sheer output. Rays of blue, red, and orange ripped across the macroway in an onslaught of overwhelming fire. Subatomic missiles and arcing artillery shells flew across the distance from the macroway to the ruins on either side of the highway. Ballistics screamed across the sky as fighters, bombers, and gunships reconverged for another run on Macroway 80. It was death and it had come for them.
The elements of the Fifth that no longer had functional termites to use while still in position of captured vehicles simply followed the lead of the nearest allied force, while those that had even a hope of field-repairs on their craft bringing them operational focused on that first and foremost, at best letting lose salvos of missile or lascannon fire if they had spare hands to use weapons sufficiently heavy to at least scratch the vision encompassing target. A few with particularly small vehicles would try for exceptionally brash moves, trying to ride straight to it that they might climb atop it and hope to destroy it from within.
Those within functional termites however, would simply sink into the earth. As far as it seemed, another salvo of airpower was the best hope for destroying this foe. The Astartes of all three legions did not seem exceptionally well equipped for destroying the mechanical monstrosity. Weapons of a truly strategic scale would be needed to bring this down.
Thus, their best contribution had to be more modest, if perhaps critical than the prior chaos inflicted. They would tunnel ahead, and seek out any surviving air-defence systems of the Pacificans. If possible they wouldn’t even emerge wholly from the ground, just appearing long enough to send a missile or beam from a lascannon into a vital point of an anti-air missile launcher or the like before retreating once more into the ground. All other targets no longer mattered, even a truck carrying infantry with a single man portable rocket launcher that could target aircraft would be narrowly focused by the still subterranean travel capable troops of the Undying Onslaught.
Ainne swore as the new threat emerged—and her force’s salvos did nothing. + “All units, cease targeting that monster. We can’t do anything from here. Focus fire on all remaining Pacifican threats; let’s give the gene-warriors a clear corridor to take the bastards down!” +
She got a hail of acknowledgements from unit commanders as their targeting solutions were pointedly modified not to include the new gargantuan; instead, they made sure that the only threat that Battlegroup Astartes had to concern itself with was the behemoth; all else would be buried in heavy weapons fire and forced to either withdraw or be obliterated, and either way they would not long pose a threat to the flanks of the superhumans on the causeway.
Switching back to comms, she said, + “Battlegroup Astartes, we’ll clear you a path! You take that monster down!” +
Of the remaining members of the 8th legion that were still within armored vehicles of some kind, there was seemingly a degree of disharmony in the current action that they were undertaking. This divide could be summarized in broad strokes as two different battle groups were forming among those left.
The first group were those who had put the pedal to the metal and were striving to go towards the massive monster of a machine as quickly as possible. The reasons for this decision varied from those who were simply almost suicidal thrill seekers to those who were able to calculate that the only chance they had of actually getting passed the shield and thus actually doing damage was to take the gamble of charging into point blank range and being so close the shield would do nothing.
The second group were also moving, but they were doing so at a much slower pace than the other Astartes armored core. Those who were cautious and felt that charging the metal titan of a beast was a death sentence were a part of it, but some had simply suffered damage that was slowing them down. Rather than waste ammo on a shield that they simply couldn’t breach, they were aiming and focusing their attention on enemy forces that were in the way instead.
As he slaughtered those Pan-Pacific humans, both civilian and military, that had the misfortune of trying to flee on foot, Master Scraphurst observed the situation with the metal beast that was coming towards the battle group. His mind raced through a number of scenarios… and suddenly a possible answer presented itself before him that would achieve victory in the field. The number of surviving imperials to enjoy that victory was somewhat up in the air.
Pausing in his own shedding of blood in order to perform the calculations at inhuman speeds, as well as create a data package of what tactically needed to happen in order to make it work, Pho voxed Master Zaid with a simple +‘Possible time sensitive tactical plan to defeat Pacific titan monster.’+ before the data package was sent to outline exactly what Pho was talking about.
The core of the idea was to take advantage of remaining imperial assets, primarily the Termites of the Fifth legion, to destabilize a large chunk of the Macroway. The Termites tunnels, combined with some rather powerful explosive ordinance detonated within those tunnels at just the right places, would be able to make a rather hefty chunk of Macroway 80 dangerous unstable and unable to support the massive weight of the monstrous titan, collapsing underneath two of its massive legs and letting gravity and its bulk do the rest.
Estimated number of lanes that would be lost was between six and twelve, with fourteen being the worst case scenario.
The world was pandemonium around him. Zaid’s Raider shook with the nearby assault of smaller Pacifican vehicles and the onslaught of the machine-titan of Hongol. He could easily smell the stench of adrenaline stink up from the Black Blades behind him. They were as hungry to fight as he was. The Legion Master would not allow them until the right time had come. His helmet buzzed with the sound of several vox-communications from other vehicles and the commanders of the other legions. The Scorpion never took his eyes off of the nightmarish gargantuan as he responded.
+‘Approved. Adjustments confirmed. Orders sent. Raptor Imperialis, Pho Scraphurst,’+ the Legion Master of the Thirteenth acknowledged the plan. His usual snarl and aggressive behavior was shaved down to a deadly hone. There was no longer time to settle on his distaste for the other legions. Their slim chance of victory depended on bitter indifference and improbable gambling. He heavily disliked handing his fate to the whims of luck, yet Zaid could not see the way forward without it. A thousand and one chances made manifest in the black sands of the dusken world.
+‘Battlegroup Astartes! Prepare for orders!’+ He roared through the interlegionary vox, swapping to the wider net with a blink. His eyes briefly narrowed at the addition of the abhuman strain in their legionary communications; however, it was quickly disregarded. A blink-confirmation sent a datapacket throughout Battlegroup Astartes within local range which split out across the entire force.
It was as the Eighth’s Legion Master had suggested. The Fifth was tasked with the obliteration of Macroway 80’s support beams labelled ‘Zeta One’ through ‘Zeta Twelve’ until their objective was achieved; however, it largely depended on the ability to hold the machine-titan in one location. The Eighth and the Thirteenth were to establish a cordon of ranged interference and close combat interception respectively. Zaid what he ordered with a sour expression. It’d cause more of his own to die than the other legio. They were weapons. He did not have the emotional capability for remorse beyond that.
As the last of the datapackets were funneled through the limited infonet, the Thirteenth began their portion of the plan. All of their Raiders beamed towards the machine-titan as it rushed closer and closer to Battlegroup Astartes. Precise, beautifully destructive Meallan artillery allowed them free movement past wrecked Pacifican tanks and transports. Uninterrupted by overwhelming stragglers, the bronze-black vehicles unloaded their payloads with unrelenting fury as they closed the distance. The machine-titan was receptive to their advances, offering return fire in the form of arm-ladden cannons and bristling hull armaments. The Thirteenth started to drown in a storm of unimaginable ordinance.
+‘Gloria Scorpii! Blood of the Sand!’+ Legion Master Zaid roared through the interlegionary vox as the first vehicles finally entered within the shield of the machine-titan. The operation now rested as laurels on the Eighth and Fifth.
The Termites would very briefly have to retreat as the new orders demand they properly find repairs and rearm themselves to create the explosions of the magnitude intended. But time was of the essence, and most of the non-essential maintenance would be ignored simply to ensure that they could get going before the allied forces would be turned to dust.
Thus they departed again, penetrating the soil with charges ready to be set in the hope of beating the unprecedented machine. Most communications were cut, they did not want to let ground penetrating augurs of the Pacific to have an even easier time pinpointing them. After all, now that their little move was revealed the enemy was quick to bring up countermeasures.
Communications officers of the Fifth would briefly inform listening colleagues that there were losses, but most of them would need no announcement. As the Termites went through soil, they would be chased by an unseen foe. Maneuvers would be made to try to evade them, but the krak missiles of the enemy’s Mole launchers would inevitably find their mark on several occasions. A few lucky instances would be averted purely by virtue of the armour of the Termites or their shields, but in the end the only way out was forwards. They placed the charges to what weak points that would be marked out on the screens of their Termites, dying if necessary to achieve this. If there wasn’t a safe time-frame to escape the blast, then one would not be set on the charges. Comrades exchanged salutes, and accepted their imminent destruction for the greater good.
“Prepare. The ground should soften soon.”
For their part, the armored core of the 8th Legion served a similar role to that of the 13th: A combination of getting the enemy titan into the correct part of the macroway so that once the ground grew unable to handle its massive weight, the titan would fall and try to inflict damage upon it so that it A) Wouldn’t be able to somehow escape when the time came and B) Would have less weapons to fire at them.
The cautious ranged group that had hung back under the command of Gallianus, the second in command of the 8th legion, had opted towards a more supportive role to the effort. While they would occasionally poke at the shield on the titan, their focus was more about dealing with smaller enemy armor and clearing the way for other forces via destroying wreckage that might block lines of movement.
Praetor Al-Sharqawa was leading the charge of those who were charging into point blank range with the metal monster. While the barrage of fire meant that the forces under his command had to take a loose, semi ‘every man for himself’ formation and movement pattern in order to avoid giving the enemy shots that would threaten more than one tank crew if they landed, as they started to breach the shield and get inside of it the Praetor was quick to seize command.
+‘All crews, focus fire on my target.’+ was the announcement that Roccex made as the various crews of his battle group… as well as the tank crews of the 13th. All of them would get a ping of the same series of targets, numbered in order: A series of joints along one of the four ‘arms’ that seemed to allow it to move the limb, allowing it to shift its weapons to aim them at targets. Best case scenario, destroying them would either cause the arm to fall off or be unable to receive firing orders anymore, but even just being unable to move that arm would considerably reduce the amount of firepower that titan could accurately put out.
+‘Mark’+ was all that needed to be said as Roccex’s raider opened fire on the first target, alongside those of the 8th legion that managed to follow past the shield.
Meanwhile, up above in the sky, Iakob Kotrikadze and his group had gotten rearmed as quickly as possible, thanks to the incredibly quick work of their ground crews. Iakob had to remind himself to thank them again for their outstandingly quick work. Knowing that they had to make the sacrifices of today worth it, Iakob steered his ship in with just one goal in mind: to bring down the full force of his payload onto the giant once it had been toppled. Calling in over the vox to the ground forces, Kotrikadze told them the plan, +“100th to ground forces. Once you topple that son of a bitch, we’ll land the killing blow. Just give us the signal when you do.”+
Legate nic Leir had already relayed the order to her gun crews to calculate a second firing solution in the centre-mass of the most likely position the behemoth would collapse into, to be quickly swapped to as soon as the monster fell. There would be no time to make the calculations on the fly, and, fortunately, her crews were good enough that she got the solution back along the Legion’s vox-net just as the 100th were returning for another round. As soon as it fell…they’d be ready.
The machine-titan forced itself to adapt as the macroway around it became an ungovernable battlefield of mass attrition. Allies that skittered beneath its treads had disappeared in artillery fire, advancing Imperial armor column, and the weight of it’s own legs. The shimmering shield that protected it wavered beneath a constant barrage of volatile ammunition, delivered from afar and above. It was unstoppable, yet it was beleaguered by insects. It would not suffer this injustice any longer.
The metal giant’s attention snapped to the Astartes swarming around its legs. As the machine-titans arms were hammered with lascannons, missiles, and ballistics, each began to disassemble. To the surprise of the Astartes, they branched out into separate, smaller arms that began pinpoint obliteration of their vehicles. Those that drove too close to the legs were carved by roaming, tank-sized chainblades, while those who had decided to keep a distance were dismantled by plasma cavalrades. The shoulder-mounted munitions of the mechanical giant switched offline as power was rerouted to its many, manipulated arms. Chunks of the macroway crumbled under duress as the battle continued.
Those vehicles of the Thirteenth suffered attrition at a scale previously unimaginable to them. The brunt of the machine-titans attacks slaughtered them through the hull of their Raiders, Predators, and Rhinos. For each death, though, the Pacifican giant was forced to remain in the same position a second longer. It was a price they were easily willing to pay as their lascannons, prows, stubbers, and autocannons tore chunks of metal from it’s unprotected hull.
Zaid’s Dunesong swerved hard around a plasma shot that destroyed the Raider that had followed behind him. He narrowed his eyes as their names flashed in his helmet’s display: Aalax, Samir, Farid, Suhail, Jalok, Alif, Karaam, Makram. Hundreds of their names were forever etched into his mind. It was their duty as weapons of the Emperor. It was what they were made for. His Raider’s lascannons shot upward, piercing the cabling of one of the machine-titans weapons with swift precision. The weapon dropped with remarkable speed, nearly flattening his vehicle as they drove under the Pacifican warmachine.
+‘Raptor Imperialis, Astartes! Keep the fight on a moment longer!’+ His voice tore through the legionary vox. The vehicles of the Fifth and Eighth exploded around the Dunesong, careening their vehicle into the void or emptying their compartment of genewarriors onto the macroway. He’d never seen so many genewarriors slaughtered all in the same place. Zaid imagined it would’ve been worse if mortal men had been fighting this creature with their limited reaction times.
As the weapons of the machine-titan began to fall from its arms, pierced by the Fifth, Eighth, and Thirteenth, the macroway began to rumble. Imperial vehicles were thrown into a sudden halt as the entirety of the section shook with the force of a thousand sprinting carnosaurs. The Pacifican giant fumbled as it began to tip, automatically adjusting its weight to account for the environmental damage; however, it was too late to recover. That section of Macroway 80 started to crumble, first with small pieces and then with large chunks as the foundations were razed by explosives. The left leg of the titan gave out, sinking into the depths of Terra’s ruins far below.
The Imperials took their chance as it arrived, formidably timed as the ground began to give beneath their treads. Lascannons, missile racks, cannons, stubbers, volkite carbines, and more emptied with whatever ammunition remained against the machine-titan. Men and women screamed across the vox as the opportunity arrived, urging their own and others to attack. The legs of the metal giant were demolished, sinking the thing further into the ground until the last was annihilated. It fell into the abyss with those Astartes who dared to fight in close proximity - namely many of the Thirteenth. They were joined by the Fifth below, the Eighth that had charged, and the numerous other vehicles that supported them.
An explosive plume expelled upwards towards the shattered remains of the macroway they had previously fought on. As the Astartes drove their vehicles forward, they saw the machine-titan below as a dismal echo of what it had once been; however, it was still functional and attempting to recover. It slowly pushed a pile of wrecked vehicles off of it with crudely crushed limbs, desperately trying to return to the battle. The Master of the Thirteenth would not allow this, none of them would.
+‘By the Emperor, hammer that titan with everything you have!’+ Legion Master Zaid roared over the vox, blink-affirming a signal to the Hundredth and the Meallans. Another blink-order saw the last of the Astartes moving back to allow maximum destruction from allied forces. His Dunesong had ended up on the other side of the macroway with several others from the rest of the Astartes, separated by a measly four lanes on the right hand side. This time, he wouldn’t throw his warriors into the grinder when there were those that could do more.
The 8th suffered losses in the fight against the Titan, but of the armored fighting force that remained that was still combat active, the losses were absolutely minimal.
Of Prator Al-Sharqawa’s ‘point blank’ charging force, which had come out somewhat lesser in the split of forces between the two groups, the 8th’s armor that had survived up until the Titan had presented itself, an almost ludicrously small number of Astartes and armored vehicles were lost in the close range fight with the Titan itself.
Prator Al-Sharqawa had a reputation among the 8th as a risk taker and emotionally unstable mad man, but he also processed a self control that was second to none when the chips were down. The objective might have been to down the Titan, but he cared about the lives of his men and fully intended that as many of them as possible would survive to brag about their victory.
His management of the 8th under his direct command during the battle with the Titan reflected this mindset, for while he lead the charge to get under the shield to shoot at the Titan directly, his instructions for movements among the 8th legion as they fired at the joints and weapons to try and reduce the amount of fire coming at them proved rather successful at not getting them killed. As the macroway started to give out and it was clear that the 5th had done their job, he had ordered a controlled withdrawal of the 8th, firing at weapons and leg joints all the while as they floored it to more steady ground before it was too late.
The somewhat larger group of the 8th that had stayed back with Gallianus Vaarars also suffered relatively small losses during the Titan exchange, though somewhat ironically they suffered more losses then those fighting at close range had… though not by much.
As the Titan plummeted and other Imperial force acted to make sure it didn’t get back up again, the surviving armor of the 8th legion regrouped itself and started to make their way over the four lanes that remained of this section of Macroway 80 in order to support those of their cousin legions that were further up the road and prepare for what came next.
And what came next was the roar of engines above, followed by bombs dropping in salvos upon the Titan. Mushroom clouds blossomed on its hull, and it shuddered under the impact of those bunker-busting nuclear weapons combined with the myriad explosions of regular bomb salvos. Iakob, from above, witnessed the carnage that his people were inflicting with no small amount of satisfaction. There was no way that thing would be getting up from impacts like that. +“Ground forces, this is the 100th. That Titan should be no-factor shortly. Keep the artillery fire on, though, I don’t want to find out the hard way that I’m wrong.”+
With the titanic machine defeated if not destroyed, individuals of the Fifth would begin surrounding it. While making sure they were far enough away that their HUDs didn’t provide Danger Close warnings, the teeth of their mouths and chainblades would grind in equally vicious anticipation that fire would finally cease and they could climb atop it, rending the crews therein to pieces as they had been accustomed to when yet children in their barbaric Terran upbringings. The very few veterans in their ranks would watch from a slightly greater distance simply awaiting the definitive end of the battle.
Ainne watched the carnage through her binocs, grimacing in mute satisfaction as she watched the bombs from the 100th mingle with the heavy shells from her own force, the behemoth shredded to scrap, one layer at a time, like the inevitable death of a rock on the shore accelerated a thousandfold—and instead of saltwater, it was hundreds of fireballs that seemed miniscule from here, but were massive, platoon-obliterating waves of devastation up close. The gargantuan was partially obscured by fire and smoke—and that it was only partially was more than a little galling, given the volume of fire currently being levelled against it from both bomb bay and barrel. Any hab-block would have been reduced to powder; any force of tanks would have been reduced to so much trash in the rad-wastes. But this monster didn’t want to die. And she didn’t see a reason to oblige it.
The Astartes had paid for that victory with far too many lives, and now it was the job of the ‘little people’ to finish what they’d started. Like the final blow on a boar, hunted down by a pack of dogs, she mused, grimly.
She didn’t order the barrage to stop when sparking wires became visible in her sights, or when she could literally see into the internal compartments, smeared with gore and viscera from the obliterated crew. She didn’t stop when she saw patches of soot-smeared ground through the metal behemoth—she only slashed her hand out across her own force when the monster was a scattered debris field of unrecognisably-twisted scrap and mounds of worthless mechanical innards.
Finally the guns fell silent, and she nodded, lowering the binoculars.
+“Target eliminated, Astartes. Here’s hoping you aren’t all dead.”+
Legion Master Zaid watched the destruction from outside of the Dunesong, his fellow Astartes disembarked to observe the end of an incomprehensible enemy. They had been victorious at a cost that staggered his superhuman brain. He counted the number of fallen that crossed his display and chose to suppress the rage he felt. It was only the beginning of a long campaign as Macroway 80, devoid of active vehicles beside their own, opened up for the Imperial advance. The Scorpion breathed in obliteration through his snarling helmet and blink-opened the voxnet.
+’Elimination confirmed. We are victorious. Raptor Imperialis!’+ Legion Master Zaid said over the Battlegroup Pacifica. His words were responded to with a thousand and one war cries of the Imperium. In that moment, he cared not for the pettiness of external forces or the discord between legions. Only the fresh dew that was triumph rained over his spirit.
It lasted only for that nanosecond as the Legion Master began blink-ordering the rest of the Astartes back across the divide. They’d need to repair, refit, and recruit in the local area before the siege on Hongol could begin. Whatever scrap remained of the titan, he wagered, would fall to the Sigilites to scrape apart when the siege was completed. For now, their safety away from the macrocannons of the Jade Palace were the highest priority. He allowed a second more of triumphant bliss before ingressing into the Dunesong.
They were victorious.
Narthan Dume was as mad as he was ingenious, as his war-walker had proved. No other Terran warlord or tyrant had raised such a colossal machine since the fall of Old Night, not even the Emperor himself, and the forces present on Macroway 80 would soon learn why. The safe ways of powering such monstrosities, the stable methods of creating and draining the power of a caged star at such a small scale, had long ago been forgotten.
Narthan Dume had no concern for the safe and stable way of doing anything.
Within the wrecked hulk of the titan, at the heart of the mobile weapon, an experiment deemed unreasonably dangerous even during the height of the Age of Technology breached its safeguards, the unbound reaction continuing to generate power with nowhere left for it to go.
To call what was developing underneath Macroway 80 a bomb would be simplistic in the extreme, better it would have been for everyone if it was a mere explosive. Physics was tortured and bent within the wrecked reactor, drawing forth potential by harnessing the difference between reality and an underlying possibility space where the laws of existence were ever so slightly different.
And bit by bit, that space was becoming less of a possibility and more of a reality.
Hundreds of miles to the east, ensconced within one of Ouran’s spires, Malcador’s eyes widened as a premonition struck him. He was far, far too distant to intervene directly, and the time was too short to correct that, but that hardly meant he was unable to intervene at all. The walls of his chambers were instantly coated in hoarfrost as his soul went surging through the paths of maybe-whens, searching for the few strands that didn’t come to an immediate halt in three minutes and fifty-seven seconds when an oncoming wave of new reality unmade him.
There.
An undetonated nuclear bunker-buster, fallen eighty-seven levels deep near to Terra’s true dirt. With an exertion of will that caused the wizened man’s body to shake, he lofted it up towards the Macroway as swiftly as he dared, the bomb digging its way through the detritus of murdered cities and wasted lives until it reached the wreckage of the fallen warmachine.
Blood began to drip down the Sigilite’s face as he coaxed subatomic particles into place to rearm the dud weapon, his staff shaking in his hand as he reignited a perished nuclear flame. It wouldn’t be enough. Atomics had breached the reactor’s housing to begin with, had cut it off from the powerfeeds designed to render the reality ending potential into a source of infinite energy, another detonation would fix nothing.
He had to do something more.
The bomb detonated as normal, one of countless secondary explosions beneath the Macroway’s road surface. It then slowed, stopped, and finally reversed, the oncoming firestorm compressed to a sphere which shrank little by little with every passing moment, hurtling towards the cracked reactor housing.
With a roar of effort that none could hear, Malcador crushed it in his fist to nothingness - and the heart of the machine was consumed. Auspex suites for dozens of kilometers were saturated by a sudden surge of anomalous radiation, before just as rapidly tapering off. Upon the Macroway, the shattered infrastructure soon hid the ruined colossus, Terra’s bones burying the hulk, and with it both the secret to the world-killer that had powered it and any proof that it had been stopped.
In distant Ouran, an old man collapsed to the ground as his staff fell from his hand. Scrabbling at the blood-stained floor of his chambers, he spoke in a voice that was for once as ancient and frail as he was in truth.
“Summon Valdor.”
Credits: Pacificans/Battlegroup Pacifica/Thirteenth Legio Astartes @MarshalSolgriev, Fifth Legio Astartes @Bugman, Eighth Legio Astartes @Bright_Ops, Magh Meallans @Golden Record, Malcador @grimely
