The Core

[AbyssKnight]

So, the great ADB, quickly becoming the best author in Black Library's stable, has given us Night Lord fans another treat in the new short story anthology, Fear the Alien.

 

Of course, as a new book, the rest will be in Spoiler tags. First, just a few interesting, non-plot related facts. Shouldn't spoil the plot line if you want to take a peek.

 

 

This was a great short story, and I especially like how ADB and Nick Kyme made their short stories interlocking. Nick Kyme also wrote a short story for the anthology with characters from his Salamanders series, and lets just say the stories intersect.

 

So interesting things going on here. Right off the bat, you have Septimus musing about "when we were on the Covenant of Blood." So, they aren't on the same ship anymore. Quickly we find that Talos now commands his own ship, the Echo of Damnation. No idea how he came to command his own ship, but the human crew are noted as having served previously under the Exalted. He still has Septimus as his armorer, Octavia as Navigator, and Magos Deltrian as local Dark Mech rep/ally.

 

First Claw still has Cyrion, Xarl, Uzas, and Mercutian, plus a new member Variel who seems to be a former Astral Claw Apothacary. He also has.....Raptors!! Ninth Claw, or the Bleeding Eyes, are a Raptor cult under Talos' command. The characterization of the raptors was pretty awesome I have to say.

 

It is also implied Talos could have access to a couple Dreadnaughts.

 

 

So, as far as the stories themselves, I would say I liked The Core much better than Prometheus Requiem. And the outcome for the Night Lords was also much better than it was for the Salamanders. Details of the stories follow, so if you don't want to spoiler the story, don't read.

 

 

The Salamanders show up with two squads of Fireborn, including new member Tsu'gan, in Terminator armor and an Apothacary. They are hunting a Salamander ship lost 100 years ago and now part of a vast space hulk. One of the Fireborn sgts was the ships commander and there is some vague business he must complete on board. Dealing with genestealings, psychic hallucinations, power fluxuations causing loss of lights and gravity; they finally reach their goal, a stasis-held Eldar Farseer captive they have been sent to kill. After dealing with more psychic attacks, genestealers, and a run in with some Night Lord Raptors; only half of the Salamanders make it out alive. They have lost one entire squad of Fireborn, including armor, weapons, and geneseed; another Fireborn from the other squad, including armor, weapons, and geneseed; and the Apothecary was critically wounded (thus unable to recover any geneseed).

 

The Night Lords, on the other hand, show up with First Claw, Ninth Claw (20 Raptors), Septimus, Deltrian and 2 servitors. They "split the party," with 9th Claw going its own way. After much fighting of genestealers, and an initial skirmish with a Patriarch, 1sth Claw makes it to the Mechanicus codifiers with the info Deltrian is looking for. 9th Claw finds the Salamander vessal. A poorly planned ambush loses 9 Raptors, but then they use their superior speed to "pull" waves of genestealers to the Salamanders location. A final big attack is defeated by 1st Claw, Talos killing the Patriarch, and Deltrian gets the data slates he wanted. While they did lose the 9 Raptors, Talos doesn't seem to mind too much (he is more bothered that they don't take orders well), even the Raptor leader doesn't mind too much (probably cause that's how Chaos-warped freaks are). But, unlike the Salamanders, the Night Lords have tangible gains for their losses. They have the Mechanicus data for Magos Deltrian and they recovered the 6 sets of Terminator armor and weapons lost by the Salamanders. Deltrian seems only too happy to give it an overhaul for them.

 

So I think its obvious why I would say the Night Lords came out of it better in the end, as for why I liked The Core better? My problem with Prometheus Requiem was not seeing the point of the Salamanders' actions. Their ship had been lost for 100 years and was now part of a space hulk. So no recovering the ship. They don't try to recover any material supplies from the ship (armor, weapons, geneseed). Its all about killing a prisoner. Who is in stasis. It just seems like a lot of pointless effort, what will it accomplish? And it results in the death of 6 Fireborn and the loss of their geneseed and 6 suits of Terminator armor. And the near death of an Apothecary. Thats a pretty damn bill butcher's bill to kill one Eldar who was already imprisoned, in stasis, and trapped on a genestealer infested wreck.

 

 

Anyway, The Core by ADB, read it, its great. Night Lords are awesome. I approve this message.

[Dante Alighieri]

Whoa. I was on the fence about picking that anthology up just for that story, but you have convinced me to do it. That sounds awesome.