++Inspiration Friday (Chaos Icons. Until 12/18)++

[Thedarkprincesnun]

Cheers Carrack with the corpse Emperor reference I was originally going to have her decide to abandon her faith in the corpse hoping that the chaos marines would spare her

[Kierdale]

Damn. Just a bit too late!

The Herald Cometh

Hidden Content

His ceramite-shod boots rang on the punched-plasteel grating which carpeted the corridor of the fortress monastery dungeon. One boot the ebony of his office, the other a rose pink which likewise decorated the armour of the six astartes who escorted him. His coterie: his chosen men who had been with him in the abbey on Cyprius III when they had found Holusiax. The librarian had been MIA, presumed killed by the mad cults of that accursed world, but they had found him transformed.

The six had been prepared to execute the mutated librarian at a word from him, master of sanctity Angra of the Stygian Guard, but he had stayed their hands. To Angra’s enlightened eyes Holusiax had blessed. Touched by the Dark Prince.

Following his lead they had knelt before the serpentine librarian.

This had been over a year before and the chapter had changed greatly since that day. At chapter master Sophusar’s directing, by Holusiax and Angra’s hands.

Master of sanctity Angra and his six bodyguards stopped before the warden-servitor stood guard before one cell. It was a genebulked monstrosity almost capable of wrestling an Astarte to a stand-still. Almost. More than strong enough to stand guard over the residents of these cells.

Xenos.

The Stygian Guard had returned from their enlightenment on Cyprius III to find the defence forces of their homeworld of Fulcrum being run rings around by warships of the Eldar. The ancient, diminishing race had then warned the Astartes, trying to dissuade them from venturing to the planet of cults. All too late.

Accepting the aliens’ malison as their new appellation, they had become the Psychopomps and had set upon the aliens, capturing several of their ships and crews as they fled.

“Open the cell. Release the prisoner to me.”

”Negative.”

This raised one of Angra’s fine, raven eyebrows on his oil-anointed brow.

“Explain.”

”The prisoner was released into the custody of chief librarian Holusiax three hours and fifty six minutes earlier.”

Angra gave a slow nod of realization. Holusiax and the librarius had been delving into the dark knowledge they had recovered from Cyprius III over the past year. From the archives of the cult magi and from those occult sages who had surrendered to the Astartes. Holusiax had made use of every libertine and degenerate they could find on Fulcrum in their experiments but had recently said that perhaps the use of one of the aliens - one of the Eldar - would bring greater success. He claimed to have felt it in his mind and in his soul. A hunger for them. Who was he, master of sanctity Angra, to deny the chapter’s most blessed son?

It seemed the day had come.

Angra signaled for his bodyguard to move on down the line of cells. Master of the forge Thenaros and chief apothecary Polus had also been making use of the Eldar in their infernal engine: exposing members of the chapter to sensations far beyond human, even post human, ken. Of course few of the xenos survived this experience, and the chapter’s supplies were dwindling. Hence he was here to interrogate one with the aim of discovering the location of their worlds.

A servitor confirmed the presence of an Eldar in the cell they now stood before and Angra extracted the portarack from his belt. A small black box which fit in the palm of his hand, dozens of fine wires snaked out from one end. These he would attach to certain points upon the subject’s body - the location of which he had Polus to thank for - in order to inflict various...sensations. It was based in part upon the same technology as the chapter’s beloved pain glove and, through that, their infernal engine.

The huge armorplast door slid aside and Angra and his bodyguard stepped into the blindingly bright light within.

The writhing of the cultists before him, some in pleasure, some in pain, a great many in a delirious adulteration of the two, was no longer disturbing to Holusiax. As an Astarte loyal to the Golden Throne he had been beyond the pleasures of the flesh, indeed as a Stygian Guard he had been all but immune to the vast majority of human emotions, such had been a state they strived for. But now, a devotee of Slaanesh, he had indulged in all manner of acts and now was their conductor.

Chanting paean to the Dark Prince, the serpent-tailed sorcerer and his five closest apprentices stood at the points of a hexagram inscribed in the marble floor of the librarius’s grand hall. Again and again they had attempted to make contact with neverborn servants of their patron deity but each attempt had resulted in failure. The creation of bastard, twisted spawn, yes...and in the case of the last attempt a semi-formed, androgynous creature had resulted, violet skin covering patches of its body, red raw flesh and muscle in other places. The birth had been unsuccessful and the daemon -for that was what they believed it to be- and its human and Eldar `parents` had been fused. It was now kept, along with the other spawn, in one of the deep catacombs.

Holusiax stilled his mind and thought of a dark cell on Cyprius III where his body had been renewed by a herald of Slaanesh and more than that: she had shewed him secrets of the empyrean. How to control not only one’s own mind but those of others. How to overload a foe’s sensations. How to make them dance to one’s whims. He concentrated on the memory of that voice, her musk and the feeling of her claw at his throat.

Then later, after he had used those very powers, he had sought out his former master in the ruins of Cyprius III accompanied by the assassin `Jinx` and had come face to face with the herald once more. Perhaps it was arrogance but he felt that she had saved him once again...and had given her life (if such a term was appropriate) for his. Jinx, ever near, still wore that jade mask of hers.

From the mass of cultists there came a scream blending the entire spectrum of sensations. As soon as one identified it as a moan of pleasure it morphed into a scream of torment, a roar of unbound laughter, a wail of terror and on and on. And as soon as it had begun, it ended.

Holusiax opened his eyes to find the groups of cultists had, as every time before, become contorted mockeries of their former bodies, emotions written in flesh, features having run like wax and reformed horrifically.

Iarei, in his position to Holusiax’s left, spat and cursed under his breath. “We failed again.”

“No,” Holusiax found himself saying, his eyes wandering the shadows at the limits of the chamber. That scent.

She was here.

The Eldar wailed in pain, their body arching, muscles spasming uncontrollably.

“Where are your worlds, fay creature?” Angra demanded once again, his finger depressed upon one of the portarack controls.

“Shea nudh Asuryanish ereintha Asuryanat!” the Eldar spat through blood stained teeth and split lips; injuries which were not the product of the rack. While the porta-rack was capable of inducing all manner of feelings - one could believe one’s body to be freezing one second and the next being plunged into an inferno - Angra knew that sometimes accompanying it with a good old fashioned physical beating often helped. Cathartic for the torturer too.

“I do not speak your tongue though I hope after the consumption of your cerebral matter I may acquire some knowledge of it,” Angra said, handing off the rack to one of his guards and beginning to pace the room, his arms folded under his armour’s powerpack. “But I believe I recognize an insult when I hear one.”

“Monsters!”

“Psychopomps, that was the translation of your leader’s term. We took it as our new name. And guide you to your end we will, in good time.” He looked to Tathulys, the most senior of his guard, “signal master Zenelaius to prepare the Engine.”

It was then that all went black in the cell.

A darkness impenetrable to even the autosenses of Astartes power armour.

“Tathulys! Secure the subject!” barked Angra.

The guard reacted as best he could in the pitch black. Unable to see the Eldar he improvised and depressed the key upon the portarack.

The silence which had come with the darkness was suddenly split by the Eldar’s scream of pain. But it was merely a response to physical harm - imagined physical harm at that - and the fallen Astartes were surprised when the scream changed into a soul-shaking howl the likes of which could only be vented by those who had seen the end of all.

Silence returned and the portarack was unresponsive.

“Illuminate, dammit!” one of the guards spat but the autosystems in the dungeon were unresponsive.

Then did they hear breathing. Not the ragged sound of the tortured Eldar, this was deep, quickly. Excited. A scented, musky odour penetrated the filters of their armour and teased their noses.

No sooner had Angra ordered the others to draw their weapons than the lights returned and the seven Astartes found a tall, lithe humanoid crouched over the fallen Eldar, a look of abject terror frozen upon the alien’s cold, dead face. Its killer was as slim and as long of limb as the Eldar but where the Eldar’s body was topped by a head this creature’s torso extended upward into a second chest. Two legs supported the kneeling killer, and a full six arms extended from the sides of its body, four terminating in huge claws, two in humanoid hands. Beneath a shock of turquoise hair the left half of the creature’s face was hidden by a jade mask - Angra immediately recognized the style from the fane back on Cyprius III and that which Holusiax’s attendant assassin always wore - and the exposed half was androgynous, a baleful green eye watching them, the mouth split into a wide grin.

“Take it!” He ordered, drawing his crozius.

The daemon moved far faster than the gene-enhanced marines. A whip snaked out from one hand, taking the nearest Psychopomp’s legs from under him while a leap carried it over him. As it did its legs kicked out in opposite directions, connecting hard and laying low another two of Angra’s guards. It had barely landed - as softly as a cat - before its claws slammed into the chests of two more, slamming them into the cell walls. Tathulys stepped between the daemon and his master and triggered a burst from his bolter, the shells cratering the cell floor and sending the intruder cartwheeling backwards, only for its whip to take his weapon from his hands as it did so. Grunting in frustration he charged in, feinting a haymaker before swinging a kick into the daemon’s legs. It rolled with the blow and slammed Tathulys’ head into the ground, gripping his helm with all six upper limbs before rising to its full height and turning to face the dark apostle.

He extended his open hands out to his sides and smiled beneath his skull-visaged helm. The daemon had not slain a single one of his men, while it had most certainly killed the Eldar. Sucked out the bastard’s soul, he didn’t doubt.

The cell door slid open and Angra heard several others enter, though he did not turn. Heavy boots, and the slithering of leathery flesh. Holusiax.

“It seems you have been successful, blessed one,” Angra said, his eyes upon the daemonic herald. “We have a visitor.”

My sincere thanks to Carrack for hosting IF these last few weeks with some excellent topics.

I'll get the Opening Post updated this week (and everyone's entries read ASAP after that).

And for this week's challenge...

Chaos Treadheads - This week we turn to those behemoths of the battlefield: tanks. Rhinos, Predators, Vindicators, myriad Landraiders, Sicarans, Baneblade and Shadowsword-chassis superheavies are also welcome...even Whirlwinds, Hunters, Stalkers, Sabers and Razorbacks if you’ve got them. For those with renegade Guard regiments: the Leman Russ-chassis, likewise the Chimera variants, Taurox, tracked artillery, heavy tanks such as the Malcador and superheavies (yes, that includes turncoat Capitol Imperialis).

Tell us about one of your warband/legion/regiment’s tanks (or a squadron of them if you wish). The tank/unit’s crew, its history, modifications, victories and defeats.

The challenge runs until October 9th.

Let us be inspired...

[Warsmith Aznable]

Once again, great stories all, but there has to be a winner. Honestly, this last week of my guest hosting IF has been the hardest to choose a winner. The stories of Warsmith Aznable and Scourged both stood out as potential winners, but I choose Warsmith Aznable as the winner of this week's IF. Claim your prize.

I claim this prize for the IV Legion!

I believed that I would open the thread today and have to swallow my pride and bitterly congratulate Scourged. Being chosen was a pleasant surprise!

Warsmith Aznable.

+ perfectly captured the use and view of daemons by his Legion.

+ Multiple narrators worked well in telling both an overarching story, and the traditions and practices handed down in his Grand Company.

+I found the character of "Finder" very believable, and an interesting take on a psycher.

-perhaps a little more detail on the setting, not a major drawback, as the story is great as is, and more detail may make the story too long, but it seemed like a missed opportunity to do a bit of world building.

I love critique! It's what I miss most about university. Well, that and not having to work and not yet being in repayment.

I originally had more of the process. There were two characters named Ugly and Ratface, sort of bored, blue collar workers stuck down in the bottom level of the Armoury who have to do the actual dirty work, and what they did directly showed that the psyker was turned into a power source. Instead I used the tech-marine's notes to imply that and I cut the two workers and their scene for length, which is something I always struggle with in Inspiration Friday stories. The world-building comment is well received. I try to make each story self contained, but sometimes in my struggle to pare down for length I lose that world-building and don't notice it because I've got my past writings rattling around in my head and take them for granted.

[Scourged]

I claim this prize for the IV Legion!

I believed that I would open the thread today and have to swallow my pride and bitterly congratulate Scourged. Being chosen was a pleasant surprise!

*laughs* Seems as though I'm the one doing the "bitter" congratulations this week. Well done, Warsmith. Though, I can't help but feel you have a bit of an advantage with the new "Treadheads" topic this week, heh. I'll have to step up my game.

Summoning.

Scourged

+epic, epic battle, epic ritual.

+ the characters of the two brothers were interesting and compelling.

+ Great action, I have consistently been impressed with every IF story you have submitted, but this time your fight scenes really stood out, in addition to the plot and characters that you normally write so well.

-What happened when the sacrifices went into the pit? I'm assuming the mist or energy killed them somehow, but I was unclear as to what the pit did to the sacrifices.

Echoing the Warsmith, I'm loving the critiquing as well. Thank you for that input! And yeah, I realized once I finished my story that the actual "summoning" in this summoning story ended up taking a backseat to everything else. My original sketches only had something vague in mind: the collective psychic gestalt of the sacrifices within the pit would provide the means to open the portal, thus having so many Warp-touched minds in close proximity creating a critical mass reaction, a synchronized explosion of 999 heads in a psychic shriek, and Boom!, one instant daemon. I'll have to come back to the idea of the pit another time and explore it more.

Well then, time to start drafting my next epic tale.

[Teetengee]

What about tanks that now are more creature than tank, but still have treads? (Think similar to LoS??)

[Xenith]

From my Plog, I hope it's ok:

 

 

 

Behold, the IV Legion predator 'Immortal',

 

The Immortal has been in the armoury of the Iron Warriors Legion since the dawn of the Great Crusade, and has a history steeped in the extinction of Xenos species and those unwilling to see the illumination of the Imperial Truth. During the dark days of the Horus Heresy, the Immortal's guns were turned upon those still loyal to the Emperor. Treachery revealed at Istvaan V, the deaths of hundreds of Salamaders and Raven Guard Legionaires can be attributed to its fearsome weaponry. The Immortals first wounds came at the hands of the Primarch Corax, who ambushed an Iron Warriors armoured column, punching through the armoured front of the tank and crushing the skull of the driver in one swift motion, before destroying the right side motors, crippling the tank. Abandoned while the Iron Warriors regrouped and recovered from the wrath of Corax, and after the Raven Guard Primarch's flee from Istvaan, recovery of damaged materiel begun. The Immortal, bore many scars from the fight, and was about to be towed away for repair of the damaged drive motors, when the engine roared into life, before idling. Of the previous crew, there was no sign. No blood, no discarded armour, the ruination of the battle still writ large across its outer shell, the mechanisms of the Immortal appeared as perfect as the day it was commissioned.

 

Phall. Tallarn. Barakiel VI. The Immortal fought and was seen to die in all of these battles, and yet in the aftermath, appeared in full working order in the IV Legion vehicle hangars, the crew missing, presumed dead. The superficial damage to the outer shell would initially be repaired, however when the tank was next seen, be it in the hangar of a cruiser, or upon set down by thunderhawk transporter, it always returned, yet seemed to offer no additional weakness for the enemy to exploit: The armour, although ripped and dented, proved strong. Over time, Legion serfs and tech servitors were instructed not to bother patching up the tank, its spirit appearing to revel in its disfigurement.

 

After millenia of fighting within the Eye, the Immortal has found its way into the hands of Warsmith TorschLag, with whom it fights to this day. To crew the immortal is both a reward and a punishment from Torschlag. The tank will perform its duties, and bring honour and glory to its driver and gunners while protecting them in its armoured shell, however the tank commander that allows critical damage to befall the Immortal, be he outmaneuvered, outgunned or otherwise beaten...well, no remains have ever been found. There are no second chances with the Immortal.

 

 

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk141/Mechxen/Iron%20Warriors/2015-04-25%2011.55.08_zps938hfwxv.jpg

 

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk141/Mechxen/Iron%20Warriors/2015-04-25%2011.55.04_zpsytnbfkzq.jpg

 

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk141/Mechxen/Iron%20Warriors/2015-04-25%2011.54.46_zps4sqxwfff.jpg

 

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk141/Mechxen/Iron%20Warriors/2015-04-25%2011.54.41_zpsokuceegb.jpg

 

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk141/Mechxen/Iron%20Warriors/2015-04-25%2011.54.53_zpsywjg0dil.jpg

 

[Carrack]

@ Kierdale. I liked the way you tied in previous stories into your latest.

[Kierdale]

What about tanks that now are more creature than tank, but still have treads? (Think similar to LoS??)

That sounds fine, though bear in mind that there will be an IF for Daemon Engines (including counts-as and original designs) in the future.

This week's is mainly for the more traditional 'tanks' but by all means inspire us with something a little different. This is Chaos after all ;)

 

@ Kierdale. I liked the way you tied in previous stories into your latest.

Thanks. I'm steadily filling in/detailing chunks of the chapter/warband's timeline. I'll have to compile them all in chronological order sometime.

[Thedarkprincesnun]

The Wrath of The Gods

The Predator Annhilator can date it's history back to the great Crusade. Part of the word bearers legion, it was assigned to the Sons of Truth chapter and saw many battle fields.

 

During the days of the Heresy it was present at many battle fields from istvaan V to Calth. It earned it's name the Wrath of The Gods after Istvaan V where it was responsible for destroying many vehicles of the Iron hands, the salamanders and the raven guard.

 

After the battle of Istvaan V it would reappear at Calth and was responsible for not only destroying many regular battle tanks but legion says it also destroyed a fell blade.

 

In the aftermath of the it never gained as much infamy as it did in the days of the Heresy, until M:39 where the Word Bearers Chapter the Sons of Truth (now known as the Sons of Chaos) launched a invasion of the Ikari sector. Where this predator went death and destruction surely followed and as hard as the people of the Ikari sector tried they couldn't hold out against the Word Bearers assault.

 

It has often been hinted even during the early days of the Heresy that this battle tank has something malevolent about it. None have been able to say for sure what it is but many inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus believe that this tank may be possessed by a greater daemon who goes by the name of the Harbinger.

[Carrack]

The Blood Monger

 

 

 

 

Doom....Doom....Doom..... The massive drum thundered with a deep bass that rattled bones across The Ground, Level 1 Calebra Hive. The few remaining windows, those yet to be shot out or shattered by the concussive force of exploding munitions, didn't withstand the sound of the drum. The drum itself was a colossus of an instrument, pulled on an enormous carriage by chains of captives 50 meters long. The drummer was a mix of machine, and something more, or perhaps less than human flesh. The mallet struck the thick layered human skin with earth-shattering force. Doom....Doom....Doom.... Children wept and dogs howled dozens of levels above and below The Ground. All of Calebra Hive would have wept and howled if they had seen what the drum was announcing. The drum heralded the arrival of Monxes Sangue, the Blood Monger, and hell followed with it.

 

Monxes Sangue is a huge tank, three decks, including the main turret formed an armored behemoth taller than many two story buildings. The giant tracks ripped up the pavement as the Monxes Sangue's slowly crawled into the hive from the breach. The Blood Monger had been dressed for war. Untold sacrificed captives had spent their life's blood to paint Monxes Sangue red. Eight Imperial officers were impaled on the spikes protruding from the front of the hull, the same unholy rune branded on each of their chests. Skulls were everywhere, human skulls were piled in heaps on the hull, hung from chains affixed to the barrels of its cannons, and were mounted to the turret on a crown of spikes. Most of the skulls would not remain in place when Monxes Sangue fired its main Baneblade cannon. That was to be expected, more skulls would soon be available.

 

 

The commander of Monxes Sangue was known as Jut Kha, the chief of chiefs, who ruled over several Vaskan clans with the 11 barrels of the Blood Monger. With such forces under the Jut's control, first and foremost Monxes Sangue itself, he could negotiate with the officers of the Black Maw as a near equal. Jut Kha's eldest son, the Juta Kha, works as the coms officer, and apprentice to his father, who knows one day his son may seek his inheritance sooner than Jut Kha would have it. The third in command is a being known as the Haemogoblin, a stunted, adept of the Dark Mechanicus, whose remaining flesh was the red of spilt blood. The Haemogoblin has replaced the power plant's interface with a techno-arcane device that resembles a large globe of blood. When the Haemogoblin wishes to communicate with Monxes Sangue, he thrusts an augmetic tentacle into the globe and sends and receives data via a complex language of temperature changes and electric impulses. The previous interface worked fine, the Haemogoblin installed his blood interface to prevent any other adept from usurping his position. No living man has seen the driver, the drivers hatch having been sealed in ages past, yet whatever resides in the drivers compartment responds to commands from Jut Kha. The gunners are mercenaries from Howler's Charn. Jut Kha likes to keep gunners who can not assume leadership over his clans due to their foreign upbringings, should they mutiny. The loaders are mutant thralls, bulked up with slabs of synthetic muscle and with control spikes implanted directly into their spines.

 

Monxes Sangue did not travel alone. Outriding squadrons of hellhound light flame tanks were speeding through the side streets, stopping only to burn out buildings not marked with the gaping mouth of a wolf drawn in blood, buildings not firmly in the control of the Black Maw. Between the outriders and Monxes Sangue were hordes of mutant and human warriors raised from the clans of the Daemon World Vanask. They were their to mop up what was left after the tank demolished fortified building after building. Their chanting was a discordant counter beat to the Dooms of the drum, and contained an unholy fervor and fanaticism not yet seen on The Ground. The clan warriors were empowered by the presence of Monxes Sangue, for if such a symbol of the gods' power was at hand, surely the gods were watching. The Blood Monger changed the nature of the battle on the ground level of Calebra Hive. Where before its arrival, the fight was a battle over territory between two armies, as Monxes Sangue crushed its way across the level, the war became a dark crusade for the mortal warriors of the Black Maw.

 

.

[Kierdale]

Profaned

Hidden Content

The flight from their homeworld of Fulcrum was a grievous wound to the Psychopomps. Inquisitorial agents had infiltrated it and organized a resistance amongst those who had not been swayed into the Exalted Fecund - that sect of the Imperial Creed which the corrupt Astartes had poisoned and twisted to the worship of Slaanesh - in preparation for the hammer to fall: the assault of Black Templars. A great many lives were lost, far more of those cultists than astartes, but still the fallen chapter too much time to recover and reorganize before they were capable of mounting a significant offensive again.

That offensive came upon the shrineworld of Hodegetria IV. The Psychopomps sought not only to raid the world for supplies - both military and slaves - but also, guided by their daemonic allies, to lay low the Abbey of Hodegatria at the center of an Adeptus Sororitas base. The Order of the Gilt Hand.

 

No sooner had their drop pods began to plummet through the atmosphere toward the swamps surrounding the remote Abbey than the Order had rolled out their armour to meet them. Rhinos filled with battle-ready Daughters of the Emperor, Immolators and deadly Exorcists filed from buildings which could as easily be seen as bunkers than as the home of a monastic order. And then came the Manu Imperatoris: a huge ebony Shadowsword superheavy tank, spitting holy fire from its sponsons and terrible blasts of unstoppable laser from its volcano cannon. Its armoured flanks were adorned with verdigris-stained bronze bas-reliefs chronicling great acts of faith by members of the Eclissiarchy and the Order of the Gilt Hand. Upon its superstructure was built a towering shrine in gold-flecked granite. A work of wondrous masonry and design, the architect himself had been killed upon its completion and the gilt Aquila upon its topmost spire anointed with his blood. So many censers swayed within the arches of its flying buttresses that a pall-like cloud trailed in the air above the vast war machine and its countless braziers burned so hot that the air around the tank was unbreathable, exposed skin would blister and a murder of ravens circled in the thermals above it. Great windows of stained glass depicted scenes of the Gilt Hand themselves: purging the xenos, flaying the mutant and destroying the heretic, bathed in glorious halos. Within the chapel, orbited by cherubim upon a plinth of purest marble, stood a golden statue of the Master of Mankind, his arm outstretched toward the horizon.

And from the very tip of the barrel of the tank’s gigantic volcano cannon hung a mammoth, ominous bell of bronze, its surface etched with apotropaic prayers to He upon the Golden Throne.

As soon as battle was joined it was apparent that the Manu Imperatoris would spell doom for the renegade astartes. Each blast of its primary cannon eliminated entire squads of the traitors. Yet not a single victorious cry was loosed from the mouths of the sisters of battle, so conscientiously did they pray as they fought, Godwyn-De’az boltguns barking.

Some say it was the raptors of the fallen chapter, descending upon their pinions of baleful fire, who assaulted the holy shadowsword directly and slew the crew, others claim to have seen a lone figure in a blue-green shimmering bodysuit with a face of jade who appeared to cut their way through reality itself and into the tank’s innards while more claim that no less than a Keeper of Secrets and its coterie of daemonettes was somehow summoned within the chapel atop the Manu Imperatoris. Struck from within, the tight confines of both the tank’s innards and the chapel soon became slick with blood as the fallen servants of the Corpse-God slew those still loyal.

When its guns fell silent the end came for Hodegetria IV.

 

The Psychopomps were next seen by the Imperium in their assault upon the Mechanicus world of Alceforge. While the skitarii and other forces of the Omnissiah stood firm, the mortal, unaugmented soldiery quailed and fled at the sight of the transformed, captured shadowsword.

The Manu Imperatoris was no more.

Great spiked treads ground the earth beneath the luridly painted war machine. The fell iconography upon the dazzle-camouflage was harsh upon the eye of the beholder. The great braziers burned still though they reeked with the stench of human fat mixed with the sweetest perfumes. The censers, great filigreed orbs, were now spike-lined cages, home to naked, screaming captives from Hodegetria IV, choking upon the smoke and heat from the crucibles beneath.

Standards hung from the minarets and within the narthex of the chapel. Great banners of skin, much of it flayed, while some contained Hodegetrians stitched directly into the fabric of flesh, the insignia of the Psychopomps and chronicles of the fate which had befallen Hodegatria IV tattooed upon them. Spider-bodied fiends of Slaanesh skittered to and fro in the eaves, tending to the banners and sewing in new acquisitions.

The stained glass windows of the chapel had deformed. Where once the images of Adeptus Sororitas stood proudly slaying the enemies of Man, both within and without, the tables had been turned and sisters screamed as Beasts had their way with the Daughters of the Emperor.

And within the chapel, circled by doggerel-chanting bat-winged putti carrying the flensed faithful upon barbed hooks, stood an effigy as repulsive as it was beautiful; magnificent in its impurity, for the simulacrum of the God-Emperor now bore great horns upon His brow and an exposed female breast, the tip pierced with a great spike upon which had been thrust the body of the Order’s canoness superior.

While the Great Bell remained, its charms had been defiled. Likewise the volcano cannon had not gone untouched, for it was sheathed in a patchwork sewn together from the faces of a hundred sisters of the Order of the Gilt Hand, their screaming visages stretched over the great weapon of the war machine now known as Manu Slaanesh.

 

I planned to do an entry simply about the fallen chapter up-arming it's rhinos but that idea switched to a salvaged Adeptus Sororitas rhino...and that idea transformed into the above...

[Scourged]

Figured I'd try something a little different this time around. So what I present is not another entry in the stories of the Scourged, but rather their allied renegade Guard regiment. Enjoy this week's entry: Alpha Sigma 2847 Lambda 15

 

 

 

Alpha Sigma 2847 Lambda 15

Work needed to be finished. Preparations were not yet complete, exceeding estimated schedule parameters. Consultation of its internal chronometer informed the tech-priest Dalzyk Hymnylia that all preceding delays have accrued an excess 73.47301665 standard Terran minutes to the allocated inventory period. It noted to reduce all interactions with human crew to minimize further delays. Humans always slowed efforts to proper inventory and maintenance.

Dalzyk Hymnylia connected itself wirelessly to the central databank to consult its inventory logs. Though the human mind buried within the black robes and metal body knew what remained of its tasks, the dominant logic engines controlling its actions preferred redundancy to intuition. Yes, as already known, just a final vehicle in need of inspection:

Final item of routine maintenance: Leman Russ battle tank, Eradicator variation

Vehicle designation: Mars-pattern XXVII, AΣ2847-Λ15

Unofficial vehicle designation: Verethragna

Vehicle equipment:

    Main armament: Mars-pattern Nova cannon

    Secondary armament: Heavy Flamer

    Left sponson armament: Heavy Bolter

    Right sponson armament: Heavy Bolter

    Additional equipment: searchlight, smoke launchers, dozer blade

Assigned to: 19th Tachylite Changemongers Armored Regiment

Current operational crew:

    Johann Paradus III, operating commander

    Salazaar Testorius, driver

    Kyssandra Kainus, gunner

    Levian Bertollio, loader

    Xander Picatus, left sponson gunner

    Meredith Calcedor, right sponson gunner

Additional notes: vehicle currently possessed by daemonic spirit causing severe mutations along interior and exterior hull - said possession has resulted in the vehicle responding as though in possession of a temperamental machine spirit - caution advised

Were Dalzyk Hymnylia capable of expressing outward emotions it would release a long, heavy sigh in frustration. Instead, that machine-man settled on an annoyed blurt of scrap code as its nimble metallic frame moved silently amongst the dormant vehicles to approach the Verethragna. This tank was notorious for incidents and delays when maintenance was needed. The inspection of this vehicle was always reserved for last out of frustration, though such an action meant recording the vehicle in a lower hierarchy than its numerical designation should allow. It was a vestigial human behavior Dalzyk Hymnylia allowed itself.

The vehicle sat motionless with all engines long turned off, yet still the atmosphere around it shimmered as if irradiated with heat. Only 42.9587% of the original metal plating of the hull remained while the rest had become warped and mutated into an unidentifiable flesh. At no point did the flesh take on a single, discernible color, reminding Dalzyk Hymnylia indirectly of the sheen on an oil slick. Sickly green and vibrant orange eyes dotted in clusters around all sides of the vehicle - a mutation that could prove tactically beneficial compared to all others. Spines and bone protrusions covered the sponsons, thankfully not impeding the performance of the attached guns. The Nova cannon now appeared to be thrusting out from the center of a single large, fanged suction cup.

Tech-priest Dalzyk Hymnylia recorded notations to the further degraded status of Verethragna. Disconnecting itself from the external databanks, it made notes within its own personal memory storage. These observations were quite unofficial, yet more vestigial human habits allowed to remain. There had been a time when the man Dalzyk Hymnylia was kept a journal of his observations and exploits. Even after transcending humanity, some vestigial habits were allowed to remain.

Vehicle status can be considered “disturbing.” Outward appearance is unsettling and disjarring to natural senses. While unpleasant to view on human terms, the vehicle’s appearance should provide a tactical advantage when used to shock and assault the morale of the enemy. Admirable.

Ignoring how every eye of the Verethragna followed its motions, Dalzyk Hymnylia began his inspection of the machine. Cumulative delays had not been forgotten, and when combined with the apprehension for interacting with the vehicle, the inspection was proceeding hastily - Dalzyk Hymnylia deemed the margin of error resulting from such expedited actions acceptable. The current rate of inspection would provide a net bonus of +3.684321654 standard Terran minutes to the cumulative time, with a margin of error averaging at 4.5873%. Acceptable.

Those estimates were immediately deleted and recalculations had begun when the access doors on the vehicle opened and a member of the tank crew withdrew from their work stations. With another blurt of scrap code Dalzyk Hymnylia turned to the Commander Johann Paradus III and began the rote exchange of pointless human military pleasantries.

“Greetings, Commander Johann Paradus III. I do hope you and your crew are well. I am Tech-priest Dalzyk Hymnylia, performing the quarterly vehicle inspection. Given your presence here, I would ask that you and your subordinates assist me in this endeavor. Please detail any information regarding vehicle alpha-sigma two-eight-four-”

“Our name is Verethragna, tech-priest, not some number. We are the dismay of those who oppose us! Our vaulted weapons smite any who resist the might of the Changemongers! Our treads shatter the skulls of those who fail to accept the will of the Dark Gods!”

Irregular. The personnel and psychological files for Commander Johann Paradus III does not indicate a predisposition for megalomania. Furthermore, incorrect usage of first person pronouns is atypical of proper language exchange. Clarification necessary.

“Commander Johann Paradus III, please advise: your tone indicates anger - among other less-relevant emotions - and your choice of vocabulary indicates a nomenclature confusion.”

The commander who had once been known as Johann Paradus III calmed himself and stepped around the tank. Now standing at even height with the tech-priest, Dalzyk Hymnylia could clearly see the eyes of the commander had changed, now an opaque glowing green like the rest of those on the vehicle. Mutation. This requires further investigation. The other crew may be suffering as well.

“Forgive us, tech-priest! We meant no ill will. It’s just… we’ve never cared for all of your impersonal “designations.” Your numbers, your codes, your ranks… it is far too mundane for a warrior like us! Do you know of our deeds? Of our great glories? Tell us you at least know of our great victory on Panadelvo!”

The commander had taken to pacing and grandiose gestures as he spoke. Behaviors noted. Psychological file updated. Additionally, Dalzyk Hymnylia retrieved the battle reports for all files on the central databanks regarding any incursions on Panadelvo, filtering to include on results of the 19th Regiment, and further to include only results detailing specific actions of vehicle alpha-sigma two-eight-four… rather, vehicle Verethragna. All of this was completed before the commander’s next inhale of atmosphere through his rebreather.

“Records indicate the vehicle Verethragna decimated the regimental command of the stationed planetary defense force, firth with a heavy bombardment with the Nova cannon, and later by pursuing the remaining officers as they fled and killing them to a man with secondary and sponson weapons. This specific incident lead to the complete surrender of all planetary forces.”

“You impersonal metal husk! How can you speak of our glory so plainly? With such… bland, nondescript terms? You were not there, tech-priest. You did not feel the glory we did that day. The boorish officers felt themselves safe in their deep entrenchments, sending their soldiers to die. They did not anticipate us. We spat our ordinance upon them and obliterated their paltry defence encampments. One blast, tech-priest! Just one blast, and we left them broken and without cover. We drank in their screams and pain like the hardiest drought. And when they ran, oh yes, that was the sweetest last drop. We chased them, yes we did, chased down every last one. Our bolters screamed, our flamer wailed, and their bodies fell. We knew great glory that day. So do not dare speak of us so plainly again!”

Use of first-person language continues to be irregular and confusing. It is indistinguishable if the commander is referring to himself, the crew, the tank, or any combination thereof. Clarification necessary.

“Commander Johann Paradus III…”

“That is not our name! We are Verethragna!”

“Impossible. Vehicle Verethranga is commanded by you, Johann Paradus III, driven by Salazaar Testorius, its main gun operated by Kyssandra Kainus, its-”

The commander pulled a laspistol and pointed it to the closest approximation of a head on the tech-priest. A completely harmless gesture, but a clear message of threat was interpreted and received. Dalzyk Hymnylia paused his recall of all listed crew to let the commander speak. Further agitation would only delay final inspections more.

“Listen plainly, tech-priest: We. Are. Verethragna. We have no need for a crew, as we bring death and glory all our own. We have no need for feeble mortals operating our guns. We are perfect.”

Incompatible data. Use of collective first person pronouns is in conflict with statement of operating as an individual. Regardless, a single human cannot fully operate a Leman Russ battle tank on his own. Commander Johann Paradus III has descended into psychosis. Immediate recommendation to be assessed by medical personnel and immediately replaced in command. Additionally, remaining crew members still not accounted for. Further inquiry necessary.”

“Commander, where is your crew?”

Commander Johann Paradus III smiled at the question. Additional observations of further biologic mutation: teeth replaced with interlocking needle-like fangs, tongue increased in length and now an iridescent blue, saliva a translucent black.

“Verethragna has no need for a crew. This we have told you, but you do not believe us. So we will show you. Look with your own eyes, tech-priest - or whatever it is you have replaced them with. See us for who we truly are…”

Dalzyk Hymnylia hesitantly repositioned himself to the access point on the vehicle. The magos then burbled scrap code for 17.452 standard Terran seconds until all sensory arrays recalibrated to properly record the scene inside the vehicle. Once recovered, Dalzyk Hymnylia logged its observations:

All crew of Leman Russ alpha-sigma two-eight-four-seven-lambda-fifteen have been assimilated into the infrastructure of the vehicle. Sponson gunners Xander Picatus and Meredith Calcedor have fused within the sponsons, unable to eject. Their limbs are fused to the heavy bolters, which have also mutated in that the definition between the gun and gunner is incapable of being distinguished. Loader Levian Bertollio exists as an overextended maw upon a fleshy tentacle devoid of limbs to the vehicle’s ceiling. Initial hypothesis is loader Levian Bertollio grabs the Nova rounds within his mouth and contorts his body to load the cannon - requires confirmation. Gunner Kyssandra Kainus has become the Nova cannon No further appropriate description can be provided - all visual evidence defies any logical explanation beyond that. Driver Salazaar Testorius can no longer be classified as human. Closest approximation to classification would be an anemone. Initial hypothesis is driver Salazaar Testorius utilizes the multiple tentacles stemming from his root to operate the vehicle with enhanced precision - requires confirmation. Only Commander Johann Paradus III remains unattached to the vehicle, though is still a subject of previously noted mutations.

Vehicle crew status: Daemonic possession of vehicle has spread to all operational crew, all mutated beyond repairable levels, all but commander integrated with vehicle structure, as responding as single daemonic entity.

Course of immediate action: disregard aberrant nature of crew and determine operational status of vehicle.

“I apologize Verethragna. I did not possess this knowledge. Records have been updated. Please advise: are all your systems operational? Do you require any munitions?”

“Thank you, tech-priest. No, no, we are fine. We have never felt better, and are ready for our next engagement. We grow hungry for another battle. We thirst for more glory! Let us fight!”

“Thank you, Verethragna.”

With more haste than it would like to admit, Dalzyk Hymnylia turned and left the tank and its crew behind. Any attempt to properly recall the initial data recorded from sensory arrays resulted in incoherent burbling of scrap code. Data recorded from the incident had become corrupted, indicative of the crew’s status. Irrelevant. Vehicle Verethragna is operational.

Inventory complete.

 

 

[Teetengee]

So, perhaps this wasn't clear enough about the nature of the Beast being a treaded daemon engine, but hey, I like the story well enough.
Beast Taming

Hidden Content

Calliah woke with a start, the grinding of great locks and dragging of torso thick chains across ceramite floors tearing apart even her nightmares. She turned to Zachar beside her and held his mouth shut as he struggled to wakefulness. Briefly locking eyes in fearful understanding, they both began to pull on their tunics as quietly as possible. Carriah shimmied to the vents that had lead them here last night. Cold sweat broke out on her skin when she found the way blocked by a thick ceramite slab.

 

Zachar was buckling pants over his branded waist when she returned to the cramped nest they had made. “It’s on lock down Zax,” she whispered, unable to contain the quaver in her voice.

 

“Can we get out the---”

 

“Shh!” Calliah cut him off as the sounds of the doors finally opening rattled through the air. “Let me though,” she whispered as she squeezed by him. She inched her way to the small grate high above the chamber for air intake and peered out, forked tongue between her teeth in concentration. Zachar crushed in beside her as best as he could fit.

 

Zachar’s curiosity was surpassed only by fear of whatever monstrosity was being sealed here. Neither daring to say a word in case they were discovered, they lay still in their tight overlook. A rage filled screaming began to fill the quickly heating air as three hulking brutes dragged a vast writhing pile of treads and flesh into the room. They attached the chains quickly to those already in the cell and then filed out in their own lurching gait. The gates ground shut and the finality of bolts locking seemed to give even this creature pause. Zachar swallowed painfully.

 

The thing on the ground writhed and roared while depleted weapons screamed impudently into the echoing chamber. It’s claws left great raking gouges in the floor as it strained at its sigiled bonds. The temperature in the cell continued to rise with the monsters voice, Calliah and Zachar clamped their hands over their ringing ears as the volume grew painful. Still trying to understand what had been locked in with them, Calliah’s dark accustomed eyes ran over the outline of the beast in the gloom. The thing was large, several meters in all dimensions at the least. Flesh and metal flowed together in many places; massive arms bearing tread wrapped claws ripped at the chains. Where once there was an assault ramp, there was not but tusks and a thirsting maw. Most disconcerting was the creature’s great eyeball. Sickeningly large, it swivveled in a socket grown out of a turret near the front.

 

Suddenly, the Eye jerked directly toward the grate where Calliah and Zachar were hiding and they were hit by a blast of freezing cold while icicles started to form on the grating. Calliah was awestruck by such a manifestion of the gods, but Zachar began to scream and seize as blood leaked from his mouth and ears. Recovering from her moment of reverence, she swore and straddled Zachar’s convulsing body pinning him down, grimacing as his teeth sank into her palm and his jerking limbs struck hard blows against the insides of her arms and legs. Zachar grew still as the monster howled further, eye once more darting about the cell.

 

So focused on the writhing creature, Calliah had failed to notice a small door opening within the great gates to let in a robed figure approximately 7 feet in height. Only when the figure began to whistle did she notice it, and only because the monster seemed to notice it as well. It’s thrashings began to slow even as it cocked its head at the noise, roars ceasing in focus. The chamber filled with the sounds of the whistle, a haunting melody without end, continuing seemlessly from exhalation through inhalation even as the timbre and tone changed with each breath. The figure began to make wide circles about the creature, dancing and playing in and out of its reach. At one point the creature swatted at the being but he leapt backwards revealing the heavily muscled frame of a scar covered astartes.

 

Calliah’s hairs stood on end and a shiver went down her back as she watched this dance of gods. To see both a daemon and an unarmoured knight together so close was something she could have only dreamed of. There was something infectious in the fierce joy of the beastmaster’s movements which bewitched her. No longer did she care about the pain in her limbs and hand from holding Zachar, nor the sweltering heat creating pools of steaming sweat over her skin, nor even the dark fluid leaking from her lover’s limp frame. All that mattered was seeing how this battle of wills would end, would the knight conquer the beast, or would it turn on him?

 

How long Calliah sat there she had no way of knowing, but she knew immediately when it was over. The room had slowly gone cold during her long hidden audience, and the beast now slept with its head on the floor in front of the knight, purring as his hand ran along its jawline. The movements slowed, she could see parts of the creature that had once been a land raider, recognized from her time working the forge. Zachar shifted beneath her, and suddenly Calliah remembered the magnitude of danger she was in and hammered down the panic driving up from her quickening heart.

 

The whistling stopped and she stayed silent and still as the dead. The creature shifted slightly screeching it’s metal skin along the floor as it curled up. The astartes unhooked all the chains from it save the one leash on its neck and turned to the door. As he walked to exit he threw back the hood of his robe revealing a bony crown. Calliah gasped in recognition before she could stop herself, “Escharon!”

 

The word bounced around the chamber in echos. The king of scars and the beast both looking about the room for its source. Calliah tried in vain to stop Zachar’s waking groans but when she looked up she stood face to face with the Lord Escharon himself, standing on the outstretched arm of the monster below, his expression inscrutable.

 

 

“Please my king, forgive me my king, we knew not where we went when we came here, my king!” Calliah blurted out as she prostrated herself before her king. Her heart slammed against the jail cell of her ribcage and all she could hear was the coursing of blood through her ears as the fear threatened to overtake her.

 

“I am surprised that you managed to stay hidden for so long, youth. That level of resourcefulness is not something I readily waste. As for your dying friend there,” Calliah looked down at Zachar, his face pale and covered in thick black ooze around his mouth and ears, “he lies well beyond my ability or time. What are your talents?”

 

Calliah answered due to rote alone, the question having been asked by taskmasters countless times before, and likely only due to habit could she answer, “I work in Forge Ractyl, fixing the armour. My king.” She added hastily.

 

“Get up, calm this Beast, and report here tomorrow morning after telling your group leader of my orders. Since you seem immune to his difficulties you work solely on him now.” With that Escharon turned and the creature let him down. He quickly walked from the room.

 

Calliah fell over exhausted and confused. The emotions of the last day all swirled about inside her head; fear, love, joy, such fierce extremes had all come and gone so quickly she could only lay there shaking and crying for several minutes. Eyes finally red but dry, she continued with new purose. She dragged Zachar’s heavily breathing body to the edge of the vent and shoved lowered his body as far as she could reach before dropping him to the floor with a thud. Then she grabbed the bed clothes and tied them around one of the supports to lower herself down, all the while trying to ignore the 3 meter diameter eye that stared at her unblinking. Finally on the floor, and panting with the exertion, she turned to the creature. She swore it smiled.

 

Kissing Zachar’s lips, Calliah cried little as she said her goodbyes. She held up her head, chin out proudly and spoke to the great creature in front of her, “Mighty demigod, warrior of the faith, please take this my offering. He was a servant of the true gods and his fidelity will prove to your liking. Though he was struck down by the terribly might of your presence, he in no way begrudges you his soul. Please take it so that you may draw power from his spirit and so that he may fight alongside you against our enemies forever more as a tiny piece of your vast magnificence. In good faith I offer this blood and flesh!” Calliah squeezed drops of blood from her punctured hand over Zachar’s forehead as she cried out the last words.

 

The Beast reached forward and took Zachar. Bones crunched and Zachar screamed out as it devoured his body. Carriah stood resolute even as Zachar’s warm blood splashed across her face, even as his soul was torn apart and dragged into the warp through the entity that stood before her. Only when the Beast finished its meal and went back to sleep did Carriah turn and leave the room, emotions locked tightly away as she always had in needed times before.

 

Outside the cell, a tech-logisticator appraised her dishevelled and filthy appearance with some surprise. “I am entrusted with its care, get me armourers and ammunition loaders by 800 tomorrow,” she walked off stiffly, never once letting emotions come unbidden to mar her proud stride.

[Warsmith Aznable]

My entry for treadheads, I hope you like it.

 

Hidden Content

“We are not here as your saviors.”

Keller did not share the surprise and dismay of most of the PDF assembled in front of the steps of the administratum building. The city square was large, as were the broad avenues leading into it. The ragged soldiers and volunteers were packed among the rubble and debris of the early air raids, with more looking on from the irregular and broken buildings surrounding.

Most of the PDF there had not been back east. Most of them had no real idea what was going on in the Capitol. Keller had, and Keller did. He had not dared to hope when the second group of space marines had made planetfall and secured the outlaying manufactorums and their surrounding suburbs. Even if they had been Imperials, which he knew they were not, the planet was lost. As the groans and curses and whimpers and other sounds of disbelief and despair scattered through the crowd, Keller only waited for the other shoe to drop.

“We are not here as your saviors.” The space marine standing on the steps had some kind of vox caster arranged into the leering wolf icon attached to his backpack. “But we are going to war with your enemy.”

Keller subconsciously put his hands into the empty ammo pouches hanging from his web gear. His lasrifle, like all the survivors of the retreat from the Capitol, was stacked in a shipping container guarded by the off-world soldiery that came with the space marines.

“We offer you a choice.”

+++++++++

“How did they retool the manufactorum so fast?”

Keller looked at the young man, not much more than a boy, mentally naming him Goggles because of the oversized eye protection pushed up upon his brow. His PDF uniform was newly issued, still had the creases from storage, and the hastily sewed on unit insignia was slightly crooked, loose threads hanging from the stitching.

“Tertiary PDF?” Keller asked him. The dozen or so others standing with him looked on, their uniforms just as clean, but with the cared for look of regular PDF who had never seen, nor expected to see, any action.

“Volunteer, sir.” Goggles replied after a moment of hesitation.

Keller nodded, then fished a lho-stick from his cargo pocket. Suddenly the men around him stiffened. Goggles actually came to a reasonable facsimile of attention. Keller turned to look, pausing in the act of lighting a match to ignite the mild recreational drug.

“You.” The space marine, bearing the orange and black livery of what they now knew to refer to as the 49th Grand Company, looked directly at Keller.

“My lord.” Keller acknowledged the space marine with the fist-to-chest salute he had seen some of the off-worlders use. He knew he should feel gut-wrenching, bowel-loosening terror, but since witnessing the abominations and profanities of the Word Bearers occupation of the Capitol it just wasn’t in him anymore.

“You are now Captain.” The space marine handed Keller a small cardboard box full of recently stamped tokens of rank. He turned to address the other men who still stood in various combinations of frozen terror and attention. “You are the 232nd Armoured Attack Company. Your Captain will form you into groups of four and assign rank. You will then assemble by squad number on the corresponding yellow numbers painted on the motor pool deck, and await further instruction.

The space marine turned on his heel and stalked off without waiting for acknowledgment, and all eyes turned to Captain Keller, who wearily sorted through the small box to find the leftenant bars.

+++++++++

Captain Keller winced as the jagged, un-ground weld scratched a red line across his palm. That unfinished weld line on the heavy stubber’s traverse ring summed up the entirety of the tank for Keller as he readjusted himself in the commander’s cupola. The manufactorum that had two days prior been geared toward producing water pumps for ag-worlds was now churning out main battle tanks at a breath-taking pace. His was not the first, and was nowhere near to being the last.

They had not bothered to paint the tanks. The fit and finish was rushed, but sturdily adequate. The design was not the ubiquitous Leman Russ, and was entirely unknown to Keller. It was like the space marines of the 49th Grand Company themselves: armoured hulks, brutal weapons, surprising speed, and so, so much power.

Sixteen predatory beasts in groups of four made up the 232. Black smoke churned from their power plants, occasionally chased by gouts of flame when the engines revved. The large barreled main guns searched back and forth as the column reformed into a skirmish line, the clattering tracks crushing rubble and tearing furrows into the asphalt as they moved.

They followed the path of the 231st Attack Company, and a mere four miles behind them Keller knew the 233rd Attack Company rumbled over their fresh tracks. Keller had quickly distributed the Leftenant ranks to those he felt still carried themselves with any kind of confidence, picked out a few men for himself who he thought did not look like they were about to soil themselves, and moved them to the painted number 1.

Their tanks had rolled out of the manufactorum doors and parked in front of the assembled men. Workers had jumped out of the drivers seats, and with tired yet hurried precision used stencils to apply yellow numbers corresponding to the squad numbers of their new crew, as well as the 232 designation of the company. As the new company mounted their tanks, a new group of recruits was being ushered into the assembly area.

Keller, standing on top of the turret of his new tank, watched the space marine who had made him the Captain as he observed that next batch of recruits. What had the space marine seen in him? The space marine had looked up at him and nodded, and to his own surprise Keller had nodded back, then dropped into his tank and began issuing orders to move out over the brand new company vox machines.

+++++++++

“Power through!” Keller yelled into the crew vox at Goggles, his driver. “If we slow down here we die just like they did!”

“Targets!” The gunner called out. Keller’s order to fire at will was swallowed by the deafening boom of the main cannon.

The 231st had taken a lot of punishment, and the 232nd followed their trail of devastation all the way to their final resting place. The slab-sided hulks of iron were burned black, turrets flipped upside down by internal explosions, roiling columns of smoke reaching up to the sky past the shot out shells of buildings.

Beyond the intersection were anti-armour teams of the enemy’s bizarre cultist troops, supported by space marine Predator tanks in the crimson of the Word Bearers. They had ambushed the 231st, who had not had enough time to bring their superior fire to bear. The flame and smoke of the dead tracks signaled the danger zone, and the 232 had been ready for it.

The powerful engines groaned and Keller rocked in his command cupola. The tracks of his tank dug deep into the asphalt and pushed a destroyed tank out of his way. His throat was raw, and in the back of his mind he knew he had been yelling incoherently for several minutes. It was the heavy stubber that brought it out of him, and he roared along with the chug-chug-chug of the big gun every time he depressed the butterfly trigger.

Slugs and shrapnel zipped through the air around him, and Keller walked the red tracers of the heavy stubber to play across the broken windows and walls of the upper level of a building before him. He was dimly aware that one of the enemy Predators was now a smoking wreck like its own victims. The other Predators began to churn backwards through the ruins, leaving the cultists to deal with the determined advance of the 232nd.

+++++++++

Keller did not remember dismounting the burning tank. Somehow he had managed to bring the heavy stubber with him, though he realized that it was useless without a pintle or tripod to attach it to.

“What now, Captain?” Goggles was the only one who had made it out with him. The gunner, he remembered now, had been shredded by spalling. He guessed that the loader was the charred, black figure draped across the gun hatch.

“Anybody else make it?” Keller looked around. The remains of the 232 were further down the street, rumbling forward into what looked like a fortified defense line. Stumbling around the knocked out and smoking tracks of the bulk of his company were a handful of survivors from the latest ambush.

He had lost count of the ambushes. Every intersection of the Capitol had offered some kind of resistance from the moment they had pushed into the city limits. It had gotten exponentially worse after they had passed the 231, after they had become the front of the attack.

“A few, I guess.” Goggles looked around. “What do we do without tanks, sir?”

They gathered and began the long walk to the rear, ever cautious of the random suicide squads of cultists that the enemy had seeded the area with. They followed their own tracks, mingled with the tracks of the companies that had gone before them. When they heard the distinctive rumble of their own model of tank, they raised their hands and showed the bright colours of Goggle’s sleeve insignia.

The 233 shook the ground as it went past, scarred and blackened slabs of armour missing the meager yellow paint that had once numbered it.

The 234 looked little better.

The 235 only had the scars of small calibre rounds, missing the divots of the larger anti-tank rockets altogether.

The tankers of the 236 stared at them wide-eyed, the bright numbers on the tanks darkened only by the dust of the battlefield.

+++++++++

“What do we name her, sir?”

Keller looked at the man and the fold marks on his clean uniform, and did not understand.

“The tank, sir.” The man at the gun station patted the breach as the new loader played with the ammo storage door controls. “She needs a name, or it’s bad luck.”

“You.” Keller pointed to the kid at the loader station. “Trade places with him.”

Five minutes later the 407th Attack Company formed into a column and departed the assembly area in their freshly manufactured battle tanks.

[Teetengee]

NEED MOAR LIKES!!! Reading out of order has reduced the number of you who should have received them in an unfair (not first come first serve) manner.

[Kierdale]

A complaint from your thread-runner:

You're all going to have to stop writing such good entries or I'll have to stop giving out Octed amulets, it becoming too hard to choose. :D

[Kierdale]

Thanks all for your entries on the topic of `Chaos Treadheads`.

Xenith gave us the tale of the IV legion’s Immortal, a predator which had felt the fist of Corax himself upon the black sands of Istvaan V. Across countless other battlefields in the following millennia it fought, died and came back to fight once again.

He also accompanied his story with some photos of the tank itself with excellent battle damage. It really looked like it fought the Long War.

Thedarkprincesnun gave us `The Wrath of the Gods` and told us of a Word Bearer predator annihilator which, like Immortal before it, fought in the Dropsite Massacre and upon no less a battlefield than Calth itself. Finally he hinted that the tank may be possessed by the greater daemon `Harbinger`.

Monxes Sangue was Carrack’s entry this week. A behemoth tank - a baneblade no less - appropriately dedicated to Khorne with loyalists on spits and skulls heaped in piles upon its armour. I really liked the description of the crew: the father-son commander and comms operator, the diminutive engineer...the sealed-in driver...

A Leman Russ Eradicator was the subject of Scourged’s writing this week, as observed by the dark technician Dalzyk Hymnylia. I loved the description of the tank’s perversion and mutation, and that the crew had become a warped, gestalt entity. The tank itself.

Teetengee gave us nothing less than a possessed, mutated land raider! A very interesting read, I particularly liked Calliah making her offering at the end of the story. I thought it showed her dedication to the Gods and their cause very well.

Warsmith Aznable gave us, as was expected, an excellent and very `Iron Warriors` story (thought it only featured one of those Astartes) with the pressing of natives forces into armoured PDF regiments to fight for the IV. The description of the fresh-off-the-line tanks, the inexperienced crews and the growing destruction as they neared the front line, the walk back and inevitable reassignment was all well written and easy to picture. I hope we’ll see more of Keller, even if just in the background, in the future.

As I said on Thursday, all were very good reads and it was no surprise to see a couple of Iron Warrior-linked entries :D

After much deliberation I chose this week’s champion...

Step forward Scourged and claim your reward!

It was a very difficult decision but I felt his entry exemplified the `Chaos Tank` theme I had set for this week with its possession and mutation.

And here begins the next challenge...

The Primordial Annihilator versus...the Greater Good

As Carrack started our `Tales of...` series with `Tales of Chaos Glory`, this week we start a new series for Inspiration Friday with a look at the forces of Chaos pitted against the upstart do-gooders of the 40k galaxy: the Tau Empire.

What brings your worshippers of the Infernal Powers into combat with this alien empire? What benefit is there in slaying these whose souls are little grist in the view of the beings of the Warp?

I’d like to hear of an encounter - be it a skirmish, raid or a full-blown war - against the Tau. How your forces view them and deal with them.

The challenge runs until October 16th.

Let us be inspired...

[Thedarkprincesnun]

The Slaughter of Gerivia

Thunder was all he heard Zyle stood there staring up at the sky watching it turn from crimson to a blue to a purple to a brown. His Crimson armour would look to a outsider like it was covered in blood. On his right shoulder and left leg there was Daemonic faces leering out of his armour the colour of a dark pinkish flesh.

 

"Zyle oh Zyle what are you doing stood out here" said the Mysterious figure. Turning around Zyle saw the sergant of his squad Karakus. He wore a white cloak with the same Crimson armour. His skin had a rather pale tortured appearance . On his fore head was a 3rd eye which was almost turquoise in colour.

 

"Nothing Karakus I'm doing nothing" said Zyle.

"You do realise we are 5 hours away from assaulting Gerivia" said Karakus. Zyle chuckled aside from the fact Karakus was the leader of his squad he was also one of his closest friends. They had been friends since days before the heresy fighting on world's like Istvaan V and Calth. By some dark miracle they survived Calth but none could be sure why. "Yes I do realise brother I just don't get why we are assaulting this world, I've spoken to the warbands Sorcerors and it appear these xeno scum have nothing for us. Apperently they don't even have a presence in the warp" said Zyle .

 

Karakus chuckled, and this confused Zyle even more. "Of course they hold something for us for you see unbeknown to the imperium there is a ancient greater daemon trapped at this world's heart it's power bound by the prison which holds it. However the blood of the Xenos scum who are present here will be used in a ritual to release it".

 

Calmly walking off Karakus left Zyle there alone. Oh how he longed for the days when they had a clear battle plan, when they were not just following a hunch. The Sorcerors of the Chapter had told the chapter master Bakarauth of the Daemon caged beneath. "Oh we could be making a mistake" he thought to himself "how do we even know the Daemon will help us"

 

6 hours later

The battle lines had been drawn. Dead xenos corpses lay everywhere mixed with bodies of chaos cultists. The siege had only gone on for 1 hour yet they were already dismantling the Tau defences. Entrance to the city had been gained but the chapters forces had been forced to split into 3. One under command of the Chapter Master one under command of the First Acolyte and the last under command of the Dark Apostle Zardoth.

 

Xyle was part of the First Acolyte Jurgles forces. They had launched a assault on one of the main Tau bases in this city. The fight of course had been in the word bearers favor but the tactics the Xenos used were mostly unfamiliar to the word bearers. It seemed they were constantly on the retreat but they would regroup and sneak attack every now and then.

 

Xyle smiled he knew the battle was far from over but he chuckled. The xenos scum were smart but him and the rest of the squad were bunkered down in the ruins. From here he could see the flash of lascannon fire destroying the tanks of the tau and he prepared himself plasma gun in hand ready to take the fight to the tau.

FOR THE DARK GOD'S AND FOR LORGAR

[Warsmith Aznable]

After much deliberation I chose this week’s champion...

Step forward Scourged and claim your reward!

It was a very difficult decision but I felt his entry exemplified the `Chaos Tank` theme I had set for this week with its possession and mutation.

Truly it must have been difficult! There were many top notch entries, but Scourged is well deserving! Well done!

I hope we’ll see more of Keller, even if just in the background, in the future.

There is a good chance that he will be standing in the hatch of my R&H tanks when the time comes to build them! He may also appear in future fiction, because the more I wrote the character and thought about him, the more I liked him.

I’d like to hear of an encounter - be it a skirmish, raid or a full-blown war - against the Tau. How your forces view them and deal with them.

Write about killing Tau?

[Carrack]

Thirst

 

 

Black Legionnaire Vinno timed the charge perfectly. Just as the placed krak grenades blew open a breach in the interior wall he was there, red glowing power sword brandished and thirsting for blood. The quarters only held four blue skins, skinny and wretched xenos cowering under their bunks. He butchered them mercilessly as his squad fixed more grenades to the far wall. The slaughter of these xenos was somehow less than satisfying, even less than the normal slaughter of cowards. It was as if Khorne cared not for their blue blood.

 

As he picked his spot to start his charge into the next room, a realization struck Vinno's mind. He finally figured out what was so wrong with the xenos quarters. It wasn't the curved corners lacking any straight lines, it was the uniformity. All the rooms were identical, no personal effects, no individuality at all. Even the rooms where the open lockers held what must be officers uniforms were the same as those that held simple overalls. No room was more grand, or more squalid then any other. It was just wrong, just alien. But he had no choice but to blast his way through the crew cabins, they had tried rushing one of the long corridors, only to be gunned down by the defenders' potent energy weapons from the far end of the corridor.

 

Vinno was no stranger to boarding enemy vessels, even unfamiliar xenos vessels, however, the boarding of this Tau vessel was different. Typically when boarding an enemy, the Black Maw liked to strike for the bridge and cut off the command and control of the ship, so it could be taken apart piecemeal. Less frequently, the boarders would strike for the engineerium, and sabotage the engines to blow the ship out of the void. But this time, they were after a precious resource. Water. Their own ship, Bitter Revenge, had been cast out of the Eye of Terror across the galaxy. Such was the fickle tides of the Sea of Souls within the Eye. They were making significant progress back to their territory, but they were not prepared for such a long voyage. Their water supply had been bone dry for eight days. Their mortal crew were dying, and every planet they stopped at had been arid rock after arid rock. When they picked up the Tau ship with their auger array at some nameless translation point, they knew they had to act.

 

The next room was defended. Five xenos in tan and black armor made of some unknown hard substance. They held the same dangerous energy rifles as the ones in the corridor. They opened fire with bright blue pulses of destruction on Vinno and his squad. Vinno took the brunt of two blasts, but was postured after his charge to maximize the protection of his power armor, chest squared to the room and leaning forward with hunched shoulders, one pulse glanced off his left pauldron and the other scored into his upper chest armor, but failed to penetrate the thick plate. Marbas was sent back to the warp when his vox grill took the full force of an energy pulse. His body erupted into green flames, sparks jumping out of seams in his armor as whatever denizen of the warp claimed the bastard's soul. Carmello, was not so lucky either, he had his left knee cap blow apart and tumbled to the ground, Paimun didn't break his stride and leaped the downed veteran to tackle one of the xenos, shoulder spikes and bladed vambraces finding the weak points at the neck and elbows of the xenos armor. Vinno himself took apart three more of the Tau with his power sword before they could even swing back, they shot reasonably well, but moved like old men in hand to hand. Casper's chainsword messily took care of the last Tau, gobbets of blue flesh spraying his face, after having his helmet destroyed in the corridor. Carmello picked up one of the alien weapons to use as a cane and started an awkward gate back to the dreadclaw. He fell on his face before he left the room but picked himself right back up. Vinno merely called out his name, and the wounded Legionnaire turned back and tossed his satchel of grenades to the Aspiring Champion. He then turned and left the room, never to be seen again.

 

After reaving through another half dozen undefended crew cabins they reached the enemy's reservoir. They stood before the 20 meter thick umbilical tube used to refill the reservoir when docked. They were soon joined by two more squads of Black Legionnaire boarders. None could make sense of the alien controls to extend the tube out. There were probably safety measures in place to prevent the reservoir from being emptied when not properly docked. They went with plan B, the excessive use of explosives. The hull armor was necessarily thin where the umbilical would extend for resupply, thin enough that a pile of krak grenades, a few melta bombs, and a half full flamer tank blew a breach in the xenos vessel's hull. With mag locked boots, the Black Maw boarding party watched as the ship's water supply sucked out into the vacuum of the void, to quickly freeze into a growing ball of ice. When the last drop was jettisoned, one of Bitter Revenge's few surviving thunderhawks swooped in to retrieve the boarding party.

 

***

 

On the bridge of the Bitter Revenge, a flight control officer announced with a parched throat the docking of the thunderhawk. From his command throne, Lord Carrack, the Slayer of Multitudes, issued a one word command, "Fire!" The Bitter Revenge opened up with the full power of her lance arrays. Within minutes the Tau vessel was ripped in half, spilling its guts, spilling its cargo, its crew, its air out into the cruel void. After watching the xenos ship die, Lord Carrack commanded, "Send out cargo lighters to retrieve our ice."

 

[Warsmith Aznable]

I've been trying to keep them shorter since the Interview With A Chaos Lord entry, but this one is big enough it's in three parts. Sorry about the length, but I do hope you like it.

 

First Contact, Part One

"Revelations"

Hidden Content

“Gentlemen, there is a situation.”

The mortal who had spoken moved confidently into the circle of the handful of space marines. Admiral Ise was tall with a noble bearing, and had a hawkish face with severe, penetrating eyes. Physically he looked far younger than he actually was, but the commanding way he carried himself and those dark, searching eyes made a lie of his apparent youth. His uniform was of a similar style as the other mortal officers on the command deck of the spacehulk The Child of Calamity, but instead of grey was a clean white, with a longer cut jacket and gold braids upon his shoulders.

And like the space marines he addressed as equals, he was a member of the Isarnhauld, the trusted advisors to the Warsmith and the masters of the Grand Company.

“Master of the Fleet.” Captain Garmr of the Reserve Company acknowledged him, stepping sideways to expand the circle they stood in and give the mortal a place within it. “What situation?”

“The fleet advance detachment picked up xenos vessels on long range scan.” Admiral Ise retrieved a small control wand from his jacket and turned toward the large holotank in the middle of the command deck. With a wave the three dimensional image of the spacehulk and the support ships in its immediate vicinity was replaced with a tactical image of the system they had only the day before arrived in. The Child of Calamity and its attendant fleet was positioned far away toward the outer edge of the system, but two sets of blue icons indicated groups of small, fast ships that had ranged deeper in-system to orbit two of the outer planets. With a further movement of the control wand the projection tank was populated by a host of yellow icons indicating small system craft and civilian vessels, and also by a red threat icon near the prime planet.

“The xenos appear to be running.” Noted Captain Valgrim of the Assault Company. “If those scans are correct, that icon represents significant tonnage. A warship or a Class III or better mass conveyor.”

“We’ll never catch it before it reaches a stable warp point.” Captain Vingnir of the Support Company said, frowning.

“It’s not cutting an angle for escape.” Admiral Ise said. He moved the control wand once more, and several sets of dotted lines traced projected paths of the xenos icon. “If I were going to linger in-system to observe and possibly counter-attack, one of these is what I would do. Probably that one, the one that loops behind the star and slingshots out to that gas giant mid-system.”

“So put the fleet on alert, increase the pickets, and send scouts to lay dog at those suspected rally points.” Growled 1st Captain Har Ulfgrim, the master of the Grand Company’s Terminator veterans. He waved an armoured hand dismissively at the holotank.

“I have, 1st Captain.” Admiral Ise did not bother to hide his annoyance at the belligerent Terminator Lord. He worked his controls once more, and the three dimensional projection zoomed in on one of the groups of advance ships circling an outlaying planet. “It will be many days yet before the fleet is in position and the xenos vessel or vessels is postured to threaten any of our elements. In the meantime, I have a task for your Comitatus.”

+++++++++

The combi-bolter rattled off a burst as the Terminator methodically advanced down the tight corridors of the mining outpost. Behind him, human auxiliaries in boarding armour clutched their carbines and short swords at the ready and followed at a crouch, using his considerable adamantium bulk as cover. The enemy soldiers abandoned their hasty barricades and fled down the corridor, disappearing around a corner.

“Thankless bastards.” The Terminator lamented dryly. “I’ve come all this way to kill them and they don’t have the decency to stand still.”

“What’s the galaxy coming to, eh?” The sergeant of the auxiliary squad nervously laughed and peaked around the space marine’s armoured bulk.

“Don’t you ever run like that.” The Terminator made it to the barricade and paused to topple it with a well placed boot. “I would die of embarrassment.”

“LOOK OUT!” The sergeant raised his bolt pistol and fired, but it was too late. One of the corpses piled to the side of the corridor raised up and pointed its strange looking carbine at the Terminator. White-hot plasma pulsed out of the odd weapon in a short burst. At that range it would have been harder to miss the Terminator than hit anything else, and though the thick slabs of armour were proof against almost all small arms, some of the plasma bursts found their way through to the space marine inside.

“Sergeant!” One of the auxiliaries called out and shoved the sergeant, who stumbled over the slumping Terminator. A maintenance access panel clattered open and another of the mining station soldiers emerged to loose a burst upon the boarding team. Untrained and pumped full of fearful adrenaline, the plasma pulses went wide, mostly into the ceiling, and the would-be assassin was dragged from his hiding place and stabbed repeatedly with their short swords.

As the wretched man expired, he looked desperately toward another, yet unopened access hatch to the far side of the barricade. The sergeant, recovered and propping himself up with his chainsword, noted the look and pointed to the hatch. “Tompkins.”

“Well that was unexpected.” The Terminator shifted to regain his feet as the soldier named Tompkins rushed forward and jammed the nozzle of a hand flamer into the vents of the access hatch and drenched the insides with fire. The door partially opened and two flailing enemies collapsed to the deck and writhed in agony for a moment before they curled up into blackened, charred husks. The Terminator shook his helmeted head and slammed the back of his axe into his chest plate. “I’m not dead yet. These cheeky little skrunts won’t do in the likes of me.”

“What the hell are these?” One of the boarding auxiliaries picked up the plasma pulse carbine and turned it over in his hands.

“Xenotech.” The Terminator growled after leaning in to get a good look at the unusual firearm. The soldier dropped the pulse carbine as if it were suddenly painfully hot.

“This armour they’ve got on.” Another of the soldiers pulled off a blocky shoulder pad from the first assassin’s corpse. He held hefted it a couple of times and held it up lightly in his fingers to show the squad. It was white with a strange red symbol in the middle. “This has to be xenos too, hasn’t it?”

“Useful idiots.” The Terminator scoffed, stamping on the skull of the second would-be assassin.

+++++++++

“My lord, you’d better come look at this.” The sergeant of the boarding auxilia spoke into the vox, and a few moments later he heard the heavy stamping of the Terminator’s boots on the deck.

The Terminator entered the room and stopped suddenly, surprised by the sight.

“Well, well.” The Terminator said. “Who do we have here?”

The room was larger than most they had been into previously. The mining station had not been designed with comfort in mind, but this room had apparently been converted from an old metal shop, providing it with extra space. On the remaining work benches were scattered pieces of black space marine armour of various modern marks. On one of the tables a space marine corpse was splayed out and partially dissected. Hanging from chains against the far wall were five other space marines. Sitting near the feet of each space marine was a shoulder pad, each with a different chapter livery painted upon it.

The Terminator laid his combi-bolter on the nearest table and hefted his power-axe to cautiously approach the prisoners. Each was severely wounded and was caked in dried blood and scabs. Crude attempts to sew their wounds were evident, and one of them had been halfheartedly cleaned recently, the blood smeared across his skin by dirty rags.

The Terminator picked up the shoulder pad in front of the middle space marine and examined the iconography.

“Are they alive, my lord?” The sergeant asked the Terminator.

“Well I’m no apothecary, but that one certainly isn’t.” The Terminator indicated the partially dissected corpse on the table with a wave of his axe. He absently placed the shoulder pad on a table amongst the rest of the power armour pieces and considered the group of space marines as a whole. “These might be. Contact the ship and have them relay a picter feed of this room to the Child.”

“Sergeant!” A voice called from outside of the room.

“What puzzles have we unearthed now?” The Terminator said to the sergeant, and the two of them went out into the corridor to meet the soldier who hustled down the corridor.

“Prisoners,” The out of breath soldier explained. “All of them active-duty PDF from the Primus garrison. Hundreds of them. Held in a converted ore refining facility.”

“Show me.” The Terminator commanded.

+++++++++

The Warsmith sat upon his raised throne in his formal court. The large room was brightly lit with twelve marble columns reaching up to the vaulted dome and its stunning ceiling mural many meters above. Between each column was an arch. Some merely opened to alcoves with lounges and terminals for the use of court attendees, while the four cardinal directions housed large, armoured blast doors, three of which were currently fixed open. Most of the court was in attendance, insatiably curious to hear the news of the developing situation as it was announced to the Warsmith.

The Warsmith waved away the latest of the minor reports impatiently, and distracted himself by taking in the court itself. His Isarnhauld was through the large archway to his left, gathered around the command deck’s massive holoprojector. In front of the dais were his two constant bodyguards, the belligerent Terminators Geiri and Freiki. Arranged around the large courtroom were representatives of every aspect of the fleet. Officers of the various human auxiliary regiments tended to gather stiffly together near the entrance to the command deck. The representatives of the civilian elements of the fleet invariably lingered near the main entrance, always ready to depart if things looked like it might take a turn for the violent. Guest warlords and their entourages gathered in groups to the right of his throne, near the archway leading to the observation deck that looked out over the interior of the habitat cylinder, a temple situated on an artificial mountain. They fancied their intrigues and ambitions were discreet or otherwise unobserved if they slipped out of the throne room to trade whispers on the observation deck, and the Warsmith would not disabuse them of that false sense of privacy.

Notably absent, the Warsmith saw, was the Eldar Ambassador Ythwnn Hard-heart. Today was not a day for xenos to be seen at court, given the recent rumours coming from the captured mining colony. Ythwnn had not had to be told this, though the Warsmith knew his spies were prolific enough that he would know any information given at court as soon as it was given.

The court came alive when the group of PDF officers was escorted through the main archway and arranged to stand before the throne. The Warsmith held up his hand and the whispers stopped, all attention fixed upon him. He rose from the throne, the servos of his Terminator armour whining with the effort, causing a belch of smoke from the ornate exhaust stacks as the arcane power plant revived itself from dormancy and flooded the lines with power.

“I have read your statements.” The Warsmith announced as he descended the dais. As he passed his two Terminator bodyguards they stepped forward and angled out, repositioning themselves to watch both the court and the PDF officers. The throne room came alive again with an astonished gasp and whispers as the Warsmith lowered himself to one knee so as to be face to face with the frightened man. The glares of the bodyguards silenced the room again. “I want to hear it in your own words.”

“They are called Tau, my... my lord.” The officer, a major in an armoured infantry regiment by his insignia, answered in an unsteady voice. “They negotiated secretly with the merchant Houses. It was a scandal when it came to light, but everyone thought it was just about trade. They were few, at first, and restricted to the port. The Lord-Commander did not like it, but the Houses were making too much money and there had been a marked decrease in crime and civil unrest. There were Deacons who spoke against it, but the Ecclesiarch silenced them. The Arbites, nobody knows exactly what happened to them. Probably the same thing that happened to our Commissariat. A priest whipped up a minor riot, and after that a cultural festival was held by the Tau to show goodwill, and they gave out technology that nobody had ever seen before. And nobody noticed when the priest went missing.

A lot of things were easier with them around. People got used to seeing them outside of the port, and even other xenos species too. When they proposed to supply our PDF with weapons and train us in their use, that was when a few of us started meeting secretly. Before their supply ships and training cadre were to arrive we scheduled a field exercise. We only took those officers we knew we could trust, and for the men we found a retired Commissar from off-world, who hadn’t been on the PDF rolls. Old as he was, the men fell in line.

I think they let us go. I think they wanted us far away from civilian eyes. They hit us with some kind of walker. They were fast, and their cannons could go through even the reinforced Leman Russ armour. One battle, and all of our tracks were gone. The survivors dispersed. Asymmetrical warfare with small arms was our plan. After months of hit and run skirmishes with the xenos elites we found ourselves suddenly facing our former brothers of the PDF. Only now they wore xenos uniforms and carried xenos weapons and armour. We were outmaneuvered, driven into a valley, surrounded by units on the high ground. We dug in and fought until our ammunition was gone, then we fixed bayonets. But were overrun, and many of us were taken prisoner.”

The major looked away, the pain of humiliation overcoming his fear of the Warsmith.

“You dug in and you fought until you couldn’t fight anymore.” The Warsmith said, not unkindly. “Then what happened?”

“They marched us back to the city.” The major’s face hardened with anger at the memory. “They paraded us through the streets in front of our people, and they took us to the square in front of the Governor’s Mansion and Administratum Office. The head of the biggest merchant House, Vit Kunz, had been proclaimed Facilitator, the new leader of the population. He stood side by side with the xenos ambassador, and they publicly pardoned us!”

“Pardoned?” The Warsmith asked. “How did you end up locked away on an old mining station?”

“We were allowed to return to our homes.” The major’s eyes were moist, but he shook with anger as he told this part of the story. “Those of us who survived, we went back to our families and jobs. Only our jobs were taken by those who had not tried to fight them. We were given menial labour to do, sometimes hard but often not. And we carried on, but some of us still met in secret, to plan assassinations and sabotage. Only it never worked out. Informants and agents were everywhere, and one by one almost all of us from the PDF who had fought against the Tau and survived found were brought before a civil court and sentenced to prison for so-called organized crime activities. The Tau were careful to never be at these trails. They were always absent when their patsies suppressed dissent. Their symbols and posters and literature and entertainment was everywhere, but when they needed a face of authority they sent our own friends and neighbors to come for us!”

“That is enough for now.” The Warsmith stood and looked over to where the commanders of his mortal regiments were standing. He called out to one of them, “Harlock. Take these officers and their men and equip them. They will make planetfall with your Utgaard Rangers.”

“Bring me that vermin Ythwnn.” The Warsmith said quietly to the Terminator known as Freiki. “If he doesn’t know something about these Tau, I’ll eat my own boots.”

+++++++++

“And that, your grace, is everything I know of the Tau.”

“I doubt that.” The Warsmith said, and Freiki shook the ankles of the dangling Eldar Ambassador, who he held over the carved marble railing of the observation deck, while Geiri looked on with interest. The drop was many meters over the steps that wound down the side of the artificial mountain, but not enough to guarantee death. Freiki looked expectantly to the Warsmith, who shook his head in the negative before continuing. “But Fabricator Volundr here believes you have told us enough. Freiki, see the Ambassador safely to the throne room.”

“Master,” Fabricator Volundr, the Grand Company’s Master of the Forge, stepped forward as the Terminator bodyguards set the Eldar on its feet and pushed it toward the archway. “I request to lead the operation.”

“Denied.” The Warsmith ran a hand through his beard and closed his eyes in thought. “I will lead the assault myself.”

“This is a new species with unknown technological capabilities and there is no clear estimation of their numbers or ability to respond.” Volundr protested, his four servo-arms waving in sympathetic agitation.

“You will be needed here,” The Warsmith clapped the tech-marine on his shoulder pad, pointedly annoying the offended, defensive weaving of the sem-sentient servo-arms. “You are the only one besides myself that the Child of Calamity likes, and someone needs to configure her to fire the Starscreamer.”

“She likes me?” Volundr’s protestations were forgotten, and he immediately began accessing the data manifold to begin the necessary calculations.

The Warsmith did not tell him how dangerous the affections of the Child were. He could offer no adequate words of caution, but knew that the Fabricator was already lost in his preparations anyway.

“Genocides don’t plan themselves.” The Warsmith left the tech-marine in the reverie of his dataflow and walked toward his private apartments, thinking about which weapons he would like to retrieve from his personal reliquary for the upcoming battles.

 

First Contact, Part Two

"The Wrath of the Old Gods"

Hidden Content

The Child of Calamity was a spacehulk. At its core, the original structure of ages past, was a colony cylinder of a type from before artificial gravity rendered its design obsolete. It was unimaginably old, constructed before even Mars was inhabited. How it had left the influence of Terra’s gravity to travel among the stars of the galaxy was unknown, but it’s mirrors had not reflected the image of Terra since late M4.

Surrounding the original colony cylinder was a skeleton of improbably huge iron girders. Additional structures, some purpose built and others grafted into existing systems, surrounded and protected the original cylinder. Beyond that labyrinthine layer of stations, improved asteroids, and permanently captured vessels, the huge iron girders could swing and arrange on arms. Blisters of defense weaponry, void shield generators, and launch bays were surrounded by cyclopean slabs of solid metal armour, making up the third layer of the space hulk. In and around the outer layer many free vessels swarmed, the fleet of the Grand Company and the individual ships of the Warsmith’s guests and allies.

The Child of Calamity, as haphazard and ugly as she was, was easily the rival of the biggest starforts the Imperium could operate. It was whispered that Abaddon himself had once coveted the station to support his Black Crusades, but for reasons he never explained to anyone had abandoned her shortly after taking possession. Nobody but the Warsmith could know if that were true, but it certainly seemed odd that such power had never been actively pursued since the 49th Grand Company had slipped the Warmaster’s leash and escaped the Eye of Terror during the 7th Black Crusade.

For millennia the 49th Grand Company roamed the dark corners and haunted extremities of the galaxy, or drifted in the cold space between the stars. When it was necessary or desirable to make war on civilized systems, the Child of Calamity would appear at the furthest edges, disgorging its raiding fleets to stab into the hearts of their targets. It could defend itself ably against retribution fleets or other direct attacks, but rarely brought its might to bear against the planets the Warsmith choose for attack.

But it most definitely was capable of direct action.

“Initiate final reconfiguration.” Fabricator Volundr intoned from the command podium of the Starscreamer cannon. A legion of low grade tech-priests and menials went about a thousand simultaneous tasks in a delicate ballet of data flow and mechanical actuation.

The Child of Calamity began a slow turn. As she turned, armoured plates and giant swing arms separated and rotated. A dozen rogue settlements built since the last firing of the Starscreamer were crushed, explosions and venting gases mere momentary flashes and glittering lights in the grand dance of the spacehulk. The remaining capital ships powered well clear of the Child, avoiding the path of the Starscreamer to its target by thousands of kilometers. Finally, on the fourth day after Fabricator Volundr gave the command to reconfigure, it was done.

“Starscreamer cannon configured and online.” Magos Deidaru lingered near the Fabricator, visibly excited by the once in a lifetime opportunity to participate in a firing of the monstrous weapon.

“Signal the old man that we are ready for Firing Rites.” Volundr directed a nearby menial, then corrected himself. “Forn Grimnir. Signal Forn Grimnir and the Librarius that the Starscreamer is ready for Firing Rites.”

Kilometers away, at the opposite end of the spacehulk in the dark, cavernous magazine vault, Forn Grimnir and a circle of sorcerers hand picked from multiple conclaves throughout the fleet for the Firing Rites began the sacrificial rituals to prime the cannon. Special victims, some of them held in stasis for centuries due to the rarities of their abominable sins, were lead to the enormous, open breech of the cannon. Each suffered greatly before their lives were ended in various, prescribed ways, but the growing noxious miasma emanating from the breech of the cannon evidenced to the masters of this profane rite that their souls continued to exist and suffer.

At the eleventh hour of sacrifice and ritual, an infernal presence began to manifest above the breech.

“Grimnir has called a big one.” Thegn Oski, the Chief Librarian, commented.

The daemon was indeed a big one. It bellowed its indignant rage and promised eternal vengeance upon the assembled sorcerers as the array of runes and sigils drew it inexorably down into the hot miasma reaching critical mass in the Starscreamer’s breech.

“I’ll bet the arrogant prick had a thousand names.” A sorcerer, bearing the colours of one of the many tenant warbands who lived as the Warsmith’s guests aboard the Child of Calamity, leaned over the pit to observe the daemon writhing in incandescent fury below.

“And now the final thing.” Forn Grimnir commanded, and Thegn Oski placed a swift boot to the backside of the sorcerer leaning over the breech. The final victim was too astonished to scream, and the vengeful daemon snatched him out of the air and devoured him as soon as he passed the silver wards that bounded the daemon’s temporary prison.

“Tell Fabricator Volunder that ‘the old man’ said his precious toy is primed.” Forn Grimnir ordered no one in particular before stalking off into the shadowed recesses of the magazine vault.

+++++++++

For the observers in holding patters near the Child of Calamity, the firing of the Starscreamer was anticlimactic.

Down in the magazine vault, a gang of labour-servitors hauled on huge silver chains to close and lock the breech. The metal door of the breech quickly glowed red hot, and then a metallic explosion resounded throughout the vault. The breech door distorted, but held. Instead of red hot it was now covered in hoarfrost, and the psychic backlash killed dozens of the menials and two or three of the least powerful sorcerers in attendance.

The second stage of the cannon was a liquid propelled rocket the size of a Cobra-class escort. The blast of the rocket motor was visible at distance only as a short sparkle, and was lost in the background of the many lights and vapors surrounding the Child of Calamity, greatly disappointing the curious onlookers orbiting the spacehulk.

The third and longest stage of the cannon was a superconductor powered linear accelerator. The final projectile exited the temporary mouth of the cannon at relativistic speeds, leaving only a whirling puff of green miasma that quickly dissipated. In a heartbeat the projectile and the enraged greater daemon struggling at its core were many thousands of kilometers away. The daemon consumed the wretched souls entrapped within the chamber as fast as it could, but it could not build enough power fast enough to overpower the arcane bonds holding it fast and steadily sapping its will to fuel its destructive course toward the system’s star.

Travelling at a sizable fraction of the speed of light, the Starscreamer’s shot took just under nine hours to reach and pass through the star’s photosphere. The vehicle did not survive even a centimeter past that theoretical boundary, but it did not need to.

The daemon was freed from its agonising imprisonment, but only for a sliver of a fraction of a second. In its last moments it knew that the lingering ritual energy combined with the immense power of the star would annihilate it and channel its soulstuff toward a very specific effect, and it could do nothing more than hate the upstart humans who had brought an end to its glorious, aeons long existence for so trivial a purpose. That ineffectual rage channeled into the final intention of the spell, and the warp entity’s essence was violently torn apart and consumed in the nuclear furnace of the star.

+++++++++

Mid-system, approximately forty-five minutes later, Battlegroup Nakula had slowed its pursuit of the xenos vessels and was sheltered in the umbral shadow of the gas giant. The delta wing shape xenos vessels were large but deceptively maneuverable. Corpse Maker, the flagship of the Battlegroup, had allowed the commander of the xenos warships to believe that it was slow and ponderous, intuiting that the arrogant xenos would wish to stay at a safe distance but close enough to observe the actions of the battlegroup. As a result, the Tau warships were laying beyond the nightside terminator and were in full view of the star when the Starscream wave hit.

Battlegroup Arjuna, escorting the Warsmith’s landing force and orbital support vessels, was well clear of the Starscream’s effects, but had sheltered in the lee of the fifth planet as a precaution. The warships of Arjuna were bombarding the system fleet operations base when the Starscream wave hit.

The death throes of the greater daemon roiled on the surface of the photosphere as its intelligence and will burned away, leaving only a primal, savage hatred. When that too was absorbed by the star, the turbulent energies erupted in a massive flare. Then the last vestige of the greater daemon disintegrated, momentarily opening a warp rift on the surface of the star, fueling the flare into a prominence that could have been seen from the primus planet with simple glass telescopes. That prominence burst free of the star’s gravity and magnetic field, and the flare spray tore across space in the direction of both the primus and the gas giant as a hyper destructive flare spray, wreaking havoc across all energy spectrums.

An hour later Battlegroup Nakula, spared the brunt of the Starscream wave and having idled main power cores to protect them, had raised full output and powered into the drifting formation of the incapacitated Tau warships. The heavily armoured prows of Corpse Maker and Sudden Death broke the spine of the biggest warship in two places and continued through the jetting fires and pluming wreckage. The Storm Sired, a squadron of lance destroyers, spiraled through the helpless enemy fleet methodically raking each vessel with punishing energy volleys. Finally Desolation, a large attack carrier, slowed and launched hundreds of fighters and bombers to swarm through the remains burning lifeboats and escape pods.

From the first contact of the Corpse Maker’s ram to the fighters’ return call the slaughter took four hours.

+++++++++

The Capitol of Primus had active void shields. Powered by ancient geothermal wells and tended by dedicated hereditary priests, the void shields had been restored by the time that Battlefleet Arjuna began lancing the orbital defense platforms out of the sky. The horrified citizens watched the glittering trails of fire as each one fell to some point over the horizon.

Their Tau masters appeared on the balcony of the Administratum Building alongside the Facilitator and assured the populace that the damage from the unexpected solar flare activity was well within the technological capabilities of the Tau to repair once the fleet returned. And in the meantime the citizens huddled in their darkened homes and waited, the only powered sounds coming from primitive internal combustion engine vehicles that slowly rolled up and down the street playing wax disk recordings urging the people to place their trust and support in the Greater Good.

Later that night the sky became as bright as mid day, and the bewildered and alarmed populace poured out onto the streets to witness the meteor describe a fiery arc across the sky. The sonic boom blew the glass out every window, raining deadly shards on those unfortunate enough to be gathered below. Older, decrepit buildings tumbled into heaps of stone, killing and trapping those who had been too afraid or unaware to come out and see the light in the night sky. The Ecclesiarch’s Cathedral swayed and the sturdy stonework held, but the metal roof broke and gold leafed sheets of copper whirled and tumbled, cutting and crushing the Ecclesiarch and many of the wailing worshippers in the nave.

The massive meteor that lit up the sky disappeared over the horizon and into the nearby sea. The resultant tidal surge was a hundred meters high and swept the lower wards of the city clean, as if there had never been an urban landscape there. The geothermal wells powering the void shields were drowned by the inpouring seawater. Billowing clouds of scalding steam blistered the flesh and burned the lungs of the thousands of tidal surge survivors who stumbled and picked through the wreckage near the high water mark. The void shield generators spun off their foundations and blasted through the wall of the genatorum, collapsing the whole structure at the same time as the huge batteries overloaded and the field potential turned a violent shade of purple and failed with a static filled crack.

The morning light fell upon a city in ruins, wreathed in the smoke of multiple building fires, and filled with the piteous wails of citizens who knew that retribution had come for their sins. The Tau’s propaganda posters still plastered every intact wall in the city, but the friendly, helpful xenos themselves were nowhere to be seen.

Then, when most believed that things could not possibly get worse, the contrails of hundreds of landing craft filled the sky.

+++++++++

The remains of the PDF were the first forces to put boots on the ground. The Valkyries of the Utgaard Rangers streaked over the forests and hills that ringed in the Capitol, and the newly organised PDF squads stepped off the ramps wearing gravchutes at low altitude and hit the ground running. The Utgaard Rangers, in their red uniforms and burnished iron carapace armour, landed and secured LZs for the heavy infantry and armoured regiments to disembark their mass conveyors. By noon the city was surrounded, and there would be no escape for the population.

The PDF located and advanced upon the fortified positions of the Tau garrison that had secretly been stationed in the valley where they had previously defeated the human resistance. The Tau small arms had been restored to functioning condition quickly following the solar flare’s overloading every circuit on the planet. A few of their strange walkers had been brought online as well. The proud, angry soldiers of the PDF made it through the first defense line of the Tau Firewarriors, spilling gallons of blood in vicious hand to hand combat, but were made short work of by the xenos support weapons.

Having marked the position of these heavy arms, the space marines of the 49th Grand Company descended with fury. Stormbirds disgorged the entirety of the Assault Company with jump packs and grav chutes. The Comitatus, the company of Terminator veterans and including the Warsmith himself, landed in the confusion and stomped down the ramps of Stormeagles. Enraged Dreadnoughts burst forth from Dreadclaws and made straight for the strange enemy walkers, advancing under heavy fire to close and tear them apart limb from limb.

Within minutes, the valley was silent.

“Is the Major still alive?” The Warsmith swung his hammer in a large arc, flinging blood and gore from its head.

“No, Warsmith.” 1st Captain Har Ulfgrim answered as he savored the smell of foul xenos blood burning in the powerfield of his lightning claws. “He and his command were killed to a man at the second phase line.”

“A good end.” The Warsmith nodded in approval. “It also saves me the trouble of thinking about another potential source of conflict.”

“They should have died rather than surrender the first time.” Freiki grunted as he tore the cockpit cover of a downed enemy walker off its hinges. As he cast it aside Geiri leaned in drove his fist like a piston into the skull of the injured pilot.

“That may be true,” The Warsmith allowed. “But do not be unkind. They were mere mortals, and were overwhelmed by the grief of betrayal as much as they were by enemy arms. And in the end they fought and died as humans.”

“If you say so,” Geiri shook his armoured fist, slopping xenos brains onto the bloodied ground.

“I do!” The Warsmith frowned at his bodyguard and shoved him hard in the chest. The Terminator fell slowly backward despite the best efforts of his waving arms and the suit’s overworked gyroscope, and he sat down awkwardly with a grunt. The Warsmith fumed at him. “I was having a moment, damn you! You always ruin things with your relentless cynicism!”

“Not true,” Freiki offered his brother the end of his long handled hammer and pulled him up when he gripped it. “Sometimes he ruins things with his shocking stupidity.”

“Also once or twice my libido has been involved.” Geiri nodded thanks to his brother and retrieved his hammer from the where he had leaned it against the Tau walker to free up his punching hand.

“I hate the both of you.” The Warsmith said, then turned and walked toward the temporary command point. “Call my attendants. I want this armour off. I need to make a point. Have the Saga House Guard begun herding the populace to Government Square yet?”

“They have,” Freiki answered after consulting the battlenet. “A few hard core converts have offered their lives for something they call the Greater Good but, outside of sporadic and ineffectual lone gunman attacks, the House Guard reports no resistance.”

“Why would there be?” Geiri trundled after the Warsmith. “The only real men on this planet died months ago.”

+++++++++

The frightened masses heaved to either side, clearing a path for the red uniforms of the Utgaard Rangers. An honour guard, long past thinking about the occasionally odd demands of their Warsmith, carried a platform made from lashed together Tau carapace armour pieces. Upon that platform, sat upon a throne constructed from the small arms of the xenos, was the bloody corpse of the Major. Placed in his hands like regal icons were a bolter and chainsword. Placed carefully under his feet were two severed heads. One was the head of the so-called Gue’vesa PDF, captured and executed in the Capitol suburbs. The other was the head of the warrior that Grand Company intelligence had guessed was the commander of the Tau garrison forces destroyed in the valley.

Following this macabre altar was the Warmith and the mortal commanders of his auxiliary regiments. The human officers wore their dress uniforms and marched with ceremonial blades drawn in salute. The Warsmith was at their lead, first to follow the altar, and wore nothing but an orange robe with a black sash and mantle. He walked with his arms folded into his sleeves and a solemn look carefully upon his face.

Every surviving citizen had been herded toward the Governor’s Square. Driven by fearful instinct the remaining Gue’vesa PDF had pushed and hurried to put as many other citizens between themselves and the invading soldiers ringing the city. As a result, many of the dirty, cowering citizens crammed shoulder to shoulder in the large square in front of the Lord-Commander’s mansion were wearing the uniforms and ranks provided by the xenos. They stood uncomfortably among the regular citizens, and neither side looked at one another.

At the sight of the Warsmith’s strange procession many began to weep and wail. Wherever the large space marine went, a wave of fear and awe followed. The surreal parade ended at the doors to the mansion, the platform with the deceased Major was gingerly set upon the ground, and a detail of Utgaard Rangers and Saga House Guard fixed bayonets and charged into the building, followed soon at a casual pace by the serene looking Warsmith and his brutish Terminator bodyguards.

 

First Contact, Part Three

"A Perfect Act of Contrition"

Hidden Content

The end had come.

Inquisitor Aleister Dashwood of the Ordo Xenos knew that whatever was about to occur, it was the final act. He tested his manacles, again finding the strange alloy as light as air and as strong as adamantium. At the sound of his fidgeting the xeno glanced in his direction.

“We have dealt with their kind before, Inquisitor.” Ta'Kanos had what Dashwood would call a smugly self assured expression, though the xeno always looked that way to him. “The space marines are creatures hidebound by their traditions and oaths. They lack a single original, creative thought. They are strong and shocking in their violence, but ultimately they are as children.”

Dashwood wanted to laugh at the creature’s arrogant ignorance, but was afraid he would descend into hysterics if he so much as sneered.

“You have dealt with space marines, Ta'Kanos.” Inquisitor Dashwood pulled at the chain, stretching it taught against the D-ring bolted into the marble floor in an effort to stand as far away from the creature and its cadre of ruling class Gue’vesa stooges. “But these are not Imperials. The Damocles Accord will mean nothing to them.”

“As it apparently meant nothing to you, Imperial.” The xenos snorted derisively at the captive Inquisitor. "Our Hunter Cadre is secreted in the hills, and are too fast for these savages to catch even they did manage to spot them. As we speak our fleet, much more maneuverable than any of your clumsy vessels, is hidden on the far side of the system. This situation, disastrous as it has been for the locals, will be remedied soon by reinforcements. All we need to do is be agreeable, you will see."

Besides Dashwood and the xenos ambassador, there were seven other humans in the former Imperial Governor’s office. So-called Facilitator Cameron, who only yesterday sat so proudly in the high backed chair behind the many square feet of mirror polished exotic wood of the desk, now had to lean against that desk lest he collapse from fear and exhaustion. His personal toadies and cronies gathered around him as if he were a shamanic totem of protection, while Ta'Kanos stood off to one side with the unfortunate Inquisitor chained to the floor nearby.

The room was high vaulted and spacious, with floor to ceiling windows to one side. The marble floor was also polished to a mirror sheen, but the ostentatious paintings and statuary favored by the former Imperial Governor had been removed and never replaced. The effect was a bright, regal cavern.

Before anyone else could speak, the tall, ornate wooden doors suddenly swung inward. A platoon of human soldiers in red uniforms and burnished iron carapace armour moved quickly and expertly into the room, lasguns covering every angle and individual. Inquisitor Dashwood was surprised when none of the soldiers approached the huddled forms of the Facilitator and his entourage or did anything more than point their weapons in the general direction of the xenos.

After a few moments a soldier, obviously a sergeant from his bolt pistol and chainsword, spoke a codeword into a handheld vox. The soldiers held their positions, lasguns covering every direction, none saying a word.

After a short wait a second group of soldiers hustled through the door. These wore different uniforms and a more stylized carapace armour, with trench helmets, and black and yellow striped banner poles on their backs. Their weapons were much more expensive looking, highly ornate with gargoyle heads cast to spew forth deadly laser from their mouths. They were taller and thinner than the red uniformed soldiers. Duskier skin with black eyes, high cheek bones and carefully neutral expressions that somehow still managed to convey their intense hostility.

These newcomers, an elite guard Dashwood surmised, covered all the same angles with their weapons, and also leveled their weapons at the red uniforms. Three of these elites stacked their arms and quickly searched the Facilitator, his entourage, Dashwood, and, with some reluctance, the xenos. Ta'Kanos, for his part, managed to seem humble and gracious as the rough men rifled through the folds of his robes for weapons.

A VIP was to visit them, Dashwood concluded.

“No one will speak unless spoken to.” The leader of the elite guards announced to the cavernous room, his voice echoing off the bare, marble walls. “Do not make any sudden moves.”

The consequences of disobedience were strongly implied, and clearly inferred.

Inquisitor Dashwood felt a creeping sensation. It was as the needles and pins of a benumbed limb, except he felt this in his very soul. All eyes save those of the tall, elite guard turned to look toward the open doorway.

There came the sound of heavy, armoured boots.

Dashwood glanced at Ta'Kanos, and as terrified as he was of what he knew was coming, he still wanted to laugh triumphantly into the haughty xenos’ ugly face. Did he satisfy his own perverse curiosity and watch for the entrance of the dreaded mythos, or did he savour the inevitable realisation of doom and despair as it came upon the face of the xenos ambassador?

The wave of vertigo caused by the psychic pressure of the latest arrivals made his decision for him. He feel to his knees, struggling to keep his head upright. Through the doorway came first one, then a second space marine Terminator. Each wore an orange and black panoply that was by itself a work of mechanical and artistic wonder. The orange and black scheme was unknown to him, but the iron skull mask on the shoulder pads told him of their ancient and terrible origin. Each carried a long handled, master crafted hammer, with custom dual barreled bolters attached to one wrist. Their leering white, skull masks with sharpened teeth and glowing red eyes completed the visage of hatred and hostility. The red uniforms shifted nervously and averted their eyes as these armoured abominations stomped into the room, though Dashwood noted with the slightest hint of admiration that the elite guard did not seem at all cowed by their terrifying presence.

Even as the two space marine Terminators began their pacing back and forth to stare into the faces of all present, the hall beyond seemed to darken, and Dashwood blinked as the colours in the room become just a bit more vivid, while the contrast between light and dark became just a bit more pronounced. A shadow fell across the doorway, and it grew in stature until it seemed poised to swallow the cavernous office whole. And then it fell away in their minds, and there stood the Warsmith.

He seemed a being out of place and time. He was not, to Dashwood’s surprise, in any kind of armour. Rather he wore a simple robe of orange with a black sash and mantle in the manner of an ancient Senator or perhaps an ascetic monk, and wore nothing else but freshly made straw sandals.

His grey hair and beard ran together into a wild, tangled halo about his ruddy, solid face. He was immense, easily the equal out of armour of his two body guards in their Terminator armour. To Dashwood he looked like a savage’s caricature of a primal deity, a terrible and capricious spirit of the untamed wilderness, the kind that drank hot blood from primitive altars and menaced his worshippers with calamity if not appeased.

The Warsmith walked through the doorway and paused, turned his face upward and scanned the bare walls as if noting where the decorations had been removed. As he stood in the doorway, two wire haired dire wolfhoods sauntered lazily into the room, brushing against his thigh as they passed, tongues lolling comically as they curiously looked into the faces of those in the room.

Their casual panting stopped and their posture stiffened at the sight of the xenos. One let out a low growl as the other looked to its master, hungry for the command to kill.

Finally, the Warsmith turned his gaze to the assembled prisoners. Dashwood felt he could almost see the intensity of that being’s gaze as it examined each face in turn. He locked eyes with the absurdly large man for just a moment he felt like a small child caught misbehaving, then the gaze moved on.

The Warsmith slowly walked forward until he stopped in front of the Facilitator. His damning glance slowly took in the xenos contrived badges of office and the ornate robe that aped the design that Ta'Kanos himself wore.

“What happened to the Lord-Commander?” The Warsmith did not raise his voice above a conversational level, yet it carried with assertive command to every human in the room no matter how far away. Dashwood fought the compulsion to answer, to immediately begin divulging every bit of strategic information he had managed to collect since his mission on this planet had begun. And perhaps more, too, but he swallowed it and remained stock still and silent.

“I expected a routine port call.” The Warsmith reached out and caught the hem of the Facilitator’s robe. He rubbed the fabric between his fingers and the corners of his mouth turned down. Next, the Warsmith gently lifted the Facilitator’s medal of office, a Tau symbol worked in fine white-gold, over the Facilitator’s head and held it dangling at eye level on its delicate silver chain. After a moment he dropped the medal, and the jangling sound of the medal and chain hitting the floor caused the Facilitator and his cronies to flinch. “A resupply for the fleet. Perhaps a week or two of liberty for the men. An opportunity for trade and other commerce for the civilians. Even a recruitment detail, to evaluate the inevitable wave of volunteers.”

“The Lord-Commanders of this system and I have had an understanding for centuries.” The Warsmith turned and walked slowly to one of the high windows and gazed out into the square. A large statue of the Emperor still dominated the square in granite, but the precious metals had been roughly stripped and the features of his face had been smashed smooth and unrecognisable. The Warsmith was silent for a moment as he observed the banners in the strange, angular writing of the Tau draped from the uplifted arms of the Emperor’s likeness.

“Centuries.” The Warsmith repeated, now gazing distantly at nothing in particular out of the window. “We come, we requisition what we need, we leave. Commerce of the most mundane necessity. And you send your tithes to the sector Administratum, raise your regiments for your Imperial Munitorum, and worship in the cathedrals of your Ecclesiarchy, and this remains a quiet yet reliable backwater.”

“My lord,” Ta'Kanos held his hands out in a conciliatory gesture, taking the slightest step forward. “Warsmith, I have been informed you are titled. Let me assure you that despite the brief and destructive skirmish of this morning, there is no reason that relationship cannot continue as it always has.”

Dashwood noted that the elite guards looked to the Warsmith, who made no move to acknowledge that he had been spoken to by Ta'Kanos. Whatever signal they saw, Dashwood was relieved when they did not immediately gun the xenos down. Every moment the xenos was alive and talking to these Traitor Marines was a moment that Dashwood was witnessing and learning.

When the Warsmith did not object and the guards did not shoot, Ta'Kanos took this as an invitation to continue, and boldly moved forward, confident in his skills as a negotiator. The Facilitator and his friends wept quietly, covering their faces with their hands and sinking to the floor as Dashwood had, but Ta'Kanos took no notice.

“Commerce with all kinds has become the specialty here.” Ta'Kanos looked serene, moving to stand beside the Warsmith and to look out the window next to him. “We are informed you are not Imperial. We have fervently hoped to meet humans who are open minded and free enough to have rejected the superstitions of their Ecclesiarchy, to build bridges of friendship among the humans who are independent and un-beholden to this Emperor myth o-”

Faster than Dashwood’s human eyes could perceive, the Warsmith’s hand reach out and wrapped around Ta'Kanos' neck, like a viper striking prey. Ta'Kanos’ eyes bulged and his long, thin arms pulled ineffectually at the meaty, powerful fingers of the immense space marine. The xeno was lifted just high enough so that the tips of its feet tapped and scraped frantically at the floor without finding purchase for leverage.

Dashwood knew he probably would not survive to see the end of this day, but he relished the croaking gasps of the haughty xenos as it choked and spit. The Warsmith did not redirect his faraway stare from the window, nor seem to make any effort at all, as if it were not even he who was throttling the creature.

“The Emperor,” The Warsmith suddenly said in a low, even tone. “The Emperor is no superstitious myth. He was not a god, and he was more than a man. But he was also a man.”

The Warsmith reached out with his free hand and unlatched the window, pushing it wide open. With no further words or ceremony he cast the struggling xenos from the high window, watching as its frail body broke upon the granite of the Emperor’s likeness. The soldiers and civilians in the square below looked up to the window as one. Dashwood noted with some satisfaction that among the noises of despair, shock, and fear from the gathered natives there was a smattering of angry, triumphant cheers.

“The Emperor is dead, and his Imperium is a cruel mockery of what could have been.” The Warsmith stalked over to the Facilitator and loomed large over their cowering figures. He pointed to the Facilitator and commanded, “Look at me!”

The Facilitator, the hand-picked human to head the occupied government of collaborators and informers, could not help but obey. He turned his wretched, tear stained face to meet the Warsmith’s gaze. He shrank backward with a yelp of fear, but was transfixed by the anger and contempt in the Warsmith’s eyes and could not look away.

“The Emperor was false with his children,” The Warsmith bared his teeth at the pathetic, sniveling prisoners who had once profited so greatly from the misery of their fellows. “His Imperium was built on lies.

But.

He.

Was.

HUMAN!”

The Warsmith scooped up the Facilitator by the voluminous mantle at the back of his robe and marched swiftly to the open window. The man wailed, but instead of struggling to break free he reached his hands up to cover his face. The Warsmith leaned out of the window over the governor’s squad and held the Facilitator out over the deadly drop.

“Hwaet!” The Warsmith’s voice carried unnaturally above the crowd, and the assembly below became silent as the grave, watching and listening intently. The Warsmith shook the terrified leader of the collaborators for emphasis, then bellowed to the crowd. “To place yourself willingly under the heel of the xenos? That is deserving of death! To guide the boot of an alien conqueror over your fellow man? That is deserving of damnation!”

With a quick flick of the wrist the Warsmith drew a small, unassuming knife from the folds of his robe and sliced the jugular of the Facilitator. The bright crimson spray of blood fanned through the air, then stopped, suspended in the air like glittering rubies. Slowly the blood drops picked up speed again and changed course. They spiraled in the air to converge on a single point of unearthly light and flickering flame that licked from a sickening wound in reality that had opened up to receive them. The Facilitator keened an unearthly wail of despair as he watched an unnatural quantity of his own blood gush from his wound and spiral into the fire. His scream of despair turned into agony as black bile replaced the blood in its gushing flow from his shriveling physical husk.

Dashwood sat fascinated and  repulsed at the same time by the process. Within moments the Facilitator’s skin had deflated into a fluttering rag, which then turned black and crumbled away into flaking grey ash that followed the rest of his foul essence into the Warp rift. When the last dust of the collaborator had disappeared into the sickening tear, the tear itself disappeared, leaving only the lingering stench of boiled blood and feces.

“You have four hours!” The Warsmith proclaimed to the cowed civilians of the city. “Every tongue that spoke words of support, every hand that eagerly grasped for xenos technology, every heart that betrayed its species, they are dead flesh that must be cut from the body! Excise each of them, and place them at the feet of the Emperor in the square! If the whole of the rot is not cleansed, if one guilty party remains intact, if your allegiance to humanity is not demonstrated to my satisfaction, I will not suffer this planet to exist! FOUR. HOURS.”

The masses of civilians below instantly convulsed into bloody handed retribution, turning on their friends and neighbors as the wave of maddened violence spread throughout the city and beyond. The Warsmith cast his judging eye upon the remaining servants of the Facilitator, and his two Terminator bodyguards growled and lashed out with their long-handled hammers, methodically smashing their bodies one at a time until nothing was left but ruined meat, steaming offal, and jagged splinters of burnt bone splattered across shattered chunks of marble floor.

“You.”

Finally.

The End.

“Warsmith.” Inquisitor Aleister Dashwood struggled to his feet. As he stood to face the hulking space marine he wondered if they would bother to break his chains to throw him out of the window, or if they would slay him where he stood. To his surprise, the Warsmith did neither.

“Tell me what you are willing to do to safeguard humanity from the predations of the wretched xenos.”

“Die a martyr, or live long enough to see yourself become a Radical...” Dashwood whispered to himself and chuckled, remembering the warnings of his long dead mentor. He bit his tongue and drew blood, and the pain was enough to keep his mind controlled and rational, to keep away the convulsive hysteria that pressed at the edges of his mind.

“I will take that answer to mean: anything.” The Warsmith smiled, and placed a large, benevolent hand on the Inquisitor’s shoulder. “And you will...”

 

Epilogue

Hidden Content

“Change in Imperial Tithe status?” The subsector commander, Admiral Yont, looked up from his desk and around his spacious yet spartanly appointed office at his unusual guests. “What exactly does this mean, Aleister?”

“Dear fellow, you should know better than to ask such things of His Holy Orders of the Inquisition.” Inquisitor Aleister Dashwood smiled in his over stuffed leather chair, swirling his rich, golden-brown brandy in its snifter. He met the eyes of his old friend the Admiral, but could not look into them. Instead he fixed his gaze at an imaginary point somewhere past his head.

Admiral Yont looked again at the two space marines flanking the door to the office, and realized what had initially bothered him. Black shields. A rarity by themselves, two working in the same Kill Team positively unheard of. He nodded slowly and leaned back in his own chair, closed his eyes and sighed.

“Not of His Holy Orders of the Inquisition. Never.” Admiral Yont wearily signed and sealed the legal papers that the Inquisitor had placed before him. “I don’t know what you’re doing, Aleister, but I ask you as a friend not to involve me in any more of it.”

“Crysis VII is soon to achieve Decuma Tertius tithe grade.” Dashwood looked immensely relieved and leaned forward to snatch the signed and sealed documents from the desk. “Pre-date the acknowledgement on the Munitorum forms and then send them by a very slow courier. It happens all the time, Yontsy. One goes down, one goes up, business as usual and the Pax Imperium in this subsector is undisturbed.”

“There’s been reports of unusual xenos activity on the edges of the Phoenix Reach, near the Damocles Gulf.” Admiral Yont pressed the Inquisitor. “A net gain in tithe grade would have gone a lot further toward securing the peace of the Imperium around here.”

“Xenos activity in the Phoenix Reach, you say?” Inquisitor Dashwood raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Then I had better have my Rogue Trader friend transport me to that vicinity forthwith. Good day, Yontsy.”

“Aleister.” Admiral Yonts said his halfhearted goodbye, and watched the Inquisitor leave.

The Admiral hated himself that it took him a full five minutes of nostalgic despair to contact his secret liaison to the Ordo Hereticus, but he had known Aleister since the two were boys in their private boarding school.

Dear old Aleister is a Radical, he thought as he made the arrangements. He knew he was doing the right thing, but his heart was heavy. It had to be done.

[EesiOh]

holy **** Aznable, I will confess to never really paying much attention to your work (too long for me to bother in most cases) but always feeling a sense of sinking glumness that only you or Carrack were blessed enough by the gods to receive the IF awards, but now reading this masterpiece, i completely understand. This time when you win I will be glad to see such a prolific writer get his reward.  

[Warsmith Aznable]

holy **** Aznable, I will confess to never really paying much attention to your work (too long for me to bother in most cases) but always feeling a sense of sinking glumness that only you or Carrack were blessed enough by the gods to receive the IF awards, but now reading this masterpiece, i completely understand. This time when you win I will be glad to see such a prolific writer get his reward.

I am glad you like it.

I think it won't be chosen because it's too long for this format, though. I am trying to do shorter stories, but this process of invasion was something I've been kicking around in different forms for a while and wanted to detail it. Originally it was to be a punitive campaign against an Imperial Commander who purged an Iron Hounds port/recruitment world. This challenge with the Tau gave me the idea to use it to highlight the Warsmith's deep, lingering feelings about things like the Great Crusade, human dominance and manifest destiny, and how a massive pirate fleet keeps resupplied (and stays largely under the radar,) what daemons are really good for, and even a little bit of his own hypocrisy. The backstory for one of my squads (A Deathwatch Kill Team that I use as Rubric Marines in games) leaked in because it seemed like the perfect place for that particular corruption to have happened.

[Carrack]

@ Warsmith Aznable. I don't think a mere check of the "like" box conveys my appreciation of your story this week. The scale of the story is what I really enjoyed. It was good to read about the forces of chaos actually operating on a level that could threaten the Imperium, or the filthy Xenos as the case may be.

[Warsmith Aznable]

@ Warsmith Aznable. I don't think a mere check of the "like" box conveys my appreciation of your story this week. The scale of the story is what I really enjoyed. It was good to read about the forces of chaos actually operating on a level that could threaten the Imperium, or the filthy Xenos as the case may be.

If that jumped-up thin-blood Huron Blackheart can strut around like he's hot stuff, anybody should be able to.