Rapid Fire Challenge: Agitation - January 2021

[Race Bannon]

Prompt: Agitation

Maximum length: 500 words

Deadline: 31 January 2021 (Happy New Year btw ^_^)

Where to post submissions: In this thread

Note - please make sure all submissions adhere to the forum rules. Any entry that breaks one or more rules shall be removed.

[Mazer Rackham]

Abran Fuego, Scribe First Class, Lieutenant of The Upper Cloister and Holder of The Scroll of Memory, was sitting at his desk, the desk of his father and his father before him.  The vellum was scraped pristine by the serfs, and the quill - "never an autoquill Abran!" his father's shade wagged an ink stained finger at his son - was trimmed and ready.  The sharp scent of black haemosquid ichor stood in the room expectantly, but the pool in the well was undisturbed, and had been for nearly an hour.

 

The blankness of the script-canvas was galling him.  His fingers paralysed by the inactivity of his mind.  Both the parchment and his thoughts were blank, a strange and sweat inducing harmony he could not dispel.

 

"Our heroic deeds are so insignificant, are they, that you squander the Emperor's good light?"

 

Abran had been too preoccupied to notice Chaplain Desato enter.  The huge warrior-monk stood now, enrobed in his heavy cassock of Jaraffa skin.  The chink of sunlight from the silver sun millions of leagues above Abran's desk was moving slowly, the window casting a shadow akin to a coffin lid shutting.

 

"Nay, lord.  I just do not know how to begin," he knew only honesty was sufficient - even if scourging may follow it, the Chaplain would respect it.

 

"Very well," Desato cleared his throat.  "It was a dark and stormy night, on the fourteenth eve of Sanctuside, when the Fire Sabres faced their doom..."

 

Abran snatched up his quill and daubed ink onto his blotter as the Chaplain's deep bass rumble threatened to outstrip his shaking hands.

 

It was enough to ignore the thump and whine of the Fortress Monastery artillery, replying in vain as they were being slowly destroyed by Chaos Titans.

 

MR.

 

EDIT: Woah!  Did not notice the formatting problems!  Corrected!

Edited February 4, 2021 by Mazer Rackham

[Brother Lunkhead]

Nice one Brother Mazer

[Mazer Rackham]

Nice one Brother Mazer

 

My thanks for the kind words, Brother Lunkhead - as always. 

 

MR.

[ThePenitentOne]

I am new to the challenge; it's the last day of January, and if I don't do it today, I never will. The following story is the Marine side of a preface that kicks off the Chronicle of Saint Katherine's Aegis. This story sets off a custom Space Hulk scenario, which serves as the birth of a Genestealer cult that will grow and fester on the Agri-world of Orison's Wake if any of the purestrains are able to escape. Once the battle has been fought, I'll write the second half of the preface from the Genestealer perspective to tell the story of how the founders of the cult found their way to the planet's surface.

 

Thanks for the motivation to get this done!

 

The Hunter Class Destroyer Ashallon's Rage emerged from the horror of the warp after an eternity of immaterial echoes. Moments or years adrift; they had broken the blockade, cutting through the membrane of bio-ships assailed against them. Inquisitor Lord Taryn Faust of the Ordo Xenos and two Death Watch Kill teams were waiting- their Navigator had been making the final calculations for translation to warp when the Strangler Drone hit them in the stern on the starboard side, coiling whip-vine tentacles around the fuselage to draw close enough to tear through hull plating with a diamond hard maw. Sergeant Varo Argentus of the Blood Angels had braced his Battle Brothers to advance toward the breach... And then, on the other side of the Galaxy, the last Cadian Pylon fell, and the Empyrion of the Warp broke open the Empire of Man.

 

The Drone was torn asunder, rent by malignant waves of raw psychic power. Argentus and his men mag locked their boots to the deck plates of Ashallon's Rage, surrendering themselves to the Emperor's will with a prayer to Sanguinus upon their lips. The jagged scar of the Cicatrix Maledictum had torn them from reality and cast them adrift upon the nightmare tides of the warp. And now, at last they had emerged in the depths of the void to an Imperium divided by the lingering darkness of the rift and the silence of the Astronomicon.

 

Scans of the ship indicated that while the hull had been compromised  on the sixth deck, the warp had taken them, and destroyed the Strangler Drone,  before any boarding action by the vile xenos. The Sergeant had left Brothers Tarsus and Mercutio to investigate the breach and returned to the bridge to be debriefed. 

 

There were five planets in the star system where they had emerged- a massive Hiveworld, a tempest torn planet of mining colonies, and a small agriworld. While communications were still disrupted by the rift, the Astropathic cabal aboard Ashallon's Rage could hear enough through the static to identify occasional words and phrases uttered in Imperial High Gothic. Wherever they were, it was within the Emperor's fold. While the Tech Priests mobilized teams of servitors to repair the breach, helm control set a course for the hive world.

 

It was the eighth day after emergence from the storm that the automated signal began. By then, the crew of the Ashallon's rage had fully restored the integrity of the vessel, the servitors driven without respite by the tech priests and engineers. The distress beacon was transmitting in Imperial High Gothic, but an ancient dialect that was difficult to decipher. The signal was strong, and the Astropaths had worked with the Navigator to lock down coordinates for the signal's origin. While translation of the dialect had been imprecise, one phrase in particular had drawn attention: Castellum Noctalith... Blackstone Fortress.

 

Without the light of the Astronomican; with no effective communication to the planets of this mysterious star system, and without guidance from Baal, the crew of the  Ashallon's Rage was left with little choice but to follow the path that had opened before them to whatever destiny awaited them at the source of the beacon. This time, they would be entering the warp by choice. Sargent Argentus and Squad Cygnus were braced for translation, awaiting the tingling to settle over them as the Gellar Fields converged. No one expected the sudden explosion of the Klaxon's wail. In time with the droning alarm, the ships lights begain to pulse from standard incandescence to an ominous red.

 

The auto senses of Brother Argentus's Terminator helm transmitted a warning: "Xenoform detected, deck six, Starboard Gamma Nine"

 

Without a word, the Battle Brothers of Squad Cygnus readied their weapons and prepared to face the hidden enemy...

Edited January 31, 2021 by ThePenitentOne