Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus

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Darko
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Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus Feb 25, 2024 17:43:59 GMT Dewin and Warork like this

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Post by Darko on Feb 25, 2024 17:43:59 GMT

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Salvator city was usually a sleepless machine, its streets overflowing with workers going to and from their long, exhausting shifts in a neverending cycle. On any given day, the skies would be choked by the exhaust plumes of a thousand manufactorums perpetually producing weapons and tanks while fifteen separate military bases echoed with the sounds of endless drills and live-fire exercises. Clanging metalworks, rumbling cars and the ceaseless percussion of lasguns all combined to create the incessant anthem of the Aurelian Empire. All day, every day.

Except today. The manufactorums lay silent, the skies mercifully cleared by air purifier servitors floating this way and that in small swarms like confused bees going in endless circles above the city. The streets were filled with crowds yelling, cheering, smoking and drinking either side of the roads. Rows of stoic guardsmen in grey fatigues and maroon flak armour stood apart from the crowd, keeping the roads clear. Hundreds of dour commissariat enforcers stalked the streets, pointed caps tilted low to block the oppressive glare of the sun as they went about their grim business. Every so often one of the onlookers would be dragged away for one misdemeanour or another, either thrown into one of the black Taurus APCs parked on each street or simply given justice in the form of a las-bolt to the head on the spot. Each time the snap-crack of a Commissar's laspistol rang out, a few people would turn their heads, sparing a frown or a sympathetic sigh before shrugging their shoulders and returning their attention to the advancing parade.

Full platoons of guardsmen in pristine, freshly-painted flak armour, marched in lockstep with their lasguns held over their shoulders in one hand. Each section was divided by growling Leman Russ battle tanks, rumbling chimeras and hellhounds. A line of ceremonial musicians accompanied each platoon, hammering on their drums in unison and filling the air with a rattling beat as old as war itself. Towering holo-emitters overseen by lay-mechanics projected the flickering image of the Regent beneath the statue of Xecaon, saviour of Salvator. She wore what she always wore: an ancient carapace chest plate embossed with a golden aquila, neatly bisected by a red sash underneath her iconic commissar's coat. Every part of her appearance was carefully curated and maintained, except for that frayed coat that had seen centuries of blood and death. Instead of the black-tipped caps worn by her personally trained commissars, she wore a crown of silver laurels on top of honey-brown hair pulled back into a short ponytail. Cassandra Aurelia was the very image of her inaugeral portraits painted a hundred years ago - regal, scowling, one hand on her sheathed sword and the other behind her back. No one in living memory could recall ever seeing her smile, except for lying children in the educatoriums claiming their fathers definitely worked in the palace and was best friends with the Regent and had absolutely, positively made her laugh with one of their childish jokes. The instructors would quickly correct such insubordinate claims by reminding them they could have a very promising career as a servitor or swearing they'd inform the Regent personally of their transgressions and demanding they make a thousand prayers of penitence beneath the life-size portrait hanging in every instruction hall.

It was impossible to know if the Regent had ever been beautiful, as even in her portraits her pale features were a butchered mess of intersecting scars and burns that had never fully healed. Only her piercing emerald eyes were untouched by the ravages of war, although rumours that they were in fact artificer implants capable of melting a man with a cursory glance had never been confirmed or denied. It was no secret that it would be a trifling matter to have the blemishes of past battles cosmetically restored, or that the last time one of her advisors suggested the idea he was trading his uniform for the matte-grey overalls of a manufactorum worker by the end of the same day. The gaggle of colonels and advisors around her all brandished dozens of shining medals across their chests and shared not a single scar between them.

The front of the parade had begun to reach the wide empty space beneath the Regent's stage and the towering marble effigy of Xecaon, his face frozen in a timeless snarl with a bolter the size of a man in one hand and his other fist wrapped around a towering banner featuring both the imperial aquila and the roaring wolf emblem of the Aurelian Empire. The story went that it was a creature from the Regent's home-world, far from the Caedis sector. Depending on who you asked, she had either killed one as a child, tamed the colossal canine and ridden it into battle or, as some would say with a hollow laugh after too many drinks - that she turned into the beast at night to hunt heretics and traitors. Few believed such a thing was possible, and fewer still failed to nervously check every dark alleyway and rooftop when they walked home just in case.

Clem beamed from ear to ear watching the guardsmen march by from atop his father's shoulders. He cheered as loud as his little lungs would allow, waving a miniature flag of the 219th Caedis regiment. Clem's father smiled almost as much, despite one half of his face always being as static and emotionless as stone. His left leg had been replaced by a crude bionic taken from a servitor, its rusty servos grinding and hissing every time he turned slightly to try and give Clem a better view. He proudly wore chipped and cracked flak armour, dull greymetal visible under the faded crimson paint. His one good eye glistened with water and every time a traitorous tear threatened to spill over, he wiped it away quickly on the back of the gnarled and fused scar tissue that used to be his right hand. On the side of his arm was a faded skull and aquila tattoo, with the numbers 2 1 9 overlayed.

'When I grow up, I wanna be in the guard just like you dad!' Clem announced proudly for the hundredth time that day. 'When do I get my... um... my, my bamblad balls?' Clem giggled.
The man snorted, forgetting to wipe his tear this time as it trickled down his mangled cheek. 'Don't let your mother hear you say that.'
'But you always say everybody in the guard got bamble-sized ba-'
'It's baneblade. And hush now, the speech is going to begin any moment. Holy Regent be praised, I never thought I'd see my own regiment live again and on Victrix Aeterna Day no less.'

A prowling commissariat enforcer stopped in his tracks next to them, shoving Clem and his father to the side as he removed his cap and held it over his chest. Clem frowned, then immediately forgot his irritation as the nearest shimmering holo-image changed back from the marching regiment to where the front of the parade had already come to a halt in a neat formation before the Regent on her raised platform. Thirty stormtroopers in faceless masks stood silently around the stage, as still as the gargantuan statue behind them.

'Another generation sent to die,' muttered an older man with a scraggly grey beard who hung loosely over the railings in front of Clem. He barely had time to comprehend what the words meant before the commissar grabbed the ancient one by the throat with one hand, forcing him to his knees and choking him. The commissar's eyes never left the holo-image in the sky, even as the man weakly clawed at the gloved hand around his throat. Clem's father urgently tapped him on the shoulder with his hand-nub.
'Look, the Regent is speaking,' he said excitedly. 'Long live the Regent!' Several other people nearby echoed his words.

Clem stared unblinking into the eyes of the old man as he squirmed in the iron grasp, his grey eyes looking back up at him. Despite the pain written across his face, he had the same look in his eyes that Clem's father got whenever he didn't reassamble his lasgun correctly and yelled at him until he cried and eventually got it right. He looked mad, while the commissar man looked very sad because he was crying. That's weird, thought Clem. He wondered if the old man would have to say a lot of prayers to the big painting later.

The holo-image flickered again, switching to a close-up of the scarred face of the Regent. Her gruff voice was projected throughout the city on megavoxes.
'It is my privilege to stand here today and celebrate the refounding of one of our most famed regiments. The 219th bravely stood against the greenskin menace ten years ago on...'

Clem tried his best to listen but found he couldn't make out the words. He was surrounded by a wall of noise; the booming vox speakers, the engines of hundreds of tanks and thousands of cheering voices. All he could focus on was the old man. He wasn't moving any more. The commissar dropped him on the ground and he lay there like a crumpled bag of skin and bone, that same hateful glare etched into his face. A small servitor seemed to appear out of thin air, little more than a desiccated head and neck nailed onto a spider-like construct the size of a small dog. Two long metal tendrils snaked from its back, seizing the motionless man and dragging him back through the crowd until he disappeared completely from Clem's view. After a moment, the world felt like it exploded and the cacophony of sounds around him snapped back into focus. The Regent was still speaking. The commissar man was smiling now. Clem wasn't sure why, but that smile scared him.

'...they will go into battle with the finest weapons, blessed by the Emperor Himself and armoured in faith. However, they will not go into battle alone.' The Regent paused, her piercing eyes seeming to look straight into Clem's soul for several seconds. He gasped softly, wondering if she could really see him.
'Citizens of Caedis V, I know it has been a difficult few years. You have faced every challenge, every threat, with unwavering faith. You have done your duty without hesitation, without question. This is all I have ever asked of you. Despite the baseless rumours that heretics walk amongst us, you have not succumbed to the poison of fear. It is my honour, on our one-hundredth day of Victrix Aeterna, to announce that the Emperor has seen your devotion and your sacrifice. For the first time in a hundred and eight years, the Emperor has blessed us and sent his Angels of Death to fight alongside our heroes.'

Across the city, a million gasps preceded a deathly silence. All motion and celebration ceased, until the roaring engines of a Valkyrie, armoured in the pure black of the Commissariat, cut through the sky above them. It soared and raced towards the heart of the city, lurching mid-air as it slowed, rotated and descended onto the platform behind the Regent.

Cassandra Aurelia smiled.

The Valkyrie's hatch slammed open and the holo-image crackled awkwardly, the picter servitors rushing to refocus on this unexpected arrival. As the dust from the landing cleared, hulking silhouettes emerged from the Valkyrie. The heavy stomping steps of each one were broadcast throughout the city by thousands of vox speakers in unison. Clem's father wept freely now and tightly gripped the bronze aquila chain over his chest with his good hand.
'By the Regent... we are saved,' he said. He'd heard such a sound only once, when the 219th had died in the shadow of a tainted Warlord Titan on Caedis VII.

At last, the holo-image stabilised as the hulking figures took positions beside the Regent. The decorated commanders at the edge of the image looked at each other in shock, eyes darting wildly between themselves and the towering armoured warriors before them. There were five of them, each standing nearly a foot taller than the Regent herself. Thick, segmented and layered armour plates covered every part of their body, every single piece held in place by dozens of molecular bonding studs. In their gauntleted hands they held giant rectangular rifles, vaguely reminiscent of Clem's lasgun at home yet far more elegant. Multiple black and yellow cables hung loosely from the rifles, connected to something on their backs. Their angular helms were impassive and featureless, except for two narrow eye slits, while their sloped pauldrons featured the imperial aquila on one side, and the Aurelian Wolf on the other. Clem couldn't believe his eyes, the old man completely forgotten. They looked just how he imagined the holy knights of the Emperor, His avenging angels from the stories of the Great War.

'With His Angels of Death by our side, neither xenos nor heretic will escape our wrath,' said the Regent. 'Let this be a clear message to those who doubt the strength and righteousness of our empire. I promise you, every last alien, mutant and heretic will be hunted down and destroyed. Look upon His Angels and know that our empire will endure a thousand years and a thousand more. We will take to the stars and reclaim our lost worlds. Our enemies will cower and hide in their dark holes, knowing their only salvation is death. We do this for you, your children and your children's children. We do this for the Empire. Victrix Aeterna!' The Regent drew her sword, pressing the golden run on its hilt. It blazed with white-blue electrical fire.

In one motion, the space marines drew shimmering power swords and raised them in a salute. Their gutteral, inhuman words were already amplified by their helmets, only further magnified to a deafening thunder across the city vox. 'Hail the Regent! Hail Victrix Aeterna! Hail the Regent! Hail Victrix Aeterna!'

Every voice in the city cried out at once, repeating the chant over and over and over. Clem couldn't stop grinning and glanced down at his father, who had run out of tears. The commissar beside them looked over and laughed out of pure joy. People jumped and cheered, embracing their loved ones and complete strangers alike.
'You'll love this next bit,' said the commissar knowingly, gesturing upwards. Clem looked up. He only just realised there was another sound overpowering even the endless chanting of the crowd and the Angels.

Five shadows swept across the city with terrifying speed. Four of them were the sleek hulls of Fury Interceptors, flanking either side of the largest: a marauder bomber. They flew low, whipping up the wind in their wake and blowing away hats and lho-sticks as they moved in the direction of the palace at the heart of Salvator. Clem was still smiling when the bombs fell.

You stand with your fellow Praetors aboard the bridge of the Sanctus Excelsior in orbit of Caedis V. The central tactical station displays the holo-broadcast from the Victrix Aeterna parade far below in the capital city of Salvator. The entire main concourse disappears in fiery explosions before your eyes. The feed is lost to static for several seconds as alarm klaxons begin to toll throughout the ship. The first officer barks frantic orders to the Master of the Auspex and yells for someone to summon the captain immediately. After a moment, the holo-image reappears, the camera angle tilted off-centre. The image is blurry, but shows an aerial view of the palace burning. It zooms in, focusing on the Regent bathed in a halo of golden light amidst the flaming wreckage and broken bodies of the 219th regiment in its entirety. Four of the strange space marines, with their unrecognisable pattern of power armour and hot-shot volleyguns, surround the Regent. The pict zooms out twice, panning over the devastation throughout Salvator's main road. Dozens of hab blocks and manufactorums are consumed beneath a raging inferno. From every other connecting street, a horde of vehicles blasts through the road blocks towards the Regent's position. Some of them are simple trucks, disgorging scores of hooded men and women with lasguns, while others are Leman Russ tanks with unpainted grey hulls, fresh off the factory line. A scattered gunfight erupts between the few remaining guardsmen and the unknown attackers, quickly becoming a slaughter. You see the Regent and her marines taking cover behind the burning remains of their Valkyrie, pinned down by bright las bolts from every direction. The marines stand impassively absorbing a relentless hail of shots, their own weapons cleaving dozens of people apart in overlapping fields of fire. One of them goes down to a hail of heavy bolter shells from an advancing Leman Russ.

The holo-image shudders and vanishes, replaced by the upper torso of a masked man. The mask is cold steel, fashioned in the image of an expressionless, featureless face. His voice is heavily distorted, speaking slowly and softly.
'People of Caedis. We are the Heralds of the Emperor and we will free you from the Tyrant. We will restore the true Emperor's rule on every world. We will end your slavery and return to the golden age of the Imperium. We are your brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. Be not afraid of the false Angels or their corrupt master. Take up arms, cast off a century of lies and suffering under a false idol. We are your salvation and we welcome you with open arms.'

The holographic display fizzles and dissipates. The bridge is a maelstrom of noise, dozens of servitors monotonously reporting information while officers frantically bring the ship to battle alert.
'Trace that signal immediately,' bellows the first officer.

'Yes Sir! And sir... I've tracked the rogue fighters,' called the Master of Auspex. 'They're... by the Emperor, they're heading for the Lord Bastille and it's... it's just opened fire on the system monitor fleet. Two escorts destroyed in their opening salvo. The light cruisers are moving to respond but their shields are down.'
'Bring us about,' orders the First Officer. 'I want a targeting solution on that ship. Ready the lance batteries.'

He turns his head and rises from the command throne with a start as the captain hurries onto the bridge. A servo-skull hovers beside him, holding a datapad in tiny metal pincers, displaying the situation.

'Captain on the bridge!' Yells a junior officer.

Captain Thaddeus von Flint, formerly of the Imperial Navy, is a grizzled veteran of several void wars and serves as captain of the Sanctus Excelsior under the Rogue Trader house Harper.

'I've got a fix on the transmission source, sir,' the Master of Auspex shouts quickly. 'The central broadcast station, west Salvator, district 19. They're not responding on any channels and our pict images show multiple armed vehicles outside the building.'

Captain Flint exhales heavily.

'Praetors, get to your ship. If the Regent dies, this is going to get out of hand fast. We'll engage the traitor vessel and attempt to bring its shields down. You know what to do. Maintain an active comm-link, and pray the Emperor is with us this day. And someone summon the Lady at once!'

As he speaks, the rogue cruiser's shields glow - a tiny pin-prick of light in the distant void - as lance strikes hit their mark.
'Direct hit. No damage,' reports the Master of Ordnance.
'Enemy ship launching additional strike craft,' shouts the Master of the Auspex.
'Launch all wings and fire all batteries,' the captain orders, taking the command throne. 'And keep us out of their torpedo arc.'

The ship shakes with the rumble of a dozen macrobatteries discharging their lethal ordnance.

By the time you reach the launch bay, the Shrike is fuelled and its engines powering up. Fury Interceptors scream into life around you as they blast out of the thin transparent forcefield separating you from the cold vacuum of space. Leaping on board your ship, you see one of the standby pilots is already in the central seat. She barely looks up from the controls as you enter. You recognise her as Junith Flint, the captain's granddaughter.
'All systems are green, guns are hot. Just tell me where to fly - down to Salvator or are we going after that cruiser? When its shields go down, I can fly us right inside their flight deck.'

Last Edit: Feb 25, 2024 17:59:52 GMT by Darko

Dewin
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Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus Mar 7, 2024 22:21:10 GMT Darko and Warork like this

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Post by Dewin on Mar 7, 2024 22:21:10 GMT

Breathe in, breathe out

Thrallax-72-E or Epsilon as she was commonly known had long abandoned the need for eyes as she watched the flow of data flowing across the bridge's noonsphere, observing the planet side devastation among the datafeeds. Epsilon had been designed to gather information for the Deus mechanicus via both blade and sensors and she would continue full fulling that purpose even as her body stood still like a statue, its non-critical system running dormant. Part of her hidden under the blessed augmentation and mental conditioning was proud to be the one recording the wounds that carrion regent had received.

Re-activating her limbs and returning her system back online from slumber, Epsilon slowly started moving again. Organics tended to be frightened by the sudden actions from her kin and sudden panic would be critical mishap during such crucial hour.

Breathe in, breathe out

Mentally noting the orders from the designated captain of vessel as critical, her body moves on towards the hangar bay. Captain has clearly stated their orders and there were no further queries needed, therefore no reply was warranted.

Feeling the internal machinery return to acceptable levels from their sleep, her feet picked up a steady pace unlike her fleshy companions whose bodies were un-augmented and flaccid. They even required to verbal communications for their requirements and demands rather than simply using the noonsphere like normal people, she noted as her companions gradually scattered among the ships corridors for their own supplies and task. They would eventually appear on time to the hanger as usual from where ever they did vanish off to.

Breathe in, breathe out

Unlike her squad kin, she knew what would be waiting among the bustling crowd of flight crews and supply servitors trying to arm and fuel the Sanctus Excelsior murders of fighter craft and bombers. Making her way past the crews hauling tons of explosives and miles of fuel pipes, she reached her query.

Able-4 was standing on top of near depleted supply crate with empty slots for rifles and batteries visible. Ah, she wasn't the first here after all.
Unlike her, the Tribune captain was clad in thick crimson plate that proudly displayed the machine gods symbology with his own four hands holding pair of heavy hellgun volleyguns while the small forest of mechandrites sprouted from his back.

"Acceptable, rest of company has already been armed" Came the clipped, mechanical voice in binary muffled by gas filter and mechanical within the skull visor as its multiple eyes observed her before moving on to observe something else in the distance, considering the affair done. Wasting no time she reached into the grate and pulled out her weaponry. While she had kept her macrostubber and transonic blade at hand, others had been required to be stored in armory while not in use. Apparently organics weren't comfortable with her carrying anti-tank weapon in their living spaces.

Picking up her remaining blade and spare munitions, Epsilon picked up her most prized possession last, the transuranic arquebus that the archmagos himself had blessed during its production. Unlike the ones issued to line skitarii, her pattern had been cut down for size, with it being intended for covert operations where the first shot needed to be the only one. Despite it all, it was still almost her own height

Feeling the weight of the rifle on her top arms while the lower ones collected the drum magazines from their storage, she looked up and found Able-4 skull mask had returned to glare at her. Checking the firing chamber for impurities, she looked up to see that the Able-4 skull mask had continued to stare at her. Returning the stare, her arms continued the weapon protocols even as its owners eyes weren't present.

"Regent. The Regent will be the priority today. Despite what she has done. Rearm and deploy" The mask spoke again with even the machinery not being able to hide the contempt of its owner. Sending a confirmation via electrical tone, she watched as the Tribune failed to move on.

"Epsilon. Verbal. Confirm." This time the order comes in gothic, with her noticing that the nearby flight crews flinch at the marshals words.

"Confirm, Epsilon states verbally as she confirms the order annoyed" Epsilon states back in gothic as the machinery that make her vocal cords do their work. It continued to be bother to be required to verbally confirm matters, especially when the ones requiring it had superior method of communications, with Able-4 being particularly insistent. Continuing to watch, she waited for the reply.

"Acceptable, confirmation confirmed. Continue deployment" After unusually long delay, the tribune replied back before the head moved on the something else in distance with the officer considering this particular matter done with the crate being served by crowd of servitor-drones now that its blessed contents had been spent. It probably would be returned to the mechanicum sanctuary where it would be rearmed for the next deployment.

Breathe in, breathe out

Staring at the officer, she wasn't sure what drove her into vocalizing.

"Good luck sir, Omnissiah protects" Her vocals stated as rest of her body moved ahead towards the gunship where some of the others had already arrived with her visit costing her time. With her moving away, she noted that the skull mask continued to stare at her as she departing back into the crowds.

"It. Better. Fracking do" Able-4 muttered to himself as he considered another headache brewing. Staring at the sea of information flowing within his noonsphere, Captain-Tribune would have frowned if he still had the required flesh for it.

'Emperor for sure doesn't do that anymore'

Last Edit: Mar 7, 2024 23:45:50 GMT by Dewin

Warork
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Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus Mar 9, 2024 15:16:23 GMT Darko and Dewin like this

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Post by Warork on Mar 9, 2024 15:16:23 GMT

It was turning out to be one of those days and he, like always, was trapped in the hell of it.

Rook barely registered the thrum in the floor plates of the servos that sped the sparsely furnished tram car down its track. He and his Praetor companions had just been on the bridge of the Sanctus mere minutes before. Why their ship needed to be here above this planet of all places was never made particularly clear to him despite his new position and its new responsibilities but the events that had just unfolded on every holo screen, projector, and data pad on the command deck were beginning to paint him a rather vivid picture.

Caedis. Why'd it have to be Caedis? Wasn't there any other world in this Throne forsaken section of the galaxy that he could have ended up?

Ah well, at least he had plenty of lho sticks this time.

He plucked his current vice from his lips and out came the familiar plume of dusty grey smoke. The dim lights in the tram ceiling and the constant flicker of their twins in the tunnel outside through the windows as the tram moved at a steady speed towards its destination cast shadows strange and amorphous in the thin haze left by the glowing tip of the stick between his fingers. This, at least, was somewhat new to him. Before this Praetor business the only experience Rook had ever had in any of the city sized ships that plied the star lanes between the Imperium's countless worlds was whatever space the captain had deigned to designate as fit for a regiment of imperial guardsmen. Sometimes that meant being crammed into some tenement hold with poor, gangly limbed ratings whose grandfathers' grandfathers had never stepped foot on real soil before. Other times it meant being stuffed right next to massive cargo tanks of stinking promethium or vermin plagued stacks of grainy bulk agri-freight. And then of course there was that one deployment where his platoon had drawn the unlucky lot of being bivouacked on the same deck as the ship's water and sewage nexus and they all had to take turns at watch with bayonets affixed because everyone kept swearing they heard something bumping around in the pipes.

But this? Being given what was essentially the full run of a ship? Walking all its decks, using its trams and elevators to get between them all, and having the privilege of just walking onto the command bridge if he felt like it? Only the most senior guard or naval officers were ever granted such freedom of movement on a vessel. He'd known most ships had viewports but Throne, to actually look out of one! To see the blackness of the void and the twinkle of the stars that dotted its endless depths out of something grander than any peek outside of a dropship's view slats could ever hope to be. He shook his head and cast his eyes to the ceiling. He was in the employ of an honest to God Emperor rogue trader...if only Wulf and the boys could see him now.

He thought about them. A lot. Usually while laying in his quarters after a few drinks. How they died. Down there on fucking Caedis. Why the hell did it have to be Caedis? Why did—

The tram came to a halt with a squeal of ancient metal. The pneumatic hiss of the hydraulic seals on the doors on each side of the car opening brought Rook back to the present. Some officers stood and filed their way off the tram while others waiting outside to board it filed in the opposite direction past them. He was vaguely aware that perhaps one or two of his fellow Praetors were on the tram with him. It was, as far as he could tell, the fastest way to get from the bridge to the hangar decks and therefore reserved for the use of the most important personnel aboard the Sanctus. That being what it was, he couldn't exactly fault all his team's members for not using it. They were a rather...interesting...cast of characters after all. And not just in the way "interesting" might be used to describe a series of party tricks either, although Rook was pretty sure a few of them had rather good ones he just hadn't seen yet.

"Captain? Captain!" a voice suddenly snapped out from the boarding crowd. Rook looked up to see a smartly uniformed voidsman officer squeezing his way past the press of bodies to come stand next to him. The man reached out a hand to lean on one of the tram's many vertical support beams and kept his other hand on his belt, his stance trying to convey a cool that his face didn't quite manage. "Sir, I've been trying to contact my superiors since general quarters sounded," the man explained, brow furrowed. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

Rook stared at the lit end of the lho still between his fingers. "Do you ever consider hell, Chief?" He said.

The furrowed brows of the voidsman furrowed further. "Sir?"

Rook appraised him, finally. Senior Chief Petty Officer Nilam Sudarja, there was no mistaking his rank if that gold-fringed red sash draped over his chest was anything to go by, had that unmistakable all-Imperial war hero look to him, coded into his oil black curls, the flawlessness of his tawny tan skin, and that straight nose some ancient and well respected mercantile family had graciously passed on to him. He was certainly one of the prettiest men Rook had ever seen, a fact which the former guardsman rarely failed to mention whenever their conversations had turned to the banter seemingly obligatory in every meeting between soldiers of the Militarum and sailors of the Navis.

Rook failed to do so now, if only because Sudarja already seemed, understandably, to be a little wound up. "The priests say hell is anything that separates us from the God Emperor, which most of them must be awful sorry about considering that big crack in the warp out there in space that's fucking everything up."

Sudarja said nothing, sensing Rook wasn't done even as he took another puff off his lho. The voidsman's brows continued to be stubbornly knit.

"A long time ago someone told me hell was repetition. Always thought it was a load of spooky sounding groxshit...but now." He exhaled another cloud of smoke, staring straight ahead. "Hell is repetition..."

"That bad, huh?"

Rook gave a sidelong glance to his counterpart, his lips pulling into a slight smile. "Hostile cruiser out there. The Bastille. The Regent's little parade down planet-side is currently the high-ex capital of the sector if you catch my drift."

Sudarja's eyes went wide, his voice growing urgent in proportion to its lowering volume, "Traitors? Archenemy?"

"Dunno yet," Rook shook his head. "Some pissant accompanied everything on a holofeed claiming the Regent to be false and declaring themselves to be true servants of the Emperor's will."

Sudarja snorted, his arms crossed. "Pretty words for folks trying to blow the Emperor's ships out of the sky."

"Yeah well we're going to do our best to ruin their plans, followed swiftly by their day and then, of course, their lives."

"Assemble by the shuttles, then?" It was an eager question with a warrior's tone. Rook duly beamed at it.

"Why Senior Chief Sudarja," the former guardsman whistled. "Thinking of abandoning ship already? The Lady will be sorely disappointed in you navy boys."

Only now did Sudarja's face lighten somewhat. The ritual of inter service rivalry had commenced and certainly if this former officer of the imperial guard he'd gotten to know over the past couple of months had time for jokes then the situation couldn't be that dire, right?

"Well, some of us have to be ready to go mop up your space vacuumed ass when it ends up smeared all over the prow."

"Pffft," Rook snorted as he tossed his spent lho into one of the tram's floorboard slots for a cleaning servitor to scrape up later. "The hell you asking me for anyway, sailor? Shouldn't you be finding those superiors of yours?"

"Everyone knows you've got the Lady's ear." Sudarja said with only a slight roll of the eyes. "If she gives the command the ship turns on a throne gelt. I know you and the other Praetors are going out there." He smiled, two perfect rows of white teeth to go with an annoyingly perfect face. "I'm just wondering if the guard needs the navy to babysit them like it always does."

"Did I ever tell you how much of a piece of shit you are, Sudarja?" Rook shot back, his own smile intact. Sudarja looked down at the chronometer on his wrist.

"Give it another five minutes and I'm sure you will again."

The tram came to another squealing halt. Rook read the deck designations scrolling over the pict-screens above the doors as they opened. This was his stop.

"Gather your two best squads and report for briefing at the Shrike," he told Sudarja. "Tell Krayl to bring that rotor cannon of his. When I said we were gonna ruin someone's day I bloody well meant it."

It was turning out to be one of those days and she, like always, was trapped in the hell of it.

Sergeant-at-arms Pyper Fraigum, Petty Officer if you wanted to get technical, was moving with a purpose through the whirlwind of activity currently taking place on hangar deck oh eight delta. Navis ratings in their work coveralls crossed paths with flight jacket clad pilots hurrying to affix their life support harnesses and mount the ladders into the hulking adamantium forms of their interceptors and bombers dormant in their berths across the cavernous hangar. As she skipped in front of a cart of lascannon batteries being pushed along by a sweating gunner's mate she had to reach a hand out to a nearby maintenance console to steady herself. The deck lurched suddenly and elicited a chorus of curses from all nearby work crews that was drowned out by muffled but still near deafening thunder-roars coming from somewhere else on the ship.

That was the second macro-cannon battery salvo within the past several minutes. Pyper looked down at her wrist chrono as she pushed off the console and continued her march. Those loading crews were making good time, she thought, but then again Master Gunnery Officer Heirenz had always enjoyed the crack of the whip he carried a little overmuch so it wasn't all that surprising. She didn't know exactly what the crew of the venerable old Sanctus was currently fighting but when Senior Chief Sudarja had gotten a message through to her vox officer she knew she'd be finding out in quick order. It was just a matter of making it to the Shrike without getting flattened by some oafish crewman taking too tight a turn with a cargo sled at the wrong moment.

"Make a hole! Make a hole! Gangway!" She barked into the clearing, her boots resounding off the deck's metal plates. It was the time honored tradition of the Navy that deck space was at a premium when it was most needed and so it was necessary for officers both commissioned and not to have voices that carried authority but also, more importantly, voices that simply carried. Every rating and voidsman in any fleet had the muscle memory drilled into them to pivot to one side upon hearing that ancient mariner's call, even if they were asleep on their feet.

The withering glare of a pale face framed in short platinum blonde hair and high, blade sharp cheekbones did the rest. Heads that snapped around to see who was making demands of them soon turned sheepishly back to their business when Sergeant Fraigum was on the prowl. What else was one meant to do when they found a banshee-hawk of a human being bearing down on them? And so the crowds parted effortlessly. Men who were two heads taller than her halted in place so as to let her by and even one or two mechadendrite bearing techpriests slowed their inexorable advance as she stormed by them, one gauntleted fist clenching the combat helm of a voidsman-at-arms at her side, the other molded around the hilt of the power-cutlass at sheathed at her hip. Rounding a final corner to enter one of the larger hangar berths, Fraigum beheld a familiar sight; the hulking carapace of the Shrike, the only gun-cutter aboard the Sanctus and thus reserved for the personal use of the ship's compliment of Praetors. The Shrike was a menacing looking avian beast even at idle, its weapon arrays hanging off the hardpoints built into the underside of its wings and chin with heavy adamantium armor plating its superstructure thick enough that she swore it would be more at home on a battle tank than an aircraft. Multiple gargantuan jet intake engines cased in carbon scored gunmetal housings rounded out the vessel's predatory mien. She was sure she'd read the performance specifications of the craft at some point but could only remember being impressed by how many zeroes were at the end of the number of pounds of thrust those things could generate. They would no doubt have to be magnificent specimens of engineering in order to get her and perhaps two score other crewmen and warriors through the void within armor that thick.

Almost a hundred meters forward near the cockpit more red robed cogboys were busying themselves performing the final preparatory rituals that would entreat the massive craft's machine spirits to guide and protect its crew and passengers on their perilous journey. The cockpit viewports were too darkened for Fraigum to see into them but she knew Flight Officer Flint must be in there making her own pre-flight checks. It wouldn't be anyone else, she was sure, as Flint was awfully protective of this lovely beast she had the privilege of piloting. Fraigum had even seen her tell the cogboys off once or twice. She supposed stubbornness ran through the family genes, then, as Flint's grandfather wasn't exactly known to his crew as a pliant or amiable man even at the best of times. That, of course, didn't change the fact that, as any good voidsman Fraigum would follow him to the gates of hell if he so ordered. She was sure the whole crew would, but today, it seemed, her duty would be a little different...

She walked towards the open maw of the Shrike's rear loading doors. It was an opening almost large enough to drive a Chimera through with its heavy metal ramp extended all the way to the deck's surface. The sound of her boots clanging off the ramp hurriedly hushed some muted conversations her ears were just now picking up within the cutter's passenger bay. When she finally mounted the ascent and looked into the dimly lit bay she was unsurprised to find near a score of her fellow voidsmen gathered in small groups either settling themselves and their wargear into grav-harnesses or otherwise simply talking animatedly amongst themselves as they waited to get underway. All of them, to a man, were clothed and armored in the colors of House Harper and most of them either carried a lasgun or a blocky shotgun as their main armament although she could see the silent form of voidsman Gronnir in a corner by himself giving proper ministrations to his bulky las-volley as well. All of them, to a man, had also silenced themselves upon her appearance.

"Maizal?" Fraigum asked into the bay. A female trooper further back in the bay stepped out from the group she had been speaking with and stood to attention. "Report." The Sergeant ordered.

"Ma'm!" Maizal nodded. Her voice alone marked her as much younger than Fraigum, high and clear. "Second squad all accounted for and reporting as ordered!"

"We're all here, Sarge." Another trooper added. "With you that makes all of us. Well, all of us except for—"

"Don't finish that, Chal, you whoreson!" The new voice, a harsh growl, came from the bottom of the ramp. Fraigum half turned to see the bull necked voidsman Emileo Krayl's familiarly robust figure cradling a massive, man portable rotor cannon in those meaty arms of his. "You lot ought to try humpin' all this ammo for once in your miserable lives. Maybe then you wouldn't have such quick mouths."

"Having a bit of trouble, are we Krayl?" Fraigum smirked as the larger voidsman reached the top of the ramp. He gave her his own lopsided smile, a crude thing full of crooked teeth.

"No trouble at all, Sarge. The cogboys were giving me an earful about proper maintenance procedure, you know how they are."

"Maybe they wouldn't ride ya if ya stopped holding down the trigger every time you fire that thing," Chal snorted.

"Maybe I'll hold something else down if I hear any more of your lip, Chal!" Krayl stalked into the bay and continued to grumble while Fraigum's eyes fell upon Maizal again.

"All squads accounted for, ma'm." She said, relaxing a little after watching the easy banter of the others break the tension. "Senior Chief Sudarja and Captain Rukowski are up on the auspex deck starting the briefing with the other Praetors."

Fraigum nodded and thanked the trooper, adding an "as you were" to the end of it as she marched through the bay and up the stairs to where the main event was just starting.

While the others gathered in a loose huddle in the small chamber within the Shrike's upper deck devoted to auspex equipment and readout stations watched the gently glowing holo recording at the center of the room, Rook watched them all in turn. He'd already seen the contents of the recording that now played out in flickering green light, the only light in the chamber, by way of a servitor wall mount whose augmetic eye lenses functioned as a projector casting the images upon the top surface of the small electro-dais in the center of the room. The chamber was suitably silent as the recording played which made it quite easy to hear a set of boot falls getting closer to and then entering the chamber followed by the sudden appearance of yet another figure cast in the shadow of the holographic images being projected. Rook nodded to Sergeant Fraigum as she silently took a spot standing near Chief Sudarja and quickly cast her eyes to the recording's contents without a word.

"Be not afraid of the false Angels or their corrupt master. Take up arms, cast off a century of lies and suffering under a false idol..." the image of the masked man from earlier said in that quiet tone he had spoken with before. "We are your salvation and we welcome you with open arms."

The recording cut off as abruptly as it had earlier and the holo images shifted to instead display the image of an imperial cruiser in miniature. Rook took the moment to speak as the cruiser's technical readouts began being scrolled out underneath its image.

"For those of us who are now here who were not with us on the bridge when all this first began, I congratulate you," He said dryly. "You now officially know as much as the rest of us do about the enemy we are fighting."

"No indication of their objective then, sir?" Sudarja asked.

"Would be rather nice if they just told us, wouldn't it?" Rook jested. He got a few smiles and one or two barely audible chuckles out of the congregation. Eh, he'd take what he could get at this point. "But no, all we have to go on is this. It was accompanied approximately ten minutes ago by a seemingly coordinated assault in both orbit and on the surface of Caedis. As you can already tell by how often the whole bloody ship has been shaking we are currently engaging the Bastille out there," Rook pointed at the holo image before them all. "And the Regent's little parade in the center of Salvator has come under attack from both ground and sky by hostile forces seemingly armed with the fruit of the planet's own manufactured labors."

Fraigum broke the silence she had held since entering the room. "So what is our play, then, Captain?"

Rook stood there considering the question for a moment. The ten minutes between the tram and standing here in this moment had been spent getting a servitor to help him get encapsulated in the hermetically sealed carapace armor and full bodysuit, in House Harper colors, naturally, that he now bore. Across his chest plate was strapped to his webbing and harness the bulk of a meltagun, a weapon he had taken a shine to in the armory fairly quickly after the Lady had recruited him. Scrawled across the weapon's forward furniture in red paint was a crude arrow pointing to its long, brass finished muzzle along with the low gothic words "Smile and wait for the flash." He wasn't sure where that bit of vandalism had come from, honestly. At least that's what he told the armorer after he "lost" a few throne gelt while turning the weapon back in. If anyone had a problem with his sense of humor, none had told him to his face so far. He hoped that mainly had to do with the fact that ever since he had taken up helping cross train the ship's voidsmen teams they had apparently exhibited an increased kill-team efficiency of at least seventeen percent according to the cogboys monitoring the drill footage. It was nice to be appreciated...and doing something with all this Militarum experience that had tangibly positive outcomes for once.

"My tactical assessment is twofold." Rook finally said after a few moments of silence as he looked down at the holo display. "We can't so much worry about the Bastille as our team is too small to be able to take a ship even if we managed to board it. She's currently outnumbered and outgunned and from her battle and maintenance records we know that she doesn't have nearly her full compliment of attack craft. It will take some time and some good flying by Captain Flint and the other ships in the area currently engaging her but I believe the orbital battle is not where we ought to focus."

"Its understandable, Captain," Sudarja jibed. "The rigors of void combat aren't for the faint of heart after all. Perhaps being splattered over a hot landing zone is more your speed?"

"I'll consider it if you're in the front row, Chief," Rook chuckled. "At least the navy might be doing its job for once breaking my fall."

Fraigum had to fight to prevent her eyes from rolling by reflex. In the past couple of months her boss and the former Militarum officer, at least that's what he claimed to have been before arriving aboard the Sanctus, had been thick as thieves almost immediately upon meeting one another. It was good to see members of the opposing institutions of the Guard and the Navy getting on so well but Throne did it tend to feel like being subjected to a men's scrumball team locker room sometimes. Captain Rukowski hadn't given any of her fellow voidsmen any reason to doubt his abilities as a soldier and Lady Harper's reputation for scouting talent was rather infamous across the entire crew so perhaps, she thought, it was just better to thank the Throne they weren't all stuck with another clueless idiot in command.

"The hypothetical joys of watching Sudarja's pretty face made less pretty aside," Rook continued. "My suggested course of action runs thusly: we take the Shrike to the planet's surface where we will pursue two objectives. The first will see us deploy certain members of this team who are so inclined to this broadcast station."

The holo projection upon the dais now shifted until it was an overhead view of Salvator's skyline in miniature. The picture scrolled and zoomed in over the rows and rows of urban sprawl until it came to rest above one particular building which was highlighted to stand out from the others.

"This is where our new masked friend apparently made his little message of greeting from."

"Surely he's not there anymore." Fraigum pointed out. "If we haven't got any picts of him entering or leaving then he may never have even been there."

"Astute, sergeant," Rook allowed. "Nevertheless its our only real lead as to what we are dealing with now. While all other local forces are busy responding to the attack its imperative that someone start an investigation into who or what is behind this brazen assault. To that end, this broadcast station needs to be infiltrated even if we do not currently possess the means to completely overrun its garrison. This I leave to those of us here who are trained and equipped for such a mission. You know who you are."

The softly glowing images changed again, scrolling to another part of the city that was outlined in angry red.

"This is the central sector of Salvator..." Rook began. There was a halt in his speech as he stared into the holograph. It was slight but Fraigum couldn't help but notice it. "The Regent was last seen and heard from here before the attack started. This is the main reason we can't simply attack the broadcast station in full force. Ensuring the safety of the Regent is an alpha level priority. All of us who are not infiltrating the broadcast station will be deployed to a landing zone here. Once we breach atmosphere we will be trying to reach the Regent or anyone with her by vox so that we can hopefully understand her exact situation better. We find the Regent, we escort her to safety wherever that may be while flight officer Flint provides air support and potential extraction in the Shrike."

"Anything else after we manage all that?" Sudarja asked.

"Unknown." Rook shook his head. "This situation is still developing. We may be involved in a counter attack or we may be sent to defend another facility. One of the reasons why the Bastille is so likely to fail in her assault are the ground based orbital defense batteries in Salvator. If those fall into enemy hands it presents an unacceptable danger to the Sanctus. There are any number of things the Regent could want us to do after we make contact with her so best be prepared for any sort of mission."

At this, Rook finally stopped and scanned each of the faces of the assembled Praetors, eclectic and varied as they were.

"If there are any other suggestions, details that I missed, or plans that you lot would like to suggest, now's the time."

Last Edit: Mar 18, 2024 8:05:24 GMT by Warork

"I think if Wark were a were-anything he would be a wereflammenwerfer" -Halonachos

"It’s not gay if it’s underway." -Coolyo

halonachos
Rising Legend

Posts: 718

Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus Mar 9, 2024 17:19:05 GMT Darko and Warork like this

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Post by halonachos on Mar 9, 2024 17:19:05 GMT

Dez had seen the video of that haughty parade being bombed. The Mon Keigh loved their parades, their pageantry, their utter gall to think that they somehow meant something in the grand scale of the universe. She estimated that she had lived double the life span of even that Regent that they had been holding a parade for. Where was Dez's parade? Where was her great glory for having survived? Her current reward for living was becoming indebted to what they called a Rogue Trader, some sort of Mon Keigh allowed to roam the galaxy and do what they saw fit.

The explosions on the screen did have at least a satisfying hue to them, one that reminded her of her current armor. She then heard the blare of the klaxons, and that voice in their guttural Imperial language ordering strike teams to their vessels. It made Dez's heart beat slightly faster, it was always a thrill to consider spilling the blood of these lesser beings.

"But not for pleasure." she told herself mentally, "Out of necessity, for survival." she continued to temper her own attitude. She counted her time on the moon of Polista, in orbit around some god forsaken world that looked ancient compared to even the Imperium, as a blessing. She had time to actually listen to Saimian, at first she had took delight in torturing the self-righteous Eldar. Then that became tedious, and yet through it all Saimian had held on to the belief of his craft world and it had wormed it's way into her psyche.

"Killing, not murdering. Hunting, not slaughtering." she reminded herself of what Saimian had taught her over the decades on that moon. He had taught her many things, swayed many of her thought, and had managed to mess up the tattoo she had wanted. She was still angry every time she saw it in a mirror or in a pool of water and counted it another blessing that she had found a helmet off of a dead Aeldari to cover it in combat. She doubted the Mon Keigh would know anything about it being incomplete or ruined but it always amazed her how Saimian had managed to put it upside down.

She looked at the holovid, and just admired the red hue of the explosions.

_____________________________________________

The Shrike was an ugly piece of technology. It didn't strike fear, it didn't evoke poetry, it was ugly. It inspired ugliness, it inspired boredom, and most importantly it inspired inelegance. There was nothing she could say of the Shrike, the human piloting it loved it like it was a living thing. Dez shuddered as she looked at people milling around, thinking of a multitude of ways to just ignore them. Slaughtering them wouldn't be appropriate, it was unneeded and unwarranted. These humans had given her passage, allowed her to kill other humans, and after she had stopped maliciously wounding the humans they were tasked with killing, it seemed that the humans had begun to slowly be okay with her presence. But only slightly. The lho sticks she had given the crew were taken almost immediately; the humans trusted fire to purge anything that could have been placed onto the lho sticks. The bottles of amasec, still sat undrinked.

It amused her that the Mon Keigh would think she would poison the Amasec when there were ventilation shafts, food supplies, and lho sticks that would better propagate the toxins. Yes, the humans believed that fire could purge anything but Dez could think of one or two toxins that would wreak havoc.

"Bad thoughts." she said internally as she approached a Shrike and silently watched that robotic machine receive orders. Dez delighted in listening to the robot talk. She noticed the discomfort it caused the Mon Keigh, how they seemed to try to avoid it as best as possible. Dez didn't just delight in this machine called Epsilon, she could swear she loved it. She loved how it sounded like someone being tortured every time it talked, she loved how it inspired dread in every one around it, she loved how it had such a penchant for slaughter, and loved how it reminded her of a Talos Pain Engine she had seen tear into some of those hapless Mon Keigh troops. Dez could physically feel herself hating the fact that she had such admiration for a human contraption. She loved it.

She stayed silent, having found it best to just let the Mon Keigh talk. It made them less frightened. The armband in the House Harper colors being the only show of loyalty to the Rogue Trader who most likely still did not trust her. If she found herself trusting the Rogue Trader more and vice versa, maybe she would deign to get some actual paint and recolor a small portion of her red armor to more appropriately fit.

Maybe today would be the day that she could express herself on an actual battlefield. The enemy appeared to have planes and mechanized support. The haywire grenades would do lovely against the bulky tanks of what the humans were calling traitors. Traitors or loyalists, it didn't matter to Dez. What mattered is getting out of this segment of space and the only way to do that was to find this Aeldari artifact that supposedly existed on some moon in this part of space. She had heard the name multiple times, "The Pool of Eternal Tears." was the name of the moon this artifact was on. The only issue is that it was uncharted and the Imperium had seen fit to not use the better names that had already been given to these planets.

She had heard Saimian say that Caedis V used to be known as "The Evergreen World". She was less amused to hear that he didn't know the rest of the planets and that the autarch who did know had been split in half during the battle on Polista. She pushed the thought to the side and focused on the mission of the day, accomplishing it quickly would allow them to maybe focus on trying to find this artifact. She was unsure if it existed herself, but she did know that the Mon Keigh wanted to leave this segment of space as much as she and Saimian did.

Saving the Regent, killing the Regent, killing this traitor, or aiding this traitor didn't matter to her. From what she had heard of the sector, the Mon Keigh were torturing and brutalizing themselves. Initially it amused her that it seemed there was nothing she could imagine that would be a better torture than what the Mon Keigh had imposed on themselves. But like with all amusements and delights, it had grown rather stale. This bombing and attack was exciting, something she had been silently hoping for to break the tedium of just hearing about how these "poor" people were suffering daily just to save what little scraps of their soon to be forgotten lives remained. The irony of how hard they fought and for how little was not lost on her. None of the Mon Keigh surrounding her would ever hope to live as long as she had and would never hope to reach the level of skill that she had, nor hope to experience the level of pleasure that she had. Maybe she did pity them a little bit.

_______________________________________

Dez moved slowly, changed her gait to match the humans more closely. She had tried everything to blend in with the Mon Keigh. It had bought her a modicum of peace when she had taken Saimian's suggestion to allow the Mon Keigh to shorten her name. To hear them butcher his name to "Sam" made her feel less terrible about being called "Dez" in their ugly tongue. She waited, her eyes closed behind the visor of her helmet. She said internal chants and calmed herself into being a compatriot, a comrade, a sister in arms, a... friend to these Mon Keigh. Unfortunately they had a numbers advantage and the only ship she had seen in decades. So she waited for the haughty Mon Keigh known as Rook to give some sort of stupid order in his stupid language.

Last Edit: Mar 9, 2024 17:32:03 GMT by halonachos

Dewin
Overlord

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Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus Mar 17, 2024 23:05:33 GMT Darko and Warork like this

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Post by Dewin on Mar 17, 2024 23:05:33 GMT

Epsilon stood still within the briefing hall as the designated unaugmented, Rook carried out his briefing in inefficient method. This briefing could have been brief Noonsphere package received deployed into relevant neural cortexes. Crucial dataspace was being wasted with unnecessary commentary regarding designation Rook's mating preference that could be wasted instead with praises to machine god. Within her own blessed system, Epsilon was forming her own directives.

Observing the Noosphere, she observed the units that she had been designated as command element over. Ruststalkers Gamma 76 and 77 were both idle in their landing seats with both of their steel arms hanging while their shivs were sheathed, having considered the briefing not worth multiple observation directions. Besides her body, Skitarii Delta-44 stood dormant like statue in their bulkier carapace harness, their observation implants already processing the gathering from multiple spectrums. On their hands was the Type XIV hellgun constructed from their Masters forge directly with its cables snaking directly into its wielders flesh rather than requiring bulky cables like their unagumented kind needed. Machine god in their glory had already designed the human form to carry blood in their veins and what was electricity than blood of the Motive force?

Finally, across the ships noosphere, she observed where the final member of the unit, Theta-84 stood. Like the Delta, they were clad in carapace, but where delta wore a hellgun, Theta had a heavy rock drill, with it having been reassigned for militant purpose in lack of proper power armaments. Within the noonsphere link, she could see the flow of blessed phrases and prayers from the dormant skitarii as their body stood still, the drill left hanging in its harness and their arms in position of prayer.

Designating her designation of completed designation as complete designation in the records, Epsilon finally glanced at her latest nuisance via her servo-skull, the xeno vermin that had been allowed onboard. She wasn't sure why such creature had been permitted to step on board a vessel carrying Machine god's will, but it had. She had seen it watching her from the shadows and she had watched it back.

Unfortunately, the ship mistress had given the creature her blessing, therefore shiving it in the ceiling beams would have negative effect on their Master. Therefore the creature will continue to live despite being affront to god.

Having continued to stare directly at Designation Rook while waiting for any further information as their ship mistress was running late, she briefly wondered why the unaugmented had gone to such effort to shape his appearance and form to specifically mimic certain long dead Imperial saint.

Last Edit: Mar 17, 2024 23:52:16 GMT by Dewin

Draxy
Regular

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Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus Mar 19, 2024 22:07:00 GMT Darko, Dewin, and 1 more like this

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Post by Draxy on Mar 19, 2024 22:07:00 GMT

Well isn't that interesting?

She'd watched the broadcast several times now, the dull light of the vid almost searing on her eyes within the darkness of her room. She wanted no other distractions. It had taken her a long time to get used to her ship, enough that she could walk around it with ease like any other voidborn and block out the dull roar of the cannons as they fired into space.

She flicked the video back, her eyes scanning for more information that she may of missed. She didn't like the current Regent of Caedis V and she could confidently say that the feeling was mutual. A lot had happened in the last century, enough that Lucinda no longer recognised the planet of her birth. But then, would the her of back then recognise the woman that she was now?

She didn't look much older at least thanks to rejuvant, like a woman only just nearing her thirties, though her style was now vastly different and far more pricier, when the young her had dreamt of making it big, she would never quite believe exactly how big she had gotten.

No matter she still had a job to do, even if much of what she was doing was self appointed, it was all so contact could be re-established with the wider Imperium and that order could be maintained within the sector, as such the current crisis on Caedis V was a problem.

She played the vid again, pausing it on the very moment that had her so wary. One hundred years ago, Lucinda Harper had fought alongside space marines and though her memories of that were now growing spotty, the image of an an Astarte was one that would never truly leave and these 'Angels' did not match those she had seen or had learned of since becoming a Rogue Trader. Perhaps things had changed since then, but their appearance still did not sit well with the woman.

A lot of small things were adding up to form a bigger picture, their armour, their weaponry being nothing more than a mere hot-shot lasgun instead of the Holy Bolter, their height, but most damning to her was the heraldry on their shoulder. Lucinda knew of no space marine chapter trapped in here with them, and the Astartes were independent institutions, they would not hold their loyalty to a planetary governor, sector capital or not.

The Lady Harper smelled a rat. It would need investigating, but if she was right... then the Regent was a heretic making a mockery of the Emperor's work, she'd have to be removed. It would undoubtedly throw the sector into chaos, but it had to be done, if the Regent was willing to make declarations like this then it was clear she had no intention of ever re-joining the Imperium, she was nothing with a Mad Tyrant with delusions of grandeur. One of her children or grand-children could fill the void, for now, prevent the entire sector from slipping...

And then of course their was whoever this other faction was that had risen against her in this coup, she didn't trust them either. Both the Navy and army rebelling in tandem? Such was almost unthinkable, she felt like something strange was going on here.

She placed the thoughts aside as she stood, striding out of her room and towards the bridge. People snapped to attention as she passed, though she paid them little heed, to set on her current mission to care, the bridge was no different as she sent a brief nod to her Captain and let everyone get back to work, as she made a beeline straight for the astropath of her ship.

"Alera." She stated, addressing the woman. "I have a message for our friends in the sisterhood on Alterra, send them the images from that broadcast and tell them..." She closed her eyes briefly. " 'Heresy on Caedis V, requesting reinforcements.' "

There neat and simple, hopefully as an organisation already at odds with the Governor given their recent choice in saint, they'd be able assist if she was correct in her assumptions, unlike many of the regiments she could of requested given their ties to the Commissariat and the Lady Regent. If not... well she never stated exactly who the heretic was.

"Captain Flint!" She barks, already turning on her heel as she marches back the way she came. "I leave to you the ship, I expect it to still be in one piece when I return. I've decided I shall be going down to the surface to help deal with this situation personally."

It had been a long time since she had returned home.

Darko
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Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus Mar 20, 2024 22:23:06 GMT Dewin and Warork like this

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Post by Darko on Mar 20, 2024 22:23:06 GMT

Tempestor Prime Tarkus sneered, twisting his already ugly, gaunt face into a cobweb of scars and disdain as he was pulled to his feet by a strong hand gripped around his wrist. He wiped the ash and dust from his eyes with the back of his gloved hand, retreiving his beret where it had fallen. His ears were still ringing, not that they ever stopped ringing off the battlefield either.

"Alis, sitrep?" He asked, squinting to make out the shapes in the smoke below. The all too familiar rumble of Leman Russ tanks and the report of their cannons filled the air, scattered both close and distant amidst the chorus of screaming throughout the city.

The scion looked at the micro-cogitator on her gauntlet for a second and then replied. 'No contact from the Regent's honour guard, or the other teams positioned around the central plaza.' She paused, gesturing to the three broken bodies strewn across the rooftop. 'We're all that's left of the platoon, sir.'

'The Regent?'
'Alive, for now. The Astartes voxed that they are pinned down outside the palace, requesting exfil or failing that, reinforcements.'

Tarkus tapped the grip of his holstered pistol absentmindedly, reaching down to pry the hot-shot longlas from the still-warm hands of a man he'd known for nearly three decades. There would be time to mourn later. They had traitorous bastards to kill first. Several thoughts waited in a queue in Tarkus' obessively ordered mind. The navy had been compromised. The factories too, at least, judging by the dull steel hulls of the battle tanks currently in open revolt. Most of his men, each hand-picked and personally trained, were dead or dying. It was a small mercy that at least half of the building they were currently atop was still standing, a gift from the Emperor he did not intend to squander. He aimed through the long scope, slowly scanning the central plaza. Three Leman Russ tanks were ponderously leading the charge, supported by a disorganised mess of trucks, cars and even cargo haulers with heavy stubbers or other crude weaponry welded on wherever possible. Tarkus took a few seconds to make an estimation, panning his view up the main thoroughfare which was now a burning pile of ruined buildings, vehicles and broken corpses. How many had died? Irrelevant now. All that mattered was that every last heretic was killed.

'Intel coming in now, sir,' said Alis. 'The Lord Bastille has opened fire on the system monitor fleet. The Sanctus Excelsior is moving to engage and deploying forces to the capital. I've also got confirmation from six commissars that they've begun to rally their district militias, all converging on the palace. Four are lagging behind, pinned down by hostiles.'

'They knew exactly how we'd respond. Every one of those traitors down there has taken the same drills as every other citizen. I expect they will have coordinated whichever districts are part of this uprising to prepare ambushes and traps for their neighbours' inevitable retaliation.'

'Aye, sir. We've got firefights breaking out all over the city. No battle lines - just a mess of small units fighting. It'll be a slog for the PDF to break through...'

'If they even get here before the party's over,' Tarkus said without a hint of amusement. 'No, all these isolated attacks are distractions and delaying tactics. They're trying to take out the Regent and buying time with their own lives as the element of surprise begins to wear off.'

The longlas exhaled a whispery breath when it fired, and two-hundred meters away a heretic's head was vaporised, his torso slumping over the side of the cupola atop one of the tanks. 'Summon the nearest militia unit. Remain here on overwatch, I shall take command and lead a counter-assault through the main street. That's the one place we can be damn sure they aren't lying in wait.'

'Affirmative... District 7, Commissar Galen confirms, moving to rendezvous. He has nearly a hundred with him.'

Tarkus frowned. 'Then they'll just have to kill ten heretics each. Emperor guide your hand, Alis. Should I perish, the platoon is yours to rebuild.'

Alis took the long rifle from him and nodded, turning to crouch and brace it on the crumbling wall beside them. By the time Tarkus had reached the stairwell, she'd already fired six times. Six less heretics for him to kill. Only another thousand or so between him and the Regent, plus a few dozen vehicles. He spoke into his vox bead as he leapt down the stairs.

'Sanctuary base, this is Tarkus. I want every valkyrie in the air in two minutes. The Regent is-'

'Already launched, Tempestor Prime,' a voice interrupted over the vox. 'I will personally reinforce your position with an armoured fist formation. I have thirty stormtroopers mounting up in Taurus APCs as we speak. Until then, you are on your own. Protect the Regent at any cost.'

'Understood, Lord Yorck,' Tarkus answered, unholstering his hellpistol. The chainblade bayonet revved into life.

--------

The Shrike made planetfall twenty-seven minutes after the attack. An escort of four Fury Interceptors engaged a hostile wing of fighters from the rogue Navy cruiser sent to intercept your vessel, breaking off to cover you. The distant flashes of macrocannon batteries and lance beams cutting through the void fade away as you break through the thick, polluted atmosphere in a straight dive towards Salvator city. Tens of thousands of tiny flashing lights blink on every street in the colossal city, while plumes of smoke rise from the smouldering wrecks of the 219th Regiment's vehicles and the central thoroughfare towards the Imperial plaza. A portion of the Regent's gargantuan, blocky palace is aflame where the exterior fortress was hit by stray bombardment, but is otherwise intact. The Shrike's interior lighting is a dim red glow, the only sound rattling ammunition feeds and whispered prayers to the Emperor.

You hear the pilot's voice over the internal vox. 'Target Alpha in range, first team prepare for combat drop in T-minus ten seconds.'

CHARACTERS: DEZ, EPSILON

The central Broadcast station, District 19, is a vast complex of gothic architecture and delicate transmission towers in the west side of the city. The auspex in the Shrike's command chamber flickers into life with a simple, blocky outline of the buildings and surrounding streets. Several hundred tiny red blips surround the complex, with larger, red blips marking hostile vehicles. The Shrike's hull seems to shake even more than usual as the heavy rotary cannon on the ship's nose roars into life, spitting muffled staccato bursts of death at those below. The Shrike's interior lighting turns green as the rear access ramp groans open on powerful hydraulics, the wing-mounted thrusters keeping the blocky spacecraft hovering in position.

You free fall for several seconds before the grav chutes on your backs activate, rapidly slowing your descent as you land on top of the complex amidst a charnal house of shredded corpses. You hear shouting far below in the streets as heavy stubbers and las weapons begin firing - too slow - into the air. You have already landed, and the Shrike is long gone.

Your personal auspexes show the exact count of the enemies and their locations around the broadcast building. Beneath you are a hundred levels of offices, recording studios and maintenance shafts threaded throughout the complex. The largest cluster of red blips are gathered twelve floors down, in the main recording studio. Already, forty or fifty of the blips are rising through the structure, hoping to rush your position and keep you trapped on the roof.

There are multiple stairways, vents, and windows on the side of the building which could be used to make entry. Far below, numerous civilian vehicles are clustered in a blockade surrounding the complex, half firing at local militias and half firing up at the roof. Among the familiar snap-cracks of lasguns, you also hear the quick thumps of grenade and missile launchers as they begin to bombard the top of the building, with seemingly no regard for their own forces still inside.

CHARACTERS: ROOK, LADY HARPER

As the Shrike screeches to a halt mid-air above the central plaza, its lascannons burn four smouldering holes in the side of a Leman Russ which promptly detonates in a huge fireball. A hovering Valkyrie fifty meters away is blown from the sky by a missile. It spins and tumbles, crashing into the cratered plaza and scattering traitors in every direction. From behind the enemy position, a tiny force of militia advance, denoted as green blips on your auspexes. A single golden wolf symbol glows at the centre of your holographic battlefield - the Regent.

A second Valkyrie bombards the area with rockets, hovering twenty feet above the ground as it disgorges five more Space Marines who drop to the ground effortlessly and join their brothers and the Regent. A spear of light from a Leman Russ lascannon cuts through the valkyrie's nose and it explodes mid air, showering shrapnel and debris onto its own troops. In their gilded power armour, the otherwise lethal fragments of plasteel barely slows them down. Overlapping streaks of hellgun fire eviscerates the closest wave of the enemy who had threatened to overwhelm the Regent's position. A blast from a battle cannon sends several of the marines flying several meters, before picking themselves back up and resuming their careful advance from cover to cover, each one providing suppressing fire for the next to move up.

The Shrike narrowly dodges a missile, which flies wide and hits the palace behind you, leaving a tiny smoking dent in the fortress. Its own guns, numbering in the hundreds, lie silent and cold - unable or unwilling to fire on the plaza in front of them where the Regent is pinned down.

The light turns green again. Junith has somehow managed to manoeuvre the cumbersome gun-cutter to the ground several blocks away, its nose cannon mowing down a platoon's worth of heretics acting as a rearguard for their attack force. Hundreds of las bolts cut through the smoke ahead, most blind fired in your general direction and not even coming close. Nearby ruins provide cover as you disembark and get your bearings.

Half a kilometer of tanks and heretic militia stand between you and the Regent. The Space Marines have killed hundreds already, but the rebels still have overwhelming numbers on their side. The disorganised attack has begun to close like a noose around the Regent's position. Several hastily entrenched heavy weapons teams fire volleys of suppressing fire at the loyalist militia units attempting to reach the plaza, while others fire missiles into the air to dissuade or destroy every valkyrie that flies too close in an attempt to extract the Regent. One krak missile streaks through the air and explodes a half-collapsed stone wall behind you, littering the top of the Shrike with rubble like hailstones on a car window. You hear a brief vox from the pilot, barely audible over the gunfire, as the Shrike's engines scream to carry it back into the air and get some distance from the battle. Seconds later a withering hail of heavy-calibre shells blast across the street where it had been moments before, from the unmistakable rattle of a Hydra Flak Tank's four autocannons. The tracer fire slowly tracks the Shrike through the sky, chasing it away into the distance.

This is not a real war. Real wars have battle lines, strategy, some semblance of order in the chaos. This is a knife fight on every corner, an ambush in every ruined building, waves of enemies advancing and covering each other in a crude imitation of planetary defense force tactics. Trucks and tanks rumble down the roads side by side with little cohesion, disgorging yet more loose groups of soldiers in what can vaguely be described as squads to join the battle. Rag-tag groups hold back the advancing line of Auralian militia while others simply charge towards the Regent, making her stand behind the toppled statue of captain Xecaon. Amidst the endless crackling of a thousand lasguns, you hear the all too familiar bark of a single bolter.

Last Edit: Mar 21, 2024 0:17:05 GMT by Darko

Dewin
Overlord

Posts: 782

Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus Mar 23, 2024 20:01:32 GMT Darko and Warork like this

Quote

Post by Dewin on Mar 23, 2024 20:01:32 GMT

"Killclade Azure will seize the broadcast complex, Preator Epsilon announces" Epsilon stated in clear manner to the assembled task force as they waited for the arrival of designation Harper. Epsilon had noticed how her almost organic vocal delivery seemed to perplex the unaugmented as if she was obligated to share the same tone and delivery as her heavily augmented kin. For them, talking was primary done in Cant Mechanicus with gothic being secondary or tetriary concern, therefore wasting time and resources being the minimum was pointless.

On contrary, her vocals had been specifically designed to better suit her deployment as Preator. Archmagos himself had taken precious time from the Great work to harvest suitable voice box from the serf population, and all of those martyrs wouldn't be going to waste. While the Tech-Emmissary Stillwell had informed her that her delivery had unnecessary dullness and lacked emotion, she still considered it to be sufficiently humane.

"Broadcast station provides opportunity for Lingua-martyr pod deployment. therefore it will be deployed there. Killclade will drop the neighboring sector and infiltrate the station utilizing the conflict as distraction" She stated again, noticing slight twitches when she stated the item designation. Making pretense of moving her body to face Delta for the sake of the unaugmented, she continued in sharp binary.

"Delta-44. Gamma-76. Priority order: fetch the pod, Artisan Gavel will have it"

"Order received, Preator-Alpha" Came the muffled reply from Delta in gothic, his voice suppressed by the heavy armour and gas seals. Following the statement, the tall skitarii made his way out of the room followed by now active Gamma, the ruststalker moving like puppet freshly tied to their wires.

Noting that the Theta had switched to new prayer, this one for protection against blasphemy of scrap code. Returning her optics to the briefing table, she noted that the designation Rook facial expression had shifted. Deeming it unimportant, she filed the incident to her memory banks and returned to memorizing relevant maps.

------------------

Feeling the impact of the wind against her plate, Epsilon felt annoyance. Despite her declared mission plan, the pilot had still decided to perform direct combat drop against the target, deeming it required due to anti-aircraft presence. Excuse most likely, She would have to declare a proposal for pilots conversion into servitor for this inconvenience when she returned to the ship.

Watching the rooftop come ever closer, she felt the grav-chute active as she landed among the gore-filled rooftop, with her servo-assisted legs easily absorbing the impact. Observing via her prey-sight aupex sight as her fellow kin made their landfall, she noted with sneer the presence of unwanted creature.

She had no problem for letting the xeno do the jump alongside her killclade, what she didn't approve was giving the creature a grav-chute.

Hiding her contempt under years of mental brainwashing and implants, she moved on to Gamma-76, who was now carrying child-sized cylinder on their back, the dull grey cylinder coated in rune having survived the drop mostly intact with barely any fluids having leaked. The Archmagos had ordered the device to be assembled while ago in preparation for its deployment in the front lines, but this would do fine as well for test run.

Watching the hostiles react the deployment in organized panic via Delta's networked aupex, Epsilon noted the deployment of reaction force towards their position. While the killclade could dispatch any militia that deployed against them, it would be non-optimal and waste of mission resources.

"Theta, designated access point, cut. Delta, Gamma. Tripwires to access points, breach secondary" She ordered sharply via binary to the assembled skitarii. Theta would cut a access route with his drill into one of the air conditioning units allowing the killclade access to the ventilation vents. Meanwhile Delta would use explosives to mine the close roof access before cutting a hole into one of the elevator shafts, weakening the response force and giving them false entry point that would mislead them.

While the hostiles would then be trying to secure the elevator shafts in vain, the killclade could use their superior survivability to weather the heat in the vents to deeply penetrate the complex from within its walls.

They had planned it well on board designation Shrike and if Machine god was willing it would work, she hoped as the detonations from the militants weapons grew in intensity.

Last Edit: Mar 23, 2024 20:05:30 GMT by Dewin

halonachos
Rising Legend

Posts: 718

Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus Mar 23, 2024 21:32:09 GMT Darko and Warork like this

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Post by halonachos on Mar 23, 2024 21:32:09 GMT

The ride to the drop site was pleasant enough and reminded Dez of some of the raids she had participated in. Dropping quickly from a skiff, slaying a few living things, and then moving on to a position to gather as many slaves as possible. But after making their landing on the planet, Dez was instantly dismayed with the utter lack of speed exhibited by these Imperial machine people. Was it quick by Imperial standards, yes. Was it quick by raiding standards, no. She watched with curiosity as Epsilon seemingly ordered two of the others to mine the exits of the building.

"Suppose we wanted to leave by those exits, now they're mined." Dez said with mild annoyance. "I am not going to tell you how to kill, but personally we prefer to have an exit that doesn't have mines or enemies in the way. And currently the only way out that isn't dangerous is this roof." she continued before looking over the edge of building. "And they do have a number of people with guns approaching from the lower levels and on the ground itself. With heavier weapons I might add. So maybe, just maybe, we open the door and have some go down the stairs while others go down another way? Say, use these unwieldy devices to come in through a window on the side below the defenders or behind them? Trap them in between two fire teams, wipe them all out, make the floors slick with their blood. They are traitors right, and your lot do hate traitors after all."

Dez says while aiming her weapon over the edge of the roof. She lines up a target and fires, the shuriken lands well low of the target's head but aiming downward seemed to have helped increase the range slightly enough to allow her to make the shot. She smiled as she saw the distant figure fall over and seemingly grab at their leg. A small victory while waiting for the dullness of Epsilon and it's fellow machines' entrances to end.

Dez held her weapon aloof as she returned to standing closer to Epsilon, the machine didn't worry her as she was sure it would always follow orders from above and those orders strictly forbade killing other members of what they called "Praetorians".

Dez waited expectantly for the machine to respond, curious as to how much of a thinking machine it really was in comparison to those servitors that wandered around the ship on their routines.

Last Edit: Mar 23, 2024 22:03:03 GMT by halonachos

Dewin
Overlord

Posts: 782

Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus Mar 29, 2024 11:49:16 GMT Darko, Warork, and 1 more like this

Quote

Post by Dewin on Mar 29, 2024 11:49:16 GMT

Observing her aupex feed date flowing in her optical implants, Epsilon spared few process ticks of her mental unit for the xeno creature. While the Preator oath supposedly stopped her from openly acting on Machine gods will, it was about all she was willing to permit.

"No. Killclade will not deviate from assigned route" Giving the creature dull answer, she watched as Theta's mining drill cut its way through the ventilation unit, the cheap steel being no obstacle for blessed strength given by metal flesh and synthetic medicine. While in hindsight, giving them a Seismic Cannon would probably had been better option but with time constraints like these, it would have to do.

Receiving confirmation signal from the breacher, Epsilon moved onward to inspect the revealed access point. Crudely hacked open with no care for whatever defiled machine spirit the Carrion-Regent had stuff inside of it and barely wide enough for the skitarii, it would be acceptable. Dispatching her servo-skull to investigate the vent, she noted other three confirmations in the command net.

With detachment, she listened as the both gamma's and delta opened up downwards into the militia with a barrage the manstopper slugs and hellgun bolts taking their toll on the enemy. It would do well to lure the enemy towards the explosives.

Giving the fallback order to the killclade and recovering her servo-skull, she deemed it mandatory to communicate with the Xeno again. The ventilation shaft was filled with heat haze and coloured by pollutants strong enough to strip the paint from her frame if they stalled too long.

"Access vent system unpassable to unaugmented due to gas and heat build up, rerouting. Killclade will proceed as designated, you will reroute via the transportation tunnels, yes. We will reform at designated primary target at primary studio" Deeming the statement precise enough, she felt as her lower arm pair unsheated her shivs, their dull hum joining its brethren wielded by Gamma's.

Watching as Theta led the way having holstered their drill into in its harness and it's place was a heavy revolver, the former miner having experianced tunnel fighting before in blazing hot ore mines even before being blessed the machine god. Taking the second place, she stepped into the vent with her metal grip holding her in the ceiling far above the churning river of waste water.

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Black Valkyrie Down II: Victrix Tyrannus

Post by Darko on Feb 25, 2024 17:43:59 GMT

Post by Dewin on Mar 7, 2024 22:21:10 GMT

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