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In the grim darkness of the far future, there is Only War.
Charles was no stranger to loitering on the edge of death. He was Cadian after all. Survive as long as he has and you’ll knock on death's door many times, only to be dragged away just before the door opens. He was used to it by now. It was his duty to give his life for the Emperor, but today would not be that day.
Purple eyes opened once more. His vision was blurry and came and went, but it was coming back to him. His body hurt, but not enough to kill. He was familiar with pain, and this didn’t feel like a major injury.
Not dead yet. His service to Him on Earth was not over.
He had seen many things over the years after coming back from death's door. From the badly shaven face of Sergeant Olivier giving him CPR. The blurry sight of his men dragging him to safety as the silent Necron advanced on their position. Waking up surrounded by Sisters of Battle, sadly in armour. To even the bowel-emptying terror of watching a Heirophant Bio-Titan walking overhead.
That was the one time he wished he had stayed dead.
So, suffice to say, he can say that this isn’t the first time he’s been brought back with a nice pair of tits hanging centre-stage in front of his face.
As his vision returned to him, he was able to gather slight details about the woman reviving him. She had brown hair and eyes, and was wearing a blue and white uniform that looked out of place on an active battlefield and-. Were those stockings she was wearing?
Ok, so he knew that the 7 th Charon Battle Bunnies were present, but he was sure that none of them had been deployed yet. Also, that was not the uniform of their regiment.
Also where flak armour?
Yes, there should have been a ‘the’ in there, but his brain was still rebooting, so he could be afforded a few grammatical mistakes.
“[Are you ok?!]” The woman before him said. Although he’d be lying if he had any idea what she was saying.
It wasn’t gothic, that much was clear. So a local language then. Fan-fracking-tastic. Saved by a woman and he can’t even say thank you.
At least he had confirmation that humans were living on this machine-infested planet. Good, because here comes Imperial liberation!
“[Can you understand me?]” the woman said. “[Smile if you can understand what I’m saying!]” she said, her chest moving out of his line of sight.
The ‘womaniser’ side of his brain wanted him to say ‘Lower them back down, sweet cheeks. I could do with the moral boost’. But the military side shoved him back into the trenches and told him to get his ass back into the fight. This was a battlefield, not a cat house. Now was not the time to be thinking about boobs.
He had a beachhead to help secure.
Also, he was positive that she wouldn’t understand a word he said. Language barriers and all that.
“I’m fine,” he husked out anyway as he tried to sit up. All those years of shouting orders over the sounds of battle had not done his throat any good.
“[Don’t move,]” the woman said as she grabbed his shoulders. “[I don’t even know if you're alright]”.
Charles moved the woman's hand away from his shoulder, understanding what she was trying to do. “I’m fine, trust me. Not that you can understand a thing I’m saying”.
The woman seemed unsure of herself. “[I. Damn this! Why can’t I understand you?]” she sighed before she stood. “[Well, you seem ok. Your vitals check out. If only I knew who you were and where you came from,]” she said before she walked off.
Charles used this opportunity to get up and examine his surroundings, brushing the dust off his Kasrkin Carapace Armour. They were in the middle of a ruined city, long since abandoned and overgrown with vegetation. They were surrounded by the remains of a crashed aircraft of some kind, some parts still burning. Broken bodies lay about the place in pools of blood.
Oddly, the only people who looked like soldiers were all women, and those wearing what he assumed were officers' uniforms were completely unarmed. And oddity as far as military structure goes. Also, there was no sign of the Valkyrie he was in, so he must have been thrown out of it during the crash.
His Hellpistol was still attached to its power cable, so that was still usable, and his power sword was still in its sheath, so he wasn’t unarmed. Not that he was any less dangerous unarmed. He was Cadian after all, trained to kill in hundreds of different ways. His fists were just as deadly as his sword.
He looked around for his helmet, since it wasn’t on his head, only to find no sign of it. Must have fallen off during whatever happened. Well, there goes contacting his squad.
He then heard the familiar sound of a hover-drive close to his ear. Turning he saw the Vox-skull hovering close by, still attached to his armour by its cable.
Good, he still had that. That should allow him to understand what his new friend was saying. In an hour or two depending on how talkative she was.
Yes, it may seem odd for someone like him to have a servo-skull that was designed for assisting diplomats with translating languages, but the number of times this skull has helped him save millions to billions of lives just by being able to understand what the enemy was saying was uncountable, so he kept it.
“[Alright, that’s the recovery beacon active,]” the woman had said, having just thrown some kind of cylindrical device out towards the bodies of the dead. She turned back towards him and froze, eyes glued onto the servo-skull. “[What the hell is that?]”.
Charles, despite not understanding what she had said, knew that she was looking at the servo-skull. “I’ll explain, once it can translate what you're saying that is”.
Ok, so she wouldn’t be able to understand a thing he said, but it was the thought that counts.
Then he heard it. Gunfire and explosions. He quickly checked his Slate Monitron (suck it scions! You think you can hog all the cool toys? Frack you, he’s a Kasrkin!) and checked his suit's inbuilt auspex. There were hundreds of contacts, all converging on both their current location and another location half a klick north-east of his current location.
He gestured towards the direction of the second concentration, followed by rotating one finger in the air, a combat sign to signify that they were surrounded.
She may not understand his words, but he hoped she would understand combat gestures.
The woman blinked, before nodding. “[I think I understand you. That crash will have alerted every Rapture within one hundred miles, not helped by the nearby gunfire]”.
Charles nodded. Alright, good. Keep talking sweet cheeks, and he just might be able to talk to you soon.
There was a mechanical skittering noise, like a horde of tyranids but not an organic one. It was close, very close. Then the ‘abominations’ as the mechanicus called them crawled into view, and he could see why they were called so. Most of them were spider-like with four mechanical legs and bodies of various shapes and sizes, with a single red glowing eye. But there were a few, mostly the smaller ones, who only had two.
Decades of training and experience took hold. Charles was behind cover and firing before the machines even noticed them. His Hellpistol spitting death with each pull of the trigger.
The No.V Tanya Pattern Hellpistol, part of the Tanya family of las weapons. Manufactured upon the Forge World of Zuna and distributed to the regiments founded within sub-sector Tanya. The modified pattern fires fewer shots than the standard pattern used by Kasrkin’s like himself, but the las bolts are specially charged. Each one leaves a painful charge within the body of the enemy, crippling those they hit. And at close range can fell even the toughest of xeno monstrosities and heretic scum.
He hit one of the larger machines with three shots, each one ripping through its armour and burning its mechanical insides. The fourth killed it, blasting straight through its red eye. The fifth hit one of the smaller ones right beside its eye. It kept moving forwards for a few more seconds, sparkes emanating from the wound before it too dropped dead from the crippling effects of the weapon.
Suffice to say, the increased killing power was a fair trade-off for a few less shots than normal. Especially against certain Xenos such as the orks and traitor Astartes.
But these were no orks, they were machines. Xenos' abominations that the mechanicus wanted removed from this world. And oh that was not an order he would refuse, for these machines were inhuman monstrosities that he will take great pleasure in killing. Just like every enemy of man.
At least they weren’t glowing green. He’d seen enough of the Necrons for one lifetime.
Sweet Cheeks wasn’t sitting idly by whilst he did all the work. She too had taken cover a few metres ahead of him, firing on full auto with her autogun. Although considering how it was tearing through the Xeno machines like they were paper, it was more like a bolter. Each burst of fire destroying or crippling several machines. And this was the largest of them he was talking about. The smaller ones were being turned into scrap metal in a single shot.
She was getting more kills than he was.
There was a noticeable jiggle from her ass when firing. The recoil from the autogun flowed through her body and out through the back, causing those nice cheeks of hers to shake as she fired, only stopping briefly when she stopped firing to engage a new target, or to reload.
Just how much recoil did that gun of hers have to cause her ass to shake when firing?
Whatever it was firing it was allowing her to shred these machines. Some of them were only visible for a few seconds before they were turned to scrap metal, exploding into bits of metal and writing.
The machines weren’t just standing there like training servitors, they were firing back too. Some kind of laser by the looks of it. Several of their blasts hit the car he was hiding behind, scorching the rusted metal remains. Not so dissimilar to a las bolt.
Well, he can deal with those easily.
More of the Xeno machines arrived, and as they did, they were quickly torn apart. One of them in particular exploded quite spectacularly as it died, a ball of fiery death. After that one died whatever machines were left fled. Must have been a leader or something.
“[Master down!]” the woman said before she turned towards him, eyes focused on his Hellpistol. “[Just what is that gun of yours? Is it Rapture in origin?]”.
Charles wasn’t paying attention. His weapon was still raised and his eyes were scanning the battlefield. A part of him was telling him that these things would get back up any moment and start firing at them again, just like the Necrons. He waited a full thirty seconds, waiting for something, anything, to happen.
Thirty seconds he waited. Thirty long and gruelling seconds.
Only once he was sure these things wouldn’t be getting back up did he allow himself to relax and stand up out of cover. “At least they aren’t Necrons,” he remarked before he looked over towards Sweet Cheeks “We should get moving. We can’t afford to be surrounded,” he said before he started walking towards the second concentration of contacts.
Sweet Cheeks sighed and shook her head before she followed him. “[What have I gotten myself into?]” she wondered as her eyes briefly flashed red.
Anis was pissed.
‘I have a gun’ he said ‘I can kill the raptures with it’ bla bla bla ‘Don’t try and stop me’. Well, look where you are now commander! Dead after being shot to bits by Raptures after being told to keep your bloody head down!
Fucking moron! Only Nikke weapons can kill raptures, human ones aren’t powerful enough. And a human can’t use a Nikke weapon due to how heavy they are. The recoil itself was enough to dislocate someone’s shoulder.
And now she was alone with Rapi, with a dead commander, who was also an idiot, and an army of raptures descending upon them.
What a fucking idiot.
If she got out of this, she’d. Well, she wasn’t sure what exactly she was going to do yet, but it was going to be well deserved for whoever she could find.
She fired another grenade at an approaching group of Husk class, mostly Shank’s with a Striker here and there. The Raptures were all destroyed in a single blast.
Well, at least killing Raptures was cathartic.
“That’s the last of them,” Rapi said as she lowered her rifle, not a single Rapture in sight. Well, not a living one anyway.
“Finally,” Anis said with a relieved sigh. “I thought that would never end”.
“We should wait for the backup squad to arrive,” Rapi said, checking her rifle's ammo count. “Without a commander to lead us, our chances of making it back to the Ark are slim”.
“And our chances of getting killed by their incompetence are high,” Anis said. “Damn it! Why are all our commanders so incompetent? You’d think the central government would want their nice and shiny commanders to be as good at their jobs. It’s almost like they don’t want to reclaim the surface”.
“That kind of talk is dangerous, Anis,” Rapi remarked. “The central government wants the Raptures gone and the surface reclaimed. Humanity can’t live underground permanently. They don’t have the resources”.
Anis huffed as she slung her grenade launcher around her back. “Sure doesn't look like it. What are they even teaching these people if they decide to start firing a useless weapon at a Rapture? You’d think they’d drill that into their heads?” she wondered as she grabbed a piece of dead Rapture and inserted it into her body's synthesizer to produce more ammunition.
“Maybe they did,” Rapi said. “But it’s always possible that it didn’t stick- Behind you!”.
Anis turned. Slowly. Too slowly. The Rapture had come out of a side passageway and she was now in between it and Rapi. It would take too long to unslung her grenade launcher, and she couldn’t get out of the way in time to give Rapi a shot either.
The Raptures let out a mechanical growl, weapon powered up.
Three red lasers shot straight through its side, killing it.
The two of them stood there in shock, surprised by the Rapture's sudden demise.
Rapi stepped to the side so that Anis was no longer in the line of fire, weapon still pointed in the Rapture's direction. “Did a rapture just kill another rapture?” she wondered aloud.
“I, think so,” Anis replied. “That was definitely a rapture laser right there”. She then heard footsteps, two sets of them walking side by side. “But that doesn’t sound like a rapture”.
A second later two people walked out from the same side passageway the rapture had come out of. Both armed. One of them was a Nikke, the other was a male human. A human wearing some kind of dark green armour over a navy blue uniform. He had messy brown hair and purple eyes and- was that a human skull floating next to his head?
One quick scan and yep, that’s a human skull right there. Floating beside him with what looked like a speaker and microphone attached to the sides of its base, where the jaw should be. A quick scan revealed that the contents of the brain cavity had been replaced by machinery. The skull itself was attached to his armour by a cable that looked more like a spinal column, and it had this one red mechanical eye that reminded her too much of a Rapture core.
Yuck.
Then there was the gun in his left hand. A pistol of sorts, but it was unlike any pistol she had seen before. There was nowhere for a magazine to be inserted into it, and it was attached to his backpack by a cable. There was a sword by his side as well, resting within its sheath, but there was a strange energy signature emanating from it.
This human was different, very, very different. He held himself differently from any human she knew or seen. His eyes were constantly on watch for threats, weapons held properly like he knew how to use them. This was no commander, this was someone who knew how to not only use those weapons in his hands, but can, and has, killed with them before.
He was also the only one pointing his weapon at the now dead Rapture.
Where the hell did he spring up from?
The human walked up to the dead Rapture, weapon still pointed at it. He then kicked it. “[Yep, definitely not Necrons. At least we don’t have to worry about them coming back to life on us]”.
Anis blinked. What did he just say? What language was that?
The Nikke who was with him finally noticed them and rushed over. “You two ok?”.
“We’re fine,” Rapi replied, eyes still focused on the human she was with. “But our commander is dead”.
“Moron started firing at the Raptures despite having a weapon that couldn’t even damage them,” Anis added before she turned her attention back towards the strange newcomer. “Who’s that?”.
“I, don’t know,” the Nikke replied. “Our transport craft was shot down by Raptures on our way here. I found him amongst the crash site. I do not know where he came from, but he was not from the Ark”.
“Yeah, that much is obvious,” Anis remarked, eyes focusing once again on the skull floating beside him. The skull that was now looking at them.
Who would even do such a thing? She wondered. Despite being just a human brain inside of a robot body, which was very different from being a skull floating around with all kinds of machinery inside of it.
“I’m Marian, by the way,” the Nikke continued. “My squad was sent to reinforce yours”.
“I see,” Rapi said. “And where’s your squad?”.
“Dead,” Marian replied. “Everyone else died during the crash. I don’t even know where the AA fire came from”.
“I don’t remember there being any Raptures with auntie aircraft capabilities in the area,” Anis remarked, noting that the unknown human had now walked over to them and was standing a few feet away from them, eyes looking around for threats. No doubt he couldn’t understand them either, leaving them in the awkward position of not being able to understand each other, so they couldn’t just simply ask who he was and where he was from.
Damn you language barriers! Why must you exist? Why can’t there just be one single language everyone knows? Things would be so much simpler that way.
“Maybe you missed them,” Marian suggested. “Raptures like that tend to avoid direct combat”.
“It’s possible,” Rapi said. “So, now what do we do? We were supposed to be responding to a distress call, but without a commander, our chances of reaching those Nikkes are low. We can’t even contact the Ark for support”.
“I feel like giving the commanders the only means to contact the Ark is a major oversight,” Anis remarked.
“I set up a recovery beacon by the crash site,” Marian said. “With any luck, a recovery squad will arrive in an hour or so”.
“But what about the distress call?” Anis asked. “We can’t abandon the Nikkes out there. They reported a Tyrant class”.
“But we can’t fight a Tyrant,” Rapi said. “Three Nikkes are not enough to fend off a single Tyrant. We will need reinforcements. But, without any ability to contact the Ark, our chances of getting reinforcements are slim”.
“[You know,]” the stranger said before a monotone voice said, “You know”. “[I know some people who might be able to help,]” he said before the monotone voice said. “I know some people who might be able to help”.
The three Nikke’s turned towards the stranger with shocked looks on their faces. That was unnerving. Hearing him speak only for a monotone voice to speak a moment later, in a language they could understand. And the voice, the monotone voice, it was coming from the skull.
“How?” Anis asked, surprised by the sudden translation.
“[How?]” the monotone voice from the skull said, repeating what she had said in the man's own language. And now it was translating what they were saying. As if it wasn’t already creepy enough!
He pointed towards the skull. “Translating for me,” the monotone voice said, repeating what the man had said. “It takes in what I say, and translates it… It’s not perfect, as you can see… There is a noticeable delay… Plus you have to keep your sentences short to avoid speaking over it… And it took a while before it could understand what you were saying… Translating new languages takes time… But it’s better than nothing”.
“Right,” Rapi said nervously, hearing the skull translate her words a moment later. The sight of the skull was unnerving enough, the fact that it was ‘speaking’ made it too, ghostly for her liking.
“So, who are you?” Marian asked, taking advantage of the fact that they could talk to him now.
The man smiled. “I’m Sergeant Major Charles Vickers… commander of the one-hundred and forty-seventh Kasrkin squad… attached to the three-hundred and thirty-second Cadian shock troopers”.
Ok, there was a lot there that she did not understand. Kasrkin for instance, and Cadian. She had no idea what those meant. The three-hundred and thirty-second she did understand, as well as shock troopers.
Where did he even come from?
“So, ur, what’s a Kasrkin?” Anis asked.
Charles raised a finger. “Ah, now we’re getting greedy… You’ve asked a question, now it’s my turn… So, who are you three?”.
Anis was a little annoyed that he had cut them off, but it was kind of understandable. He didn’t know who they were yet he had told them who he was. So it was only fair that they tell him who they were in kind.
“Right, our apologies,” Rapi said, beating her to the punch. “I’m Rapi,” she then gestured towards Anis. “This is my squadmate Anis”.
Anis tried to smile, but it was not easy with that skull floating there translating everything they were saying.
“And I’m Marian,” Marian added. “Of the Arc surface reclamation force”.
“Surface reclamation,” Charles said. “So you live underground then?”.
Rapi nodded. “Yes. We had no choice. What’s left of humanity was forced underground over one hundred years ago during the first Rapture war. We’ve been fighting to reclaim the surface from them ever since”.
Charles nodded. “And I take it those machines we fought are these, Raptures?”.
Anis nodded. “Yep, that’s them. The resident killer robots who kill everything they come across that isn’t them”.
“And you’ve been fighting them for all this time by yourselves?” Charles said although it was difficult to tell if he was impressed or not. “Well, good thing for you then that you're no longer alone now”.
The sudden explosion that brought down a nearby building was sudden and unexpected. The four of them turned towards the explosion, weapons raised and expecting trouble.
Six more people walked out of the dust. Four dressed the same as Charles, just minus the skull floating beside them. The other two looked like pilots of sorts, but they didn’t recognise their clothing one bit, and one was being carried by the other.
The other four were similarly armed. One was carrying the same kind of pistol as Charles was, but his armour looked a bit more reinforced and he had some kind of bomb in his other hand. One was carrying a large rifle that had two barrels, one underneath the other. The third held an odd and bulky weapon with a large metal barrel with rectangular holes in it, and the fourth carried a rifle that looked like a one-barreled version of the two-barreled one and had some kind of communication device on his back.
One of them, a man wearing a reinforced helmet, coughed as he waved his hand in front of his face “[Ok, so, that didn’t require a melta mine]”.
Charles smiled as he lowered his weapon. “[Olivier!]” he said as he walked over to them. “[Once again needlessly blowing up infrastructure]”.
The man shrugged. “[In my defence sir, we saw a massive xeno and didn’t know how much explosives would be needed to kill it. I think we used too much]”.
“[You think?]” Charles said, sounding slightly annoyed.
The Nikkes, meanwhile, had no idea what they were saying since the skull thing was no longer translating everything for them.
“Ur, excuse me?” Anis said, hand raised. “But why isn’t that skull thing of yours translating any of this?”.
Charles and the others turned towards them, confused looks on the newcomers' faces. “[So, either the Battle Bunnies had a change in uniform and deployed before we did, or the locals are arming strippers,]” he said before he turned towards Charles. “[Is there a strip club nearby or something and have you reserved us a table or two?]”.
Charles sighed. “[Their local soldiers. Quite an effective one's too. One of them was able to take down an entire horde of the things with minimal assistance from me. And that’s no joke. Those guns of theirs are something, even if their uniforms are sexy,]” he said before he turned back towards them. “And in answer to your question… I didn’t think you would need to hear everything going on between us. It’s not that important”.
“Right,” Anis said, not believing him for a second.
Charles turned back to the other man. “[I see that everyone made it out ok,]” he said. “[What about the Valkyrie?]”.
“[On its back, sir,]” the other man said. “[Pilot’s both survived, somehow. Even managed to land it mostly intact]” he said. “[We ran into some of those mechanical abominations on the way here, over four dozen of the metal bastards,]” he smiled as he raised his weapon. “[Darn things didn’t know what hit them, sir]”.
Charles smiled. “[Good to hear. Good to hear]”.
“I don’t wish to interrupt anything,” Rapi said. “But it’s going to take more than seven men to reclaim the surface”.
Charles smiled as he turned back towards them. “Who said there were just seven of us?”.
As if on cue, the air was suddenly filled with the sound of engines. Just on the edge of her hearing. But each second she listened, the noise got louder and louder and louder, until it was clear as day.
Then the explosions started, loud and heavy, drowning out the sounds of Raptures screaming, crying out as explosive death obliterated them.
Anis looked up and saw hundreds of aircraft filling the sky. Not enough to blot it out, but enough to leave an impression nonetheless. She didn’t know what to feel. Surprised, shocked, horrified or whatever else came to mind. She had never seen so many aircraft before outside of old movies. The Ark only had a few air transports, and they were mostly used for rapid deployments of single squads. They were rarely deployed en masse. Yet here, up in the sky above them, were far more aircraft than she had ever seen in her entire life. Hundreds of them, what looked like fighters escorting heavier bombers, protected them as they dropped their payload on the Raptures below.
Where the hell did that lot come from?
“What the hell are those?” she asked, looking towards the sky as the aircraft continued to fly overhead.
“Marauder bombers and Thunderbolt fighters! From the twenty-third Phantine Air Corps!” Charles explained as more aircraft flew overhead. “[By the Emperor it feels great to have reliable air support for once!]”.
“[That it does sir, that it does,]” the man with a badly shaven face said, a large smile plastered on his face.
“So, many of them,” Marian gasped at the sight.
“Where did they all come from?” Rapi wondered as the craft continued to fly overhead. “The Ark is the only remaining human settlement on the planet. It’s not possible for another one to exist, let alone to possess the resources for so many craft”.
“Then where did this lot come-” Anis said before she was cut off by the sight of a gigantic thing flying overhead. A truly titanic craft. It was about one hundred metres long and bristling with guns, and was flying much lower than the other craft, and was getting lower with each passing second.
That thing was landing.
“[Looks like the Tetrarch’s are deploying,]” one of the other men said.
Charles nodded. “[That they are. The liberation of this world has started!]” he said before he turned towards the awestruck women. “That enough for you?... Ten regiments! Ten regiments of the Imperial Guard, tens of thousands of men and women, all ready to deploy to this world!... More than enough to dispose of the vile xenos presence infesting this planet!”.
Jaws dropped. They couldn’t have heard that right? Ten regiments. TEN! Where did they get the manpower from? Yes, the Ark had a population of about ten million, not including those who live in the outer rim. And only a handful of them were members of the military. And he wasn’t a Nikke, they were all women, and he was clearly a man.
It was then that they realised that this was no man from the Ark they were dealing with here. No human born underneath the artificial sky would talk or act like this. The way he held himself, the way he talked, the way he acted. No, this man was a human. A human doing what they had been told was impossible. That humans couldn’t fight Raptures, only Nikke’s could. And yet, this man had displayed the power to kill raptures. Those weapons he and his men carried were capable of killing them. Handheld laser weapons that humans can use similar to the weapons the Raptures used, effective ones too, letting him do the impossible.
And up there were hundreds, maybe even thousands more, just like him, ready to do the impossible as well.
Who were these people, and where did they come from?
Commissar Larissa Kovrova snarled as she fired her hell pistol at the Xeno monstrosities before her. “Push these xenos abominations back!” the voluptuous Vostroyan woman shouted, her pistol firing for emphasis. Her personal servo-skull with inbuilt laud hailer floated close to her, amplifying her voice so it could be heard over the sound of battle. “Push them back in HIS holy name! Do not give them an inch! Do not let them take one step forward! Kill them! Push the bastards back! Push them back as if you're throwing them off the steps to the golden throne itself!”.
The three Kasrkins she was with as well as the surrounding imperial guardsmen did not need much encouragement from her. They were some of the finest men and women around. Kasrkins, the best soldiers Cadia had to offer, as well as the three-hundred and thirty-second Cadian shock troopers. If a stubborn refusal to back down had physical form then it would be the men and women around her. Whilst she was not Cadian herself, being born on Vostroya, she’d served with the Cadians since she finished her training, becoming almost as tough as the Kasrkins she served with.
One of the smaller machines jumped towards her. She responded by grabbing it with her power fist, an ancient relic and a posthumous gift from her mother. “This world is ours!” she shouted, crushing the Xenos machine like paper and throwing its remains away like scrap. “This is a human world! The Emperor's world! And you! The sons and daughters of Cadia! Will cleanse this place of this malignant filth!” she started firing again. “Purge them! Purge them all! Let none survive this day!”.
The Xenos who had survived the opening bombardment from the twenty-third Phantine Air Corps (A blessing to have reliable air support for once) were charging towards the Tetrarch that was depositing the three-hundred and thirty-second. That is why the Kasrkins had deployed ahead of time to clear the landing area and protect the troops as they deployed, and to provide targeting data for the Phantine Air Corps.
And oh did she enjoy watching their bombs fall.
The fight was unfair to begin with. The Xenos machines that survived the bombardment were damaged and weakened, and those outside the bombardment area took longer to reach them. So when the Xenos reinforcements arrived, so too had the men and women of the three-hundred and thirty-second.
It wasn’t a completely one-sided fight. They had taken casualties as well. Nine guardsmen had already fallen to the Xenos fire at this point alone, and two Kasrkins had to pull back due to injuries. But their deaths only spurred the survivors on, anger and hatred fueling their rage. Vengeance! Vengeance upon these machines! For each life they take ten will be taken from them in kind! These things will not be allowed to live this day.
She growled as another guardsman fell to enemy fire. Whilst the Kasrkins hell guns were tearing the enemy apart, the standard lasguns weren’t faring so well. It took way more shots from them to kill these Xenos. But they realised this quickly and not only started focusing firing on them, aiming specifically towards those red eyes of theirs but also switched to the more powerful overcharged and overload modes, increasing their weapons' killing power against these machines. Still took a lot of shots to kill them, but when you had ten or so men firing at the same target, they went down quickly.
The heavy weapons however, the missile launchers, heavy bolters, autocannons, plasma guns and Meltas, were slaughtering the xenos filth. Which brought a smile to her face. Watching the enemy getting demolished by the imperial guard's overwhelming firepower always did.
A red continuous beam shot past her, hitting one of the larger machines and melting it in seconds. “Query,” a tech priest said, a contingent of battle servitors and servo skulls around him. “Why must you repeat the same thing over and over again? Simply {for number in numbers:} saying kill them all and hold the line will be more efficient and less harmful on the throat”.
Larissa turned her head slightly towards the tech priest. More than two dozen mechadendrites hung around his body, each one possessing a different tool, some more specialised than the others. An axe with a head in the shape of a cog was held in a mechanical arm, and a large rifle-like weapon hung from his side, supported and aimed by more mechadendrites. His two normal arms were busy drawing something in a notebook, his mechanical face occasionally looking down to examine his scribing. His robes were truly the most unique thing about him, with a strange constantly changing pattern on it that baffled her as to what they meant or were.
“Magos!” Larissa said, turning away from the battle for a moment to focus on the tech priest. “Shouldn’t you be waiting in Tetrarch? This area is not yet secure!”.
“I can assure you {for index in range(len(text)):} I am more than capable of looking after myself,” the Magos said, quickly proving right when a Xenos laser bolt deflected off of his personal force shield. “Besides, I would like to witness the destruction of these things first hand. After all, how better to gather {return damn} data on these things to know how to kill them easier”.
Larissa shook her head before she went back to firing at the Xenos machines.
Magos Olfice Pinnter, the real reason why they were on this world in the first place. The mechanics had found this world some time ago, an ancient human colony filled with archeotech. Unfortunately, the world was infested by mechanical abominations, and thanks to Magos Arkama’s failed campaign to recover the forge world Cacoto from the Ork warlord Galgrog Da Great, several forge worlds, knight houses and even a titan legion were left heavily depleted. So they called upon the guard to cleanse this place for them.
The general was a bit more on board with the idea when he heard that there was a possibility of humans still living on the planet, hidden somewhere underground.
But, they would have to find them first, and until then, she has foul xenos to kill!
One of the larger robots exploded into a spectacular fireball. With its death, the remaining Xenos fled like the cowards they were. Must have been some kind of leader. Good. Now that they know they have leader forms, they can target them down more easily.
“Enemy in full retreat,” a guardsman vox officer reported. “There’s still some fighting in a few sectors, but for the most part the enemy has been pushed back”.
“Good!” Larissa said with a smile. “Any word from Charles?”.
The vox operator shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We’ve been unable to get him or his unit on vox. I fear they may have gone down”.
Larissa scowled. This pissed her off. The Charles’ Valkyrie was downed after an unknown aircraft collided with it. That’s all she knew. She had no idea if Charles or the rest of his half of the squad was alive or not. I mean, she had a feeling he was still alive. A Valkyrie going down was unlikely to kill him. Together they had survived several crash landings, so that would be unlikely to kill him. The Xenos however, that she couldn’t reliably say. They were new and unknown, and according to the mechanicus, there were about a hundred different variants of these machines, some being the size of baneblades. One melta and two melta mines, that’s all his squad had. If he ran into one of those larger machines then his chances were slim, but not zero.
Once the armour was deployed, then they could go looking for him.
“Keep checking!” Larissa said. “The sooner we locate him, the sooner we can send a team to find him!”.
“Commissar,” a loud and familiar voice shouted from up the road. “I do believe that won’t be necessary”.
Larissa turned and saw Charles smiling smugly down the road, his half of the squad, two pilots and three unknowns with him. “Commander! Glad to see you're still alive!” she said as the squad moved up towards her. “How did you find us?!”.
“Just followed the sound of your lovely voice,” Charles replied with a smile.
Larissa smiled. Ah, the benefits of being loud and proud. Ease to find that way. Which can have its downsides as well, but hey, more enemies of man for her to kill.
Honestly, she was relieved that everyone had survived the crash. Tough bastards, the lot of them. But then, they were Kasrkins, the toughest people Cadia had to offer. A Valk crashing after colliding with another aircraft would not kill them that easily. And then there was Charles, the toughest bastard of the lot, and with good reason.
“Well, I’m glad to see that you're ok, commander!” Larissa said with a smile. “Wouldn’t want you to miss all the action, now would I?”.
Charles nodded. “Oh, don’t worry about that. We’ve had plenty of action on the way here. Damn machines are everywhere”.
“That they are,” Larissa said with a nod. “The general may need to rethink his four-year plan to cleanse this world”.
“He did say it was only an estimate,” Charles said with a shrug.
Yes, only an estimate. They didn’t know much about these machines before they arrived. But now they were here they could make a more accurate estimate.
Either way, they were going to be here for a few years at least.
Bring it.
Her focus then turned towards the three ‘others’, the oddly dressed soldiers who were clearly not part of any of the guard regiments deployed to this world, which so far was only one.
Ok, so, there were definitely humans living on this world, and she was going to have words with whoever was making their uniforms because there was no uniformity between the three of them. Each one wore a different uniform. No identification, no unit number, nothing to identify what regiment or army or even group they are from. And only one of them had their hair cut to regulation length!
Of course, she wanted to complain about their uniforms as well, the lack of flack armour or some primitive equivalent mostly. But she couldn’t complain about the overall designs, as the imperium was a wash of impractical, questionable or unimaginative uniforms, to even outright nothing. Yes, nothing.
She really wished she could erase the time they fought alongside the fifty-eight Tangar Woad Warriors. ‘Belief will conquer bullets’ her arse! Put some fracking clothes on!
Plus there was her own uniform, which was tight. Not tight as in she couldn’t wear it. Tight as in it clung too tightly to her body, fitting around her ‘generously gifted’ as one nettlesome planetary governor had said.
She’d have preferred to have a slightly more baggy and less form-fitting uniform, yet this was what she kept getting, and it sometimes made her want to shoot someone, like the aforementioned nettlesome planetary governor. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do anything like that and had to endure such lecherous gazes at her ‘large and unwanted’ chest. Not helped that her uniform had a questionable design flaw, cleavage.
What idiot designed a version of the commissar uniform that showed cleavage? Sex appeal had no place on the battlefield!
“And who are those three?” she asked. “Local soldiers?”.
Charles nodded. “From some place called the Ark. An underground city by the sounds of things”.
Larissa shrugged, not the first time humans have had to settle underground due to above-ground conditions.
She noticed that the three locals were staring in a mix of shock and horror at the Magos’ servitors. Probably their first time seeing one. She remembered her first time seeing a servitor, darn near threw up all over the thing. And that was before she realised what it did, which was when she did throw up all over it.
Despite being a lobotomized human, they do take some getting used to, especially the more ‘questionable’ ones.
Olfice suddenly and without warning rushed over to them and was examining them closely, too close for comfort by the looks of things, as the three women were looking very uncomfortable by his close proximity. Not helped by the number of servo-skulls floating around them as well.
She sighed, that was not going to be a good first impression.
“[Ur, who is this guy?]” the girl who was showing way too much cleavage said, looking unnerved by the Magos’ proximity.
The woman in blue and white was holding her autogun tightly, looking seconds away from raising it and shooting one of the servo-skulls floating around. Meanwhile, the one in black and red seemed like she was a few seconds away from either passing out or screaming in terror.
This was why they preferred to keep the Mechanicus out of first-contact situations like this, especially the Magos’. They tend to start poking around at things that take their fancy or might be heretical.
Oh Emperor's bowels. They probably had a few cybernetics that interested him.
Charles sighed heavily. “Why’s he here? Shouldn’t he still be in orbit?”.
“He insisted on coming down with us,” a Cadian sergeant replied as more guardsmen moved up the street behind them.
Good, that meant the armour was only a few minutes away.
“Probably saw whatever it is that lets them make ammunition inside their bodies,” Olivier remarked.
“Pardon??” Larissa asked, a confused look on her face. Making ammunition inside their bodies? What kind of techno nonsense was that?
“They were tearing off bits of dead Rapture and chucking it inside some kind of internal compartment,” Charles said. “That’s what they call these machines, by the way, Raptures. Been fighting them for the past century”.
“OH! A nucleo synthesizer!” Olfice said sounding more like a child in a sweet shop. “This is most impressive! I have only {if num < 0:} seen such synthesizers once before on the forge world of Nvddia! And even then, they weren’t as small as these. By the Omnissiah! These are the most {else: return False} advanced servitors I have ever seen!”.
Had she been drinking Larissa was sure she would have done a spit take because god Emperor help her, that was not what she was expecting to hear today.
“Servitors!” Charles gasped before he looked between Olfice’s servitors and the three locals, switching between the two groups before focusing back on the Magos. “How are they servitors? They look nothing like them!”.
“Could be pleasure servitors,” Olivier remarked. “But then, why are they arming pleasure servitors?”.
“Their brains are the only organic parts,” Olfice stated. “Everything else is mechanical. Custom-made mechanical bodies far in advance of anything I have ever seen! I must {if x == 42} learn more about them!”.
Charles looked back towards the three locals “Their mechanical? Even the skin?”.
Olfice nodded. “Even the skin”.
Olivier looked over towards the local troopers. “Bloody realistic aren’t they?”.
Charles nodded. “That they are”.
“[Ur, translation?]” the woman in blue and white asked nervously.
Charles sighed. “[Are you cyborgs, perchance?]” he asked, his servo skull translating his words into something they could understand.
The three cautiously nodded. “[Y-yeah, you could say that,]” the short haired woman said.
“[We’re called Nikkes,]” the woman in black and red said. “[Combat cyborgs who are, well, were, humanity's only effective weapons against the Raptures. Up until you showed up with those, handheld lasers of yours]”.
“[Although the only organic parts of us are our brains,]” the woman in blue and white added.
Charles sighed. “Emperor give me strength,” he groaned before he looked back up. “[The Magos here is apparently interested in you due to being, more machine than human]”.
“I am extremely jealous of them,” Olfice said. “They are far closer to {else: print(“System overflow”)} to the machine god than I am! To think that the population of this world would understand the purity of the machine better than we do. To encase their own brains within a body of pure metal. Although I do wonder why they keep an organic aesthetic?”.
Charles sighed again, even deeper this time. “[Correction. He is extremely jealous of you]”.
“[He’s what!]” the three Nikkes gasped.
Larissa sighed. The benefit and downside of having a commander who possesses a Vox-skull. You can understand what those who don’t speak Gothic are saying. Even if you wished you didn’t. “Only a cog-boy would be fascinated by something like that”.
“[Did he say he was jealous of us?]” the short haired Nikke asked.
The Nikke in black and red nodded. “[Yes, that’s what he said]”.
“[Who would be jealous of a Nikke?]” the blue and white Nikke wondered.
Charles groaned. Why couldn’t they have been human? Why? Things would be simpler that way. Now the mechanicus will be extremely interested in this planet, more so than they were before. They’ll probably try and convert the local populace to their machine cult. That’ll tick the ecclesiarchy contingent off to no end.
“Commander,” Olfice said as he turned towards Charles. “I will require the language date from your skull so that I may communicate with them without having to rely on an external source”.
Charles sighed. “Maybe later when we have the time. Kind of have to secure the area first”.
“I do not foresee that {if: P == π} being much of a problem,” Olfice said before he looked down the street.
Charles turned down the road behind them to see, amongst the Cadian guardsmen coming up towards them, was also a Stormlord super heavy tank.
The Cadian’s armour had been deployed. Now the battle had truly begun.
“Ah, now we can push forwards!” Larissa said with a smile.
“That we can,” Charles said with a smile. He turned towards the three Nikkes, who were looking on in shock at the superheavy tank as it drove closer.
“[What on earth is that? A house on tank treads?]” the blond haired Nikke said.
The Stormlord, known as Woden’s Tempest, stopped a few feet from them, its engine emitting a low growl. The commander's hatch then opened and a slightly thin man poked his upper body out of it. “Anyone need a lift?”.
Rapi was unsure of how to process everything that had happened during the past half hour.
The stranger Marian had arrived with, the laser weapons he and his men carried, the large number of unknown aircraft, that massive craft that flew overhead, the hundreds of human soldiers that were now advancing across the ruined city, the massive tank the size of a house they were currency riding on the back of.
Where did they all come from?
The humans with them were a strange lot. Their language was unknown to them, as was their weapons and gear,. Even their eyes were odd. The vast majority of them had purple or violet eyes, and they weren’t fake either, their eyes were naturally that colour, which for a human was unnatural. If they were Nikke’s she’d understand, their eyes were cybernetic and could be whatever colour you wanted, but these were not Nikke’s. They were all human.
But there were some things that were familiar. There was clearly a discrepancy between Charles and his men, and the rest of the humans. His lot seemed better armed and equipped than the rest, so they must be some sort of special forces unit, better equipped than the standard soldier. A bit like the difference between mass-produced Nikke’s and the more specialist ones.
There were a few outliers. Mainly that sinister looking woman wearing that longcoat, sash and peaked cap, with that massive metal fist on her left hand, an ornamental looking thing coated in brass and copper that emitted a similar energy signature as that sword Charles was carrying. She almost mistook the woman for a Nikke, but no, she was almost fully human, with her left arm being the only cybernetic she had.
There was another one of those skulls floating around her as well, this one having a loudspeaker attached to it, amplifying her voice.
The woman had this terrifying aura about her. Her eyes were sharp, like knives, and her gaze washed over everyone, as if she was keeping an eye out for something.
Rapi felt like she didn’t want to know what she was looking for.
Then there was that ‘person’, this ‘Magos’ who had been poking around them, the one in the red robes with what looked like machine code of some kind all over it, and whose body was covered in cybernetics that he didn’t even try to hide. They couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman underneath all that metal and wires and strange augments. It was creepy. They knew he was human, but he didn’t look like it. There were more machine parts in there than human parts.
He looked more like a Rapture than a human.
And then there were those, things, following the Magos around along with more of those skulls. Those half cyborg people. They weren’t Nikke’s, not even close. They were a mix of human and machine, dead humans. There was no life in those grey bodies of theirs, or behind those lifeless eyes, and no activity inside their brains, not even so much as a subconscious thought. No heartbeat either. Their limbs had been replaced by either some kind of heavy weapon or metal claw. They were not alive, not even close.
They looked like the early Nikke’s. An amalgamation of flesh and machines, a living weapons platform that was made only to kill.
Yet despite all the mechanical horrors they had brought with them, these strangers had also brought in troops, troops armed with weapons that can damage and kill Raptures. She wasn’t sure just how many there were, they didn’t exactly say how large their regiments were, only that there were ten of them, and that didn’t include things like support and logistic units and other special units.
They had tanks and aircraft too. She had seen several more tanks, just smaller ones driving down the roads parallel to theirs, as well as a few more behind them. And whilst the sky was no longer filled with aircraft, a few did fly over their heads a few times, followed by the sounds of far-off explosions.
These people weren’t messing around, they were here to fight Raptures, as suicidal as that sounded. Yet they were not dying in droves. They were still dying of course, there were fresh human corpses everywhere. But the fights didn’t seem as one-sided as they were during the first invasion. For every group of dead humans they came across they saw far more dead Raptures and no sign of any of the human survivors retreating. If anything for each one who died, ten more seemed to show up and take their place.
There were thousands of them, spreading out throughout the city and killing any Rapture they found. She could see them on thermals. Everywhere she looked there were heat signatures. A vast army moving through the battered remains of a human city.
“These people are definitely not from the Ark,” Anis stated after a few minutes of riding. “None of the equipment they are using matches any known design, and they don’t speak Inner or Outer Ark. Plus some of this stuff is old. Like, very old. This tank we’re on! It’s over five hundred years old!”.
“It’s what?” Marian gasped.
Rapi’s jaw almost dropped. That was old, far older than the war with the Raptures. How could something so old still be in service?
Not even the Ark was that old. Right?
“How can you tell?” Rapi asked.
Anis shrugged. “Carbon dating. Scratched off a few flakes of rust here and there. It’s only a rough guess though,” she said before she gestured over to one of the two heavy machine guns mounted to the side of the tank. “Those are only a few years old, but the age of the armour varies. Some plates are only a few years old, others, several centuries”.
Rapi nodded. She almost forgot Anis was from Tetra Line. Their Nikke’s tend to have a few optional extras here and there. “This vehicle must have seen a lot of action then. The varying age of some of the armour and weapons. This tank must have been repaired hundreds of times”.
“But how is it still around?” Anis wondered. “Have you seen the size of this thing? It’s as big as a Tyrant! How has this thing not been bombed into submission?”.
“I don’t know,” Rapi said as she looked over towards Charles. The man was busy with that cyborg person. Not sure what, but the cyborg was doing something with that floating skull of his.
Where did these people come from? There can’t have been anyone capable of building something like that long ago, they didn’t have the tech to do so. Well, she thinks they didn’t anyway. Human history was unreliable, sadly. So much was lost during the first rapture invasion, including their history. The Raptures hacked into and ate the internet, and no, she’s not joking, and when evacuating people to the Ark there was little time to recover books on their history.
So, it’s entirely possible that there was another project like the Ark. Another means to save more lives from the Raptures. But, where was it located? And why were they only just finding out about it?
When they got back to the Ark with this there was going to be a lot of panic, coupled with conspiracy theorists coming up with all kinds of nonsense. This many humans don’t just show up out of nowhere.
Charles looked over towards them, having noticed they were looking at him. “You girls ok?” he asked, that skull of his translating his words.
Rapi nervously nodded. “We’re, fine. It’s just that, there’s a lot to take in. We’ve been fighting the Raptures for so long by ourselves, yet you lot suddenly show up. Where did you even come from?”
“Ah,” Charles said. “That’s a difficult question to answer… We’re kind of from all over the place… It’s not an easy question to answer… especially not when we’re in the middle of a battle”.
Rapi nodded, taking his word for it. Now really wasn’t the time for a large conversation. Not when they were in the middle of a combat operation.
They had managed to convince these people to aid them in getting to the location the distress call came from. They weren’t expecting the Nikkies to still be alive by now, but there is a chance that their heads are still intact, so they can still be recovered. Plus those were the last orders they were given, and they had to complete them.
“That, person who looks more like a machine,” Anis said. “Is he, normal?”.
“You mean the Magos?” Charles said. Anis nodded. “You’ll get used to them… Well, that’s what I keep telling myself anyway… The tech priests of the machine cult are a strange lot… I don’t really understand their order that much… They're a highly secretive bunch… All I know is that they're responsible for building and maintaining all our gear, and worship some kind of machine god… And that they like to install all kinds of cybernetics into themselves… Honestly, freaks me out with how much they're willing to replace,” he explained. “I only have a few myself, a bionic heart and some armour in my cranium,” he tapped his chest, followed by the side of his head. “But those were because I needed them,” he glanced over towards the Magos, who seemed busy with something else. “His lot, chose to be augmented like that”.
Rapi nodded. So even these people were creeped out by this Magos and his kind. That was reassuring.
“And is this why he’s so interested in us?” Anis asked.
Charles nodded. “I believe so,” he replied. “Tech priests like cybernetics. So the more someone has, the more they respect them… I think anyway… Honestly, compared to them, you ladies are far more pleasing to the eyes… Sexier too”.
The three of them blushed slightly. No one had ever said that to them before, or, to their knowledge anyway, to any Nikke. Most people only saw them as emotionless robots, the last thing on their minds when they thought about Nikke’s was sex. So it kind of caught them off guard to be called ‘pleasing to the eyes’, or sexy. They did not expect someone to call them sexy.
What he said was even more reassuring as well, as even he was unnerved by this Magos and those like him. But how did these tech priests survive mind switches? All those cybernetics would surely cause a cognitive dissonance overload from the realisation that they're not fully human anymore.
So many questions, no time to ask them.
Still, these strangers were treating them differently, and that felt, odd. Normally people view Nikke’s as disposable cannon fodder, barring a few specialist Nikkes. Yet these people, after being told what they were, didn’t seem all that bothered. And that Magos was interested in them. Genuinely interested in them, jealous even. Not even the Nikke rights movements were that interested in them, and groups like that had died down a bit in recent years. They were still there, but were less vocal about things.
“And those, other people,” Rapi said. “The ones who look like walking corpses?”.
“The servitors?” Charles said. “No, they're something completely different… Their simple drones, useful for only the most simple of tasks… Nothing like you ladies, they can’t even talk, most of the time anyway… Better to just ignore them and let them go about their duties”.
“But, what about the people they used to be?” Marian asked, a frown on her face.
“Do not worry yourself with {import random} who the servitors once were,” Olfice said, turning his head towards them and speaking in a language they could understand. “Most servitors are vat grown, but a few are criminals who damaged Mechanicus property. Do not worry about {if not true:} those people. They deserved their fates for their crimes against the machine god”.
Well, that was messed up. Growing humans just to turn them into a mindless automaton. Couldn’t they just give them memories or something? Why grow something just to do that? Although she wasn’t surprised about some being crinimans. The Ark does the same to some criminals, turning them into Nikke’s. If they're lucky the process would leave them a black slate, turning them into a mass produced Nikke. If not, well, say hello to an explosive collar.
Also why was the Magos occasionally speaking in some kind of programming language?
“[Sir,]” one of the soldiers, one of this tank’s crew, turned out of the hatch. “[We have a problem. Forwards scouts report several buildings have collapsed along our route. Infantry can still pass though, but not us. Guess the Phantine’s did a bit too good of a job devastating the area]”.
“[I see,]” Charles said. “[Can you still get to the destination?]”.
“[We can,]” the crew member said. “[But it’ll take us longer to get there. The navigator is still trying to plot our new route]”.
Charles nodded. “[Understood. Try not to take too long. Might miss all the fun]”.
The crew member nodded. “[We’ll try sir. Woden’s machine spirit has been getting restless as of late, but the cog-boy says that a good fight should ease it]”.
“[Understood,]” Charles said with a nod. “[We’ll try to leave you something to kill,]” he said before he turned towards the rest of his men. “[Alright you lot, here’s where our ride ends. The Phantine’s bombed the area ahead too much and Woden needs to go around. So we’re on foot from here on out,]” he said, that skull of his translating for them.
“Phantine’s?” Anis remarked. “Woden?”.
“Probably the pilots of those aircraft that flew overhead,” Rapi replied. “And Woden’s probably the name of this tank. The crews of some combat vehicles did name them from time to time”.
“They also named ships as well,” Marian added.
“Well, seeing how big this thing is, I’m nos surprised it has a name,” Anis said.
Still didn’t change the fact how unreasonably huge this thing was.
Disembarking from the massive tank wasn’t a difficult task, and neither was embarking in the first place. Just go down a hatch, walk through the massive engine room, and leave from the back hatch.
They were right about the debris in the way. What was once a ten story apartment complex was now rubble across the road, preventing the tanks from advancing.
They could still climb over it, but they’ll be without armoured support for awhile, and they’ll have to climb over it to carry on to their objective, the location the distress call came from.
The group of soldiers they were with, plus a few more who were moving alongside the Woden proceeded up the debris. A mix of the regular soldiers, and the more heavily armed men like Charles. Oddly the sinister woman was keeping to the mid-back, watching the troops around her, themselves included. Which she found worrying for some reason. There was just something about that woman that kept her on edge, but she couldn’t tell why.
A soldier's head suddenly vanished in a bloody mess just as they reached the top of the rubble.
“[Take cover!]” someone shouted as several soldiers took cover at the lip of the rubble and fired down at the Raptures below. The machines had been hiding behind it, probably waiting to ambush the humans as they passed by. Guess they didn’t expect them to climb over it as well.
Rapi raised her rifle and opened fire. The first three Rapture’s to meet her gaze were killed in the first few bursts, and Anis destroyed a bunch of them with a grenade. The rest were gunned down by the energy weapons belonging to the humans around them.
Marian let out a cry as a Rapture shot her. A glancing blow against her head, yes, but still a blow. And any damage to a Nikke’s head can be fatal or cause issues later.
“Marian!” Rapi shouted as she rushed over to help her. A small splatter of blood splattered on the side of her face and lips as she ran, probably from one of the soldiers. She’d tell them to leave fighting Raptures to the Nikke’s, but they can clearly look after themselves- was that a plasma gun?!
Rapi had to do a double take as she watched one of the soldiers who was carrying a bulky weapon with what looked like some kind of radiator on it fire what she could confirm to be some sort of plasma, the shot melting the Rapture’s it hit.
And here she thought the handheld laser guns and tanks the size of a house would be the most surprising thing she’d see today.
The Raptures were surprisingly dealt with quickly. Most were already damaged from the bombardment, and only a few were undamaged. Even then, they didn’t last long whilst under the combined fire from three Nikkes and a large number of soldiers with energy and plasma wea- Did that gun just fire a beam that melts everything along its path! What the hell did that gun just fire?
What kind of SciFi nonsense was this?
“She ok?” Charles asked as he came over to them, there was a noticeable cut on the right side of his face.
Ah, so that's where the blood came from.
“I’m, fine,” Marian replied, a small trickle of blood dripping down the side of her head. “It’s nothing serious. Some damage to the left clavicle. Heavy damage to the lower right projector. Abrasion to the left eye. I shouldn’t have any issues in identifying targets. Damage is only fourteen point two percent. Still combat-capable”.
“Interesting,” the Magos said as he examined Marian’s wounds. “They made it so you can bleed. How odd. You don’t {if system 32 = installed:} need to bleed? Also advanced self-diagnostic systems, most interesting”.
“Why are you still here!” Charles asked, not looking at all happy.
“I’m observing the Nikke’s,” the Magos replied calmly. “They are so fascinating. Whilst I can't wait to {else print “System error”} examine one more closely, but that can wait until later”.
Charles let out a groan of annoyance, looking not at all happy by the Magos’ presence. “Why couldn’t you have waited in orbit?”.
“And sit around whilst you damage and destroy archeotech?” the Magos replied. “I think {if t => 2} not”.
Charles sighed, probably realising that he wasn’t winning this argument. He shook his head before we walked over to Marian and started bandaging her head. “Hold still, this won't take more than a few seconds”.
“Ur, that’s not entirely necessary you know,” Anis said. “We’re Nikke’s. We don’t need medical care”.
“Then explain the bleeding?” Charles asked as he finished bandaging Marian’s head. “You alright?”.
Marian slowly reached up and touched the bandages around her head. “Y-yes, I’m fine”.
“Huh?” Anis said, sounding confused.
“It feels like I’m being healed,” Marian said. “From the inside,” she then pointed to her clavicle. “I could do with a bandage here too”.
Rapi sighed. After all, the fake bleeding was to help prevent mind-switches. Humans do bleed when they are cut. If Nikke’s didn’t do the same then, well, Nikke’s have undergone mind-switches from less.
They didn’t rest for long. Once Charles had finished bandaging Marian they moved on. A large group of human infantry and three Nikkes.
Rapi never thought she’d see numbers like this up on the surface. Squads had been limited to just three Nikkes and operations consisting of multiple squads were unheard of. Yet here she was, fighting alongside an army of people, humans even. There haven’t been this many people fighting the raptures in one location since the first war. They were clearly not from the Ark, but then where were they from?
“We’re here,” Marian said. They had arrived in what looked like a small park. It was heavily overgrown but there were no signs of any recent fighting or Raptures.
“No sign of any vanguard forces,” Anis remarked. “Or anything really”.
“They're here,” Marian said.
“What?” Anis said. “There’s nothing here”.
“[Something, feels wrong sir,]” one of the soldiers said.
“[Yes, something is wrong,]” Charles said, looking at Marien. “[Everyone fan out and take cover. There’s something out there]”.
The soldier nodded before everyone fanned out around them. Some hid in the buildings whilst others took cover behind whatever they could find.
Something about all of this was getting fishy. Very fishy. Marian said that her craft was shot down, yet the aircraft currently flying overhead were doing so completely unopposed without any anti-air fire coming their way.
“Wait,” Rapi said. “Charles, have there been any reports of Rapture anti-air in the area?” she asked, waiting for that skull of his to translate her words.
“Huh?” Charles said, caught off guard by the question. “No, now that you mention it, there hasn’t… The skies have been completely clear”.
Rapi nodded. Completely clear skies, no anti-air. Which was strange, if there were Rapture’s around who could fire upon fast-moving air targets like Marian said, then why weren't they engaging the aircraft flying above their heads?
Unless.
She raised her rifle towards Marian. “Marian, stop right there!”.
“What the hell are you doing?” Anis asked, surprised by her actions. She became even more surprised when that sinister-looking woman also aimed her pistol at Marian.
“You shot down the transport, didn’t you?” Rapi asked, ignoring how she wasn’t the only one now pointing a weapon at Marian.
“[Going to take the shot commissar?]” Charles asked.
“[Only if she takes the shot first,]” the sinister woman replied.
“No/yes it does,” Marian replied blankly, with no sign of emotion in her voice.
“Your transport was carrying explosives meant for this operation,” Rapi said, not once lowering her weapon. “Yet there were no reports of any rapture anti-air units in the area, not even from our friends here. So, unless there’s a new kind of rapture about, the only way that transport could be brought down was if someone detonated those explosives”.
“No/yes it does,” Marian replied blankly, repeating her last spoken words.
Rapi focused her eyes on Marian. “What are you trying to achieve?”.
“We’re here,” Marian said, showing no indication that she was listening to Rapi.
Rapi was starting to get annoyed by Marian’s lack of a response to her questions. “Start talking, or else I’ll put a bullet between your eyes!”.
“[I don’t think that’s necessary, commissar,]” Charles remarked.
“[Pays to be safe,]” the sinister woman replied.
“We’re here,” Marian said, once again showing no sign of having heard her. “We’re here,” she said again as she turned back to face them. “We’re here”.
Her eyes glowed red.
“Over here. Over here. Over here. Over here,” she said, her voice distorted and broken.
“[On second thoughts!]” Charles said as raised his weapon and aimed it at Marian.
“[Wait!]” the Magos suddenly shouted. “[Hold fire!]”.
“[Oh god emperor give me strength!]” Charles groaned.
“She’s corrupted!” Rapi shouted. She should have known there was something wrong with her
“What!” Anis gasped. “But how? There’s no puncture wounds on he-”.
“[Incoming!]” someone shouted before a hail of laser bolts blasted across the park, gunning down a large number of soldiers and tearing them apart.
“[Cover!]” Charles shouted as he got down behind the remains of a car, everyone else quickly doing the same.
Then it crawled out. A large machine with an organic-looking shell with several red capsules on its back, held up by several bug-like legs, and a single red eye glaring at them all. There were two cannons on its side and some circular entrance just above its eyes.
It laid its gaze upon Marian and let out a loud mechanical cry.
“Tyrant!” Anis shouted.
“It’s a Blacksmith!” Rapi said. “It-”. She was interrupted by the Blacksmith suddenly being hit by several missiles, followed by the sound of several aircraft flying overhead.
“[Ah, right on time,]” Charles remarked with a smile.
“[So glad we called in air support,]” the sinister looking woman said. “[And even more glad that it’s fracking reliable! Bloody navy. Bring some atmospheric attack craft next time! It’s like they don’t want us to retake this world!]”.
“Well that was anticlimactic,” Anis remarked, noting how the Blacksmith was now lying on the ground unmoving. “Never seen a tyrant taken out that quickly before. But then, I’ve never seen handheld energy weapons before either,” she turned towards Charles. “How did you know that Tyrent would show up?”.
“We guessed,” Charles replied with a shrug.
Anis sweatdropped. They guessed? These people guessed that a Tyrant would just show up like that and call in an airstrike on something they had no confirmation of where it was?! Either these people were idiots or bloody lucky idiots!
“It’s not dead,” Rapi said, weapon still pointed at it. It was the same with the remaining soldiers, who had fanned out around the Blacksmith, weapons raised and waiting to fire.
They didn’t have to wait long, as only a few moments later the Blacksmith got back up and started firing at them.
Anis sighed. “Knew it was too good to be true”. Tyrants were strong after all, and took a lot of fire to bring them down.
“Over here,” Marian said, eyes still red.
A large black tentacle shot out of the Blacksmith towards her, grabbed her and pulled her back to it.
Charles’ sword left its sheath.
Rapi watched in shock as Charles charged the Blacksmith’s tentacle and sliced it clean off, that sword of his slicing through it like a hot knife through butter. Marian fell to the floor, the tentacle releasing her and wiggling about on the floor like a dying fish.
Charles turned towards the Blacksmith. “[Cadians!]” he shouted, pointing his sword at the tyrant. “[Kill that thing!]”.
As if they were one singular entity, the soldiers all fired at the Blacksmith, a hail of las bolts, missiles and other munitions pelted the Rapture’s body, some clearly more effective than others.
“[Ove-over here,]” Marian said before the Magos grabbed her and stabbed one of those metal tentacles of his into the back of her neck, followed by a shield appearing around the both of them.
The Blacksmith let out a mechanical growl and started firing, its underslung cannons firing at the guardsman around it. Each shell reducing its targets to a bloody mess. Oddly it fired both cannons at the same target, not aiming independently, it also seemed to occasionally struggle picking a target, looking around between the hundred or so Guardsmen around it.
“Am I just seeing things, or is that thing confused?” Anis said, reloading her grenade launcher.
“There’s too many targets!” Rapi replied. “It’s not used to being attacked by so many! Or from so many different angles!”.
“Well, that’s helpful!” Anis said as she started firing again, taking advantage of the Rapture's momentary confusion.
It was short-lived however. The Blacksmith seemed to recover from its confused stupor shockingly quick and started focusing on the more dangerous targets. Starting with the heavy weapons teams and the soldiers like Charles- WERE THEY CHARGING IT!!!?
Rapi’s jaw dropped as she watched Charles and two others charge towards the Blacksmith, the one with the heavier chest armour and the one with that heat ray thing. Charles was charging straight at it whilst the other two were flanking it, charging towards its sides.
The Blacksmith focused its core on Charles. It sent a tentacle towards him to impale him.
He dashed to the side at the last moment and cut through it, cutting it off just like he had with the first one. He then threw a grenade right into its core.
The grenade exploded just shy of its core, but it left a large gash, causing the Blacksmith to let out a mechanical cry of pain. Must have been an anti-armour grenade judging by the damage.
The other two charged its sides, one blasting it with his heat ray, the other ran right underneath the thing and slammed some kind of mine to the underside of its right cannon before running away as fast as he could. Seconds later the mine exploded, destroying both its gun and the right side of its body.
“Are these people suicidal or something?” Anis shouted as the Blacksmith screamed. “Who’s insane enough to charge a tyrant!?”.
Rapi felt something like a half-smirk form on her face, although she didn’t know if it was her who was really smiling. “Someone who's faced worse”.
She didn’t know why she said it, the words just left her lips before she realised she was saying them, but she felt like it was the truth. Those men charged a Blacksmith, a tyrant class Rapture, one of the most dangerous classes of raptures that dominate the surface. And whilst she couldn’t see their faces, she felt that there was no fear in their eyes. They didn’t even hesitate or need an order to attack, they just followed Charles without question. Those men must have faced something far more terrifying than a tyrant, they had to have. How else could they charge it without even so much as an order? And that plan of attack, that wasn’t on-the-spot thinking, their movements were clean and precise. They’ve done that before. Another tyrant perhaps? Several tyrants?
Whatever it was, these men knew what they were doing and were unafraid to charge something much larger than they were.
The Blacksmith cried out once more, some blackish liquid squirting out of its side. It suddenly jumped, impossibly high into the sky, coming down right behind the Magos.
“[How the frack!]” the sinister woman shouted as everyone turned to face it again.
The Magos didn’t react, his attention focused fully on whatever he was doing to Marian. His ‘servitors’ and those skulls of his, did turn towards it and started fighting it. Some walked up to it to hit it with their claws whilst others stood back and fired their guns.
The Blacksmith dealt with the servitors slowly, its single remaining cannon destroying them just as easily as the humans, yet it opted to ignore the skulls flying around it, instead focusing its fire upon the Magos once the servitors had been dealt with.
Whilst the shield around the man? held, she had no idea for how long it would hold for, and thanks to how it was positioned, the Blacksmiths core was hidden behind him, preventing her from getting a good shot at it without running the risk of hitting the Magos.
What was he even doing to Marian anyway?
Explosive shells started pelting the Blacksmiths side. Ripping the side to shreds and destroying its remaining cannon as well as several of those red canisters on its body.
Rapi turned to see the massive tank they had been riding, Woden, had arrived, and was now firing everything it had at the Blacksmith, from a massive amount of large, explosive rounds to large and powerful beams of energy that ripped through the machine's body.
The Blacksmith turned to face the new threat, which quickly proved to be its downfall. One of the larger lasers shot right through its core, followed by a mass of explosive rounds hitting its face. After four seconds of continuous bombardment, the Blacksmith fell, torn in half by the massive tank's power.
She watched as the tank drove closer, surrounded by a platoon’s worth of soldiers. Over one hundred soldiers rushed into the clearing, some secured the area, eyes on the looks for hostels, and others checked the dead tending the wounded.
Her gaze eventually ended back on Charles. The first human she’d seen charge a rapture, a tyrant of all things, and survive.
‘Just who are these people?’ .
Charles sheathed his power sword as he, Olivier and Addison made their way back over to the Magos.
“Well, that thing lasted longer than that hive tyrant on Birigat did,” Olivier remarked, checking his hell pistol.
“At least that thing didn’t jump forty or so metres into the air,” Addison said. “How did that thing even do that? Something that big shouldn't be able to jump like that”.
“These are unknown Xenos machines,” Olivier said. “We know very little about them. Who knows what else they can do?”.
“At least the cog boys were right in saying we’d need anti-armour weapons,” Olivier said. “These things are resilient”.
“Resilient, yes,” Charles said. “But like all things that oppose us, they die just like everything else”.
The other two nodded. They were Kasrkins, the best of the best that Cadia had to offer. Nothing can withstand them for long. Give them a target, and sit back and relax as they kill the thing.
“[O-oo-oover,]” Marian stuttered, her eyes flashing from their usual hue to red before remaining brown. “[Here?]” she gasped out before she collapsed, a horrified look on her face.
“Purification compleat,” Olfice said. “The Xenos virus infecting her systems has been purged”.
Charles turned towards the Magos. “Viris?”.
The Magos nodded. “A Xenos machine virus was targeting some sort of nanomachines that reside within her brain, making her carry out new orders against her will. Unfortunately, she was fully aware of what she was doing and was unable to stop or act against it. Do not worry, the Xenos virus has been completely purged from her systems. She has been freed from their control”.
Charles looked down at Marian. So she was under the effects of some kind of Xenos mind-control virus. He won’t lie, he didn’t understand half of what the Magos had said, but he did understand enough to know that she wasn’t in control of her actions. He’d seen demonic possession before and dealt with it accordingly. But this sounded different. She didn’t display any of the normal changes or mutations. “So, she wasn’t possessed then?”.
Olfice shocked his head. “No, she wasn’t. It was a simple Xenos code that was controlling her actions. Nothing more. It’s why it was so easy to purge from her systems. If it was possession then I would have been unable to purify her. She is free of it now, it is gone from her systems”.
Charles nodded. Well, that was marginally better than demonic possession.
“[Marian?]” Rapi said, approaching the woman carefully.
“[I’m sorry,]” Marian cried, tears falling from her eyes. “[I’m, sorry]”.
Charles was surprised she could cry. The Magos said that they were completely mechanical save for their brains. Whoever made them must have added artificial tear ducts to them.
“[She’s no longer corrupted,]” Anis said. “[But, how?]”.
“[I think that Magos removed it from her,]” Rapi suggested.
“[That I did,]” Olfice said in the local dialect. “[No xenos virus will {else delete system 32} infect any machine whilst I’m around]”.
“[I’m sorry,]” Marian continued to cry. “[I wasn’t-. I couldn’t]”.
Rapi crouched down next to her and placed her hand on the girl's head. “[It’s alright, you're safe now. The corruption is gone]”.
Marian continued to cry, her gaze focusing on the dead soldiers all around them. “[They're dead. They're all dead because of me]”.
“Although,” Olfice said. “She does appear to be in distress. I believe this to be an understandable response. She was effectively a prisoner within her own body”.
“At least she’s free,” Larissa remarked before she examined her hell-pistol. “And alive. All because I ran out of ammo. Damn things are tougher to kill. Lost track of how many shots I fired. By the time I finished reloading, that damn Xenos showed up and distracted me!” she turned towards him. “Why did you save her? You couldn’t possibly have known what was affecting her was something the Magos could purify! For all we know, she was possessed!”.
Charles looked towards Marian. She was still on the ground crying, the other two Nikke’s doing their best to comfort her. Whilst he could only take the Magos’ word on it, he knew what possession looked like, and that was not demonic possession. Red eyes and repeating the same thing over and over was not what demons tend to do. So he’d take the Magos’ word for it that she’s free of whatever was controlling her.
Still, it couldn’t have been easy for her, watching her body carry out actions she had no control over. He remembered this girl from the mining colony on Peirir IV. The poor thing was possessed by a demon and made to carry out horrific acts. And whilst it was exorcised from her body, the damage from the possession remained. She was a gibbering, insane mess, traumatised by what the demon made her do.
He did not know what ended up happening to her, the last she saw of her was being taken away by some inquisitorial stormtroopers. So she’s either dead or, worse, working for an inquisitor.
At least Marian would not suffer from that fate, even if there were rumours of an inquisitor being present within the liberation fleet.
He turned back to Larissa and said. “I don’t know,” before walking over and crouched down next to Marian. The hole the Magos had left in her neck still needed tending to, machine or not, he had no idea if that blood was important or not, but the old medic side of him told him not to take the chance, so he bandaged the wound. Once he was finished he put a hand on her shoulder. “You ok?”.
Marian looked up towards him, eyes waterlogged with tears. She lept forwards and hugged him tightly. “[I’m sorry,]” she cried. “[I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry]”.
Charles sighed as he patted her on the back. She was safe now, the battle was over.
But the war, the war to reclaim this world for mankind and the imperium of man wasn’t.
++This is Magos Olfice Pinnter to Puer ex++
++Puer ex responding, Magos. What is your report?++
++Send word to the forge world Macrosof, and gather the rest of the command staff, inform them we have found something++
++Information request. What is it you have found?++
++Something, wonderful. A true child of the Omnissiah++
++...++
++I will inform the forge immediately++