ALL NOVEL Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Six
During the seventh month, we target Equatorial Tomb Beta with our Macro-Crawler. It’s a four hundred metre amphibious tracked vehicle, an all terrain container ship. This one has had its cargo and facilities replaced with weapons and additional power. I placed Odhran as the captain and his squad as a quick reaction force to boarders. It took Odhran an hour of meditation to stop grinning.
The Macro-Crawler reminds me of the Fat Boy from Supreme Commander, or a Bolo tank from the Boloverse, though without the advanced AI. To build it so quickly we had to remove the prow lances on two of our destroyers and four light macro-cannon batteries. Acquiring sufficient smaller weapons and missiles was not a problem. The Castellan Pattern Void Shield came from a spare we keep for the Moth-Class vessels.
If there had been an appreciable atmosphere, we would have required different, less powerful armaments, but for once, the Necrons choosing a dead world did them no favours.
While approaching the tomb they send three Monoliths against the macro-crawler; their last, I think, teleporting in close and discharging hordes of Warriors and support vehicles. The Necrons cause a lot of damage, killing a third of the five hundred strong crew and half of the five supporting battalions. After six hours of intense fighting all Necrons and their war machines on the field are destroyed.
The new pain wards are effective, forcing the Necrons to take repeated shots at our infantry to obliterate their MOA shields so they can get a kill shot, rather than nail someone with a shot to a limb. The problem this time though was that they outnumbered us five to one so we still took a lot of casualties in the ambush.
Thanks to our better weapon choices, we salvage one and a half megatonnes of blackstone and two hundred thousand tonnes of necrodermis from the fight, then roll on right through the Necron defences without taking any more casualties and flatten the entire exterior of the tomb.
Even the Eldar are impressed, for a short while, but they are quick to blame us when the Necrons escalate yet again, sending unending hoards of Warriors that stress our supply lines terribly. The Eldar become pinned behind their fortifications during this time and their scouting efforts diminish.
Over the following five months, the Macro-Crawler trundles around the planet and blasts the surface of each tomb to dust. Warrior replenishment rate diminishes and short windows, where the Necrons’ orbital weaponry is disabled, are created. We use these moments to sweep in and bombard their hoards of warriors and increase our supply drops.
The Necrons can repair their tombs faster than we can destroy them, but without these short reprieves we would lose. As the war progresses and we improve our coordination with the Eldar, the war falls into an uncomfortable stalemate with neither side able to get an upper hand on the other.
I make special note of the Eldar D-Cannons and its variants. These weapons are almost impossible to defend against, even if their range and firing rate is limited. Each shot banishes a section of the Materium to the Immaterium. They are the equivalent of a vortex grenade launcher, without the randomly splitting and moving portals, and thus without the excessive risk of killing the user.
The only counter I have to them would be an overpowered energy shield, ensuring the blasts occurred too far from me to suck me into the Warp. They almost make the Dark Eldar weapons appear compassionate in comparison and Dark Eldar kill you with toxins and pain.
A D-Cannon can permanently slay a Necron with ease, yet it never seems to make a difference, as the Necrons have no shortage of Warriors.
Since our first deployment of the Macro-Crawler, the Eldar pull back more and more of their forces from their outer bases, prepping for the final push. Thorfinn strips twenty thousand Servitors from across the fleet to supplement our Heralds and minimise our Human casualties. It rapidly reduces our supply issues too as our Servitors consume almost no food or water.
For a defensive position, the Servitors almost make better troops as they do not tire and their minds do not wander. Unlike a messy assault, they handle simple orders like: “Stand in the trench and destroy every object from your Necron database that’s in range or objects that attack you” really well.
I am not happy with Eldar for costing me additional Servitor labour, but they’re creeping towards fifty percent casualties and won’t have enough troops for the final push, something the Stellar Corps can’t do, if we don’t help them.
The Eldar do, at least, start delivering blackstone and necrodermis. By our fourteenth month, I have five megatonnes of blackstone and one of necrodermis. It also marks the midpoint of the year and we hold our second Festival of the Victorious Dead across the Fleet.
The Promenades on Distant Sun and Iron Crane fill with strings of Mars red paper lanterns, printed with the Opus Machina and my heraldry, my crowsbeak power hammer set inside a cog. Thousands of crew fill the streets on Iron Crane, holding fake candles and watching the Fleet and Herald Officers walk in silence along the street.
The officers hold lilies, their different numbers and colours denoting how many personnel they’ve lost to hostile action the past year. Officers with higher ranks hold more lilies as they are responsible for more people. Each lily is made of lead and etched with the names of the dead in tiny gold script. It is a reminder to do better and carrying its weight is a final penance and a show of respect for the fallen.
I walk at the head of the procession in my uniform: a shirt, waistcoat, trousers, boots, and a greatcoat over a hyperweave undersuit, matching the rest of the crew. In my arms I cradle the largest and most heavy bouquet of them all. Most of my lilies are red or black. Usually, I wear my power armour, but that would negate the point of carrying the bouquet with my own strength, no matter how artificial it may be.
Behind the officers are a small collection of priests from the Imperial and Machine Cults, singing hymns and wafting incense. Next come the standard bearers of the Stellar Corps, waving their heavy banners back and forth and marching in step. There is one banner for each battalion that has fought this year, declaring their name on one side and the battles they have fought on the other.
Last are the children under sixteen who have lost a parent or two. Some are too small to walk alone and are accompanied, or carried by, a relative or school teacher. The children carry small bells that they ring vigorously. Most look nervous, or a little confused, but a few are having a good time, at least.
Each child has a small medal pinned on their uniform, genelocked to them, that will get them one small favour from the Fleet when they come of age. It has no monetary worth and I expect most will keep it as a memento. However, if they ever, for example, face unfair treatment, they could use it to force a priority investigation or hasten a transfer to a vessel of their choice.
It might seem like I’m being nice, but little favours like this and the ship currency are one of my preferred ways to bind the fleet as personnel can’t spend them if it is destroyed. I have found that many people value money and favours more than their lives, strange as it might seem to me.
The procession continues to the central, dual faith Cathedral, set inside one of the nine great towers of the promenade. I walk slowly up the main steps, my back straight, and approach a great brass coloured brazier. I throw each lily into the flames, one at a time, creating a brief flare and a burst of colour, matching the lily. The lead drips through a grid at the base and flows into a box, ready to be reshaped for next year. All the workings of the brazier are hidden beneath the Cathedral steps.
The other officers copy me as I stride beneath the great stone arch of the Cathedral door and into the interior. It's already half full for the service I will preside over. High above, tucked out of sight, is a small box where Ylien, Lynu, and even Orodor attend. I am particularly surprised by the latter. Even more so as he has no guards.
The Cathedral is huge, its huge vaulted ceiling consuming ten floors of the tower. While the tower is square, the architecture within is a giant cog, with each tooth holding a side chapel, or temporary community display. These displays house holoboards with the biographies and pictures of the Heralds whom we are honouring today. The central altar is in the middle of the circle. The Cathedral’s service areas are hidden between the cog’s teeth and the outer walls.
There are no pews as it’s just not practical with the large range in body sizes. Instead, lights in the floor guide people where to stand and brass poles move on tracks, marking the adjustable rows. Purity seals, strips of velum covered in prayer scripts with a red wax seal at the top, hang from the poles next to small lanterns and incense burners. The incense billows from its perch to the floor like tiny puffs of dry ice. It swirls oddly as if some external force is acting upon it and I wonder who managed to create such an interesting effect.
I walk up to the altar, passing beneath sixteen avatars of the Machine God. They hover around the rectangular altar from bladed brass wings, held aloft by expensive anti-grav tech. It’s particularly annoying to set up on a void ship as it has to sync with the grav plating so the two opposing systems don’t blow each other up.
Each avatar holds a banner proclaiming one of the sixteen tenets of the Cult Mechanicus in Low Gothic, High Gothic, and Lingua Technis. These white, androgynous statues slowly circle the altar, chanting hymns.
The altar has reliefs of Imperial Saints carved along its sides and two life sized statues of the Emperor loom over the altar at each end, their wings spread, hands clasped, and heads bent in prayer. A brass sculpture of the Imperial Eagle sits in the centre-back of the altar.
I kneel before the altar and mumble prayers while I wait for the Cathedral to fill.
A subsidiary mind forces my body to the floor, prostrating me before the altar and an invisible blade disintegrates a line of stone just above my head. I rapidly accelerate my perception while expelling nanites and engaging my Warp and Weft module, simultaneously, I expel a strong sensor ping.
To my left an invisible Eldar screams in pain. Her invisibility fails as her armour and flesh disintegrate within a hovering silver cloud of devastating nanites.
I grunt as shuriken rounds from three different directions cut into me, slicing through my armour and hardened flesh before scoring my bones and armoured organs. The wounds are incredibly fine and seal immediately while the remaining nanties in my body flood the damaged area and pull apart the lodged, monomolecular disks.
The sensor ping returns and fills my head with data. E-SIM overlays my vision, outlining the invisible attackers in high detail and highlighting them in red.
++Five Eldar Striking Scorpions on hover skates with Scorpion Chainswords and Shuriken Pistols.++
“How did they get past us?”
Several explosions rock the Cathedral beyond, including the box holding my xeno representatives.
++The hover skates stop them from triggering the sensors in the grav plating in the floor. Their cloaks hide their physical form and their minds cloak their own from others. It is possible these are the scouts they used against the Necrons.++
Noticing their initial attack has done fuck all to me, all five Eldar turn their heads an unleash their Mandiblasters at a much greater range than I believed possible. Tiny needles flash from the openings by the cheeks of their helmets. Most of the needles are disintegrated by the field of destructive nanites hovering around me.
The needles are followed by intense lasers that turn the remaining needles and some of my nanites into plasma that shoots towards me, burning right into my chest and head, pulping my left eye. It strikes fail to penetrate anything vital, most of their power lost to the nanites and the light armour in my uniform.
I explode into motion, charging at the closest Scorpion. He has too much inertia from his dance-like movements to avoid me. I reach low and, taking advantage of my enhanced strength and powerfield, rip off his leg. He faceplants and I direct my Warp and Weft module to remove the rest of his limbs.
The Scorpion’s thick wraithbone armour and undersuit clamp down on his wounds. More shuriken rounds slam into me. I ignore them and turn around, ripping the shuriken pistol from the hands of the Eldar.
Four seconds have passed since the start of combat.
Grabbing grenades, the Eldar prepare to toss them into the crowds but never make it. My bodyguard unit opens fire from the hidden gantries high above. A mix of phosphor and las rounds slam into the Eldar, searing through their armour and critically wounding them. Three slam into the floor and one takes a headshot; a mist of superheated blood sprays from the wound.
More data floods my minds, tallying the growing casualties and informs me the Eldar terrorists targeted the parade outside, critically wounding many of the participants before getting swarmed by an angry mob and ripped apart by mechadendrites.
The fuckers targeted the kids.