The Dying Dawn [SWG; Closed]

[New Dornalia]

OOC: Not my best post, but it will have to do for now because someone wanted to get trigger happy on random worlds in the OOC thread. Lemme know if I missed anything.

IC:

Coruscant

Few things moved slower than bureaucracy – and few bureaucracies were slower than that which had belonged to the galaxy-spanning organization of the Galactic Conclave. With that government all but gone to the tides of an ever changing galaxy, Coruscant had been left in a mess. Given the ennui of the remaining politicians that were local, the emergence of Chaos as such a potent threat, and the swift and clear action taken by Commander Tycho...the result was rather startling. In three weeks, a record by Tycho's mind, those bureaus and agencies that had survived the loss of the Grand Hall debacle – many Coruscanti citizens were still protesting in favor of having the IF pay recompense in either blood or indemnities – had pooled together their resources and reorganized themselves into a functioning planetary government. By popular acclaim and by his own magnetism as amplified by the holo news teams, Tycho had been carried forth and declared the head of state and leader of a new government.

Lord Protector of Coruscant, thought Tycho, sitting in his office as the late hours ticked by. Hardly as pompous as some titles but it does have a nice ring to it. But with that title comes many responsibilities... Tycho once more turned his full attention to the letter before him.

-snip-

It bothered Tycho. Too many problems popping up and unanswered questions. Where did the Jedi go? Or were they taken? Was it really possible that the IF had suborned them or tricked them? It was not something one cared to think about: a whole group of Jedi being hoodwinked. But for what purpose...and then there is the fact that even important embassies like that of the Colonial Republic were being misinformed about the threat of radiation. Tycho had been a first-responder to the entire event and had had his own security detail go over the case of the mysterious shield generator that had been purposefully destroyed during the attack on Coruscant. Though there had been a lot of holo-media hype about the dangers, only uneducated fools who fed on fear believed that there was radiation sickness sweeping the area where the explosion had happened. If the attack had happened a few centuries before, when the reactors had been older, cruder models then radiation might have been a small concern – however bacta treatments and other forms of medicinal-nano-technology were easy fixes to such minor problems.

Tycho penned a response, the usual salutations and agreement over the bafflement of the missing Jedi. He reiterated the need for more food stations and housing shelters than any medical stations. Several million had been displaced as a result of the damage and basic necessities were what were needed, not further scare mongering on the part of holo news teams looking for a hot story. Tycho made a mental note to send a reprimand to the Holonet News Network executives.

No rest for the weary, thought Tycho, as he pressed on to the next matter resting in his 'IN' tray.

Coruscant

Nora looked at Tycho’s letter, sipping a cup of Mediterranean-style coffee which was black as night, and with a thick sludge that used to be coffee grounds, out of a well-worn mug that said, “Best Mom Ever.” The mug had seen frequent use in recent days. First, it was coffee with cream and sugar. Then, it was coffee with creamer. Now, it was just coffee, made Mediterranean-style to ensure a maximum jolt of caffeine where it counted. The pressing issues of the day demanded the jettisoning of many luxuries, and French Vanilla creamer was one of them. The other was sleep. Nora didn’t remember the last time she had more than four hours of sleep. Her augmentations ensured she could handle the stresses of sleep deprivation and stress better than most, but it was a hell of a job.

Well, no matter. She guzzled the coffee and perused the letter. Pulling out her laptop, she began to type out a message relaying Tycho’s request to the Ordermen, the Red Cross and the Marines below, simply saying:

“To: Capt. Levine, Capt-Gen. Voroshilov, Ms. Pauling
CC: Norton Simons, Secretary of State [et. al]
From: Acting Ambassador Võ
RE: Correspondence with Tycho
I have received return correspondence from L.P. Tycho. He requests more food and housing instead of medical works. For now, please shift focus if possible on these aspects of our ongoing civil relief efforts, and prepare lists of supplies you require to help ensure proper alleviation of food and housing insecurity. I will bring this up at our conference call later today in detail, hence I’m going to need the lists to ensure everyone’s on the same page—especially when it comes to dealing with the State Department and your respective bureaucracies. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me.

Acting Ambassador Võ”

Nora then finished the coffee, and then changed into some fresh clothing as she walked out of her office. Going to one of the Valkyrie guards, she motioned for her to follow with a simple, “Time to go to work.” Walking out to a repulsorlift craft with the guard—now sporting a Russian AKM—the two began their daily rounds.

(Image)

(Image)

Transmission Source: The Exalted Phaeron Arnran Selvaran, Nemesor of the Skyriver Kaos Jihad
Destination: Sirithil nos Fëanor, Elentari of Menelmacar, Alexander Blaken-Kazansky, King of Allanea, Norton Simons, Secretary of State of New Dornalia – full list of recipients omitted.
Subject: Relief force for the Skyriver Galaxy
Security: OTP direct links

Dear Sirs and Madams,

As you are no doubt aware, there have recently been a number of atrocities committed by Chaos Space Marines in the distant Skyriver galaxy. As you represent the governments that are both allied to us via mutual defence treaty, and based in the Great Wheel (Milky Way) Galaxy.

Naturally, we are preparing a counter-action to respond to these, which in part consists of dispatching a relief force to the Skyriver galaxy. In order to maximise the bulk of transport of aid and troops to the front, we have determined that the most effective means of doing this is to stockpile goods and equipment on a planetoid equipped with short burn FTL drives (rated for two safe uses) that can be transited from one galaxy to the other, enfolding any ships on or near its surface within its fields.

Should it be of use to you in formulating your own counter-operations, we attach destination and current location along with travel itinerary, and have appointed a liason to your forces should you wish to join this fleet.

With thanks,

Arnran Selvaran ita Thurasid

Los Angeles

The Situation Room was likewise occupied, with the smell of warm coffee permeating the room—a given, since events were unfolding quickly and cheap coffee and pizza were quick, cheap and dirty foods were the fuel of any diplomatic/military effort. Then again, so were clean bathrooms.

The latter was where Norton Simons was at the moment. Doing his business, he felt his phone buzz, and picked it up. It was his wife and secretary, who said simply, “Nort, it’s someone with a message for you. A…..’Arnran Selvaran ita Thurasid?’” The name was pronounced with some hesitancy, as the wife didn’t quite know who this was at first.

Norton nodded and simply told his wife to, “Patch it through, dear.”

“It’s an e-mail, I’ll send it over.” A brief pause and she went, “You know, the kids are wondering where you are.”

Norton, quickly said, finishing up his business with a shrug, “Well, just tell them daddy’s off doing diplomat stuff.”

Sighing, the wife added, “I know, honey.” She then continued with a simple, “But I’m getting worried. The kids—you know, they ask questions, is all.” She added, with some sentimentality, “They miss you, y’know.”

“Well, I’d love to be there, sweetie. I really would,” Norton said, uncomfortable with the implications of the statement as he left his office. “The problem is, Mike’s got me working overtime on this, and that bitch Nadine Huntleigh-Macwhateverthefuckhernameis is trying to assert herself for some Goddamn reason. I mean, she humiliated Mike in front of the Russians and then just took over. I gotta be here, dear—I’m the chief diplomat here, and I gotta make sure our foreign policy isn’t hijacked by some runt from intelligence.”

“Honey….” The voice replied, annoyed and irritated.

“What?”

The wife continued, polite but concerned, “You’re letting her get to you again. You know what we discussed. You know Nadine has her way of doing things—bold, energetic, interventionist--and you’ve got yours—calmer, slower, whatnot. Why should it bother you? Besides, you’re on the same team.”

Running out of good things to say as he spotted Nadine talking to Bill Colby outside the Situation Room, Nort could only say, “You’d be surprised, honey. You’d be surprised.”

“I’m not, but thanks for the sentiment. Look, just remember you’re on the same team as her, okay? You don’t have to be her friend, just…work with her. Okay?”

“Sure. Anyway, tell the kids I love them. Bye.”

Hanging up, he checked the message from the C’tan, and as he read it over. He knew Huntleigh-MacIntyre had to be kept out of the loop on this one. It was bad enough Nadine had intervened and usurped the President’s authority right in front of him. Now, he had a feeling that Nadine would try and somehow muck this up too. He had to act.

Looking behind him, Norton saw Nadine coming, and he decided to distract her. Walking up to the soda machine, he bought a Powerthirst Energy Drink from it and then popped the top open. Sipping on it as he caught up with Nadine, Norton gave her an acknowledging nod, and Nadine issued a polite “Nort” as she walked past.

At this, Norton’s left foot was brought down upon his right foot in an unusually clumsy manner, causing himself to fall over and spill the drink. Actually, that wasn’t all that happened. Norton also witnessed the drink fly out of his hand and hit Nadine in the head, causing her to stagger backwards.

The result was that Nadine was covered with sugary energy drink, and nursing a headache. Nadine then, rubbing her temples, glared at Norton. She stood there, livid with rage for several minutes, as Norton quickly attempted to apologize. But the deed had been done; Nadine stormed off into the women’s room and slammed the door tight. A loud string of Japanese expletives could be heard, as Norton walked into the Situation Room uninterrupted. Presenting the message to all present, Norton nodded, glad he had gotten to Wachowski and Haggar first.

Wachowski must have felt something was up, for she asked the Secretary of State, “Where’s Director Huntleigh-MacIntyre?”

“Accidental soda spill,” Norton said nonchalantly, adding “You know COredians. Clumsy fuckers. Anyway, what do you think? Should we take the opportunity?”

Wachowski paused, and then added, “We have access to the Infinity Gate system. I am not sure if this is truly necessary?”

“And I’m sure it is.” Norton looked at the Supreme Commander and sighed. “We have outstanding treaty obligations to aid the Greater Prussian Empire. Now, the C’tan are not members of that alliance, but Alexander motherfucking Kazansky is. Hell, he even met Mike over here to sign the agreement. If you ask me, we’re pretty much obligated. Besides, the Dornalian government needs to show that it is serious about stopping the Ruinous Powers--”

“Which we could easily do by sending troops through the Infinity Gate to Alderaan, we don’t need to use something as untested or unproven as this conveyance they propose to use.” Wachowski cut off the Secretary of State and then continued onwards. “Defense Intelligence suggests their technology is potent yes, and I am familiar with civilizations whose achievements meet the criteria for Clarke’s Third Law. However, my familiarity with such groups suggests caution is prudent. I do not wish for Dornalian Marines to be sucked into another bizarre situation. Not like the last time we encountered the Gaians. Besides, where does this man propose to send our forces?”

“Bullshit,” Norton went, calmly but with nerves clearly frazzled by the long duration spent inside the Situation Room. “The C’tani are nothing like the Gaians, first of all. Second of all, I dunno about you, but I looked at the rest of this message before making a judgment. There are coordinates attached. These guys disclosed to us where the hell they’re going, so we should take the opportunity and go. Besides, we need to rush reinforcements to the SWG sharpish. You want to wait for five fucking hours while we play word games with the Tzarina? Or do you want to do something?”

“Doing something does not imply rash action, and I am beginning to tire of your tone, Secretary Simons!” Wachowski snapped. The pause and temple rub suggested she snapped out of exhaustion also, but there was also genuine concern about just how effective things would be. Haggar, at this moment, stepped in and asked Simons, “Show me the message and the telemetry.”

Passing the message to Haggar, the President nodded and then handed it back. “Good. Nort, I knew you wouldn’t give me a bum steer. It’s legitimate, and I know bullshit when I see it and this ain’t it.” Turning to Wachowski, Haggar declared, “Okay, here’s how we do this. We split the middle. We send a force through the C’tani conveyor. We send another force to relieve Alderaan using the Infinity Gate. I’ll leave the details to you and your staff. But get it done. Understood?”

Wachowski shrugged, not willing to get into a shouting match and then got up and left the room, merely nodding and declaring, “Yes sir.”

Walking outside, Wachowski walked to the bathroom, hoping to get some air. As she walked past, she saw Nadine Huntleigh putting on a suit coat, mumbling to herself about “ingrates” and “this is a fine, sugary mess!” Wachowski approached the young lady, who merely said, “Give me a minute.” Fixing her coat, Nadine looked up.

“Supreme Commander? How’s things?”

Wachowski looked about and said simply, “I’ve got some news. The President wants me to send two forces out. One is a relief expedition to Alderaan. The other is a force which will join the C’tani in their intervention in the SWG. I am to go to my staff, and draw up contingency plans as if I were God creating the Earth.” Pausing, she then asked, “How did you get soda on yourself?”

“That clumsy oaf Simons tripped on me and spilled it on me. He also let the can fly out of his hand and onto my head. I’ve got a nasty headache, which isn’t helping my sleep deprivation.” Nadine’s words came out like acid, and Wachowski decided to stop asking. She merely said, “Well, anyway those were my plans.”

Nadine nodded, brushing her hair.

“Anything I can do to help?”

Wachowski nodded. Although part of her was cautioning her to not make Simons’s petty game and his high-handed behavior in the Situation Room a personal matter and to be a better person, something within her wondered if he perhaps needed to be reminded to whom he was preaching to about strategy. Besides, he did negligently injure a co-worker just to ram through a plan. That buddy-fucking behavior broke the Bro Code in more ways than one.

“Yes, actually. Do you have any spare Paramilitary Operations Officers?”

Nadine grinned.

“I’ll see what I can do. Let me contact my people. You make your plans now.”

Nadine then walked past, making a few calls…
-----------

Later on

The two Dornie Forces would soon approach their respective destinations. Both of them were combination of the usual Navy tricks, as well as Marine and Army units.

One, to the coordinates of the C’tani planet, the other requesting SWC permission to enter the Infinity Gate to reinforce Alderaan. Mobilized in quick time and with plenty of men, no one knew for sure what would happen—but it would be quite a ride.

The Inflexible

“Spast,” Ulir said under his breath, looking at the chaos fleet spreading out, frowning beneath his beard as the chaos fleet began to spread out and initiated a burn from Deleya to Alderaan.

“Admiral?”

“They’ll not have such a shot again, and we still need to get in the fight,” he said, “give me optical of that superweapon firing.”

The holodisplay wound back and zoomed in, showing the ARC-170s’ feed of the weapon firing on the chaos fleet, destroying several closely grouped ships.

“That thing, get the analysts working on what limits its spread. Perhaps a sufficient volley of missiles into the affected area, or a minefield, could increase its utility; daisy-chain the effect from one to the next,” he said, “get me interfleet communications again,” he said, watching the battle for Delaya again. “Those fighters, whose are those?”

“Dornalian, Admiral.”

“Excellent. Try and find whoever’s in charge of them, I think I know just the job for them.”

Merrie Monarch

The sudden appearance of a transmission from one of the C’tani vessels got Captain Macquarrie’s attention away from keeping tabs on the Dornalian fighters. SMS forces were redoubling their efforts, giving chase to the enemy and intercepting them as they approached the IF forces around Alderaan. From his screen and with Gracie’s redundant help, he noticed the fighters and the Black Defiants continue to make passes at the Chaos forces, ganging up on enemy ships using their usual bags of tricks—large explosives which used tractor beams to drag enemy ships at one another, Forced Uniform Kill Colliding Projectors and so on. Generally, a lot of the same tactics they had used before, but now faster to keep up with the enemy’s pace and to rip away at his fringes with Meltabombs and so on.
Now, however, Captain Macquarrie was distracted from managing the insanity, as he picked up the “Gertrude” and spoke into it.

“This is Captain Macquarrie of the M/V Merrie Monarch, registered to the Strategic Military Services company. To whom am I speaking?”

[Thrashia]

Alderaan | Chaos Fleet


Lotara didn't have time to afford the luxury of shock. Void-war did not allow it. To even surrender an inch of her attention or brain space upon something as small and wasteful as shock could get a good captain and her ship killed. That said, the deluge of missiles that appeared seemingly from no-where caused her to pause in outright anger mixed with admiration.

Two battle barges that had been riding on her immediate port-side flank were absolutely destroyed. Shields had failed in a matter of seconds – not quite a full minute – and the exposed armored hide of the ships had then received the rest of the missile barrage. Though their hulls were well armored and thick, not even they could hold up to the kind of focused barrage of that calibre. Lotara noticed immediately that her own ship had not been the target, but rather her battle group – her escorts. One entire cruiser squadron was gone, two battle barges were destroyed, and another three battlecruisers were limping and seeping oxygen into space like a bleeding, stuck pig.

“Where the frak did that ordnance come from?” barked Lotara.

>We do not know mistress. Our cogitators are in gridlock over this particular issue. The greatest probability is that these were warp-capable missiles – or these fool's version of the warp. They appeared on our scopes at three light minutes out< one of the bridge Dark Mechanicus acolytes replied, the sound of leaking fluid coming from his vox grill.

“Well find out the point of origin,” growled Lotara. She turned to her lieutenant, “Order the remaining members of the battlegroup to move closer to us. Our overlapping shields should do to help fend off another such bombardment.” The man grunted in reply and saw to it that his mistress' orders were carried out with alacrity.

Lotara shifted her attention back to her strategic plot. The fighter swarms outside were becoming larger and more vicious. Such was the number of fighters from both sides that for nearly every two to three aimed-shots that resulted in a kill, another kill was made by colliding with an enemy ship – to explosive effect. Lotara shifted her eyes to the distance between her fleet and the planet of Alderaan.

The fleet was not only about point-8 AU away from the planet. Four hundred and frakking twenty-four light seconds. Damn their eyes. Just a little closer and Lotara would be able to execute the rest of the battle plan.

“All battlegroups to cease evasive maneuvers and enter short range combat,” ordered Lotara calmly.

Her lieutenant actually gaped at her, his cheroot stem falling to the floor. “A-Admiral?”

“We're going to grip them by the belt and knee them in the balls,” grinned Lotara. That might make them a bit more hesitant to unleash those mystery missile barrages. “I want us breathing down the frakkers throats.


Upon the given order, the entire fleet hit hard burn and practically jumped forwards. The fighter and fighter-bomber clusterfrak that was happening became a side show compared to the sights of battlecruisers suddenly closing as fast as they could and all but ramming enemy ships. The heavy macro cannon and missile tubes of all Chaos ships increased their fire, putting as much ordnance as they could into blanketing the enemy in a holocaust of fire, flame, and destruction.


If an enemy ship was between the Chaos fleet and Alderaan then it was attacked. Any enemy ships that were either wounded or bypassed earlier were ignored.


Aboard the Little Doctor

Kreator Rex used a fist formed out of smoking, hot-red gun barrels to pound the crewman into the desk. Metal always beat flesh. It reminded Rex of an old child's game that had once been played by millions upon Ancient Terra in days beyond remembrance. The flesh gave way and his fist of guns hit the metal of the floor. Blood sprayed everywhere and pieces of intestinal viscera dangled from various places where it had become snagged. Rex merely grinned and turned, his pauldron taking a few more hard round hits from the enemy's defenders. They were brave, Rex had to give them that – but brave men died as easily as cowardly men...and sometimes more easily.

The last bulkhead was blown away by a blast of white melta – the retinas of anyone foolish enough to have been trying to wait behind the door now burned out. He all but pushed through the door, like a mass of mud squelching through a man's toes.

There was the engine. A row of cogitators – or whatever they called it in this galaxy, computers? – and a few crewmen that had taken cover on the far side of the room.

Rex willed his fist into quicksilver and poured it over the computer. As physical as the act was, it was so much more as Rex's will, amplified by the warp-given gift of his Obliterator virus seeped into the ship's systems. In his mind's eye he began to see things, information, data, rolling across the mind like an internal movie. It didn't last long however.

The enemy must have either sensed his intrusion or already been planning something – as the connection to the ship's data core suddenly went dry and all but withered. It was like opening a door and staring into an empty, blackened room. His noosphere connectors saw the data leaving and going into the air, dissipating like smoke. So they have their own version of the noosphere...but I wonder if they can see it as we do? thought Rex.

Part of his hunger for knowledge fed, Rex turned and did two things. First he activated his teleport beacon, hard coded and small compared to the vast amount of data being unleashed around him. The second was to turn and blast gaping holes into the side of the ships delicate engine with a plasma cannon.

In the few seconds that it took for his teleport homer signal to be received and the enemy's engine to begin to visibly go into meltdown, Rex smiled at the last living enemy he could see.

“Fair thee well, weak little flesh!” he called cheering in his bass, gravel vox-voice.

In a flash of light, Rex disappeared from the bowls of the ship.


Delaya


Daemons were called daemons for a reason. They encapsulated all that was dark, fearful, and hated in the minds of mankind and other species. To take a daemon and combine it with what can only be considered a world-ender, was apocalyptic. A sentient plague capable of hatred and malice in all its innumerable forms. Everything it touched was consumed.

When it had first fallen to the planet it had touched upon earth, grass, and other small lifeforms. Anything touching or hit by the first impact was instantaneously destroyed – simply shifting from bright life to decaying molecules the next. Black, dark-red, mustard-brown – colors that evoked only ugliness spread across the plains like a rising tide. The daemon inside felt only a rising hunger, a hunger that could only be ever be fed but never slated.

As it neared a habitable area it sensed more life. Sentient life. At a great distance it could only kill via aerosol forms. The daemon sensed one life form that had caught it's tendril of death and was rapidly being consumed. Because it delighted in sentient death more than anything else, the daemon gave over most of its attention to spreading faster in that direction.

Like a sea tide coming in, a decaying black wave stretched over the ground towards the other beings who had some sort of filtered protection against his aerosol form. The Life Eater chuckled to itself as its spreading tide pushed down and around the sentient beings. Where it touched everything decayed. Plastic, metal, flesh, and bone. Even an environmental protection suit of the highest order would be corrupted and decayed into so much black-mud mush within tens of seconds.

The screams of Delaya's defense members filled the air and the Life Eater spread further.

Given an hour and one would be able to see a black stain spreading across the planet's surface from orbit.


Alderaan

“It seems that Chaos believes that Alderaan needs more ships to take than Bastion and Coruscant combined. These Raman make little sense.” Jamison told the representative of Bastion. “Due to our alliance of old, and our common history in the Sith Empire of old, the International Fleet requests your aid in this theater.”

Moff Alec Lycana also turned his comlink off after the message from Admiral Jamison. Lycana had already sent his message to Thrawn over a half hour before and had a small moment of vindication in having preempted the Alderaanian commander. Lycana sent a missive to Jamison, something he'd likely be told by an aide when convenient, on the likely arrival of the Thrashian Imperial Fleet group that was en route.

Lycana turned on his holonet news display and sat back down behind his desk. Even though he was several blocks from the Alderaanian palace, he could hear the shrill of sirens as more troops were being assembled or people evacuated. He watched as the newscaster was trying to scramble for more details about the conflict now happening in the Alderaan system.

[The WIck]

I heard Hera’s reply to me asking her own question. I wondered to myself if she even consciously knew that she sidestepped my own question quite ably. I believed that Hera had changed since I last seen her years ago. I had to expect that of anyone the Creator knows that I myself had. I found her on Byss though in the very midst of everything that is dark and wrong with the force. What was she doing there what was she planning?

I had no answers to the questions I asked myself. The Darkness was not more powerful than the Light but sometimes it sure seemed like it was. No it was tricksy, crafty, manipulative, subtle, corruptible...it had some of the same characteristics Hera herself used most in the craft our mentor trained her in. Could it be that while she had attempted to use the enemy to forward her own agenda it was able to exert some form of control on her? Was she still at her core the woman I loved and trusted implicitly. I had to believe she was it was a matter of faith and I could only hope that it was not misplaced. It would not be my own life that would be lost, but my family and that I would defend at all costs. Byss was a threat to my nation and by association my family as well so I ordered its destruction. Billions of lives gone. I would have to trust, in Hera.

I smiled at her, and replied to her own question,

“So asks me the Empress?” I watched her a moment. That moment dragged on into two. I wondered and I could see Hera’s eyes dart back and forth her lips moved ever slightly. It was weird but soon as it all began it was done with. If she wanted to talk about it she could Hera knew she could tell me anything and I’d be there for her.

Hera spoke to me again asking me a hard question.

Byss died and I felt nothing. No pang of guilt. No sudden urge to throw up. I had no regret. What did that say about me. One day I would be dead and I would stand before the Creator and the gods an answer for every life I took from this galaxy. I was ready.

Hera said her piece, kissed me on my cheek and wrapped her arms around me. I embraced her as well. My arms engulfed her small lithe body. She put on a good front but I knew she was a fragile as any human and I loved her for it.

“Yes I did.”
I told her.

“I love you too.”

A tear fell from my eye my throat scratched and my voice was rough.

“ I only ever wanted to give your a bit of Peace. I would burn the darkness from the galaxy to do it.”


I zipped down my skin-suit from my neck slightly. I pulled out two old dog tags which told my basic identity. It was archaic and superfluous with modern cranial ID implants but it was symbolic and the Confederation Military believed in symbols. Next to the tags was a small metal pendant. I opened it and gave it to Hera.

“Take this its yours. I want you to have so you will always remember that I am not the only one who loves you.”

I held it in my hands and opened it for her.

When Hera looked at it she would find a 2d display. In it was a tall lanky man who had my brown hair and square chin, but he had Hera’s eyes and nose. Our son Christopher he wore a warden’s grey cloak but he was a Knight-Errant living in one of the heart worlds, not on the active payroll for a couple reasons. Next to him was a woman, his wife. Claire was a nice woman, standing a bit over five and half feet. She had short red hair and green eyes that were the color of emeralds. She was taller than Hera and more shapely, my son had good taste no doubt about it. In her arms was our grandchild, Honor. A cuter baby could not be found in all the stars. She had a single tuft of red blond hair and a splattering of freckles on her cheeks. She smiled her double chin was adorable.

I closed it and let it hang off my neck.

I drew a small knife I had from a pocket and flicked it open. I ran the blade over my palm drawing a line of my blood. I put the knife on the table leaving it open. I wrapped my bloody hand around the pendent. and held it between us.

I spoke to Hera an old oath, but one of the most important.

“This is why I fight. This I will defend with my blood and my life. Will you?”

[Asfaltum]

-/-

[Thrashia]

Alderaan System | Chaos Fleet


Lotara once more gripped her command chair's arm to the point of snapping it off. The defending ships of the system were obviously well organized and had impeded her attempts to draw them into situations from which her various battlegroups could pound them from multiple vectors simultaneously. The various xenos ships in this system were, for the most part, faster than her own ships. However, her battle barges and battleships outgunned most or all of the other ships in the system – that is except for the mysterious ordnance weapon which had atomized nearly an entire battlegroup by itself. Kreator Rex had been sent to deal with that particular problem. The half-mad Obliterator had retured aboard the Incarnadine minutes before, reporting success on his mission to destroy the weapon that had so ably destroyed a battlegroup.

The timer from the cogitator machine to Lotara's right pinged. The Chaos Fleet was now exactly 191 light-seconds from the planet of Alderaan itself. Exactly where Ikthalon had requested that the Chaos Fleet reach. Lotara opened up a vox channel, scrambled to a specific frequency.

“First Acolyte Ikthalon?”

“Yes, Admiral Sarrin?”

“We've reached Destination Point Pompeii as you requested. I hope this is worth it.”

“Do not worry yourself, Admiral. Merely keep these foolish children at bay for a few moments longer and the victory will be given unto us by the Chaos Gods themselves,” the Word Bearer replied.

Lotara cringed at the sickening sycophancy tone of religion in the First Acolytes' voice.

“As you command. Lotara out.” She cut the vox channel and wondered just what exactly that Ikthalon had in mind. Well it was no use mulling over something that would be over soon enough.

“Time to really get into business,” grinned Lotara, leaning forward to stare at the holographic display. “Battle groups are to form a defensive pinion. No group within 200,000 kilometers of another! Keep your damned spacing! We don't know if there's another of those atomization beam ship-cannon out there.”


Within the bowls of the Incarnadine


Deep within the Abyss-class ship were hundreds of cargo bays, staging areas where the massed might of a legion could be gathered and prepared for war. One such bay had been chosen by Ikthalon to be his stage, a grand event that would draw the attention of no greater beings that the gods themselves. His various menials had worked for a month, using specially made obsidian athames to scratch the correct symbols and runes into the steel plating. Now everything was ready.

Eight large bonfires roared at the cardinal points of the bay, each billowing great clouds of purple-red incense. One hundred and ninety-one Word Bearers stood on the border of a circle within the eight-pointed star created by the incense bonfires. They wore ceremonial robes, the color of dun, dried blood. Many had the holy Book of Lorgar tied to their wastes. All were chanting a slow, carefully crafted dirge. The words flowed like quicksilver and crushed souls like a thunderbolt. Kneeling before each Word Bearer were captured warriors and soldiers – some had been taken from the world called Bastion, some from Coruscant, and a few from other, nondescript worlds. A couple bore uniforms of the Colonial Republic. All of them had fought bravely against the Chaos Space Marines. All of them had failed to stop the Legions.

Winding through intricate spirals of runes carved into the floor, Ikthalon stood, gripping one of the Athames, one of eight, and slid the blade across the throat of a kneeling woman. The woman had been a noble, one of aristocratic lineage from the planet of Coruscant, before being caught and imported to Ikthalon by the Alpha Legion. As the blood flowed, dripped, and cascaded down upon the floor, the runes upon the blade of the athame began to glow. Ikthalon raised the blade and made the first, precise movements in the air, cutting what seemed to be nothing but thin air before him.

“With the thirty-seven keys of Tzeentch, I open the way beyond for our brothers,” intoned the First Acolyte.

The Word Bearer who stood before the northern most incense bonfire pulled his knife across the throat of the kneeling captive in front of him. Blood gushed forwards and began to cover the floor. Three seconds later, the Word Bearer to his left did the same. The flash of a blade. More blood pooling upon the cold, steel floor. Every three heartbeats the next captive was identically killed. Identically sacrificed.

“With the thousand whispers of Slaanesh, I call all daemonic kin to hang upon my word.”

Twenty-three captives were dead. A trapezoidal shape was created by the First Acolyte, smaller runes also being etched into the air.

“With the twelve plagues of Nurgle, I infest and corrupt mine enemies.”

The count reached sixty-one. Symbols that, if written upon paper, would have burned the eyes from a sane man flew through the air. The athame grew brighter.

“With the mighty Axe of Khorne, I cut open the world for them – those who dwell beyond and within.”

The last captive's throat was slit. Blood covered the floor, circling Ikthalon like a crimson lake. The First Acolyte raised the athame into the air, it's blade flaring crimson-orange with an internal and sickening flame.

“Take now this gift and do my bidding! Unto thee is given sacrifice. Unto me is given thine power! Arqash huak nak kael!”

The last words were spoken in the most ancient of Colchisian dialects. As the last syllable filled the air like a bolter-shot, each Word Bearer standing in the circle took their sacrificial blades and plunged them down, straight through flesh, black carapace, between ribs and hardened muscle, and into the first and secondary hearts that beat within the chests. As one they twisted the blade and with their last breath exalted the name of Chaos.

Ikthalon swung the Athame down and the air split. A black more deep than a black hole appeared, a doorway of un-light. Sounds of unknown origin and frequency erupted from this mysterious portal and erupted around the chamber. With a mental command, Ikthalon bent his entire will upon the Athame and the door. If the entire ritual had been a process of preparing the doorway, then the Athame was the key. Ikthalon had been trained carefully by his master to use this particular bit of warp-craft. He would not fail now. No. Not now.

Simultaneously across the entire Chaos fleet, within the holds of battle barges and battleships, dark doorways opened before assembled masses of Chaos Space Marines, rumbling battle tanks, armored transports, hulking half-mad dreadnoughts, and teeming mobs of howling, fanatical cultists. Standing alone before an especially small warp-door was a crimson armored killer who stood a little straighter and revved the teeth of his chainaxe, the blade as hungry for blood as its wielder.

Planet Alderaan


All across the surface of Alderaan, black warp doors opened. Some were large. Large enough to allow Land Raiders to drive through, colored in various legion markings – though all sharing a similar decoration of heads on spikes and daemonic script that made any who looked upon them go quickly insane. Others were smaller, allowing squads of Chaos Space Marines to exit the same as if they were disembarking from a Rhino transport or thunderhawk gunship. These doorways opened up all across the capitol city of Alderaan. There was no real coherent placement to them, merely a chaos of sudden violence that caught any and all within the city by surprise. Targets of opportunity were taken. Enemy military personnel were targeted first, civilians and the helpless second. Random destruction was spread across those areas where no immediate military defense forces were in evidence, such as when a squad of Chaos Raptors of the Night Lords Legion exited their particular warp-door to find themselves inside of a giant residential building. The screams there only lasted for ten minutes. Word Bearers sang songs of praise to Chaos Undivided as they fired their bolters, punching through concrete and steel at hiding targets or enemy soldiers. A Land Raider drove through and collapsed a ten-story building that had once housed a nursery on the fifth floor for children and home for the elderly on the third.

Violence. Senseless and bloody. Chaos now reigned across Alderaan's capitol.

[Balrogga]

T-Space
Alderaan System




The Bloodline remained stationary, not even drifting a fraction of an inch while the battle raged nearby. The ship simply waited as if it was not part of the universe and thus in turn unconcerned by anything happening within it. Aboard the strange vessel, appearing to be more of an art sculpture than an actual space going vessel, the crew waited for an indication from the invaders on what they should do next.

Korla, what was that?

I am not sure Captain. Sensors indicate multiple breaches across the planet. I did not detect a power source from the alien ships so I am unsure of the origin of the transference but I did register breaches opening in the vessels and on the planet. No idea where it was controlled from.

That is because it was Sorcery. Get their attention and ping them one with or sensors. Don’t use full power, just enough to cook the paint on their ship. Then open me a channel to the fleet.

I understand what you are doing.

The sound of Korla chuckling across the Link was accompanies by something everyone in the system would suddenly notice. A powerful pulse was emitted from the tiny 60 meter vessel that flared in every sensor in range. The energy from the “ping” seemed to have a physical force behind it and in the close proximity the Chaos fleet was, it did have a physical reaction. The hulls of the ships facing the frigate actually heated up momentarily and the closest ships might have had some paint scored and bubbled under the barrage. The echo of the energy surge would possibly echo through the ship as if they were a giant bell struck once by a mighty hammer. Of course this would depend upon the tensile strength of the material and the configuration of the metal but there might be places where the fading echo of a bell would be reminiscent.

A transmission followed the sensor ping. It was a standard vid channel with Captain T’Niehl calmly facing the camera. He appeared to be a nondescript looking human, easily able to blend into any crown if he wished. The hard look of his continence betrayed him. It was easy to see he was used to giving orders and they were to be followed. When he spoke, the voice was rich and full, each word enounced exactly so there was no mistake of the meaning behind them. In the background, distance noises were barely heard which sounded like the activity aboard another vessel.

“Greetings, I am please I have finally gotten your attention. You see, we have a Consulate on the surface of that planet and your actions are endangering it. This transmission is to get something done about it.”

“You have two options as far as I can see. The first is you pull all your forces off the planet and stop this nonsense. “

“The second is we do the removing for you.”

Captain T’Niehl reclined a couple inches and crossed his hands on his lap below the edge of the screen and paused for a second or two.

“Now, I surmise you will choose the second option instead of exercising common sense. Most fail in making relevant choices and unfortunately even the smallest situation can lead to a rapid decline in the relative lifetime of a species. You may be wondering why you should choose the first one and withdraw without even a fight.”

“The answer is simple.”

Captain T’Niehl leaned forward a couple inches and continued without using his voice.

He spoke directly to the minds of all aboard the fleet. Anyone watching the transmission not aboard the Chaos Fleet would see him merely extending a long dramatic pause. The strength behind the Voice would stun many, even those who were Psikers themselves.

“Ask those who you supplicant yourself to who they fear. All races have their own boogeymen, even the denizens of the Warp. Ask them of the Abyssal Creepers and the Hunters in the Darkness and you will see even daemons hesitate or turn away in fear. Speak to them about the one taboo they have and they will sooner rip out your essence than admit their own fears. Ask them about the Ta’Nar, if you dare.”

Captain T’Niehl leaned back and again spoke, using his voice.

“You will do what you need to do in order to survive. Believe me, your best interest in survival is to remain out of our reach and we are one of the Galactic Lords here, so you have precious few choices available.”

“The choice is yours. Are we being invited to the Feast or are you taking the party elsewhere? You have precious few seconds to make your decision. Unfortunately I am not telling you how many you have so you better hurry.”

The transmission was cut abruptly. The Ta’Nar do not wait on hold for a lesser being to make up their mind.


(OOC: This was established as part of my background many years ago in an RP with Chron. Here is a link to the post, one I am particularly proud of. I wish I could still write like that. It was beautiful.)

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=4300780#p4300780

[Thrashia]

Outer Edge of the Alderaan System


With the elongated flash of pseudo-motion a dozen Imperial Star Destroyers came out of hyperspace. Behind and amongst them came smaller cruisers, medical frigates, and carriers. Above them all, creating a sudden eclipse of the system's star for several ships below, came the Super Star Destroyer Olympus II. TIE Fighters were deployed within moments, several flight crews managing to beat previous records of deployment. After a full five minutes, comscan finally reported back all the findings that they could 'see' in the system.

“As you predicted sir, the enemy fleet has penetrated deep into the system. We're still over half the system away,” Commander Steele said, looking over the data pad in his hand. Behind him, sitting comfortably in his command chair, Grand Admiral Thrawn nodded and steepled his hands; his eyes narrowing as he watched his tactical holo screen next to him light up with incoming data.

“Yes...and it seems that they've made themselves quite a nuisance,” commented Captain Nhile, standing next to Steele.

Thrawn turned to the port side crew pit. “Comms, send a priority signal to the Ta'Nar vessel The Bloodline. They'll have more information on the current crisis. Also, send a second priority signal to the Huntarians and the International Fleet, alert them of our arrival – if they haven't noticed it already – and send my regards. Inform all three that the Thrashian fleet will move into action either in concert with any plan they may have in current motion, or we can act unilaterally.”

“Yes sir, Admiral.”

“You think the Huntarians will be willing to cooperate?” Captain Nhile asked, turning to his commander. “They and the International Fleet have not exactly been overly friendly towards us as of late.”

“They offered assistance when Bastion was attacked,” interceded Steele. “Even if it's only a diplomatic move, it still counts. Besides, we can't allow these Chaos bastards to despoil another world. The galaxy is falling apart...”

“-And we will not let it fall further,” finished Thrawn, setting his hands down and nodding at the tactical plot. “We'll make a move as necessary. At the moment, it seems that the Chaos Fleet has taken up a rather intriguing defensive posture.”

“Reminds me of those old Terran animals, hedgehogs I think they're called,” said Nhile, looking at the data.

“Yes. It's meaning to give them 360-degrees of security within a small about of space,” said Steele,” but it's strange. Why do that when in open space you can be far more maneuverable. Why back themselves into a corner?” Steele turned to Thrawn.

“Sir?”

“It does beg the question,” nodded Thrawn. “We'll see shortly if it works.”


Aboard the Chaos flagship Incarnadine


First Acolyte Ikthalon twitched noticeably at the mental intrusion. He had already spent a great deal of energy and willpower to send several chapters worth of Chaos Space Marines to the surface through warp gates. He was still actively holding a few open, which required at least a quarter of his full attention. To have this sudden stranger, this Ta'Nar, suddenly burst into his head wasn't helping much. He fell to one knee and felt a rivulet of blood running down his face from his nose. Ikthalon gritted his mouth and slapped the voxlink on his gorget.

“Admiral Sarrin!”

“Acolyte? Do you have an explanation for this damned mind-invader? I've lost two crewmen to embolisms already.”

A shadow passed over Ikthalon's mind. A tide of unseen blood seemed to wash over the edge of space, covering the fleet. A momentary pressure was lifted from Ikthalon's mind. The Word Bearer smiled.

“It is being dealt with, Admiral Sarrin. Continue with your defense of the fleet.”


-*-*-*-

As Captain T'Niehl finished his transmission, both verbally and mentally, another voice spoke back.

”To think that the scraps from the Blood God's table, thought left and fallen, would still remain in this far galaxy. Truly, it beggars disbelief.”

The image of a horrid face, shaped in a way that would remind others of a beast, a wolf and bull mixed together with the sharpest of fangs, some a few meters in length, and great black wings.

”Know this, though 'Creeper' of Shadows, self-anointed 'Hunter,' that the power of the gods now walks mightily in this universe as it never has before. What pale shadows of daemons you and your kind might have entreated with before are nothing unto I or my master, Khorne. True, you may perhaps have once had a power over daemon kin, but time, as my Tzeentchian brothers are often wont to say, changes all things.

“Heed thee now unto mine words! Heed Irshardyr, Greater Daemon of Khorne, his Warden of Skulls, Deliverer of Souls! Thou time is past. The time of the True Gods is at hand! Fight as thou must, but do not believe the contest the same as has gone forth before. I tell thee that blood shall rain down from the sky upon crimson comets and the toll of skulls shall be paid in full!

A deep, hate-filled laughter filled the mind of Captain Ti'Niehl and then receded. As the Ta'Nar captain had thus ended his own transmission, so too did the daemon cease his sending.

[Balrogga]

“Typical demon-spawn,” thought T’Niehl, “they trick meatbags to worship them and not long afterwards a god complex follows and they think they are immortal.” With a mental sigh, he reached through the Link to his chain of command and passed the memories forward. With the speed of thought, the message was delivered throughout the entirety of the Ta’Nar.



Unknown Regions
Ta’Nar Space



Nhur-Galladu was examining the reports of the fleets out scanning local stars for the next destination of The Fist. Several were likely candidates for the mining operation and three were sputtering red giants nearly at the end of their cycle. A couple neutron stars were within range but it was easier to strip the material they desired from the core of the red giants. Setting aside the reports, the Warlord caught himself shaking his head at the bravado of Irshardyr. It was to be expected but one still would figure being of Entropy would actually change over time instead of being exactly the same, a living stereotype of backwards evolution gone wrong and stuck in the shallow end of the gene puddle. For all their bragging, they are actually less than the humans they feed upon for at least humans can change and evolve over time if given the right incentives.

Nhur-Galladu rose and walked while he thought. He soon found himself in front of the massive viewport overlooking one of the upper arms of The Fist. The fortress was the mobile throneworld of the Ta’Nar and one of the three most powerful vessels in the known multiverse, alongside The Heart and The Bal-Rogga itself. Deciding against bringing too much power into play, Nhur-Galladu decided to keep the fortress where she was unless it was absolutely needed.

Overmind, prepare and divert several prison barges to Alderaan. Reconfigure them to serve as refugee vessels. Bring in Incarnations too; we shall see if your design is useful in this fight.

At once Grandfather. I have a dozen Interrogators calling for wormholes and a couple Incarnations too. I will bring in more Interrogators as soon as I can assemble them from other vessels. I am making the changes you wanted on the first ones. What support vessels do you want to send?

Bring in the rest of the Sigma Battlegroup to back up the evacuation and to fight the chaos troops. They have clearance to use their full arsenal.

Right away Grandfather.

The presence of Overmind faded from his thoughts as the construct left to carry out his orders. One of these days he will have to talk to Ga’Ton about the Grandfather title Overmind used, although he did find it pleasing at times to be called it. Reaching through the Link, Nhur-Galladu contacted three of his Advisors.

Morganna, Galvenor, and Milamber, I want you to send Avatars to the Consulate on Alderaan to defend it against Entropy. Help facilitate evacuation and slay any Chaos that gets in the way. Use as much of your Presence as you deem necessary, just keep part of yourself offworld so you can disengage if you need to.

Everyone, take off the kid gloves. Do whatever it takes.


Real Space
Alderaan System


Three streaks of white light sped through interstellar space at the speed of thought. Within moments, they reached the planet and entered the atmosphere before anyone even registered their presence seemingly ignoring the planetary shields as if they did not exist. Most thought they were a glare of some explosion or even a glint of sunlight off space debris. The streaks passed through the atmosphere without leaving a trace and entered the Ta’Nar Consulate on the planet’s surface. The phenomena coalesced into three beings standing on the grounds outside the main entrance of the residence proper. Looking around the large walled courtyard and the closed gates at the edge of the property, they could see the black metal was untouched by the outside violence. Perhaps the invaders did not know the location of the plantation yet, soon the arrival of the Interrogators would make it simple to locate the compound.

Shipmind, what are the conditions of the Consulate

Advisor Milamber, the outer defenses are intact, the closest incursion is still a few miles away.

Just call us by our names; it will make things easier and quicker.

Of course, Galvenor.

Are defenses prepared?

Yes Milamber. Particle weaponry has been generated and powered as soon as they struck orbit. I was not cleared for anything more extensive due to native population. Instead of overpowering, I added more placements.

We have ten minutes to clear a landing spot for the first Interrogator to land. We will make this our initial base of operations and then spread out and establish two additional points near the heaviest population centers. Get us the data of safe places to establish local beachheads to save the most civilians. Prepare to open a comm channel to the planetary emergency system to announce where the evacuation centers will be.

Milamber will hold the Consulate, Galvenor and I will cover the secondary locations. One last Order. If the Consulate falls you are cleared to initiate complete Infection of the planet. Do you understand?

M-M-Morganna? Are you sure?

Yes, it is the Order of the Warlord.

It is that bad? Shit, and I thought this would be an easy posting.

A short time later, the emergency broadcast services across Alderaan crackled and directions for refugees to proceed to three locations for evacuation by Ta’Nar vessels began to repeat endlessly.

[New Dornalia]

OOC: The following scene came about after long nights of contemplating the subject matter, listening to 70s themes and trying to figure out how to write a monument to bad taste and stylized violence. Some liberties were taken. For that, I apologize. OG has blessed this post; as the owner of the system, he authorized me to go nuts. He also authorized me to RP Rick and the Dark Troopers.

Lots of film references went into this post, many of them from movies of questionable artistic merit. Huntaer, Balrogga, OG, Riemaia, and others whom I cannot remember from within and without the SWG vetted elements of this post; I thank you all.

IC:

I believe…that whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you…stranger

Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

The Dornalians of course, were prepared for the audacious mass teleport by the Chaos Marines. After all, it was what they had been expecting for some time, given the tempo of combat. However, when they suddenly warped down, no one was bothering to mark the exact time when the Chaos Marines showed up for their usual mix of drunken pub crawl, Alex DeLarge-style drunken raping and indiscriminate violence, and ritual killing that would make both the Aztecs blush. Still, the Dornies—both HCLI and Terry’s Army—would pick up their guns, crank up the music, and get busy.

But in what way? Well, I don’t have time to write every Dornalian’s fate, I’m not some revisionist historian. But I can give you a glimpse. Let’s just say it involves five women, one A-34 tank, and surprise fleet action.

****

Thrawn would have an answer to his inquiry.

Everyone—and I mean everyone--would detect a massive series of FTL signatures warping into the region. As if pulled from the nether regions of a hack scriptwriter, a complete battleforce of Dornalian vessels warped into the battlefield, courtesy of the Infinity Gate’s power to carry people to and fro, wherever and whenever, and in great numbers. As promised in the last post, a really confusing series of office politics lead to the deployment of this Naval force.

The force itself was rather substantial. At its centerpiece was one of the mightiest vessels ever fielded by the Dornalian Navy. The CRS Robert MacIntyre. Modified from a design built for the Huntarians, it was a large 17,509.7 x 10,871.4 x 8972.56 monstrosity that could carry enough firepower to level small fleets on its own. Not to give away the store, so to speak, but we’re talking at least 4,000 railcannons—500 on each arc, and 2,000 in a massive turret. I would list more, but the amounts would be a) mindbogglingly huge, and b) capable of starting stupid OOC things I’m not interested in getting into. Ask OG for details.

It was joined by multiple other heavy hitters within the Dornalian fleet. Five Mars Class Super Carriers, 10 Jeishka-class battleships, 10 Mercury-Cain Battlestars, 30 Ft. Casimir Pulaski class cruisers, and oh yes, lots of Guardian Class Destroyers—all of which were disgorged from the MacIntyre. 2,000 in fact. Cousins of the Black Defiants used by the SMS mercenaries, they traded speed and tricks for that most ancient of problem solving tools—brute force. Lest one think there was a reduction in quality due to the sheer numbers, bear in mind all of these had lovely systems such as quad linked railcannons, turreted torpedo and energy weapons, and oh yes, cloaking devices.

Not long after the DOrnalian Navy phased into the material plane, the Dornalians would signal their arrival—if the sudden presence wasn’t enough of an entrance—to all friendlies present with a sudden message from a mysterious voice coming from the MacIntyre. The voice had an unmistakable English accent, and if one was fussy enough to discern the various types of English accents, one would be able to pinpoint the accent as originating from around Barrow-in-Furness. Appropriate, since Barrow was a big shipbuilding town.

“AHEM!”

The mysterious voice soon would have a face. Video feed from the MacIntyre would reveal that the speaker was a lady with shoulder length hair topped by an unusual headdress that resembled old radar/fire control units. Further, there was a white outfit that looked like a sleeveless version of a miko’s outfit, save the presence of what looked like detached sleeves with a bit of droop in them covering the forearms. There was a knee length skirt to round it all off, and a boisterous, joyous declaration of, “Hi? Hello? Yes, hello! Brevet Admiral Gracie-MacIntyre, Republican Navy here. I see we have a bit of a pro—“

Gracie then paused for a minute, and sighed, “Right. I see we have a problem.” Snapping her fingers, Gracie casually declared, communicating with her allies on a secure frequency, “Right. First order of business. Assist with the evacuation of people below. Easily done, we’ve got Marines and Navy here to do so. We’re sending them down nowish to help pick people up. No issues there. So, um, don’t be alarmed as we go in and help out, yah?”

Pausing, Gracie looked about and let out a pleasantly surprised, “Oh my! It’s an old friend, from the Ta’Nar. Me sisters told me about ye. A lot of clever Kython business, that. It’s been a while, I think, since our—yes, I am aware of—hold on, me handlers are trying to get my attention.”

A moment later, Gracie continued with a chipper, “Right. So, if the Ta’Nar are available for a spot of tea, that would be most excellent. It’s been too long, and I’m bored with having no one to have tea with! Anyway, we’ll be doing some things involving Chaos. One second.”

Switching to the frequencies of the Chaos vessels, Gracie got a LOT angrier, her avatar staring at the Chaos forces across the screen before pulling out a 1980s boombox, and pressing play.

What came out then was nothing less than a sound clip of one of John Goodman’s finest performances.

“…son. This is what happens WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!”

With that, the comms cut out, and were replaced by AC/DC's stripped-down, guitar heavy ode to prison escapes and freedom broadcasted to all sides. And as it played at high volume, the Dornalians, having duly placed themselves well around the Chaos forces by positioning themselves all around the Chaos forces’ “hedgehog” formation thingy, began firing lots and lots of ordinance downrange at the enemy.

In particular, the MacIntyre began to put its 9,888 replicating Missile Turrets to good use, unleashing a constant stream of ordinance at the Chaos forces in concert with firing all of their railcannons at once at targets of opportunity. This was in tune with the hunter-killer packs formed by the Guardian Destroyers to screen for smaller vessels and other tricks which began throwing in their own ordinance also, weaving and ducking around the Chaos forces in concert with their HCLI black defiant cousins. Any dornalian ship with railcannons would begin firing them appropriately at targets of opportunity within the Chaos Formations.

Meanwhile, the space around Alderaan was lit up with a green colored glow, as the Jeishkas began firing their quadlinked old Dornie standbys, the Demolisher Guns and their Cutting Laser companions, at the enemy forces. The result for the uninitiated would involve hitting the Chaos force with bursts of high energy hatefulness built to shake the enemy’s armor and blow it up at the subatomic “string” level, along with continuous streams of the same, like angrier, sickly green colored phaser blasts uninhibited by Gene Roddenberry’s misguided pacifism. Multiple such beams and bursts were projected, and if and when they connected with the Chaos ships, they would rake the offending vessel with horizontal and diagonal cutting motions, meant to hack up the ship like a chef hacks up a rotisserie chicken.

Worse yet, however, were the Mars Class Super Carriers and the Ft. Casimir Pulaski class ships. These carried the lovely Forced Uniform Colliding Kill Projector weapon, essentially a bigger, upscaled version of the ones SMS had been using earlier on their raids on the Chaos Fleet. Like its Demolisher Cannon cousins, it was built to rip apart enemies at the subatomic level. But while the Demolisher Cannons used brute force to do so, the Kill Collider would use a more graceful, destructive, very random, very energetic, and very entropic energies formerly used in weapons like the Infinite Improbability Bomb projected out in the form of a “death ray” that could strike multiple targets that bunched together and course across its opponent like electricity itself to achieve a much better result in performing that same goal. If you’ve got time, dear reader, look up the Wunderwaffe from that old Call of Duty: World At War Nazi Zombies mode, you’ll see what we mean. All observers would be able to, when the Kill Projector beams connected with the Chaos forces, witness brilliant arcing and sparking effects as the Dornies pressed their advantages. Likewise, a similar weapon, distilled into torpedo form, was fired in volleys at the Chaos forces from the same ships’ “Infinite Improbability Tubes,” along with regular proton torpedoes and concussion missiles likewise.

Thrown into the mix was the sudden appearance of large waves of fighter screens, railcannon fire, and the result was the kind of asthetic explosiveness that can only result from liberal applications of brute force. There would be massive explosions everywhere, the space would light up like a Christmas tree, and all the while, the SMS crew were stunned by the fact that perhaps, the Navy was finally capable of not being slow after all. And should Chaos or other interlopers decide to fire back, well, there were a combination of anti-magic devices, energy shields, and very stout armor to ensure the Dornies wouldn't be interrupted.

As Gracie-MacIntyre’s avatar sat back and watched multiple Bayspolosions go off, she sipped her tea and contemplated how to make it better. Not the baysplosions. But the tea. It seemed a bit weak, and she turned to another crew member for how to improve the tea. Alas, he was a coffee person.

****

The Ruinous Powers didn’t particularly care for things like “treating prisoners of war with good conditions,” and that showed no blatantly than the circle in front of them. A group of Chaos Marines, lead by a Sorcerer, held a large group of captives with what looked like an altar hastily made from someone’s old armoire. Men, women, children were in the middle of this circle—all civilians or law enforcement. A Sorcerer, bearing the marks of one who pledged loyalties to Slaanesh—complete with hot pink, weird “personal” mutations that are unprintable in a family RP Setting, and Slaaneshi symbology all over his armor--stumbled out into the circle, and raised his hands to begin a ritual. Yes, war was still occurring, but the sorcerer felt the more portals to the Warp that could be opened, the faster Chaos could reign on Alderaan.

“By the—“

The Sorcerer, stopped for a minute, and dismissed the premonition as nothingness. He then continued his chant, and then paused again. One of the other Marines, a large Khornate, laughed.

“Something wrong, you old queen!?”

“It is…it is nothing, impertinent swine,” the Sorcerer went with a stern, rebuking tone. “Merely a feeling that the enemy is around. They are too far away to interrupt our works. Do not interrupt me again.”

“Whatever, butt pirate,” the Khornate said, rolling his eyes like a spoiled brat denied a shiny new Lexus, revving his chainaxe.

The Sorcerer then began calling out the chant again. However, as he did so, he felt a bottle of Corellian Whiskey slam into the back of his head with great force.

Turning around, he bellowed, “WHO DID THAT!? WHO DARES INTERRUPT THE SUPPLICATION TO SHE WHO THIRSTS!?” The Sorcerer stumbled about, and the Khornates bitterly laughed at the sight of a Slaaneshi sorcerer stumbling about in impertinent, prissy rage. As the Sorcerer began to urge the Khornates to “SHUT UP!” another bottle hit his head. This bottle was a fancy blue bottle, it's contents smelling of beer.

Everyone turned around, and saw a drunk woman, staggering forward. She was a petite young woman with the appearance and complexion of someone whose father came from Argentina, and whose mother hailed from Scotland. The thing that stood out about her, however, was a pair of ears that looked like they belonged to a Scottish Fold as opposed to say a young slightly intoxicated woman. Her tone Glaswegian in origin, mixed with copious amounts of alcohol from what looked like a bottle of Alderaanian wine in one of the magazine pouches on her chest. Her nametag read, “Emma Kerr, Security Officer” and her cap….well, it had an HCLI logo, but also a decidedly unauthorized logo on it—the symbol of the Glasgow Rangers soccer team. The woman also wore her Multicam jacket…well, like a jacket with its buttons open, revealing an image of an inflatable unicorn dropping bombs and looming ominously like Godzilla. She pointed her finger at the Sorcerer, and said, “Le=let them go, ya twat!”

The Sorcerer laughed.

“Had too much to drink, did we, kitten?”

The Sorcerer then raised his hand, and with a grin, said, in his best Vincent Price/Liberace impression, “Let me cure that hangover.”

At that, The Sorcerer projected a bolt of lightning. Emma Kerr however, stumbled to the side, missing it as she stumbled back and forth in a manner that seemed to harness entropy itself.

A few blasts of lightning later, the woman was somehow not only dodging them, but with a “RAAAAPPPP” that evidenced serious intoxication, stumbled closer to the Sorcerer with random, herky jerky movements, pulling out a pack of cigarettes at the same time and puffing on them. A few times, she fell over onto the ground either on her face or her back, only to leap back up under her own power, to the amusement of everyone else but the Sorcerer. At the last such moment, Emma Kerr pointed to the Sorcerer and said, “Yer off ye head!”

“No, you’re—“

At that point, the catgirl whipped her hands forward, forming them into the shape of fists that looked like they were holding old timey Chinese drinking saucers. As she did this, plasma flew out of her sleeves, and staggered the Sorcerer back, as the woman stumbled forward, placing herself near the hostages and making all sorts of funny kung fu noises.

Of course, the Forces of Chaos weren’t going to let this lying down. As such, several Marines raised their bolters in reply, but that movement was followed by a rapid array of shots that rang out in the distance, which took down several reacting Marines with very gory and violent headshots. The Marines began to look around, wondering what was going on.

Then, as if from thin air, two, well, what looked like stones, fell among the Marine ranks. Then, out of nowhere, two other women landed next to Emma Kerr, dramatically decloaking as they landed from what was clearly a very dramatic but cloaked long jump that involved striking poses with their rifles and assembling in a back-to-back formation. One of them, dressed in gear still left over from Coruscant with a chest rig and slacks, raised her Type 56 Kalashnikov, loaded what looked like a high-tech drum magazine and unfolded the underslung lightsaber bayonet, which ignited as it locked into place. The other woman, with her Mk 18 CQBR, held it and its underbarrel proton torpedo launcher at the ready. The Kalashnikov woman nodded to the one with the Mk 18, who began to move to untie and free the captives, as Emma Kerr said, drunkenly, “Emma Churchill and Emma Thorne. About time ye bastards showed up.”

“Can’t let you throw a wrench in everyone’s plans by yourself, now can we?” Emma Thorne said sarcastically, as she wielded her AK/Lightsaber to keep away the bad guys. “Emma C’s gonna rescue the hostages. Emma V’s providing covering fire. We draw their fire. Rick’s got us covered in case heavy armor shows up.”

“Who the fuck is Rick—“

As Emma Kerr said that part, the Marines decided to rush the women all at once, now joined by daemons summoned by a now-recovered Sorcerer. They were angry, and disunited in their reply. Some had enough tactical sense to use bolters and modern weapons. Others were angry enough to resort to melee. Either way, a blood curdling cry of “FOR CHAOOOOOS!”

This of course, prompted the women to fight back.

To begin, Emma Thorne flicked a switch on her AK, and soon, the two stones dropped earlier exploded in a shower of what looked like confetti. However, the confetti was really something else. First of all, each piece of paper had adhesive on it as well as nanotechnological “magical IFF” sensors which would essentially make it so the paper was like a supernatural smart sticky note. Two, on each piece of paper, Chinese characters were written in the proper configurations so that for one stone, the paper would contain a spell which held “those of ill mind and ill intent” in stasis, and two, another spell which would immediately act as if Napalm was just doused onto the person of “ill intent and ill mind” and lit alight “with the divine judgment of King Yama himself.” As such, the Chaos Marines and daemons found themselves unable to move, and as the papers fluttered onto them, they found themselves being set ablaze as if meltabombs and sharp objects were dropped liberally among their ranks.

This made it easier to extract the hostages, and for those Marines and daemons that didn’t get tagged with the Dornie magic, several outcomes were available.

In one outcome, Emma Thorne began tangling with several Marines and daemons at once, who tried to use everything from melee weapons to bolters on her. Moving about as if she was a figure skater on the ice and leaping as she drew their fire, Emma Thorne could be seen swinging the AK like a spear, using short but forceful thrusts and focusing on slashes and parries delivered upwards and downwards and horizontally, making sure to avoid exaggerated movements with her rifle. No need to help the Ruinous Powers cut a hole in her as it were. As she did this, Emma Thorne parried multiple strikes with the weapons (even breaking some of them), shoved the Marines and daemons about like boxes on moving day using Force Push and Force Throw (and the odd Magic Missile aimed at the ground), fired bursts of explosive ammunition against the Marines and daemons in between strikes, and even sliced the hand off of one of the Marines with a single upwards swipe targeted at the wrist, done with great force. Yes, ceramite/adamantine/plasteel composites were strong, but even “force weapons,” as the 40k people would have classed the lightsaber, could cut through it—eventually, given the right conditions.

Of course, the Mk18 woman engaged in a running gun battle as she shepherded her flock, firing bursts at the heads of the Marines and the odd proton torpedo. She moved them into the waiting arms of the Dark Troopers and also the sniper, Emma V, who would escort them to safety. Night Lord Raptors tried to dive bomb her position, but were answered with a quick eye, quicker reflexes and airburst-detonated proton torpedoes designed to make it so the Night Lords figured it wasn't worth the effort. Of course, Rick's people were also saturating the sky with anti-aircraft weapons also, and one Dornie Raptor even decided to ram a Raptor infantryman with sheer vehicular manslaughter.

Emma V., known formally as Emma Van Jarsveld, was a young woman with pointed ears, blonde hair, blue eyes and a fetishistic array of lovingly arranged weapons gear doused in Multicam patterns pulled up her arm—a large, well-maintained bolt action rifle which had a distinctive logo with three triangles on the barrel ring that Legend of Zelda fans would recognize, with a long spike bayonet that had an unusual sheen on it—the kind only mithril could grant. The nametag on her breast pocket read “Van Jarsveld,” and she wore a baseball cap with a simple HCLI patch on it. Hylians would perhaps wince at the sight of smelly elves using their gear, but Emma V. very much liked the .346 Hylian big-bore cartridge and its man-slaying capabilities.

Having emptied her magazine, Emma V. calmly pulled out a stripper clip with several silvery, unusual .346 Hylian cartridges that looked more like small missiles than actual rifle rounds, and then slammed the cartridges into the chamber and closed the chamber. Raising the rifle and squinting a bit, she aimed down the sights using no scopes, and would fire at targets of opportunity among the flock of horrors trying to kill the civilians and Emma C.—preferably, Khornates (who insisted on mixing Banzai charges with homicidal rage) and Tzeenchians (whose magic could turn humans into, say, rotten cheese with an angry askance look). With each crack of a rifle shot each Marine would be treated to what was a highly miniaturized Melta-bomb cartridge slamming into body parts such as heads the joints between the legs and groin and so on that would unleash a jet of high-energy plasma which would tear through flesh and ceramite like a hot knife through butter.

However, there was one catch. Namely, the sudden appearance of a group of Slaaneshi Daemonettes behind her, perhaps in retaliation for her attempts to actually save people with sniper shots. Emma Van Jarsveld turned around and rolled out of the way, as one of them brought down a nasty looking claw down where she had been previously. Remembering she had the bayonet, Emma Van Jarsveld thrust it forward, stabbing one of the daemonettes in the chest and pulling out the bayonet as she slammed the butt of the rifle into the daemonette behind her at full, augmented strength, knocking the foul creature back. Eager to escape the crush, Emma Van Jarsveld leapt backwards off of her perch firing a Meltashot into the group before she landed on the ground, squishing a Tzeentchian horror as she landed. Finishing it off with a stab to the head, Emma Van Jarsveld rushed to the side of Emma Kerr, who was by now surrounded by a group of dead Chaos thingies. A Khorne Berzerker tried to rush her, but she merely tossed one of the other dead Marines at the Khornate, and while he tried to shove the dead body off of him, leapt forward and struck the berserker in the eye, ripping out one of his eyes. Then, Emma followed up by tripping up the Chaos Marine and leaping back, as Emma Van Jarsveldt blew his head off with the plasma wrist trick from earlier.

Landing near her comrade, Emma Kerr said, “Thou-thought you were supposed to be runnin’ overwatch!?”

“Daemonettes, bruh.”

“Fu-fuck it. I need some booze. I ain’t done fightin’ yet!”

“Then allow me to make sure you are…”

The two Emmas looked ahead, and to Emma’s annoyance the Sorcerer reappeared. He was bathed in a miasma of pink light, cackling like Liberace gone mad and walking with his staff. He then spoke tauntingly at Emma Kerr and Emma Van Jarsveld.

“You’ve brought friends, kitten. Good. She likes it when you bring friends….more the merrier. Besides, your actions mean nothing, little kitten. Many more servants of She Who Thirsts…” The Sorcerer then gritted his teeth and uttered, with contempt, “…and all those other, less fun powers with whom She associates….have landed on this world. Your actions will have meant nothing in the end, when your soul is food for the wonders and terrors of the Warp!”

“Eat us if you can, foul beast. You’ll find us too spicy for your liking!” Emma Van Jarsveld said defiantly, preparing her bayonet for more. The Sorcerer merely laughed at the unironically corny, yet heartfelt dialogue, declaring, “Yes! YEEESS! Shout your bravado, weakling! It-- “

Emma Van Jarsveld fired off a shot while the Sorcerer was monologuing, blowing off his shoulder with the Meltashot. The Sorcerer then found Emma Kerr rushing towards him with an angry cry of “YOUR ASS IS GRASS!”

The Sorcerer then smacked Emma K. and Emma V. away with warpfire, and gritted his teeth. Smacking the shoulder pauldron, he laughed again, going, “Typical. “ He than began to walk ominously towards Emma V., seemingly focused more on a sadistic attempt to make an impression on Emma V. as the two began sparring. The Sorcerer using magic and his superpowered strength, and Emma V. with her mithril bayonet…..

As that happened, Emma K. was injured. The repeated blows and impacts were just now taking their toll, as was the little fact that she was on fire. Putting herself out, she saw one last thing she could do. Drunk as a skunk and approaching that point where most men would normally have died of alcohol poisoning, she saw the armoire. She sniffed the air. She stumbled toward it, shoving a Chaos cultist out of the way and stomping on his face before moving on. Shoving it upright, she opened the armoire. It had two bottles of Alderaanian brandy inside. She grabbed one, and downed it in several gulps. Then, she reached into her pocket. Out came a small tube marked, in English, Cantonese, and Vietnamese, “Yu Wan Mei Fine Fishpaste.” An evil glee came over her, and she cracked open the other bottle. Squeezing in the entirety of the fishpaste tube into the bottle, the bottle began to hiss and bubble evilly, and Emma K. put it into the armoire and sealed it shut. Then, she took the bottle out of the Armoire, shoved it into her mag pouch, and found her target.

The Sorcerer would then feel a large, heavy object slam into the arm holding his staff. As Emma V. ducked and rolled away, the object—the same desecrated armoire from before—exploded in a shower of wood splinters as it caught the Sorcerer by surprise. The sorcerer stumbled back, and as he turned, he saw Emma leaning backwards towards him, letting out some sort of feral battlecry as she flailed about, before twisting around and leaping at the Sorcerer’s midsection with a side kick that hit home as the Sorcerer attempted to defend himself with Warpfire, creating an iconic image of the Sorcerer being bounced back, and Emma K bouncing back also, slightly on fire.

However, that was all she needed. For that iconic image also featured a hissing smoking bottle of Alderaanian brandy slamming into the Sorcerer, tossed by Emma K. at the same time, as Emma K. was being thrown back by the magic.

The result was, quite simply, a massive explosion/fireball. Viewed from a distance, a small mushroom cloud would result, as a large gout of fire engulfed both Emma K. and the Sorcerer. The concussive wave caused Emma K. to fly back, landing on the ground. However, the damage was done. Where the Sorcerer was, there was a small crater and a barely moving Chaos Marine. Rick, who had been busy taking care of the others with extreme prejudice, walked up to the Marine, and used his Dark Trooper suit’s missiles to finish the Sorcerer off.

As Emma K. got up, she felt around, and then realized something.

She was shirtless. And by shirtless…we mean there was nothing between the open air, and her, um, yeah, you can figure it out. At least she still had pants though. Covering herself up, Rick walked over to Emma K. and went, “Well. When Emma said she had freaky friends…I didn’t think they were that freaky.”

“I’ma—I’mma…” Emma K. then turned and then collapsed onto Rick’s suit, muttering about needing a drink and the splitting migraine she was experiencing. Rick then nodded as the other Emmas walked over to them both, and went simply, “Drunk chicks are a handful, ain’t they?”

Emma Churchill simply went, “Yeah….although calling her a handful’s like calling the sky blue.”

A laugh was had by all, and then Emma C. went, “Right. This area’s been pacified,” looking at the masses of dead Marines and smears where daemons used to be. “Let’s move onto the next one.”

Emma K. then woke up, and then said simply, “Me head…”

“Yeah yeah. Come on, alky, let’s go.” Emma C. tossed her a large LMG that looked like the love child of a BAR, a HK417 and a Hollywood sci-fi movie prop designer’s fevered imagination, and Emma K. went, “Can I at least get somethin’ to wear? And a fuckin’ aspirin!?”

Emma K. then found a “Shit Happens When You Party Naked” t-shirt tossed to her, along with a spare mag pouch set with Emma K’s name on it and a roll of aspirins and some water, and as the party kept moving along, Emma K. sighed as she put on the t-shirt and readied the LMG.

“Me ‘ead….”

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


OOC: Yes, the following is a reference to American Psycho, particularly the infamous Huey Lewis scene. You have been warned.

IC:

The firey violence which seemed to consume Alderaan soon spread to near the meeting hall where the delegates were at. A squad of Chaos Marines—chapter and legion unknown—were outside, aiming to kill a lot of people who did not deserve it. One of those was Terry Tadanobu, who despite admonitions to get to safety by the management, had decided to do the complete opposite. She picked up an iPod from her pocket, a plate of chorizo, and teleported out, as if to confront the Marines with reason.

Terry stood a good distance away from the Marines, held her hand out, stops and shouted, using the Force to amplify her voice with a deafening, “HEEEEEYYYY YOU GUYS!” and also to add a degree of compelling force behind her voice. This would make the Marines stop, and focus on her.

She then held up a plate of chorizo, and shouted using the same compelling, loud voice:

"YOU GUYS HUNGRY!? HONEST QUESTION!”

Pausing for a few moments, Terry shouted, "I GOT SOMETHING HERE FOR YOU GUYS. FOOD. REAL FOOD! IT’S CALLED CHORIZO!” She then paused and then said, nodding, as she waved her hand in front of her, causing a shimmering effect to occur all around her, “I guess you guys never heard of it. Alright, its fine, I’m a big fan of chorizo myself. Chorizo is a type of sausage invented on Earth, in the Iberian Peninsula. It comes in several types. Smoked, cured, fresh and possibly cured. It’s often made from pigs, but it can be made with turkey or even other meats as well. It enjoys wide popularity in the Colonial Republic, mostly due to its long heritage, portability and its versatility as both party appetizer and integral component of a full meal.” Sheepishly, she added, “I may have mentioned cured twice." Continuing on, Terry then continued to speak on the virtues of fine gourmet charcuterie, fearlessly and oblivious to the danger Chaos Marines posed to say, anything that moved.

Cheerfully, Terry then giggled and went, "Anyway, there’s many different variations, but I’m partial to both the traditional Portuguese kind, and the Hawaiian variant which is less tangy but has more spiciness, going well with a nice breakfast. I dunno what sort of sausages you guys eat, but I think you'd appreciate this stuff.”

Terry then put the plate down and produced the iPod and speakers because reasons, along with a bottle of wine. She then continued to talk, diving, ducking and moving around gracefully to avoid being shot at, with bolter fire absorbed by her magical shield. " I find Chorizo pairs well with a nice red wine. A merlot. Red wine goes with meats after all. I also like pairing it with some good music, such as Huey Lewis and the News's 'Hip to be Square,' a seminal 80s classic that celebrates the transition of a hippie to the yuppie lifestyle of that era. Music helps make occasions like a good meal more joyous, I find, and life I think should be pleasantly enjoyed. Things also should be cute, but that’s beyond the scope of this discussion.”

Terry then picked up the plate of chorizo, ate one of the slices of sausage, and then pronounced it “Delicious!” Then, Terry vanished in a flash of light, after activating the music.

Several seconds would pass, before Terry suddenly would reappear in the thick of the group of Chaos Marines, with a flash of light and smoke and a string of explosions among the ranks of the Marines. The explosions themselves were the equivalent of say, 40mm grenades lobbed into the middle of the hordes, but with more smokiness, and in the strangest twist of all, the added strangeness of unleashing showers of hot dogs everywhere. No, not dogs on fire, because that’s just wrong. I mean actual frankfurters, the bunlength kosher beef hot dogs which one can make for special, summery occasions, lovingly toasted, flying like shrapnel across the battlefield.

Terry would now begin to move quickly and with a style and grace normally suited for figure skaters. There were somersaults. There were long, flying leaps with flying knees, Muay Thai style. There were spinkicks, reflecting Terry’s training in the use of capoeira—seems a little prissy, but when you think about it, getting kicked by a dance battler actually has the benefit of causing embarrassment, along with you know, pain. Going back to her roots, Terry had reappeared with an ignited lightsaber and began making a number of brutally efficient slicing attacks aimed at her opponents’ oversized armored arms, legs, and even vital components of the armor such as the cables connecting to the pack in the back. The slices themselves weren’t showy. Get at a Marine from a random angle. Slice horizontally or downwards or jab the spot quickly and pull out. Do so with a minimum of movement and maybe a spinning backhand enhanced with a little bit of literally explosive force delivered from the Force or a forceful shove using the Force.

Ceramite was pretty strong stuff, for those viewers not familiar with 40k armor—it’s a kind of futuristic super composite which, mated with other elements, forms the basis of why Space Marine armor is normally hard to crack. But even it falls to what the Imperium of Man dubs “power weapons.” That is, weaponry which is basically like the lightsaber Terry is swinging around right now.

She also added in a little twist to prevent the Chaos Marines from ending her little spree too early. Terry Tadanobu had acquired over the years skills involving teleportation, stealth and ninja things which were appropriate for someone who did a lot of rear-line desk work in her olden days (and which proved useful for holding her own against say, arrogant Woodian Jedi or drunken heroes who insisted on using Krav Maga). Terry would thus begin, amidst all her dancing and slicing and meat explosions, to teleport repeatedly in bold flashes of flash and fog, akin to that of a flashbang, a miniaturized EMP explosion which magically dissipated after a few feet and a smoke bomb going off at the same time. This effect would not only be generated around the site where she teleported away, but also erupt within the ranks of the Marines themselves in locations where the Ruinous Powers wished she didn’t do that, such as where Marines would be setting up heavy bolters and so on. As this occurred, Terry would begin using the Marines like Mario would use Goombas. She would teleport into the air, land on top of a Marine, and leap off of him slicing at Marines before teleporting away randomly to some other Marine’s blind spot, slicing and dicing there before teleporting again.

All the while, Terry could be seen screaming angry curses at the Marines. The HCLI and Terry’s Army personnel nearby didn’t quite understand what was being shouted, but Terry could be heard screaming random movie quotes and expletives, something like this:

"FUCK YOU FUCK FUCK YOU! TRY GETTING A FUCKING RESERVARTION AT DORSIA NOW YOU FUCKINGSTUPIDBASTARDS! STOPFUCKINGCRASHINGPARTIESTOWHICHYOUWERENOTINVITIEDD!!!!!! NOSE NUGGETS! SHOW SOME FUCKING TOLERANCE! A LAND RAIDER?! OH!! REALLY?! FOR ONE DORNIE!?!"

The show would go on as necessary, and would be used to allow the Dornies and their allies time to react and fire back at the Chaos Marines. Throughout all this,Terry would occasionally shout for the civilians to “GO! GET TO SAFETY! DON’T JUST STAND THERE MOVE!”

Naturally, she knew full well that ruckus would bring down more Chaos goons. Fine by her, better to have Chaos goons trying to get her then say, killing Jimmy and Janet because they dared to, you know, exist.

All the while, those HCLI and Terry’s Army personnel watching shrugged, and merely began the task of providing covering fire. Both for the civilians being ushered onto HCLI, Huntarian, SWC, Ta’Nar and now Dornie Marine transports, but also for the crazy lady who decided to weaponize charcuterie and Jedi teleporter skills in one bizarre combo.

***

<<“Well, damn. We’re lost!”>>

The A-34 tank was an Allanean creation, meant to supply cheap tanks that could do the job right and in short order. Terry Tadanobu’s army had bought several models, and until this point, they had mostly won victories over the snow and ice of Ilum as giant bulldozers that wouldn’t quit. War however, beckoned. Now the A-34s were being used for their real purpose. Along with some models of a new series called the “Zohan.”

General Li owned one of these tanks. It was one of the models fitted with what the boys called a “BFG9000.” A large, antimateriel plasma gun that could lay waste to large groups or heavily armored targets—provided one had the fuel to power it. Fortunately, the A-34’s reactor had enough power to keep the mighty monster going, so that was no big concern. It did however, sport a new turret built by Terry’s people to fit the thing.

What was a concern however, were the other modifications done to it.

TO begin, General Li’s A-34—with its boxy, Soviet-Brutalist exterior that gave away the fact it was a shined up, updated version of the T-34 that won the Great Patriotic War for the age of blasters and short MC lifespans—was painted a large shade of safety orange. It also displayed a prominent “01” on the front and also, ominously, displayed a flag with an unusual x-shaped design—red background, blue St. Andrew’s cross with white stars in the middle and a string of Chinese characters which formed some sort of motto. To round out the obvious reference, Li himself eschewed the uniform of the other tankers in Terry’s Army. His was a grey coat, with a short cape and a cavalryman’s hat, rounded out with a non-regulation yet well trimmed beard. He was of average height, yet seemed larger than life. He was currently operating the radio, going in accented Tidewater English, “Panther 2, this is Panther Actual. I say again, report your position. Need bearings. Over.”

Driving the A-34, meanwhile, was a scruffy looking, somewhat heavyset figure. He had a distinct five o’clock shadow, with facial features resembling that of an Albanian-American man trying to imitate a Japanese guy. He had a leather bomber jacket, a jaunty cigar in his mouth, and a general state of slovenliness that made him not that pleasant to look at. Yet the mad glint in his eye made it clear quoite simply that he did not give a fuck what you thought, he was here for the beer and funzies.

This was a problem for General Li, as his driver was clearly lost. One moment, they had been valiantly guarding a convoy of refugees fleeing the Chaos hordes into the waiting arms of SWC and Ta’Nar—and now Dornalian regular forces, much as ERIS and the rest of Terry’s Army was doing. Now, General Li, in the midst of the chaos of battle, was lost. His driver wasn’t helping either, driving about looking for targets of opportunity. And, he was getting quite annoyed, unleashing a torrent of Cantonese curses at his driver. For his part, the driver rolled his eyes and began talking back in a sort of pseudo-Japanese “doubletalk,” as in Sid Caesar’s old language mimicking trick, sipping a bottle of Coke.

“No, we ain’t lost,” replied the Driver with a smirk. “We’re close to friendly lines. We just turn left, and then we can get back on track. Relax.”

As if by will of the script, General Li not only understood all of that, but he had a ready retort to the man’s nonchalant attitude delivered in Cantonese.

<<“Well, butter my biscuits, Lt. Futaba! If I had a yuan for every Goddamn time you said that, I’d be commanding this tank for free! Now you get us back on the road or I will slap you like your daddy should’ve done years ago!”>> Facepalming, Li went with a sigh, <<“Bless his heart, that little sonovabitch is going to get us killed.”>>

Rolling his eyes, Futaba’s reply was a simple, “Yeah yeah, blow it out yer ass.”

At that point, a massive explosion was heard, followed by a crescendo of gunfire, shouts and bugle calls, and Futaba stopped the tank, braking suddenly and causing the crew to shudder. Futaba gestured for everyone to stop, and he sniffed the air, killing the engine. He closed his eyes and kept sniffing. Then, Futaba opened his eyes, gunned the engine, and drove forward at high speed into an alley, screaming “LET’S DOOOO ITTTTT!!!”

Before anyone could react, the A-34 smashed through a fence, and entered a main boulevard. There, a rolling street battle was in progress between an element of Terry’s Army—complete with magically generated explosions, blaster fire from Terry’s proprietary blasters and lightsaber bayonet dueling--and several squads of Marines backed up by Predators and support units such as Sorcerers and Obliterators. To Li’s pleasant surprise, the other elements of the formation they had been a part of—namely, two A-34s--were there, and greeted Li with a simple, “Jesus Palomino, Panther Actual! We thought we’d lost you!”

Such was the force which Futaba had used to blow through the fence that he actually rammed one of the Predators, knocking it a few feet off course.

The resulting ramming attack caused the tempo of the fighting to change rapidly as the Predator tanks immediately began to redirect their focus to the A-34. Li frowned, and then replied, “We’ll talk later, gentlemen.” He then ordered the other tanks and the other crew in his A-34, trying to remain calm as Futaba began to back the tank up rapidly, “Ladies—multiple Predators, BFG, weapons free.”

The ladies in his tank weren’t metaphorical. Instead, they were the other two crew members we forgot to cover earlier. They were a pair of wolf-eared-and-tailed Asian-Slavic twins who dressed in tanktops and Rhodesian-pattern short-shorts. Why? Because it was their job to work the BFG9000, which given the enclosed confines of a two man turret could produce a lot of warmth—even with a sophisticated liquid cooling system. They also worked in sync and like most twins, seemed to have an almost supernatural connection to one another. They also both had…ample supplies…and the only real way one could tell the other apart was that one had “birth control glasses” and one did not.

Working a well-rehearsed routine, one of them, named Vera, smacked a switch on the side of the BFG with her heel as the weapon began to hum and roar to life. She then shouted to her assistant over the throat microphone, “BFG HOT!” At that, the other one, named Alisa, looked through a monitor and spotted the tanks, shouting over a long BEEEEEEPPPPPP, “CONTACTS IDENTIFIED! RACK ‘EM AND STACK ‘EM!” as the Predators began to turn and face their new opponent.

At that, the woman grabbed the trigger, and pulled it, shouting, “ON THE WAY!”

From the outside, the A-34 and its kin unleashed massive green balls of fire that flew slowly downrange as Futaba got the tank rolling backwards, following standard procedure. However, even as it flew comparatively slowly, green lightning bolts launched from the balls, striking the Chaos Marines with every blast, setting some on fire and generally causing damage and wreaking havoc before the ball lightning slammed into the Predators, causing a massive explosion that severed the Predator in half, sending fragments everywhere and consuming a large part of the street in green fire and leaving a substantial crater in the ground.

At that, General Li decided, <<“Gentlemen, we attack! WEAPONS FREE!”>>

Futaba grinned and kicked the engine into high speed, putting the A -34s in the field between the Chaos Forces and Terry’s Army. The surviving Marines began firing back at the A-34s with grenades and rockets, which replied with blaster fire pouring out from their pintle mounted heavy blasters. Futaba, meanwhile, did what he did best. Move really fucking fast. So he sped forward at high speed, and then wrenched the levers just so, to send the tank fishtailing in a controlled drift as he shouted “YAAAAAAAAAA!” before stopping in the middle of the street as the other two pulled up alongside him to begin to sweep the boulevard.

The Terry’s Army soldiers, meanwhile, couldn’t believe it. Not the heroic rescue. But the fact the heroic rescue was being done by General Li was the strange part. They were inspired now, and began to move up to support the tanks.

Another green firey ball of death flew out and slammed into the ground in front of a retreating Predator, blowing another massive crater in the ground and silencing a Sorcerer and a squad of Rubric Marines about to consign Li’s A-34 to the Warp and causing splash damage to a Rhino APC, blowing a hole in its side with a piece of rebar.

The Terry’s Army soldiers outside—which were busy escorting civilians into cover and flying them using both Terry’s Army-owned Raptors as well as allied forces—then got to hear a what sounded like Dixie playing from speakers mounted on the outside of the tank. At that, the Dornies cheered, letting out a series of whoops and hoots and hollering.

However, Chaos wasn’t done yet. A hail of missiles caused the Terry’s Army infantry to break their advance head into cover, with one or two throwing their arms in the air to try and block the missile blasts with psychcic powers, resulting in the sound of hundreds of missiles exploding against a psychic shield before the magicians had to fall back into cover due to lascannon blasts. Then, the A-34 shuddered and was thrown to the side with a jarring “WA-THUNK!” as the crew felt the tank shudder and shake, and heard a large explosion nearby. After a few seconds, General Li looked through his periscope.

It was a Chaos Land Raider—well, one of two. One of them, the one which had rammed them, bore the markings of the Word Bearers. The other one, having taken apart one of the three A-34s, was painted in red and brass, and decorated in grisly trophies indicating its crew was Khornate, and likely had a high turnover rate due to the homicidal rage within. That Land Raider was disgorging Chaos Terminators and being engaged by Terry’s Army with missiles, blaster fire, and pretty much similar magical antics to what was occurring with people like Terry and the Four Emmas. General Li shouted, <<“Evasive Manuevers!”>> as Futaba gunned the engine and dashed forward, evading a dual lascannon blast that could have torn the A-34 apart from the A-34 next to them. The tempo of the fight had changed once more, and Li cursed himself for letting the Land Raider get close. As this happened, the Twins spun the turret around, repeated their rhymic chanting and fired the BFG again at the Land Raider, consuming it in a third massive green fireball.

All well and good. However, when the dust settled, General Li made the classic horror movie mistake o making sure the monster was dead. For the Chaos Land Raider began to sputter back to life, as an eerie, unearthly laugh began to emerge from the vehicle’s Dirge Caster, shouting, “BEWARE! I LIIIIIVVVVEEE! RUN, RUN!” Before it could finish however, the remaining surviving A-34 fired its BFG at the Land Raider, annihilating it in a shower of molten slag.

Then, the other Chaos Land Raider, which had been stymied by the infantry, then broke and turned on the A-34s.

“Panther 2-4, this is Panther 2 Actual—you’ve got a tango rushing you!”

General Li’s orders lead to the A-34s getting out of the way, as the Land Raider’s charge caused them to scatter. General Li then paused, figuring out quickly what to do next, as the Twins maneuvered the turret about to face the Land Raider. However, the Land Raider gave chase, firing a wave of Havoc Missiles and lascannon blasts at Li’s A-34. It was moving slower than usual, and it was clearly damaged by the infantry defense—but the unholy energies within kept it going. Then again, dear reader, the magic of the Warp always did have ways of granting technology a rather….sinister longevity.

The Chaos Land Raider began to move forward, and soon, lascannon shots rang out, slamming into the ground next to the A-34 as it soon began to move back. At that, Vera was told by General Li, <<“FIRE GODDAMNIT!”>>

The A-34 soon unleashed a bolt of energy in a snap shot. However, the Chaos Land Raider sped up, evading the BFG shot as it slammed into a nearby building.

Vera then looked down at the Commander, and shouted, “Gun’s over heated!” She then began working the coolant system, muttering in angry Polish, “Kurwa!” as she began working the heat sinks, trying to increase coolant flow and flushing the waste heat outwards. At that, General Li nodded, and said to Panther 2-4, “Panther 2-4, code 44, repeat, code 44.” The General and his crew looked at one another—Code 44 meant a gun overheat, and a request that any units assist in repulsing the enemy. Given that the Chaos Land Raider now redoubled its efforts to hunt General Li as the heat sinks went active, things were getting tense.

Then, Panther 2-4 rushed the Land Raider, and it began to pull back as Panther 2-4 began to move in for the kill, proclaiming over the radio, “I got this!” Heavy blaster fire began to emerge from its pintle mount, as Panther 2-4 began charging its BFG for a kill shot. The Land Raider continued undaunted and soon, as Li’s A-34 moved out of the way, the situation degenerated into that of a matador and a bull. Panther 2-4 would have fired, but the Land Raider had decided to move in close to Li’s A-34 to ensure Panther 2-4 wouldn’t fire. After all, BFGs could kill good guys as quickly as bad, and one missed shot was not going to sit well. Added to that, the Land Raider fired at Panther 2-4, causing it to attempt evasion as it moved in. Panther 2-4 let off a shot, which slammed into the left rear side of the Land Raider, causing it to buckle and shudder, and move noticeably slower—but more methodically and violently now, as it began firing lascannons and bolter shots at random as it moved towards Li’s A-34, which was busy dancing around the Land Raider.

Li was frustrated, and turned to Vera with a stern, <<“Need that BFG up and running, NOW!”>>

“I’m trying, I’m trying—the Goddamn cooling system isn’t working—“

At that, Alisa grabbed a knife, cut open a spot on the coolant line marked “Emergency Coolant Injection Site” and squeezed out the contents of a gray tube marked “Yu Wan Mei Fishpaste” inside of it, urging her sister, “USE THE MANUAL PUMP!”

At that, Vera began cranking the manual cooling pump causing the gun to flash blue and go, “Gun is Safe to Use. Please advise.”

At that, Vera looked through the gun sight, and squeezed a snap shot off, leading the Land Raider just so.

The result was that the shot connected, and as Panther 2-4 backed up, the Land Raider exploded as the shot connected with the Lascannon, causing a massive explosion on its side that ripped it open and caused it to go up in a green fireball, for good.

At that, Vera and the team leaned back, sighing a sigh of relief as they saw the Land Raider smoldering. Panther 2-4 then could be seen turning around, and unleashing its BFG shot onto another group of Chaos vehicles...

[The Ctan]

The Centrality Dungeon Ship Mother's Lament was named as a reminder of why justice was so important, but today within it there was little to be had in the way of justice, merely caution. The Lictor class vessel was sizeable and a monument to bleak penology, the shipwrights of Rendili having taken the opportunity to make this penal ship as intimidating as possible for any criminals contemplating its external hull. Black as night and slab sided, it looked like the ancient slaver-hulks of the Mandalorians in the days before Revan the Great had made their culture one of memories more than deeds, and was no more welcoming.

Deep within it, Sesh'ria languished. That was definitely the word for what she was doing. The miserable aura of the vessel gave off and the quiet buzz of the communications system that idled but was suffering enough interference to make a quiet crackle almost constantly.

The C'tani had supposedly brought order to Ryloth, but their enforcers raids had swept up hundreds on the charge of being part of cults or aiding cults and brought them up here. To Sesh'ria, who'd had nothing to do with any cults, but had been arrested anyway, it was proof that these new conquerors were only the same thing over again but with slicker marketing. Her anger, as she sat in the corner of the cell slouched back, was enough to sustain her, it made her want to punch the walls, to scream and shout, but she knew such things were pointless. She waited.

Some previous prisoner had scratched five bar gates into the wall, the vertical lines in groups of four with one across marking off the days in groups of five, hashed across the wall. She counted eighty three. Depressing, but it could be worse she supposed.

"You need to get out."

The voice came from nowhere, and Sesh'ira frowned, she knew enough to know that if she was hearing voices in her head then there were problems more than simply the door. She ignored it, but there was very little to do other than try to ignore it as it began to continue to speak.

"Look, I can tell you think that you're going mad. You're not. At least, I'm not a hallucination, you might be mad, but… you know that these ships are designed for 'force criminals' too don't you?" A pause, a long minute. "I guess you don't, maybe you do, it doesn't matter." Force criminals were well known in a galaxy where many outlying systems had fractured relations with the ancient Jedi order or their own traditions, talent came up everywhere, on Ryloth, most were approached by the sesk'nabsilai or the jedi, but there were others, of course, but there were still force criminals from time to time. "I'm three decks down, in heavy containment, but I think I can affect less secure things, promise to help me escape, and I will help you," the male voice purred.

Sesh'ira tilted her head up in thought, and a moment's thought seemed reasonable.

"What do I need to do?" she asked.

"Be ready, and follow my instructions."

She stood, and looked at the door expectantly.

"Let's see if I am going mad then," she said. The door swished open and she risked a grin, looking into the dark corridor beyond. "I don't know how, but that was great. But…" she frowned at the corridor. "Where to now?"

__ __ __

"I think young man," Dooku said, "it's time to put our skills to the test."

The elderly man seemed unperturbed that the city had gone from peace to a battle zone over the course of the last few minutes, his cloak billowed back over his arms, folding back, the pattern was of a type used by ancient warriors, to avoid impeding them in battle, and he took the curved saber from his waist, its chromed design polished and new. He pulled the trigger, and a blade of fulminating purple energies formed as the force-fields projected by the blade focussed trace gasses into a tube of narrow, confined fusion, incandescing with light derived from an imperial purple kyber crystal from the pontite stock, harvested seventy years ago in the Adegan system this blade was a superb weapon.

The weapon that Ethril carried as part of his ambassadorial regalia would be better known to the invaders from its style, though he did not draw it immediately, he altered the position of its straps changing its position from a high vertical that could be altered with a touch or a minor adjustment to allow one to sit more comfortably, to a tight horizontal. If he were to draw it, studs and channels within its songsteel alloy blade would project an aura of disruption fields around it, that rendered materials touching them as brittle, allowing it to pass through astartes battle plate and the many other forms of personal protection as though it were water. The chief innovation in the design of these power swords, inspired by the martial sword traditions of Menelmacar, in the C'tani realm was the addition of thousands of sensor-effectors, that could detect the hand of the user and power down a part of the blade where it was grasped, allowing more far complex and lethal swordplay than was possible with a conventional power sword, or even a lightsaber, while those same effectors were based on dark eldar agonizers, and could induce crippling and disabling spasms in organic victims, or major surges and shorts in electronic ones. Hyperphase swords and void blades existed too of course, but this was a mere power sword.

He went to the pistol first however, and this was a plasma pistol, more sophisticated too than anything designed by unaided humans, layers of dense material transitioning through its solid state design of living metal interspersed with a skeleton of dense ceramite alloy that served to insulate it in operation. At the touch of his hand, it moved from an inactive to an active cycle, an orb the size of a large pearl buried within the hilt generated energy, gravitic stabilizers offsetting the weight and recoil – for this was no massless projectile – of the weapon's operation.

Enough to harm a space marine, certainly, if one could hit. But then, the force was with him, or so he believed. It would remain to be seen how well it was.

He did however have one thing he could do, as he ran, taking a small earpiece, setting it behind his ear.

"Sirenna? K5? Are you getting this?" he asked.

__ __ __

"Set S-Foils to cruise configuration," Group Captain Mal’tequa said, "Cut engines, activate slave circuits and check off."

"Recon Two, Check."

"Recon Three, Check."

"Recon Nine, Check."

The list went on as they cruised toward the heavy block shape of the Escort Carrier Rultta the Liberator. The ships landed, taxing across the deck and were moved aside. Mal'tequa popped the hatch, and removed his helmet, glad for a breath of fresh air, looking at the deck crew. "Well, what's with it?" he asked, "Are we getting refuelled or what?"

A crew chief in light grey overalls with a black cap atop, with a toolbelt slung low about the waist saluted. "No sir! You're to report to the deck officer."

"What?" Mal'tequa said.

"Recon squadron's been ordered to get geared up for heavy battle duty. Everyone into TIEs," he said, "Your own is ready in the racks, this way."

The group captain sighed, "Oh spast, I've heard of no plan surviving contact with the enemy, but this is ridiculous."

"Admiral," he said, grabbing a commlink from his belt, holding his head under his armpit as he marched across the deck, "R3, come with me," he said, and the astro droid ejected, even if they didn't fit in a TIE, he had work for them. "Get me the admiral," he growled back into the commlink.

"Bantak, what is it captain?" the Admiral's voice came back.

"What's going on, why haven't I been briefed? I thought we were to refuel and perform another reconnisance run."

"Negative, that lunatic Thrawn just turned up and waltzed in, your sensor packages picked it up before you jumped to hyperspace. If they accept his help, we join the battle as soon as it is joined, and if they fire on him or upbraid him further, then they are arrogant beyond help and we shall return to our fallback positions."

__ __ __

Sirenna Halcyon Alee ran to the Flutterplume's command deck, pressing a button to bring up an image of Ethril in blue, lined with static. "What's going on?" she asked.

"They've made landfall, we can hear them from our position."

"Impossible," she said, turning to check the sensors. "Planetary shields are up."

"They've made landfall somehow. I don't know how. Perhaps they've managed to," an old man that Sirenna had not seen before, carrying a lightsaber, "teleport through the shield, or worse…" Ethril continued.

"The enemy will be coming through these buildings soon enough," the aristocratic man said, with an archetypal core accent. Sirenna wondered if he was a jedi. "if they breach the first line of defences. Here is where we can best aid the defence," he added.

Sirenna turned and looked at the scanners. "There's a huge fleet in orbit Eth. If they drop those shields, we're done for."

The C'tani frowned, "You want to get in the air as soon as possible, or as much as the local air traffic control will let you, and modify your shields to resist micro-organisms…" he said. "Oh, and lock onto my location, K5, if you can, we might need pickup, assuming that there's anything left to actually… pick up."

[Balrogga]

Real Space
Alderaan System



During the last ten minutes, the Consulate had changed drastically. The walls seemingly expanded and grew both thicker and taller. Spines jutted out of the surface and seemed to wave gently in the wind. Atop the spiked structure numerous placements bristled with weaponry, some familiar but most completely alien. The black metal seemingly absorbed the bright sunlight so the exact details of the surface structure were slightly obscured, as well as a perimeter around the defensive emplacement. The ground itself was black, including grass and stones as if the shadow of the Consulate was infecting the very world itself. Inside the courtyard, the ground was replaced with a familiar black material and there was a huge open area as well as some sort of new structure rising out of the newly generated courtyard which appeared to be some sort of docking tower. The actual Consulate itself also had undergone a similar change, downward pointing spines and weapon placements adorned the surfaces making it plain to the enemy they were welcome to attack but it would hurt if they did, a lot.

Milamber, I have finished setting up the defensive measures you requested.

Excellent, prepare to begin receiving refugees. We will stage them within the courtyard until transport arrives. Place Kythons atop the walls and flying patrols. Also have several in the yard to keep the refugees in line but do not hurt any if possible.

Will that not terrify the refugees?

Yes, it will keep them under control until we get them aboard but most importantly, it will show them we are not playing around and are serious about defending them.

Overmind has contacted me, shipfall is imminent.

This should be entertaining; too bad I will not be present aboard any of the other ships to see the reactions of our allies.

What do you mean Milamber?

As if to answer the question, the sky above suddenly turned purple and fell unto complete darkness. The ebon shadow collapsed within upon itself and a low roar was heard which increased until the ground began to tremble within a couple moments. A second later all the sound stopped as well as the trembling as the wormhole stabilized and expanded to allow the passage of an immense vessel. Atmospheric wormholes were outlawed because they bleed off the atmosphere while open, exchanging vacant space for the air of a planet and generally fucks up a planet big time. Well, normal wormholes did that, not the ones perfected by the Ta’Nar. The ability to use the wormholes to bypass the planetary shields meant their refugee transports would be able to enter and leave without endangering the rest of the planet by preventing the need to drop them to allow passage. How the Ta’Nar did this, nobody knew but there were rumors of them using this in the past on multiple occasions.

The massive ship hovered silently, the engines making absolutely no noise since the gravimetric drives did not require thrust, only absolute placement controlled by their Shipminds. The vessel moved to the docking structure and the metals merged into a continuous structure. Childer emerged from the structure and began to move to the entrance to help process the refugees and to detect Chaos Taint and prevent any disasters of bringing along any Infected. If they could not drive out the Tainted, Milamber would be their backup.

The same process was mirrored outside the two largest population centers on the planet. The dispatch of Kythons to set up the initial refugee centers and form the defensive structures swarmed around Galvenor and Morganna where they waited. As the Kythons conducted their construction, the other two vessels lowered and extended their own docking systems and dispatched several Childer to man the positions in the same way as in the Consulate. Swarms of Kythons patrolled both the sky and ground outside the defensive positions while the three Ta’Nar awaited both the refugees and the enemy to show up. A continuous broadcast was sent, informing those who could escape to show up at the three centers.

[Thrashia]

OOC Note: This has already been worked out with OG. Thul's death was pre-planned and approved. Just in case anyone wasn't aware of that fact.

Alderaan | Secured Bunker

It was only natural that during a crises such as this that the elite of the Starways Congress would retreat to a strong, protected local. It was simply human nature. Human nature to hide and fear what it knew, instinctively, that it should fear. Creatures, things, immaterial skeins of nothingness – Neverborn – strode through the crust of the world, feeding upon the emotions that were raised, rising. Like a bouquet of fresh cut flowers, they breathed deep upon the fear, anger, terror, hope, and raw emotion. It could be said, in a ecumenical way, that such was the food upon which the Neverborn relied to exist. A soul could be tracked, sniffed out, and even touched. The stronger the soul, the stronger the pulse – like a beacon of light in a darkened room. The stronger the draw that would lead daemons to their intended fare.

The portal led directly to the one soul that was desired above all others on this pathetic planet. Inside a shielded, protected bunker where they thought themselves most safe – that is where Prince Thul resided. The portal itself slid across the surface of the wall like dripping, expanding black paint. The moment it grew to the size of a man, every human in the room would feel the hair on the back of their necks rise, their hackles rise, and their blood run cold.

Whether it was by some dint of the warp itself twisting the air, or whether it was simply another way of humanity's nature expressing itself in new ways, the members of Prince Thul's court and the Prince himself smelt the enemy before they heard or saw them. In a manner that could not be adequately described by any sane physics or law of the universe, the sheer stench of a bloody abattoir filled the room. One of the prince's aides threw up instantly, gushing out the contents of his lunch and causing another aide to curse at him for ruining his precious boots.

Then Prince Thul himself turned, an angry expression on his face. “What is that horrid sten-.” The words died in his throat as he saw and then heard the giant figure that stepped through the portal.

An engine-esque roar filled the chamber. Deep and throaty like the purring hiss of a great, evil wyrm of myth. The figure, armored in gold and red ceramite, hefted a great axe with blindingly fast mica-dragon blades running along its length where the blade should be. It was a chainaxe once wielded by a demi-god. Now it was in the hands of a Betrayer.

In the first four microseconds, the plasma pistol in the figure's other hand rose and put a blinding, blue-white gaping hole into the head of the Dark Trooper Mk. II that was standing sentinel beside the wall, watching over Prince Thul and his attendants. Within his battle helm, Kharn's interface calculated what remained. Five more...

The Dark Troopers did not remain motionless forever. Kharn saw it on his inner clock. Seven microseconds. Not bad at all for mechanical toys.

There were now two Dark Troopers to Kharn's left and three to his right. The room itself was surrounded by cogitators and relay stations, holographic displays were showing the events unfolding outside the bunker and off planet, in space. The mechanical guardians had been left on the edges, out of the way. Kharn immediately dived towards the majority on his right. His movements were faster. A Dark Trooper had brought his heavy blaster up and aiming. The mica-dragon teeth of Gorechild rose and cut through the barrel and workings of the weapon, taking away the hands of the mechanical at the wrist with it.

With the grace of a dancer, Kharn pirouetted on his heel and put the damaged mechanical between himself and the other two. A blaster shot hit the wall behind him – the other two Dark Troopers were moving forwards to engage. Faster... The plasma pistol swept up and another ball of plasma disemboweled the already damaged Dark Trooper. The confines of the room and importance of those in it kept the Dark Troopers from using their shoulder-mounted rockets; a small relief for Kharn.

The next Dark Trooper brought his heavy blaster down like a cudgel, it's combat programming apparently telling it that it didn't have time to fire it's weapon and instead to take advantage of the close combat nature it found itself in. The blow landed on Kharn's shoulder and the chains he kept on his torso and left arm were pulled. Kharn grinned and spun the chain around the gun and then wrenched in the same direction as the mechanical trooper was now balanced, effectively taking him further past where its internal balance system would have liked. It wasn't for nothing however, as several blaster bolts from the other Dark Troopers coming closer hit their comrade in place of Kharn, tearing through its plasteel armour just like they would any target.

Kharn unspooled his chain length slightly and brought Gorechild in an upswing, arcing across and cutting through the waist, gun, limbs, torso, and neck of the third Dark Trooper he'd been gunning for since the beginning.

Clock. Forty-nine seconds...

The remaining two Dark Troopers halted their advance and leveled their blaster rifles. Analysis of combat style and AI programming meant that they now realized that they needed to engage at range. Gorechild flew through the air like a meteor. It sliced and crashed into the chest of the leftmost Dark Trooper, knocking the mechanical trooper back several feet to slam against the wall and crash to the floor, broken.

The last Dark Trooper unleashed a deluge of firepower. Three bolts hit Kharn, one deflecting off his helm, another burning through his the bicep of his left arm, and the last against his chest plate. The pain was excruciating. But it was nothing compared to the time when Angron had broken his body or when he'd been left for dead upon the plains of Istvaan III when he'd been impaled through the chest by the dozer blade of a rhino transport. Painful, yes. Anger bubbled and flooded, fueling Kharn like oxygen does the human lungs. His plasma pistol was left forgotten, re-holstered in one smooth movement as he charged forwards. The blaster was knocked aside and both of his mighty hands clamped against the Dark Troopers head. Metal fists gripped against his arms, then several punches began to hit his helmt, knocking him about slightly and putting a dent in the ceramite.

Kharn roared and squeezed. The might of an Adeptus Astartes is incredible. Kharn's was even greater. An outside observer might have compared it to when children would crush cans of soda. The armored head of the Dark Trooper caved in and its system died.

One minute and seventeen seconds...you're getting old.

Those of Prince Thul's entourage that had courage had drawn weapons. Others had soiled themselves and cowered in terror. Thul himself, at least, stood resolute. A flashing light was now blinking on the console next to where he stood. He'd obviously called for extra aid.

Kharn drew his pistol and shot the controls of the door on the far wall. It would slow any aid that might be forthcoming. Ignoring the hanger-ons for the time being, Kharn stepped over and recovered Gorechild. He reattached it to the chain around his wrist. He never felt comfortable with it removed for very long.

“I defy you!” announced Thul.

“Yes,” nodded Kharn, stepping forward.

“My forces will drive you from this planet!” said Thul, his voice slightly faultering at how calm Kharn sounded. The deep voice that echoed out from the vox grill of his helmet seemed at odds with his actions, calm like the smooth surface of undisturbed water.

“And it will avail you nothing.” Kharn put his pistol away and deactivated the internal power of Gorechild. These pathetic excuses for humanity didn't deserve to die to its bladed teeth. Instead Kharn simply used it as a club, braining the various attendees and aides to death. One tried to run, but Kharn grabbed him by the neck and crushed it with a snap.

Thul was the last, standing where he had been since the beginning. Fear was in his eyes, but also defiant still. This is good. This is how a man should face his end.

“I salute you for your courage, human. I see your fear, but you have not soiled either your honor or your clothes with it. That is good.”

“Oh yes...very good!” cried out another voice, this one far more sensual than any other that Thul had ever heard before.

Another figure stepped out of the portal. Kharn scoffed at the thing that approached and stepped past to return through the portal. “He is yours, daemon. The sacrifice given by mortal hands. Do what must be done.” Kharn left and the portal closed behind him.

The daemon that approached Thul was taller than Kharn, a full eight feet tall. He had goat legs with great hooves, a sculpted stomach of hardened muscle, one pec and one breast, and four arms – one of which ended in a claw. The face was something truly horrific, as the neck was two feet in length and hung down, so that it seemed to lower itself to whomever it spoke too. The face was round and flat. A gaping mouth with jagged teeth and a long, serpent tongue grinned at Thul. Eyes, deep, black pools of nothing sat large in the top of the face; there was no nose, simply two slits where one should be. Thul smelled it, like a dank perfume, as it stepped up to him and embraced him. It's skin kept changing color, like a kaleidascope; first black, then red, then blue, then purple, then white, then green...always changing.

“What...are you?”

“I am N'Kari, servant of Slaaneth! The Prince of Kings! The Lover! The Most Exquisite! How blessed are thee to enter into Her embrace! He will love you as you have never been cherished!” N'Kari replied.

Without knowing why he did it, Thul laid down upon the floor. He was compelled beyond his reasoning. N'Kari waltzed around him, using its claw to tear apart the body parts of his former courtiers. The Keeper of Secrets used those body limbs like an artist would paint brushes. The blood was still fresh and the floor was a fine canvas. Symbols that could not be spoken by any human mouth or tongue were drawn, their mere presence in the material world causing the floor beneath them to turn black, as if scorched by fire.

N'Kari danced around Thul, writhing and twisting to a melody that began to rise from the creature's own mouth. Thul's ear drums burst and blood spilled from his eyes and nose. The ceremony was begun. The noise of someone trying to enter the room faltered. The very essence of the warp was now making itself known in this place and it acted as a repulse to anything that would enter or disturb.

In the city outside a dark cloud would cover the sky directly above the compound. It would spread for kilometers, without warning and in moments. Those Chaos Space Marines still battling in the streets howled with joy at its coming and fought on all the harder.

N'Kari stepped before the body of Thul and brought forth a dagger of darkened dagger, an anathame, made from a material no longer in existence. With an ululating cry of ecstacy, N'Kari brought the anathame plunging down and through Thul's heart. Thul's very soul screamed. It's corporeal form appeared above his body, white light gushing forth from where an astral wound would have been in his chest. Myriad entities of horror appeared and ripped him to pieces, his soul scattered and fed to hungering Gods beyond. Lightning pulsed upwards through the sky above the bunker. It twisted and then combined with some other, unknown etheric energy. A red-orange-yellow beam of light erupted from the ground and shot upwards into the stars.

The ceremony was complete.

N'Kari shook with pleasure and sheathed the anathame within a flesh pocket in its side. With a few more hallowed words spoken and the Keeper of Secrets disappeared like so much vapor and smoke.

[Huntaer]

OOC note: Already had OP's approval to post, despite it appearing to be a grave dig. Lets try to keep the story going this year.

“If the enemy has chosen the battleground, he has more resources than we're aware of. It becomes imperative to choose a new battlefield, one the enemy can't have prepared.”

- Grand Admiral Zsinj

If there was any other name in the Galaxy more feared at this time it might be Huntarians, or Hunt Clones. Huntarians didn’t like being upstaged by someone who worshiped false gods, not to mention the fact they aren’t real demons. Even Zsinj knew better than to trust a Chaos Lord at their word that they are demonic. If that was true, how come they don’t have entities inhabiting bodies that make black eyes and puffs of black smoke when they are expelled? These people are a totally different type of demons.

Unlike Thanatos and his Demons, Chaos came in force. They assaulted enemy ships alike and launched a massive ground assault on Alderaan like none have seen before. This new foe was indeed fearsome and had already made their first mistake in this campaign: underestimating the Huntarian Forces. 

When the Chaos Fleet arrived in orbit above Alderaan with it’s two hundred something force, Zsinj did absolutely... Nothing. Apparently the Chaos fleet responded in kind. The Zero Point Class was insanely armored and can take massive beatings before the surface of it’s hull was scratched. Almost twice the strength as the Executor ships constructed at Kuat. She was the first Huntarian ship to be outfitted with Light weapons, despite standard Huntarian Doctrine was to always outfit ships with heavy weapons. She was on par in size with the Executor class ships. She literally had tens of hundreds of light weapons scattered throughout the ship, ranging from Turbolasers, Ion cannons and Point Defenses.

Despite the fact that most of her weapons could barely scratch the hull of a Star Destroyer, she did have three types weapons that gave her the upper hand in certain situations. She had four forward Axial Cannons, which was enough to give any competent commander pause and reconsider their actions. Then, there were her Mass Drivers which were capable of hurtling solid objects at fantastic speeds, which could cause entire craters in continents and could potentially rip a Capital ship apart without effort. Then finally, her missile weapons which could cause devastating effects especially the Nuclear Missiles enhanced with Naquadah.

This was indeed an amusing situation for the Grand Admiral to muse over. His next decision could very well change the course of the current battleground. "Contact the hangar bay, tell them the fighter wings are a go. I want that fucking Chaos Fleet set ablaze with nuclear strikes."

His Executive Officer nodded and quickly gave out his order. "Aye Admiral. All squadrons, launch. Littorals, use of Nuclear Weapons is authorized."

"Littoral One copies, Iron Fist. Chaos will feel the heat of hell once we're through with them."

Within seconds, a massive cloud erupts from the Iron Fist as five thousand Littorals armed with nuclear weapons emerge from their hangar bays. If Chaos had been paying attention by now, their sensor alarms would no doubt be running wild as the sheer number of nukes ranged in the tens of thousands.

As the Littorals flew away from the Iron Fist, tiny bright spheres of light surrounded the fighters and they jumped away from their mother ship. When the massive swarm of fighters emerged back to normal spade the Chaos ships suddenly found the swarm right on top of their own fleet and fired off their nukes, giving their point defenses very little time to be able to respond. The Littorals launched their nukes and when they did, they jumped again hoping to escape the wrath of Chaos’s Point Defenses. They swerved up and around the Chaos ships so that they don’t run into them and began firing their main laser cannons at their hulls, hoping to provide adequate distractions for their weapons for the next wave of Huntarian fighters. Not that their lasers would do much to damage the ships.

As soon as the Littorals were launched, it was the Wraith’s turn. While the Wraiths weren’t packing nukes like their Littoral counterparts, they did however pack more than two dozen heavy concussion missiles which was more than enough to make a capital ship question it’s purpose on the battle field. The other advantage of the Wraiths? They had their own transport pattern buffer which could hold up to fifty marines.

While the Chaos ships was busy focusing on the Littorals, the Wraiths were to go in and teleport their Clone Marines onto the enemy vessels and capture several targets to bring back to Huntarian Ship Yards and Kamino for further study. Wraiths were sluggish compared to other Huntarian bombers, along the same speeds as a Y-Wing and about as maneuverable. With the Littorals keeping Chaos’s PD busy the Wraiths have a chance to get in relatively unarmed. They launched their missiles, sending a salvo of mass destruction towards the Chaos ships. While they are firing their missiles and attempting to disable enemy shields, the Wraiths and Littorals will also be providing much needed cover fire for their Dornie Allies as well as assistance to anyone else in the field.

Zsinj watched from the CIC’s holographic projector as his massive wave of fighters moved in on the Chaos fleet, satisfied that they were about to get one hell of a pounding if not at least a major distraction for his ground forces to move in. With the Chaos fleet distracted with the surprisingly devastating Huntarian Fighters, he decided he would keep the rest of what was left of his fighter squadrons in their tubes until he was directly assaulted by the Chaos fleet itself. “Helm, set a course for the Chaos fleet.”

“Are we finally assaulting these Chaos sir?” His X.O. asked as he prepares for the next set of orders.

Zsinj shook his head, “no Captain, not quite. Comm, open a channel with the Dornalian Fleet.”

“Aye sir. Opening a channel.”

“Attention Allied Forces: is Grand Admiral Zsinj of the Huntarian Empire. Get ready for some heavy hellfire and move your smaller ships out of the vicinity of the Chaos fleet. We are about to engage them with heavy nuclear strikes. Feel free to hide behind the Iron Fist while you address your repairs. That is all.” He then motioned for the channel to be closed. “Ok that’s that then, now onto some more dire business.”

“What would that be sir?”

“The land battle. Chaos is down there, on Alderaan no doubt raping and pillaging as we speak. I think it’s high time we sent them a present.”

“The Dornalian Forces are already on the planet, plus our own personal garrison of troops with our alliance with the Starways Congress. Do we really need to send in more troops sir?”

“Umm.... DUH, YOU FUCKING MORON!” Zsinj shouted and slapped his X.O. “Jesus who the fuck taught you tactics? Don’t tempt me Captain... Or maybe should it be Commander?”

His X.O. stood at attention, “no sir, I will of course carry out your orders. Just thought we had enough on the ground.”

Zsinj nodded, “air lock it is then.” His X.O.’s face went pale at the thought that he was going to be spaced, “relax pale face. Jesus, you need to learn how to take a fucking joke.” His X.O. chuckled nervously and began to walk towards the back of the CIC to begin inputting commands for the ground troops to launch their counter assault. Zsinj shook his head, “NOW!” He shoved his X.O. to get moving, “I DON’T FUCKING KNOW WHO THE FUCK TAUGHT YOU SORRY SHIT HEADS HOW TO GET THINGS DONE AROUND HERE BUT WHEN I SAY NOW I FUCKING MEAN NOW YOU DUMB EGGHEADS! ASS BALLS!” His crew immediately began to work faster after that to get more immediate results. Yet another moment in history for one of Zsinj’s famous temper tantrums.

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

Meanwhile, in Kamino...

The Fat Bitch jumped out from no where and hovered above the rainy water planet. While he was initially told he was to go back to Coruscant, it would appear that Khal had once again changed Admiral Nord’s marching orders. It wasn’t long before Sector Admiral Richard Nord was teleported to the city of Tipoca. The city was, as always, completely wet and rainy. Richard grimaced at the idea of having to deal with the Kaminoians, as he was no fan of the long necks. Or aliens in general for that matter.

He wore his traditional long, white trench coat to protect him from the rain as well as his Naval Cap knowing full well that as soon as he stepped onto his transporter pad he was going to be entering the rainy cloning city. He turned around and looked out at his Transporter Chief, “energize.” The swirling energy surrounded his body with brilliant blue and orange colors and he suddenly found himself facing Taun We, the Director of Kamino’s Clone Research.

The Kaminoians still haven’t gotten used to the Huntarian’s transporter technology, making it quite an alien sight for them. Nonetheless, Taun We appeared to be unphased as the Admiral dematerialized in front of her. “Welcome back Admiral Nord.” She bowed her head politely as Richard dematerialized in front of her. “Was your trip productive?”

Richard snorted loudly, “hardly. First they send me to Coruscant. Then they send me to Alderaan. Then they send me to Coruscant again, after it has long been devastated by our own spy which, of course as soon as I had my Tactical Officer enter the jump coordinates, was then transferred to this massive blowhard of a wet planet.”

The Kaminoian shrugged her shoulders, “sorry to hear that Admiral Nord. I’m sure High Command had it’s reasons.”

The two walked off inside the facility. Richard shook off the rain from his coat, drenched with water. “My granddaughter just wants them to keep fucking me in the ass.”

Taun We shook her head at the Admiral’s rude commentary. She decided to make a note of it so she could inform the Huntarian Empress of the distasteful use of Richard’s language. “Indeed? Perhaps if you were kinder to your Granddaughter and she might stop sending you on wild chases throughout the Galaxy.”

Richard stopped in his tracks and laughed loudly, “hahaha! Good one! Respect for a woman, that’s a hoot...”

The Kaminoian stared at Richard, dumbfounded at his lack of respect for his own family, let alone for women in general. “Right... If you would follow me, I have three new templates ready for your upcoming battle at Alderaan.”

The two strolled along the bright white halls of the Cloning Facility of Tipoca. Below the balcony which they walked across, Richard noticed hundreds of thousands of clones fighting hand to hand. The Clones were in perfect synch with one another. “Which batch are these?”

“A mixture of templates. Besides the Original Twelve, we have produced another two dozen.”

Richard stared out at the clone’s training process, marveling at their efficiency. “Do we really need another two dozen templates?”

“The more clones you have in The Grand Army, the less chances you’d have for someone to tamper with their DNA to be able to make all of them rebel against you.”

Richard nodded, pretending as though he understood what the Kaminoian just said. “Makes sense, I guess. What templates did you choose from this time?”

“Oh lots of different varieties. We have someone from someplace called... Cannadah. An ancient Dornalian Country.”

“I think it’s actually Canada. I hear they make some good Syrup.”

“Yes... He is an Air Force Pilot from the pre-apocalypse era. Proficient with flying and driving just about any vehicle, as well as Firearms and demolitions... There is one problem we have been having with him though...”

“Oh?”

They turned around a corner and opened up a room with a dozen of these templates in it. They were wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, very plain clothing for a supposed military professional. They look and sound eerily like a young Jack Nicholson. “Hey you fucking assholes! When the fuck are you shitheads gunna let us out!?”

“As you can see Admiral Nord, they are... Mentally unbalanced.”

“Mentally unbalanced? MENTALLY UNBALANCED!? I’ll show you cock fuckers who is mentally unbalanced!” The Clone rushed at Richard, who merely stepped aside, causing the clone to bang his head on the wall instead. “FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!”

The Kaminoian sighed, “we tried to manipulate his DNA so he’d be more stable but... Well... In the end he deflowered a teddy bear.”

Richard grinned, “I like him already.” Richard took another long look at the clone, “wasn’t he in Midget Fuckers 22?”

Taun We shrugged her shoulders, “I wouldn’t know since I’m unfamiliar with Earth Culture and it’s art forms.”

“Yeah, not to mention you wouldn’t know a good porno if it danced in front of you with it’s dick hanging out.” The Kaminoian shook it’s head, wondering when the Huntarian would be leaving. Richard continued to inspect the new batch of clones, the other eleven clones didn’t stand out much to him, other than a hand full of people he recognized from historical holotapes. “Wasn’t that guy of some Viper Pilot?”

“Yes. He was the son of a Colonial Commander during their Cylon War. Flying is in his family’s blood.”

“Huh, thought so. Damn Colonials are easy to spot. All right Taun, I’ve seen enough.” He placed a small device onto the floor. It expanded into a 10 meter wide metallic platform. As soon as it was done, a bright blue doorway materialized from thin air. “The coordinates are set for Alderaan. Thanks to the Ansible we have acquired from the SWC, we can instantaneously transport from any spot in the Galaxy.”

The Phillips clone looked at it with wide eyes, “whoa, fuck dude, it looks like something I saw while on a fucking awesome acid trip.”

Richard chuckled, “we should hang out some time.”

“You have a daughter right?”

Richard slowly nodded his head, “umm... Yes.”

“Bring her and I’m in.”

“Yeah... I think Cass would sooner cut your dick off and use it as a dildo on your corpse.”

Trevor shrugged, “every hole is a goal bro.”

“Duly noted. If you want to take the risk, then by all means go for it... But first, I need y’all to go through the portal.”

The Trevor clones, along with the other templates, put their helmets on and cocked their guns, “so we finally get to fuck these guys called ‘Chaos’?”

“Yup. FALL OUT! It’s time to waste these bitches!”

“HOOAH!” The newly created clone army shouted out in unison and marched into the shimmering portal, not sure what to expect from the other side...

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

Timiria City Cloning Facility, Kamino

A young girl in her late teens suddenly woke up from what seemed a deep sleep, coupled with a massive headache and confusion. She tried to look around, but could only make out a dark room filled with Cloning Cylinders. The last thing she remembered was falling from one of the massive domes after killing a Rancor, slipping in the rain. Fucking dumbass... She thought to herself. She tried to get up from the bed, but found her arms and legs were held tight by restraints. She struggled to get out, but was unable to do so.

She calmed herself, focused on a deep meditation on her hate and rage and concentrated on her muscles. Her arms appeared to be fragile, but almost instantly appeared to gain muscles. She ripped the restraints off after much effort and then released the restraints on her legs. She got up from the bed and jumped onto the cold metal floor. She noticed one of the cylinders in front of her, still filled with liquid and a body on the inside.

She cautiously walked up to the cylinder, but couldn’t make out who the body was. It was clearly female though. Something about this room felt familiar too, like she had been here before. Too bad the lights aren’t on. Suddenly, at the mere thought of lights they turned on, instantly revealing the body inside the cylinder. It was... Her. But how?

::You will remember in time, my apprentice.:: The shadowy figure of Lord Vorman suddenly appeared beside her as she stared at the cylinder with her body in it. ::Do you know who I am?::

“Yes...” She said without even looking at him, “Lord Vorman.”

::Good, your memory will slowly come back with time.::

She shrugged, “it just came to me. I hate this blank feeling.”

::It will come back soon enough. Reach out with the Force and unlock your memories.:: She closed her eyes and focused on her mind. She could barely remember fighting a Rancor that was somehow let loose, probably caused by one of the Trevor clones. Or a Dornie spy. Then it hit her. Her mind jumped back to a few months ago, when she was fighting a bunch of droids wielding blue lightsabers. :: You are a good warrior, but you lack focus. It will eventually be your undoing.::

“I take it this has happened a few times before?”

::Duh.::

“So I’m not in my original body?”

::Good job genius.::

“How is this possible? I thought you can’t clone a body connected with the Force.”

::I predicted your inevitable failure, as most people don’t really survive my extreme teachings. I had the Kaminoians clone your body the day you were brought here as a child. I had them clone you several hundred times and allowed the body to naturally age. The Kaminoians have been monitoring your brain activity and were successful in transferring your basic skills over to the next clone. Of course, the process wouldn’t have really worked if I didn’t transfer your life force.::

“Huh.”

::The only other apprentice to survive on your level of experience went utterly insane.::

“Oh yeah, wasn’t she a robot of some sort?”

::Of sort, yes.:: The Dark Lord waved his hand towards a nearby panel and flipped a switch. A suit of power armor instantly popped up, smoke slowly hovered in mid air around it. ::I have a task for you. I need you to go to the Alderaan System.::

“Alderaan? What did those hippies do, steal your stash of Mind Rape?”

::Yes, I had plans to make brownies with them and smoke a bong with Darth Ted later.:: Alice suddenly found the tip of the Dark Lord’s cane hitting her on the back of her head, ::Chaos has been there for a while and according to our sources, they’ve finally made their move. The entire capital city is now under Chaos control.::

“Ouch. You want me to go in and help mop up the Chaos Marines?”

::Yes and deal with the Chaos Lords that come your way. If you survive this battle, your training will be complete. Oh and one other thing...:: He held out his and and a new Lightsaber appeared within his grip. It was similar in many ways to a traditional Double-bladed Lightsaber, but featured a crescent shaped handle. He activated it, revealing two orange blades. ::This weapon has several different functions, it acts as a standard Double-bladed sword, which you have been training with and of course uses the single blade function. The crescent handle can be used to protect yourself from enemy attacks,:: Vorman held the blade out for Alice to take. As she held it in her hand, she noticed another button on it. She pressed it, and to her amazement, it began to twirl without effort. ::The final function allows it to spin, intimidating your opponents and allows you to take on multiple targets at once.::

Suddenly, the room grew dark again. Alice couldn’t see around her but didn’t panic. Her vision suddenly began to glow as she used the Force to see around her. She was surrounded by several dozen faceless Clone Troopers. They immediately began to fire at her, the laser shots were easily deflected as the Young Apprentice swung her blade. Six Clones went down. The remaining dozen attempted to flank her and opened fired, but she was no longer there. In an instant, she appeared behind them and sliced another six down as she twirled her saber around her. Lightning bolts then emerged from her hands, taking down the remaining six. She breathed slowly, taking in the pleasure of having just killed her targets. ::Very good, my Apprentice. You are indeed ready for your assignment. Lead the Clones and leave no survivors.::

“Yes, my Master,” Alice spoke as she bowed to the shadowy figure. He quickly disappeared as quickly as he appeared. Alice shuddered and thought to herself mental note, just straight up die and don’t cling to the Force like that freak. She focused on the Force, gathering her darker emotions. She focused on the images she’s seen of Alderaan and her many visits on the Holodeck. She felt her body slowly fade from existence...

Alderaan

Down deep below inside the Iron Fist’s underbelly were nearly five hundred cargo bays, each one filled with Huntaria’s finest Clones. On top of the various clones and vehicles was a massive Transport Portal in each cargo bay, designed to transport hundreds of thousands of people at once. The Clones began mobilizing their forces, just over thirty one thousand vehicles in all mixed of various Tie Crawlers, Speeder Bikes, Turbo Tanks, ULAV’s, Cloud Cars’s, Avalanche Heavy Tanks and various walker types and artillery cannons. While several of these were around since the Cold War, they have since been heavily updated to modern standards so that they can meet the every day demands of the Huntarian Armed Forces.

Empress Eclipse paved the way for the Clone Army nearly several decades ago during her initial reign, long before her daughter was born and took over after Eclipse was killed in a vehicle accident. Years after the Civil War ended, the Clones grew restless with their new duties as peace keepers throughout the Empire. Now their chance for battle has finally arrived and they were looking forward to it, despite the various rumors of the ferocity of Chaos Space Marines. Huntarians were not one’s to back down from a good fight and neither were their clones.

In the middle of all of these red, gold, black, and white armored Clones was the familiar sight of a deathly red-orange droid. “Exclamation: I doubt there is anyone more excited than I am to shoot some of these Chaos meatbags.” The Clones gathered around the droid, fully armed and armored. Walkers and speeder bikes alike geared up and began to walk through the various transporter portals that were installed in the Cargo Bays.

“Statement: Our goal is simple, if not dangerous and stupid. We must contain the Chaos threat to the Capital and prevent it from spreading to the rest of the System.”

A Kara Thrace template walked up to the shimmering portal and waved her hand across the horizon, she lifted her assault rifle and checked her pouches to make sure she had enough extra ammo. “First transporter pads, now portals. When can we start using something like... Oh I don’t know... A shuttle?”

The droid stood there and stared blankly at the template. Without warning, he shoved her into the shimmering blue light and followed in after her. HK had never been through one of these portals before, he noted that it looked a lot like being shot through a tube underwater which was surrounded by bright blue light. He instantly found himself on the other side of the wormhole and looked at the infected Capital.

There were bodies everywhere. Mostly of the new clone templates the Empire just got from Kamino, as well as several hundred Chaos Marines. The ground was scattered with craters and debris from artillery, grenades and land mines. It was like a scene out of a WWII holonovel from Earth.

He quickly ran on the battlefield and found the Kara template huddled behind a hill with a Trevor Template.

“Holy fuck these guys are ugly as hell.” He looked up and noticed HK and Kara running towards him as the rest of the clones and vehicles from the Iron Fist materialize from thin air. “Oh and there’s you pricks.”

“Query: what is the situation meatbag?”

“The fuck do you mean ‘Meatbag’ asshole?”

“Query: do I need to repeat myself? Give me your report and I won’t reduce you to your base components.”

“All right, all right.” The Trevor clone sighed, “the mother fuckers have the city locked down tighter than a virgin’s pussy. We can’t make a dent in it. No matter what we did, they always seem to have more people to throw at us, it’s like they breed out of thin air.”

“Observation: so the short version is: these meatbags are boned.”

Kara took out her assault rifle and used it to scope out the land scape. She could make out several chaos squads “Someone always has a bullet out for us droid.”

“Reply: indeed. Hypothesis: I suppose it’s just a matter of time before some gets us. But not today.” HK zoomed in with his eyes and noted the buildings covered with chaos artifacts and various Alderaanians stripped of their skin and nailed to the walls. “Observation: it’s almost a shame I can’t fight with these guys... I have to admit to a certain admiration for their creative war atrocities.”

“That’s a little disturbing dude.”

“Admittance: what can I say, I love to kill things. Orders: Attention artillery units: All guns converge on the buildings outlining the city. Open fire with a barrage of Thermal Grenades. I want to see these buildings burnt down to the ground.”

“Roger that,” came the voice of one of the Sam clones, “incoming artillery fire!”

The small group watched as the massive clone army halted on the outskirts of the Alderaan Capital. The Thermal Detonators landed against the relatively unshielded buildings, causing several of them to immediately disintegrate and collapse. As soon as they did, they revealed the tall, looming bodies of the Chaos Space Marines. A massive Chaos Sorcerer stood up from the ground after he was knocked over from the massive thermal blast. He wielded a large Power Sword with one hand. His other hand, he used to hurtle bolts of lightning revealing the awesome destructive power of the Warp. He instantly vaporized several clones, as the lightning bolts jumped from warrior to warrior, disintegrating each one. HK ducked as another bolt attempted to hurtle towards him, “exclamation: fucking meatbags!” The droid shouted in anger. The Trevor clone which was standing next to him was instantly vaporized.

“You called?” Came Alice’s voice from out of no where. She looked around her body, making sure she was all in once piece. “Huh, didn’t think it’d actually work.” She suddenly appeared out of no where, just like her Master. Another bolt of lightning was hurtled towards the amassing Clone Army. Alice immediately activated her new Spinning Double-bladed Lightsaber and jumped up. With a single blade extended outward, she absorbed the Chaos Sorcerer’s lightning strike. She immediately began to concentrate on the Dark Side, sensing the Chaos Army’s immense hatred and aggression.

She grinned manically, knowing that the Chaos’s dark emotions would continue to fuel her powers almost indefinitely so long as they occupied the planet. She sensed a high amount of hate, no doubt leftover from the Chaos’s feelings towards the God-Emperor. The Chaos Sorcerer looked out at the young Female Sith, “you’re a curious thing... You do not fear us like the rest of your kin.”

“What those things?” She looked behind her, “they’re clones. They know no fear. They know that there are things worse than death in this life, for I wield the Dark Side of the Force.”
“Then you are a fool, for I wield the powers of the Warp. I am a Sorcerer, far more powerful than any of you Sith. I laugh at your delusions of grandeur.”

Alice continued to simile and drew her sword back, activating her second orange blade. “We shall see who has the last laugh.” The Chaos Sorcerer remained silent for a few minutes. Then he started cackling which echoed throughout the Capital. At the same time, Alice’s brown eyes suddenly changed to a bright red as she was completely charged from the Dark Side. She waved her special Lightsaber at the Chaos Army and pointed it squarely at the Sorcerer. “Clones! CHARGE!”

“HOO-WAH! HOO-WAH!” A deep chant came from the cloned men and women as they charged. They were suddenly very inspired to fight the Chaos Army, revealing the utter insanity and fierce dedication of the Huntarian Armed Forces. The many clone templates ran around her, drawing from the inspiring powers of the Force. Speeder Bikes raced beyond the front lines, firing their heavy blaster cannons while Jet Troopers flew through the air, releasing grenades and rockets as they hovered over the Chaos Army. Tanks and speeders charged, launching powerful blasts at their enemy.

As the Clone Army appeared to leave her behind, the Sith Apprentice bent her knees as though she was getting ready to sprint. She hurtled herself into the air, flying above her rushing army. Her two blades spun around and around as she flew. Then suddenly, she disappeared. She reappeared, in mid air, right on top of the Chaos Sorcerer. She held her blade in a downward position, aiming to slam it right in the center of it’s head...

As he waited for his ships to destroy the Chaos Fleet, the chubby Grand Admiral strolled into one of his now empty Cargo Bays. He didn’t usually make inspections of his cargo, that was typically a job for one of his Operation’s Specialists or some low ranking person like that. But this was a special package for these Chaos bastards. The Cargo Bay which was once filled with troops was empty as it’s occupants were now fighting on the bloody fields of Alderaan. He watched as the last of his Clones charged through the Iron Fist’s Transport Portals and paced around impatiently for his new cargo. “Mother fucking Demons, how long does it take for you to teleport from Hell and back up to the ---”

“Tsk tsk tsk, speak the Devil’s name and he shall appear, Admiral.” a sudden voice echoed through the cargo bay.

Zsinj turned around, only to find the cargo bay was still empty. “Show yourself you blackeyed fucker! Where’s my cargo?” With a puff of red smoke, a giant crate which took over nearly three quarters of the room emerged, followed by the familiar figure of a Scotsman wearing a business suit. “Thanatos. About damn time you showed up. You do realize we have a war going on here right?”

Thanatos grinned, knowing his tardiness pissed Zsinj off. “Calm down Porky Pig. You know the King of Hell always keeps his appointed schedules, so what’s with the bloody attitude?”

The Grand Admiral sighed, “you’re later than I’d like. I was hoping to have those beasts of yours out on the field fighting the Chaos Chapters.”

“Ah yes, those people. They think they’re evil but they’re really just a bunch of primitive morons with opposable thumbs. Like the rest of your ape like species.”

The Grand Admiral approached the Demonic crate cautiously, as he could hear the loud breathing of what sounded like a really, really large dog. “Hell Hounds?” The crate shook and a loud, ghastly howl could be heard echoing throughout the room. Even the Grand Admiral shuddered at the mere thought of these beasts.

Thanatos continued to grin as though he just won the galactic lottery. “Aye, as good as my word.”

Zsinj cautiously took a few more steps towards the crate. “I still don’t know why we agreed to use your dogs. We can engineer our own just fine.” As if to answer his question for him loud banging noises erupted, causing the Grand Admiral to back away. Thanatos calmly walked up to the crate and pressed a button on one of the side panels. It suddenly opened, revealing... Nothing. He walked up to the empty space and patted his hand on what appeared to be empty air. Except his hand clearly appeared to be patting something on the head which was almost at the height of his chest.

“Yours would suck. Besides, mine’s bigger.” The sound of breathing and snarling grew louder as the dogs anticipated battle. While nothing could be seen, clear indents of the dog’s foot print and claws were made as they dented the floor they were walking on, as they walked towards the Transport Portals as though they were slowly approaching their prey. Thanatos slowly raised his arm and a massive wind blew past his jacket as the dogs in the demonic crate stamped their paws and released a ghastly howl. “SIC ‘EM BOYS!” Suddenly there was a massive rush of nasty foul air. The invisible dogs barked and howled viciously as they charged through the Portals aiming to bite the neck off of whatever Chaos Marine they came across...

[Skaugra]

The Great Temple, Tython

The clicking of heels on marble echoed ominously through the temple. Yarrick had become all too familiar with that sound many years ago when he'd first come to this new galaxy, far from the Emperor's guiding light. However, the person this noise was now attached to bore a different name. It was also accompanied by three other sets of sounds. Two sets made audible clanking sounds against the marble, the metal on their soles grinding audibly. The third set, however, he welcomed. He focused on the heavy weight accompanied by the sound of leather soles padding against the marble. Yarrick missed that sound. It reminded him of home, but now, at least, the sound was accompanied by someone whose presence he quite enjoyed.

"Old man!" Yarrick's demeanor darkened at the crisp, feminine voice of a young woman in her late teens. He opened his one good eye slowly at the sound of her voice. She'd stopped some three meters behind him. She'd learned the first time, when she'd first taken the throne of Teta, not to approach him. Yarrick had backhanded the girl clear across the room when she'd tried to impose herself upon him physically, as if her position of power had given her a right. She tried to have him killed later, but soon found out that no living being in her domain had either the courage or the stupidity to face him. All who existed within the Triumvirate's domain knew who he was - what he was. Even her Servants, the demigod included, knew not to test his mettle.

"Shi'pan Erina." Yarrick's voice croaked as he spoke, betraying his age. "To what do I owe this pleasure from the First of the Crowns?"

"Cut the bullshit, Sebastian!" Ah, there was her legendary lack of tact. Yarrick couldn't say he'd missed it. "The Order of the Blooming Rose tells me that Coruscant and Alderaan burn, and that whatever is responsible leaves a taint that one can feel halfway across the galaxy! Your thrall at the entryway to your chambers claims that you know what this taint is, and I demand to know whether this should be considered a threat to my people!"

"Master, please!" The second female's voice was deeper, more elegant than Erina's. He'd welcomed the presence of Artoria Pendragon when she'd first been summoned some years ago by her first master. Yarrick felt a twinge of sadness hearing her refer to Erina as her master.

"Hold your tongue, Saber!" Erina barked back, refocusing back to Yarrick. "If what that old codger, Bluebeard, says is true, we may well be facing a threat the likes of which we've never seen in our galaxy's history and I-"

"You would be correct, milady," Yarrick finished, startling the young woman. She quickly regained her composure, glaring at the back of Yarrick's head.

"So you know what it is that lays siege to Alderaan?" Erina asked.

Yarrick heaved a great sigh. "All too well, milady." He stood from his cushion on the floor, his knees cracking as he did. All but one of his guests, all of whom had felt the pressure of his presence, now visibly strained. Erina could feel her chest tighten in fear; Saber had clenched her fists more tightly; Rider's jaw had clenched. Only Gilgamesh held his composure, though he certainly wouldn't admit that he had felt a certain small twinge of an emotion he was not used to when Yarrick had stood from his meditation seat.

Yarrick turned to face the party behind him, his eye locked with Erina's own eyes. The weight of decades of virtually non-stop warfare held heavy in his gaze, and she felt as though his gaze would kill her if she stared too long. When he spoke, every word felt like her death. "What comes to this galaxy is a threat unlike any this galaxy has ever faced. It is a primordial evil that exists between the fabric of reality in a place known only as the Warp."

Yarrick stepped toward Erina, his gaze still locked with hers. She felt the urge to run, but her legs wouldn't listen to her baser instincts. She could feel herself trembling in fear as he closed the gap between them. He stopped barely a meter in front of her. "Where I come from, we refer to it by many names. The Great Enemy. That Which Hungers. The Greatest Heresy."

Erina swallowed hard. In all her life, she'd never seen Yarrick ever leave his seat, nor seen him bear such a grave expression, but the next words he uttered earned a shiver down to very core of her being. "It has but one true name: Chaos. It is the coalescence of all mortal emotion derived from their basest instincts and emotions. It feeds on our very soul, waiting to make its way through us as a conduit between Reality and the Warp from which unspeakable horrors may claw their way out of to devour our very essence."

Yarrick gazed into the eyes of the fear-stricken girl before him, but, most of all, he focused on the demigod's composure. Anger permeated the air around him. He, too, knew of Chaos, albeit from a different perspective than Yarrick had experienced it. Erina drew back his attention.

"Wh-wh-what do we do a-against this C-Chaos?" she asked, struggling futilely to regain her earlier bravado.

"We do what we can only do," Yarrick responded sternly. "We fight."

"However," he continued, unlocking his gaze from hers as he walked past her. "We must bide our time for now and gather out forces for the coming conflict."

[New Dornalia]

OOC: Part 1

IC:

The Dornalians over Alderaan had been fighting a lot. And I mean a lot. Oh sure, the lack of detail and the excruciatingly long time between posts and the fact this post seems rather lazy and slapdash by comparison doesn’t make it seem like it was so, but trust us folks. The Dornalians were doing their damnedest to make sure the day was saved. Hell, they may have been decisive--oh, who are we kidding. The Dornalians would be too busy rescuing people and killing Chaos Marines to care if they made a difference or not.

---

To begin, Gracie-MacIntyre wasn’t content to merely slog it out in orbit. Nope. The AI, which was busy throwing up enough ordinance so one could spacewalk on all the torpedoes flying about, was sending assets below to help get people to safety. She had been for a little while--there is a mention of Dornie Marines in my last post in this thread--but now she stepped it up. After all, although the Ta’Nar were doing their part, it was as if the Huntarians suddenly disappeared in a big ball of nothingness--likely a Chaos trick. So, it was up to the Dornies to step up their share of help.

All of course, while enjoying a cuppa. Because managing a knock-down-drag-out battle that approached the Battle of Stalingrad, the Pusan Perimeter or even the Thrilla in Manila in terms of intensity, duration and deep animosity? While managing the complex logistics of a mass rescue effort? And while accommodating the randomness of other fleets, who could come at any time? That was easily done for the Gracie series of AIs, especially as all the Gracies in the Dornie fleet were working on full blast. Networking, building their plans and strategies, and so on. It was what they were trained to do, and they did it well.

Brewing a perfect cup of tea? Now that was hard. A good cuppa--not that silly stuff in bags--demanded skill and attention. Yeah it wasn’t real tea. But tea was tea, and a lot of good people didn’t get killed and a lot of footy matches weren’t binge-watched just to have tea be made cheaply and sloppily. Damnit, Gracie-MacIntyre was going to do it and DO IT RIGHT.

And as she sipped the black milk tea, she sighed and handed it off to another Gracie, and began making more virtual tea. This batch was too bitter. Time to revise her technique.

---------

From Emma Kerr’s perspective, it was much less refined. In fact, it had been a long, long brawl on Alderaan--one of many rolling gunfights against the baddies. Such was the intensity and duration of the sustained combat, none of the Four Emmas could recall when they had stopped to sleep, rest, or even remember the distinct combats each of them had been locked into so far. Part of that was the Pixiefication process, part of it was the nanotech chewing gum and Spam they used to stay alive, and the other part was pure adrenaline.

At this point, the Emmas and the other Pixies of the HCLI warfighters below were likely inflicting casualties beyond their small size. Well, likely. Maybe. The Emmas didn’t know or care for taking time to tabulate body counts. They even lost count of how many rolling battles they had engaged in. They did care about saving people, working with those quirky mercenaries from Terry’s Army and now the Dornalian Armed Forces, and the Ta’Nar even. A lot of people had been shunted to allied drop zones for rescue for sure. They did remember rescuing a lot of people--cultured, rich well-to-dos finding themselves smack-dab in the middle of the Apocalypse. There was some concern over the presence of a dark cloud in the sky. There was some scuttlebutt about the cloud being the product of sacrifice. The Emmas didn’t know which way it was one way or another. Frankly, they were a little busy.

This particular firefight was a typical one. The Four had found themselves in the ruins of some splendid building--perhaps an opera house, perhaps some McMansion, perhaps some fancy department store--it all looked like roofless shiny rubble when the Chaos boys came through, spikes and all. Either way, they were behind a low barrier made of junk, and the Four along with Rick were going to do what they did best. Make a mess out of the bad guys. Said bad guys were using the position as a firing emplacement, and so far, the Emmas had maneuvered just so, ready to assault the position.

Emma Kerr herself was inebriation and being hungover all mixed with pure adrenaline incarnate. Such a combination of course left her in a very grumpy and violent mood which didn’t tolerate the angriest, feistiest and most combative of the Four Emmas was busy engaging in sustained combat.

The portals to the Warp had spat out many of their sick, twisted denizens--Chaos Marines, daemons, so on--and let them loose. They were emboldened, fighting harder than ever now, refusing to stop shooting, or howling, or clawing at people’s faces--well, whatever Chaos did. The group of Chaosites in front of them was no exception. A mixed bag of daemons, cultists, and the odd Marine, all angry, irrational, and possibly thinking of turning the Marines and allies below into a tasty people smoothie.

Emma Churchill looked at her team, and made hand signals to them. She pointed at a spot for Emma Thorne to duck behind, and the woman moved behind it quietly. Emma T could be seen pulling out a stack of papers, thumbing through them like a gambler and his cards. Emma Van Jarsveld took up a support position, preparing a fresh magazine of Meltashots, readying the rifle and steadying her aim. And Emma Kerr was told to move to a spot where her gun could do the most damage--or provide the most overwatch. Emma Churchill gestured to Rick and told his squad to wait in the wings to attack the position from the side.

Emma Churchill herself loaded a fresh proton torpedo. She aimed it just so, and then fired upon the biggest Marine there, sending it slamming into him and knocking him forward. As the Chaosites shouted, they were taken down in good order. Surprisingly quick good order.

The Emmas were stunned out of their professionalized, adrenaline fueled autopilot.

No. This couldn’t be it. This was too easy. Chaos Marines and their ilk usually gave a good fight. And yet this bunch went down easily. What happened?

At that point, Emma Churchill felt a tap on her back. She turned around, and was confronted with the visage of a birdlike daemon, it’s form grinning and saying a simple greeting, accompanied by a few others of its ilk and a Marine in a vaguely Egyptian robe. It spoke like Anthony Hopkins, licking its beak with its tongue.

“Bongiorno.”

How a space demon even knew Italian wasn’t important, but what was important was that the Emmas had gotten themselves into something quite serious. Emma Churchill muttered, “Son of a bitch!” as she saw her position flanked on three sides. Tzeentchians were never known for being straightforward, and although it seemed like plenty of firepower could cure the problem, well, who knows what would happen.

Thus, the two were in a Mexican standoff. The birdman seemed content to leave the Emmas in baited breath. Anticipation. For something!

And then....

[New Dornalia]

OOC: Part 2

---

Thus, the two were in a Mexican standoff. The Emmas and the Dark Troopers were pointing their arms at the motley crew in front of them, lead by the Mysterious Birdman, who aimed his staff at the Emmas and now seemed to be wearing a slick suit. The birdman could have attacked. He could have pressed the advantage.

And yet he seemed content to leave the Emmas in baited breath. Anticipation. For something!

Emma K. was the first to break the awkward silence. She spat on the ground and growled in her inimitable way:

“So...we going to fight or fuck or what?”

No one replied, although the Birdman raised his eyebrow. Rick didn’t like this, and neither did Emma C. The Birdman seemed content to just sit there and milk the scene for all it was worth. To hold up the tempo of battle…to tie them down….draw them using theatricality--

Rick then whispered something to Emma C., who nodded in agreement. Emma C. then spoke, frowning and leveling her Mk18 at the Birdman.

“Motherfucker. Tying us up with cliched movie tropes. Why am I not surprised?”

The Birdman seemed overjoyed that Emma C. had figured it out. Pulling out a trilby hat and placing it on his head before tipping it in a mock-salute, the Birdman said, “I’ve been watching you four and your power-armored friends there since we’ve come to Alderaan. Rather prone to putting on shows. Good stuff, but it does leave you in a bit of a precarious position. PErsonally, I’m not a fan of it, so I couldn’t resist turning that trait upon you. Must feel interesting, indulging in combat theater while real people are dying.” Turning to Emma K., the Birdman said damningly, “Maybe you can borrow some of her beverages to help justify it all.”

Emma K. then growled, “Real cute.”

Allowing his staff to glow blue, The Birdman said, “Well, enough monologuing. I have other places to be.” Turning to the gaggle, the Birdman said, to them, “Gentlemen, dispose of them as you will. I must be off.”

Emma K. tossed a bottle at the Birdman, who caught it handily with a sigh. He opened it up and sipped the contents, before tossing it into the audience.

“As I was saying--”

Emma T., meanwhile, looked out the side of her eye to Emma K., and Forcemessaged her to continue. Emma K. grabbed another bottle, and tossed it. THis time, Emma T. used the Force to make sure the bottle hit the Birdman in the head. The bottle didn’t quite make it, slamming into the Marine with a smash. But that got the Birdman perturbed enough to focus and throw a fireball at Emma T. Emma T. ducked and rolled, before she threw down a grenade. The Birdman and the front line stepped back as the grenade went off, scattering paper talismans onto the ground. The garlic-scented fu paper wards then ignited, and a blue field began to shimmer, mirrored by a yellowed paper with blue Chinese characters on Emma T’s shirt which also began to glow.

The Birdman then grinned, and with a nod acknowledging the creative thinking of the Emmas and Rick, decided to press the attack. Not the smartest of moves, but something within the creature figured that while there was a point where he should have just stopped and let the Chaos Gods have these four...well, he wanted to see what would happen!

Of course, what happened was that the battle was joined.

Rick and his men fired shoulder mounted rockets into the gaggle, along with blasters and all sorts of destructive goodies. The minimissiles would tear gaping holes in the ranks of the Chaos forces, if the blasters and powered punches didn’t do it first. They were powerarmored giants, roughly equivalent to the X-01 armor the Army’s heavy support gunners used--but given that they could be controlled remotely and fight as drones, this made it so the Troopers weren’t quite intimidated by the Chaos soldiers. Not one bit.

Emma K. meanwhile, shouted something incomprehensible and began firing long bursts of plasma jet explosiveness into the Chaosites from her Rattlesnake LMG. Standard behavior from the gata, but it seemed a bit angrier than usual. Perhaps the idea of being tricked made her angry--even angrier than usual. The copious blood alcohol content likely didn’t help either though.

And, Emma T. stepped up, flanking Emma C. at an oblique angle and fighting like Rambo. One hand had her AK with explosive bullets firing nearly non stop, with only occasional mag changes as she fired angry bursts of explosive ammo into the hordes of Chaos soldiers. At the same time however, Emma T. was doing her best Gambit impression. She pulled out paper talismans from her pocket, wadded them up and kept tossing them like snowballs into the enemy ranks. These being magical fu paper talismans, this meant that they had all sorts of magical effects. In this case, the talismans she drew were ones which froze enemies on contact, and as such they would have a freezing effect on any enemy they touched, turning them into Chaos pops. There was also the odd gout of ball lightning from her fingertips.

Emma C., meanwhile, was keeping a lookout for a way out and to prevent the band from being flanked. The whole party was making a tactical retreat out of the only available exit, and doing so in force. With a Dark Trooper at her side, Emma C. eventually motioning for the team to fall back out of the ruins and into an alley, through what used to be a French door of some sort. Now, they just had to get there before the Chaos hordes closed off the exit.

As this occurred, one could hear low rumbles from a distance, discernible even with the din of battle. The Emmas had an idea of what it was. But they didn't want to give away their plan. Besides, she had a feeling that the thing would give it away for them.

The low series of *crunch* sounds could be heard, creeping closer. Emma C. could see in the distance the Marines which had been attacked by the Chaos forces which the Birdman had teleported onto the Emmas. Things were looking up.

And then, a series of explosions ripped through in front of Emma C, releasing gouts of fire which blocked the path to safety. The Birdman landed in front of Emma C., his staff alight. The two faced off for a moment, and then the Birdman struck first, firing a gout of Warpfire at his opponent. Emma C. leapt ouf the way, shooting at the Birdman. The Birdman, however, anticipated Emma C.’s move, and teleported behind her and grappled her with a sacrificial dagger in hand. The two began to struggle.

Then, all at once…..

First, came a crack of thunder.

Then, came a boot to the head flying out of nowhere through warpfire, cloaked in an explosion which sprouted hot dogs.

Then. came the blistering array of blaster fire.

In all of this, Emma C. was able to escape. She then saw three things. One was a A-34, which had run through the Warpfire, and upon which Terry Tadanobu had ridden upon, only to execute a dramatic drop kick.

The other was Rick himself, with a smoking heavy blaster.

And finally, there was Emma Van Jarsveld, with a sniper rifle smoking, working the bolt in a dramatic fashion.

Emma C. then turned to look at all three, and then looked at all three again. She could only say, as even the Chaos demons looked at the scene with confusion--

“THe fuck just happened?”

Terry then smiled and said, “Deus ex machina. The best kind!”

The Birdman ,getting up, shouted, “Indee--” before he was rudely cut off by Terry, who kicked him in the head, and shouted, “Bad demon! BAD!” At that, the Birdman leapt up and back, before striking a pose and going:

“Enjoy your deus ex machna style victory, friends. I WILL RETURN!”

And with that….the Warpfire disappeared, and the daemons and the good guys looked at one another. Then, the fight resumed--in the Dornies’ favor of course….

[Thrashia]

Alderaan System

The Chaos fleet waited until the last moment, when Huntarian ships and other allied forces were closing in to knife-fight ranges, to spring their trap. Using the etheric power of their warp drives, the fleet jointly ripped open the fabric of space-time and opened a massive entry point to the warp. Some with Gellar fields online and others purposefully left off, the Chaos fleet escaped into the hell-zone that was the Warp. Those ships that were unfortunate enough to be in the same area as a warp rift were obliterated -- a number of sickening scenes playing out: ships torn asunder, some cut in half as if by a lightsaber, or a few that simply exploded under the immeasurable amount of energy heaped upon their frames by the undulating power of the warp.

For those ships that were not annihilated by being too close to the event horizon of the warp rifts were not so fortunate.

Gargantuan discolored, ethereal appendages -- some in the shape of tentacles and some in the shape of clawed hands -- reached out and snatched onto the hulls of ships and dragged them into the warp. Other ships were flooded with demonic entities that swamped defending crews and either killed them outright or dragged their souls from their bodies, pulling them back into their infernal domains to be tortured for aeons. More than a few living beings would choose suicide, though that was not a sure guarantee of safety. Tens of thousands would die in ways that only the demented and chaotic mind could imagine.

Other portions of the Allied fleet were pushed back, a wave of pulsing energy moving outwards in all directions and causing a physical anomaly, buffeted like sea-born ships by the waves of an angry ocean.

A neon-bright scar crossed several hundred thousand kilometers in space, a physical scar upon an area of space where such a thing should be impossible. It would flicker and flash for weeks, a reminder for those still in the system of what had happened. Few were willing to look at it, even through a lens or imager.

* * * * * * * * *

Several Hours Later


The Thrashian fleet that had arrived late took up an orbital position over Alderaan, among other ships from other nations, and helped to mop up the surviving remnants of the Chaos forces that had been unleashed upon the surface. Imperial Medical Corps personnel moved through the cities, providing what care they could. Supplies of all kinds were shuttled down to aid the needy. It was better that than nothing.

A broadband message was sent to all local commanders and dignitaries from the Thrashian flagship.

I will be holding a council aboard my flagship. I have important intelligence to impart and I am sure that others will as well. The appointed time will be within sixteen hours. Please arrive at your convenience.

Signed,
Grand Admiral Thrawn

[Balrogga]

Milamber leapt into the air, neatly dodging the attack of the chaos spawn, the seventeenth which tried to slip by the Childer screening the refugees. Calling forth a blade of incandescent energy in the shape of a curved pike, he fall upon the entropic entity from above, piercing the daemon through the middle of its essence. The foul creature howled in agony as it felt parts of itself unravel. The devouring blade stole the essence away from the pinned victim and converted it onto pure energy and channeled it to MilAmber. The Ta’Nar sipped at the life energy a little at a time, drawing our the agony of the chaos spawn causing the creature to howl and thrash even harder but the silvery blade held it firmly to the black metal of the landing pad. Slowly the creature was drawn into the blade, causing it to wither away and shrink until it was just another dried out husk to be thrown over the wall with the others.

Dismissing the bladed weapon back into his psyche, Milamber looked around to make sure the refugees were getting safely aboard the vessels when a wash of entropic energy struck the shielded planet. The incandescent discharges flickered across the shielding and danced from ship to ship as the maw closed.

Galvenor? Morganna? Are you seeing this too?

Yes, it seems something caused them to recall. I know it was not anything we did, only a few petty daemons tried to assault the landing zone. I have them working for me now.

Morganna’s thoughts carried the feeling of a chuckle as she said this. Milamber knew she would not let them survive once their usefulness was over.

We are clear here too. Most of the forces were used against the active military engagements so the ones that tried to interfere with the evacuation were easily dispatched. Some even tried to ambush me but I have forgotten better tricks then they would ever design. It seems they jumped away most of their forces, leaving the ones planet side as a minor thorn in the humans sides.

All three Ta’Nar looked upwards as the message from Thrawn was broadcast.

Well, thought Galvenor to the others, It looks like we have a few hours to clean things up here and then attend the meeting.

Hours? I don’t think Morganna will wait that long.

Damn right, I will finish here up as soon as I can and return to the Consulate. I want to see what this Thrawn has to say.




Sixteen hours later:



A single ebon vessel approached the Thrashian flagship. The tiny frigate, only 80 meters in length and shaped like a collection of toy blocks slowed to a stop at the required distance.

This is the Ta’Nar Frigate Repentless.

I have envoys for the meeting. Please arrange docking clearance

After the reply, a single shuttle seemed to melt from the hull of the vessel and approached the flagship. Following the flight vectors exactly, the tiny craft approached the ship and then turned navigation over to the dock master, allowing them to guide the vessel to its berth.

As the craft lowered to the deck, it stopped a meter above and simply hovered silently. After several seconds, part of the hull melted and ran down the side of the vessel until it dripped toward the deck below. The liquid metal stopped and formed three triangular steps, each hovering on their own. The newly uncovered door opened and out stepped three human appearing beings. The three Ta’Nar walked down the floating stairs and stood side by side waiting for their escorts to approach.

[New Dornalia]

The Allies had been on the cusp of victory. Then, in the immortal words of an ancient figure from Dornalian myth, just when the Allies had all the answers it seemed that Chaos decided to change the questions.

Gracie-MacIntyre and the Dornalians had been caught with their pants down. The AI and her sisters were taking stock, and bore witness to the horrors which were now enveloping the fleet in a violent cacophony. Casualties were mounting, and the Huntarian fleet had taken the worst of the blast. The other Allies were likely facing terrible losses as well.

One thing was for sure--the Dornalians had not escaped unscathed, even with the use of Sierra India devices--those Dornalian anti-magic devices which had the same effects as most Gellar Fields, really--turned on a split second before impact. For all over the Dornalian fleet, the klaxons of emergency alarms could be heard and the Gracies could be seen trying to manage the damage.

Onboard all sorts of Dornalian vessels, engineering crews could be seen rushing to put out fires and to fix damage which had been incurred by the infernal energies and the terrors which sought to consume them all. Ordermen, Marines and sailors, armed to the teeth, could be seen punching open arms lockers to distribute guns to one another, blasting away at all sorts of monstrosities invading ships. Large daemonic horrors could be seen, horrors which could be quenched only with Meltaguns, shotgun shells, blowtorches and any number of onboard automated defenses.

Still, it was tough going, and the Chaos forces weren't going to fall with out a fight. Gracie-MacIntyre witnessed on one feed the sight of a large hellhound looking creature trying to smash its way through automated blast doors, having smashed out the automated turrets which had been dousing it with fire.

Another feed seemed to be coming from the Merrie Monarch. One of the Gracies streamed it to the others.

***

Merrie Monarch

"Ho! Brah! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?"

Mrs. Roberta Lum, lately of Honolulu, HI and part of a rather large family of spacefaring sorts, sighed and facepalmed. Roberta was normally more chipper than this, with high pitched voice and neverending movement and active speeds which had been honed by years of living with a rather large extended family back home. She never usually swore--the product of a Baptist upbringing along with her sisters and brothers. And, she learned to keep an even keel in most situations--being a short person with dogs' ears and a tail representative of "Bonk" ancestry (even in part) lead to the inevitable ribbing and mockery that kids could and would deliver, and one had to take it in stride.

But this nonsense? Where the onboard defenses onboard the Merrie Monarch, which were supposed to prevent incursions like this, were depowered by the damage wrought to main power systems by the Chaos forces? Where as a result of said shutdown and in the time it took to reactivate the emergency power, the ship's personnel got to experience a boarding action by a large contingent of Chaotic horrors that had made it onboard? Where the radios were busy with reports of gunfire breaking out all over the ship--assuming one was somehow deaf to the sounds of plasma and gunfire breaking out in the many hallways and corridors of the Monarch?

That was too much. Way too much.

What made matters was that according to the internal sensors and Lum's own instincts, the foul ones were getting closer to Engineering. Which would be bad enough, but it was worse now Chief Engineer Yamashiro was busy trying to fix the power. Problem was, the ship was now bathed in red lights which only seemed to accentuate the shadows around them.

Yamashiro for his part sighed, and rolled his eyes. The giant of a man was not in a mood to entertain any outbursts, especially not from his excitable colleague. Standing up to reveal the full extent of his six foot six frame which towered over Mrs. Lum, he said with a sigh, placing his hands on her shoulders, "Relax. Please." Yamashiro then knelt back down and resumed his work, as Lum muttered a simple, "Sorry." Coughing, she then said, "The captain is being unreasonable. He keeps wanting to know when the power is coming back--"

There was a loud banging and screeching coming from one of the blast doors. The other engineers looked at the direction of the noise, but a quick glare from Yamashiro kept everyone focused. The sound of warning klaxons and the sounds of battle were bad enough. Lum herself turned to the direction of the sound, and pulled out her blaster pistol. She had coveralls on and her M1 Helmet, but even as she wondered how much longer things would take, she knew that if the enemy breached the defenses, it wouldn't be quite enough. She then holstered her pistol, and turned to find Yamashiro had stood up again, looking at her.

Bluntly, Yamashiro then said, "Okay, Mrs. Lum. This is the situation. Looks like the relays and everything are almost set, but we've got a damaged conduit in Section 7G. You're small, and you've got the expertise to fix it by yerself. Think you can go into those jefferies tubes and take care of buisness?"

Lum nodded, and said, unhesitatingly, "Sure. I don't have a choice either way."

"Good. Cap'n wants his power back, he's gonna have to wait a little while longer. I'll run interference with him, you just get in there."

Lum then nodded again, and then proceeded to quickly check her utility belt before she looked over and said, "One sec." Walking over to one of the arms lockers, she kicked it open, revealing a rather substantial weapon which resembled a rather large weapon--boxy, clunky, and it appeared to have a box of some sort with an electrical symbol mounted on a power pack which fed into the grip of the gun. It could be held one handed, but had a small grip at the front for the user to hold it two handed. She smiled, and got lucky. The United Armscorp DG2 Plasma Torch was an unusual spin on the usual Hellgun, albeit one which liberally used the blaster technologies of the Skyriver Galaxy to make a more efficient, deadly package. This would do.

Thus, Lum moved over to one of the ducts, opened it up, and put on a pair of safety goggles as well as powered up her personal energy shield--one meant to handle energy fire and damage whilst letting her manipulate damaged objects--before she began crawling through. The Jefferies Tubes were dimly lit by red lights, which caused her to hit the helmet mounted light to try and get further illumination. The tubes were hot and humid--environmental controls weren't working at peak efficiency. Still, Lum had crawled through these tubes many times, and she knew what link went to where. Section 7G. It wouldn't be too close, and Lum could only sigh and let out a prayer to God.

"Lord, if you could get me out of this one alive, I'd really appreciate it."

A voice then whispered into her ear, taunting her--it was a feminine voice, distorted, and it said simply:

"I think you should pray some more, poi dog. It makes your desperation so much the sweeeter....."

Lum looked about, and shook her head. The Chaos daemons had their ways of playing mind games with people, she had heard--this was the first time she heard them speaking Pidgin before. Then again....they did like hitting people's buttons. Moving along, she crawled through the ducts and moved about. So far, so good. The tubes were exactly as she remembered them to be. No really elaborate tricks yet.

The air was getting stifling, the heat was getting worse, and the physicality of the long crawl was beginning to make itself manifest. At one point, she had to stop at a junction, and had to pull the Manual Door Opening Lever. A heavy, weighted pneumatic bastard of an emergency mechanism. ERIS had paid a lot for all the other technical doodads, they could have paid more for decent levers. Still, the door complied, and it opened up with a hiss of air. Moving further onwards, she could hear the voice again.

"Poi dog......poooooii....dooooog....."

The voice was getting annoying, and Lum shouted it at it with an annoyed, "Seriously? I'm doing a job here, sister. Don't bother me!"

"Hey, don't let me stop you, poi-dog. I love a challenge."

The voice, seemingly amused with its attempt at a comeback, didn't say much more after that. Lum then shook her head again, not in a mood for this sort of thing as she continued to make her way. The lights were flickering now, and the sounds of gunfire could be heard ever closer now. Lum sighed again--a common thing now at this moment--and could only contemplate how it was just her luck that the damaged power conduit was likely in the middle of a combat zone. She thanked God that the weapon she held in her hands was even a thing with her. She would need to deal with a lot of baddies. Assuming she could deal with the voices and the tedium of the tubes first. And the tubes were quite tedious.

Eventually, crawling up a ladder, she saw a sign reading, "Section 7G."

"Perfect!"

Lum then opened the lever and pulled it down with a grunt and firm force. The doors hissed, and opened up to reveal inky blackness. Lum's helmet lit up a glimpse into a larger maintenance passage. And a large, sparking power conduit which was shimmering and crackling with loose electricity. What was once a cable was torn into shards, and she could see the sparkling lights flicker and briefly illuminate the room with blinding light. THis would be fun.

Leaping into the tunnel, she approached the conduit with some trepidation, speaking into her radio with a simple, "This is Lum. I'm at the conduit. It's worse than I imagined. I--"

The comms were cut off by a tackle which forced her to the deck. Wreathed in the shining, intermittent glow of the room was figure that looked like some misogynist's parody of the femme fatale--purple skin, claws for hands, and a chattering, almost insectoid eerieness to her form. And those claws were moving quite closer to Lum's face. Lum's instincts snapped into action, as she shouted a loud, hearty "NOOOO!" and pistolwhipped the daemonette upside the head with the Plasma Torch, sending the Daemonette back as Lum rolled away and got back up. Pulling the charging handle on the Torch, Lum shouted at the daemonette, "GET OUTTA MY WAY!"

"TRY ME, POI DOG!" was the creature's reply, as she began sprinting at full force.

At that point, Lum could only declare, "I think I will." She smirked--somehow, it seemed rather appropriate to do so at the moment, as she then leapt to the side as the Daemonette dashed forward. Holding the Plasma Torch up at the daemonette as it began to turn, Lum pulled the trigger, resulting in an angry humming and a stream of firey white lights which flew out to the Daemonette. The creature leapt off to the side with an unnecesarily stylish combat roll, as the Plasma Torch's blast slammed into the wall, ripping a melting hole in the bulkhead.

Lum released the trigger, not eager to make that mistake again, and began looking for her quarry. The lighting conditions were not conducive to accurate shooting, and well, the Daemonette was exploiting all of her abilities to use speed and fury to get the best of Lum as Lum lead her quarry as she disappeared behind a shower of sparks. Then again, Lum had a few of her own tricks. Her eyesight was generally quite good, and she did have an acute sense of smell not many others had. She sniffed the air, the foul stench--sickly sweet, like one of those cheap dollar store perfumes--of the Daemonette could be sensed, and she had a general idea of the direction her opponent was moving in.

The Daemonette was coming back around. For Roberta, it'd be like hunting wild cattle out on the Big Island all over again with her sister Danielle all over again. Zero margin for error against a rampaging threat. Lum kept sniffing the air, waiting--

--and then quickly wheeling around and firing a blast of plasma fire as the Daemonette leaped at her again during a shower of sparks. The plasma ripped through the foul beast's shoulder, severing it in a shower of charred material as the Daemonette screamed and Lum ducked to the side, letting the creature fall to the floor. Without hesitation, Lum fired a long stream of plasma at the beast, roasting the enemy alive with a rather sickening smell, a lot of screams and expletives aplenty. Just to make sure, Lum held onto the trigger a bit more, to make sure the enemy was fully incinerated.

Then, Lum turned to the conduit. She sniffed the air. No enemies now. Lum radioed the Engineering bay and then had them cut the power to that conduit, before she went to work using a sonic screwdriver and a small fabber to produce replacement sections. After about an hour of work, Lum had the satisfaction of saying to all cocnerned, "She's fixed. Get the power back."

With that, the lights turned on, and the red lights turned off. Everything seemed normal, and she nodded, exiting out the way she came.

As Lum did so however, she heard a faint whisper.

"This isn't over!"

Lum looked around, not seeing a thing. Shrugging, she moved on, as the voice spoke again.

"YOU CUNT! I will find you, and make you pay for beating me! YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LAST OF ME!"

Lum shrugged, and muttered simply, "Get a life. Lolo."


****

Eventually, the Dorns would, long story short, clean up their mess and get everything back in order--just in time to send a delegation to Thrawn's ship. It was time to get things coordinated.

[The Ctan]

Alderaan Near Space

Admiral Bantak watched from the bridge of the Inflexible as spacetime came unstuck over the verdant world they had fought to defend. The Alderaanian government had collapsed in the mayhem and the battle, if it had been a victory had been a phyrric one. His force had been only deeply affected but still he said a prayer to the gods of his ancestors under his breath, he knew little about the lurid teal-green tear in space he was viewing, something in the briefing packs had suggested deeper and more ominous truths, and he wondered what had become of the ships sucked into it. There was something about it that made the heart yearn and the soul despair, the rip was larger than the planet, it wasn’t a ship, it wasn’t a warrior, it wasn’t even a thing, how could they fight that? Necrons might have something but he saw it and knew, his people were helpless against this abomination. He thought of the efforts made to provoke an attack at Erilnar and imagined the same fate there, he could not stop it, but perhaps if he went to Erilnar…

“Polarise all non-essential viewports and close all non-operational shutters.” Colonel Meyla’s voice was a stern imperative, “Admiral,” she said, walking across the catwalk between the bridge’s crew pits as the windows faded. She walked with a certain gait that kept her hand close by the pistol she wore, even as she stepped in, her face etched with a grave expression, “you should come with me.”

He looked at the woman, a resentful thought crawling across his mind, unbidden, she would never agree with him, whatever her outfit was, they were political officers first and foremost, there to ensure loyalty to the C’tani and their so-called Great Civilization. They’d crawled out of nowhere, he wasn’t even sure if this woman had ever served in the Centrean army before recruitment, all the records of these new Intelligence Special Unit officers were sealed.

“Where to?” he asked, a sense of readiness creeping up his back.

“Operations room?” she asked, taken aback, “We need to arrange surface support operations for Alderaan.”

It was though a cord under tension had been cut, the paranoia that had dominated his thinking since he’d saw the thing outside vanished. “Ah, of course.”

The operations room was used for ground support, and as they walked into it the security colonel made a small confession, “We have two Acclamators on the way, with ground troops to help the Dornalians, and a prison barge, too,” she said, “one of the big Mandalorian things, we’re hoping to get some cultists alive, we need to question them about what the recruitment techniques are,” she said. “We’re way behind the curve here, we need to know more about the infiltration techniques in use.”

The Flutterplume, Alderaan

“You know more about these people than most,” the comment was issued in Dooku’s stern tone and it was one that held no accusation. Outside chaos had taken over, although Chaos had achieved its goals.

“Which brings me back to my original point, what the kriff is that?” Sienna asked, leaning back in the captain’s chair, her expression was drawn, and she sat with her hand close to her pistol, the other making a pointed gesture with two fingers toward the sky, in absentia, a looping gesture with two fingers as if to accuse the world above of madness.

Ethril sat nearby, his clothes were damaged, and the skin-suit he wore bore the telltale marks of violence from a heavy calibre weapon shot. He sat with his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. “There is much that we are not supposed to say about chaos, much more that we should be circumspect about. But the need is pressing,” he said, “the story of the war we fight today is a story as old as time itself. It is part of why we, that is to say the C’tani, are here, and much of why we are the people that we are today, it is the antithesis of our kind.”

The Council of Thrawn, Alderaan

The ship was lean and sleek, composed of a sea green material that gleamed with an inky shade, as if wet, as it emerged from near space. Imbrar watched from its upper decks as they approached the formation of wedge-like ships that had invited the commanders and agents here, pausing a little way off the bow of the Inflexible. The vessel was a necron ship. The first to be openly seen by galactic civilization. Some people had seen them, or encountered them in rumours. They had been to the Centrality, and some dignitaries had seen them. At Ryloth there had been one in the Bright Lands, but the ships of the necrons were as rarely seen in the Skyriver galaxy as the machines themselves.

It was a sea-green crescent of living metal a mile wide, passable in volume and mass as a destroyer design but with features that seemed highly ornamental, no shields, but something within the structure of the ship that served to deflect sensors and scatter even focussed scans, leaving its actual abilities no clearer than they had been before the vessel had shot out of hyperspeed.

The shuttle that they took to Admiral Thrawn’s flagship was small, perhaps the size of a light freighter, bigger than most military shuttles nonetheless, a lean craft, a warp-cutter, and it seemed close in structure and design to the invaders vessels, certainly compared to the enigma of the necron craft, certainly, it was angular and pointed, like a nail or a spear-head, and black as night. Those who came with it were true C’tani, not citizens of the Centrality, or the Compact, or other cultures, nor recent immigrants from it.

The leader of the delegation of hooded, robed figures was Imbrar, a human, almost pure strain, he was tall and lean, with skin that was almost transparent, he wore a wide bandana across his head, and surmounted his features with a high hood. With him came adjutants and mechanoid followers, a translator jewel that hovered in its own repulsor cradle. He was consciously not a military official in a meaningful sense, but instead one of his attendants presented his credentials as ‘Member of the Great Civilization General Council for the Opposition of the Primordial Annihilator.’ – a position that apparently absolutely required this man to be accompanied by a thurible that puffed the soft and alluring scent of vegan virtueherb into the air.

With him came a towering figure that might at first be taken for a bodyguard droid, adorned in a baroque cloak of clinkered silver scales that shone in the light, there was something unsettling in its motions, for though it carried no visible weapons, having eschewed the staff of office that it might otherwise carry, the necron was announced as ‘Royarch Thalirin ita Nihilakh,’ a title that suggested a little of her being. An emissary of the necron war leader who had made way to them.

By comparison, Admiral Bantak was a simple man, slightly overweight, slightly stressed in appearance, and with a scent of recaff and urgency about him. He wore an olive grey uniform in the style of a Thrashian, and seemed if anything disconcerted by his fellow emissaries.

Ethril Arknett, and Count Dooku, were more diplomatic, the former, a young man whose credentials appointed him a liason officer of the Great Civilization’s embassy services, while the venerable count had recently in conference with the other Counts of Serenno, and others, gathered irregular forces to the banner; the C’tani seemed to prize such associates, and indeed, it was best, they felt, to have a core worlds noble of impeccable pedigree with them, at least to offset the fact that one of their delegation would perhaps unnerve anyone who feared the prospect of ‘droid revolt.

[Thrashia]

OOC: The End as it were.