Rule Twenty-Nine (Closed, FT)

by **Feazanthia** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 4:53 pm

...//Source Detected//
...//Panels Accepting//
...//Charge Status: 28.5% And Climbing//
...//Surveillance: ENGAGED//

Ten years. For ten years, this cycle had continued. Unhalting. Undelayed.

The tiny, cylindrical carbon hull shuddered slightly as solar panels emerged from its spine and angled to the system's primary G star. It completed this ceremonyless ritual every seventeen hours, as the moon it orbited left its host world's shadow and rotated to face its sun. More systems came online as electricity filled its dormant circuits. Once more, its optics rotated to clear the accumulated dust, and the probe focused upon the world below it. Just as always, passive sensors beheld a blue-green garden world sparse yet concentrated population. Just another of humanity's non-aligned, far flung colonies founded with the desire to put as much distance between themselves and others of their species as possible.

Man's desire to separate himself from his fellows, yet while simultaneously seeking social contact with others of its kind, had not been lost on those who had built the probe. The irony would have caused great mirth were it not also so incredibly sad. Man's nature had led to innumerable conflicts, racial civil wars that had left so many dead throughout the species' history that it seemed indescribable by mere numerals. Even when separated by entire galaxies and blessed with more material riches than it could ever spend, the human race continued to embrace its bloodthirsty nature. Thus, the homo sapiens had become one of the most widespread and prolific of the Milky Way's life forms, and its wayward nature had led a small colonial expedition to this place.

The probe's limited mind knew this world was of no real consequence. Its economic worth as a trade power was minuscule, its population and industrial base left it without much of a military. It held no strategic value whatsoever, and yet the probe's makers had deemed to cast their surveillance net over it.

For ten years, the probe had watched the colony world. For ten years, it had observed the growth of settlements from above, undetected. For ten years, it had filtered through the populace's media transmissions and found nothing of importance. For ten years, it had not found anything worthy of reporting to its makers.

Today was different.

Clouds of smoke blotted many of the major settlements from the probe's view, and its synthetic mind raced. Fires on a city-wide scale were possible, if unlikely, but never had such a blaze spread to settlements hundreds of kilometers apart. Not without the flames themselves being visible from orbit, and the countryside between the cities was relatively untouched. The probe brought its receiver array online, and suddenly it all made sense. Subroutines within the probe's mind activated and filled it with a new directive. A new purpose. No longer was its mission one of mere observation, but one of description. To relay the images it now received.

The cycle was broken, and in another corner of the universe, equilibrium's vengeful backlash prepared to descend upon the embattled world.

by **Caragonia** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 11:45 am

The Surface

The air was thick with smoke from the ruins of the burning homes in the town, and the puddles of fuel that blazed fiercely in the centre of the town, leaking from fuel tanks ruptured by weapons fire. A reek of unwashed bodies ran through the air, mingling with the smoke, the smell of gunpowder, and the scent...of death. The town's streets, broad, paved affairs, were covered with the mutilated bodies of the denizens. And amidst all the clamour, the ruin the turmoil...was the Orkz. Nearly a thousand-strong band cavorted in the street, hacking apart bodies to devour the pieces, defecating in the rubble, ramshackle trucks hurtling round as their riders whooped in feral delight and fights broke out in a dozen places.

They had a leader, a great hulking brute who stalked the centre of the town striking his subordinates down with blows from his gnarled, meaty fists. His skin was a green so deep as to be nearly black, a sign of his age, while his stature showed his power and authority. "SNIKK!" he roared furiously, "Where's that little pile of grotsnot?"
One of the smaller bosses pointed at a distant cloud of dust. "'E's havin a fight with Rikkgutler boss. 'E said dat 'ed taken his favourite shoota and 'e was gunna get it back." The larger Ork glowered at the other before snatching a rokkit launcher off a nearby tankbusta, slumped from indulging in too much beer. He glared at all the knobs and gauges on it, before shrugging and firing it. An explosion lit the scene as the wreckage of the two trukks fell to the ground.
"Right...where's Grotty? I want 'im to go and fetch me Snikk's shoota. I want it."

The Warp

Every Astartes ship in the chapter's use included a small observation dome, where Librarians could meditate while off-duty. The dome opened to a view of the Immaterium as the Strike Cruiser "Heaven's Fire" slipped through, scouting ahead for the newly revived chapter's leaders. Gamael Isakios was the Librarian for the 2nd Company, a tall, pale specimen of a man, though much of his pallor came from too much time spent in dim chambers perusing ancient texts. The nearby door hissed open, letting in another Astartes. He moved slowly, settling besides Isakios so as not to disturb him. Isakios smiled, his eyes still closed. "Hail Brother-Captain. How may I serve?"
The other Marine snorted. "To think I spent two centuries serving with you, yet you still surprise me when you do that."

"To be blessed with such talents in His service is a joy, and the enigma that comes with it, Denius." Isakios replied with a wry smile. Denius opened his mouth to reply before pausing in shock as Isakios moaned, eyes writhing. He slumped onto the floor, robe spreading out around. He shifted as if in the grip of a fit. "Help me! The voices! I can hear them!" Denius reached for the boltpistol holstered on his side, but by then it was no longer necessary. Isakios ceased his movement, panting almost silently. "The horde Denius. I can hear them." The other Marine looked at him with suspicion in his eyes, "What horde, Gamael? Of what do you speak?"

Isakios twisted his head to look at Denius silently. "The Greenskins."

The Planet

The void tore, a great hole of hellfire dominating the night sky over the planet. The ship ripped out, hurtling into orbit as its engines burned brightly. Pinpricks of starlight appeared, like flaming comets, rushing down as if in a hurry to dash themselves on the surface. They smashed with a thunderous sound into the ground, before disgorging their cargoes. Batches of Astartes ran out, consolidating into full squads while the Orkz moved towards them. The baying horde was getting ever closer, before Denius signalled Heaven's Fire. "This is Denius to Captain Heasus. Fire now!" The sky erupted into a new dawn as the plasma bolts smashed down from the orbiting cruiser, right into the heart of the vast throng. They pounded down for only a few minutes, but within that time they'd decimated the horde. Denius smiled coldly, turning to face Isakios. "Shall we?" Without waiting for an answer he turned to address his men, "Marines! Tempest Reapers! Will you join me in battle?!" As one they roared their reply "Aye!"

by **Feazanthia** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:12 pm

<//LINKQUERY SEC COMM>
<//HANDSHAKE INITIATED>
<//SOMTAAW.HLW.FLEETCOM.ACTUAL>
<SOBAN.MWG.FLEETCOM.TEMP\\>
<//CONNECTION ESTABLISHED\\>

<//I do not find this course of action wise, Phia.>

<Truly? I would have thought you of all people would have supported it, or do the Somtaaw no longer wish the mantle of Beastslayers?\\>

<//Petty insults are not becoming for one of your stature, Phia.>

<Neither is cowardice for one of yours. The Sobani do not shy away from cleansing infections, let alone infections as minor and unthreatening as this. Furthermore, my blessings come from the Phia-sa himself.\\>

<//Even so, I recommend caution. The target is deep within barbarian territory->

<I am aware. The infection shall be cured before their primitive sensor systems catch even the slightest whiff of our presence. To be perfectly honest, I intend to use this opportunity to blood some of our newest savaseeda. It is time they learned what they face.\\>

<//Not alone, I trust.>

<If you're looking for operation reports on your Kudaarkda and Lamon-corda, do not fret. In the meantime, I suggest you have your attendant find your spine.\\>

<//It is always a pleasure speaking with you, Phia Soban.>

<CONNECTION LOST (LINKERROR Q?9881 NOSERVHOST)\\>

For the briefest of instants, space and time broke down into chaos as their laws rent apart into singularity, and multiple dimensions became one. Then, faster than the human brain could comprehend, the status quo was reestablished, and the embattled world suddenly had two massive warships in its orbit.

"I am Jak-phi Soban Kamani Meltoa," cried an assertive female voice across the void along the electromagnetic wavelengths. "I command the yewonrozt Klaazkal Kazuul, carraying the authority of the Sobani Phiada to this system. Soban Fiirkal is my guide and patron. Qwaar-jet alone judges my actions. Who amongst you seeks to deny this right?"

None did, as the challenge was ritual and already the mind's of the ship's crew were abuzz attending to their duties.

"I am Anamehej Soban Nawanjet. I command the miirharozt Fal-kaval. Soban Fiirkal is my guide and patron. Qwaar-jet alone judges my actions. Not I nor my own seek to deny your right, but stand at your side as individuals," came the answering challenge.

"I accept your allegiance as an equal, Anamehej Soban Nawanjet," said the first voice. "Let our foes know fear this day."

It was all, they knew, rather silly. An ancient ritual dating back to when Kiith Soban had founded itself from the scattered, victimized remnants of Kiith Siidim's paaura, its holy war against what it had called "heretics". It, like many of the stranger traditions of other militaries (such as something called "marching"), was ingrained in the Sobani culture, and the two commanding officers now carried it out because to do otherwise was unthinkable.

The larger vessel, having identified itself as the yewonrozt Klaazkal Kazuul, was nearly two kilometers long from its flattened prow to its boxy engine superstructure. Its profile resembled a pair of pre-gunpowder arrowheads, fused together at perpendicular angles and dotted with protrusions. A huge, kilometers long plume of fire ignited from the vessel's rear and accelerated the warship towards the planet. The second vessel - a flattened, asymmetrical shape that resembled something not unlike a flounder - followed suit.

"Course laid in. Time to zero-zero intercept with geosynchronous orbit...zero-one-one-eight-two seconds," said a cool, melodic voice in the back of Jak-phi Soban Kamani Meltoa's mind. The Jak-phi, of course, did not so much hear the words as feel. They came from the synthetic mind of the Kazuul itself, and they were less like words in the sense of language and more like neural impulses one would use to manipulate one's arm. "The Fal-kaval has already begun preparations for a low-orbit drop before returning to station. Sensors are online and updating surface targeting data. No other contacts detected in-system."

"Excellent," cooed Meltoa as her mental avatar folded its arms. It was an unconscious gesture, one she knew her old aklast-liin would accost her of if he knew she still fell prey to such inefficiencies. She'd learned, as had everyone at the Sobani naval juukmaan-jar - what others might call an "academy" - to separate her mental self from all human impulses and abandon them in the link between the mind and the machine, but the Jak-phi had not come to command one of her Kiith's war sailers if she hadn't been doing something right, hadn't she? "Any new data from the probe who initially alerted us? Any strange and dangerous alien warships waiting for us in the planet's ecliptic?" she asked with a hint of amusement.

"One moment, my Jak-phi," said Kazuul's soothing voice once more.

The tiny mind had observed the arrival of the Heaven's Fire with great curiosity, for the profile of the alien vessel was unknown to it. Emergency subroutines, what someone who insisted on anthropomorphization might call "alarm", had arisen when it brazenly opened fire upon the surface; and a wave of what that same person may call "relief" flowed through it when the Klaazkal Kazuul and Fal-kaval had broken the Slipstream barrier on the other side of the planet. All it had to do was extend its sub-light communications array, transmit the data it had accumulated on the strike cruiser and-

In that moment, whatever malevolent entity that controlled the universe's laws of chance decided to strike, and a chunk of frozen iron the size of an ancient Terran penny tore through the exposed antennae and left it a twisted, molten hunk of carbon before burning up in the moon's thin atmosphere. Panic ripped through the tiny probe as its receiver picked up the handshake protocols being transmitted from the Sobani warship, and yet was powerless to respond. Powerless to warn them.

Could only float there...and watch...

"No response, my Jak-phi."

"Ah well," sighed the Sobani commanding officer. "Guess a good targeting recalibration was too much to hope for. Send clearance to the Fal-kaval to begin landing operations. Request that Nawanjet make sure her dust-suckers do things quickly. I don't fancy having nothing to do up here but target the odd tactical MIRV."

"Of course, my Jak-sa," answered the synthetic consciousness with the closest facsimile of wry amusement the unfeeling computers allowed themselves.

Burning atmosphere lapped at carbon hull plating as four dozen oblong arrowheads streaked through the world's natural defenses, flanked by another dozen of far more massive triangular shapes. Turbines screamed as their engines began gulping down the world's oxygen-rich air and refilled their own reserves for the trip back. Great contrails signaled their descent, and wordless thoughts passed between them. Six of the smaller craft suddenly accelerated away from the formation and dipped low, finally breaking free of the upper atmosphere's friction fire and skimming along a high pressure system.

On the surface, a group of green-skinned humanoids jeered and taunted one another in the crude social interaction of their so-called culture. They stood aloof from a massive, quad barreled emplacement bolted to a half-tracked vehicle seemingly as an afterthought. It was designed to spit as much metal at incoming aerial threats as possible, the greenskins' response to the advent of close-air support.

It was also, unfortunately for its inattentive operators, designed to engage targets in its own line-of-sight and moving at subsonic speeds. The unlucky beings never even saw the silvery cylinders that streaked in from beyond the horizon at mach 7; and never even felt it as they and their otherwise fear-inspiring weapon were reduced to charred, lifeless matter. Neither did their fellows as a rolling wave of incendiary warheads followed the first volley and devastated all in its path. What creatures survived that conflagration did not last long, as the quarter-squadron of orbit-to-surface aerial attack craft, nicknamed lamon-cor or "Star's Wrath" by those that made them, screamed across the cityscape on plumes of flame. The pathetic humanoids contorted and screamed as their bodies burnt from the inside-out...the telltale sign of being targeted by an ultraviolet-frequency point defense laser.

With the immediate area cleared, the massive flying wings and their escort of far smaller lamon-corda entered view and hemorrhaged velocity. Reverse thrusters fired from the larger ships as they maneuvered to intercept the city's abandoned highway system. Each one was over eighty meters from its nose to its engines, and their wingspan was more fast than their length. As the craft touched down, their purpose became abundantly clear. From their rear and side hatches streamed countless numbers of four-legged, mechanical arachnids. They rolled from their protective cocoons and unfurled themselves like new flowers in Spring. Slender projectile accelerators were slung from their undercarriages, and pylons mounted with cylindrical rockets extended from their bulbous upper bodies. Tiny, diamond-tipped claws flipped downward and provided grip for their relatively thick legs, and the swarm of ravenous mechanical wodaan communicated in the only auditory method known to them.

The piercing, ear-splitting screech echoed and reverberated through the streets, and was answered by an answering challenge of "WAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHH!"

The wodaan streamed down the highway's on ramp, already letting loose with the millimeter-wide high-explosive hyper-velocity darts of their underslung pulsers as the first staggered wave of orks answered with their crude projectile weaponry.

"You almost feel sorry for them," said a voice in Kushan-la. "They have no idea what they're getting into, do they?"

"The hunting bird feels no pity for its meal," answered another voice in the same language as armored hands snapped a rectangular ammunition container into its rifle and charged the capacitor. "Nor should we. Hadat! Direct bombardment fire in support of the wodaan! We have more cities to purge this day."

by **Caragonia** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 4:02 am

Heaven's Fire

The command deck was silent, almost cloister-like in its atmosphere.The deckplate throbbed with the pulsations of the distant generators near the far end of the ship, and just above it hung a thin vapour, giving it an eerie, chilling appearance. The command chair perched high above allowed Captain Heasus to keep his keen eye on the proceedings. "Gunnery, recalculate fire solution. Present batteries on the furthest edge of the settlement. Let the Brother-Captain push them into our fire where we shall crush them." The other Marine manning the controls of the ship's formidable weapons looked and nodded in acknowledgement.
"By your will, Captain."
He sat back, feeling confident. It had been nearly three months by his shipboard clocks since they'd left Caragon, and all of his crew were performing as well as they had done before the Great Sleep. "Captain! Unidentified vessels now in orbit around the planet! Orbital grid section Epsilon-Tau-Thirteen." The Marine shifted it to the main holoviewer bedecking the front of the command deck. A square patch of the planet glowed red, showing where the foreign vessels now hung in orbit. "Hmm...launch one of the reserve Sparrowhawks to scout. They are not to engage in combat, only find out what I need to know and to return to us."
"By your will, Captain."

On The Surface

"Push forward! Brother-Sergeant Andiaeus, hold your position! Pin down their left flank!" The battlefield was filled with a cacophony of epic proportions. The 2nd Company was scything their way through the Ork horde, decimating batches here and there while slowly pushing them back. Denius and his personal retinue were in the centre, leading the push of three other of his squads. He clambered onto a podium overlooking the town square, levering his bolt pistol, the gun bucking as it delivered its payload to the greenskins. Once, twice, thrice he fired, each shell decimating its target. Then a vast roar filled the square as a mob of even burlier Orks shouldered their way through the others towards him and his men. "Denius to Squads Caeus. Hold and maintain fire. Squad Jehusah, move into the building to the west, and flank them. Squads Gellarus and Denius...CHARGE!" He leaped off the podium before he had even finished speaking, smashing one Ork down with a blow from his powerfist, leaving its head in bloody pieces. His hand raised, pistol blowing off another Ork's arm as he continued his charge, powerfist cleaving a wake of ruin in his trail. The rest of the Marines followed on, smashing through like a hammerblow. Sergeant Gellarus, veteran of a dozen campaigns before the Great Sleep used his personal weapon, a vast broad bladed axe he'd taken from the corpse of a renegade on some long-lost world cutting down the bestial creatures with every swing.

Then a large fist smacked into Denius' visor, hurling him back to the ground savagely. A shadow obscured his view as a muscular Ork snarled at him, foul breathe erupting from a tusk-lined jaw. It raised a single gnarly fist with a roughly-forged blade high, before swiping down with more force than any normal man could ever hope to withstand. But Denius was an Astartes. With all his effort he managed to grasp the crude device in the gauntlet of his powerfist, slowly pushing it up with an almighty effort. He lifted one armoured knee off the ground, hammering it into the Ork's kneecap with a audible crack of bone snapping as his reward.The creature snarled, the other fist thudding into Denius' helm again and again. His head ringing from the blows, he reached for his bolt pistol fallen on the floor, fingers snagging the grip before he lifted up, jamming it into the Ork's eyesocket and just letting the trigger pull and pull and pull until the damned thing was dead. He heard a blood-curdling shriek of pure animal rage over the comchannel before realising. It was his voice. He stood, looking around him. With the death of their leader the Orks morale had seemed to break, and they began to flee. The deployment of his men meant that they'd either be cut to pieces by bolter fire or take the seemingly safe way out to the town's northern side. He waited another ten minutes as his men either cut down those few refusing to be herded or gathered the remains of their brothers who had fallen. "Denius to Heaven's Fire," he breathed, "Fire at will."

To anyone who had witnessed the earlier bombardment, it would have seemed as if an angry god had ravaged the land. If they'd been able to see this, they would have been convinced that the end was neigh. Ravening plasma bolts smashed down, intermittent missile salvoes interspersed amongst them before a single beam of crimson light penetrated the clouds. It carve through the ground, leaving a pulsing cloud of dust to whip up as a storm, burning the paltry survivors. By the time the fire had stopped, nothing was left alive.

Sparrowhawk Call-Sign Talon-9, (Rex Maiestatis)
Planetary Orbit, Intercept Vector to Grid Epsilon-Tau-Thirteen

The small craft creeping slowly towards the new contacts was something of a special being. While not as big, nor as heavily armed as one of their larger Thunderhawk brethren would be, the Sparrowhawks were faster, more agile, and were perfect for scouting missions. Contrary to normal practice, the ship was crewed by a pair of Astartes, not the single techmarine that would be expected. It slipped through the sky, making effort to avoid being detected. "Captain, we are in sensor range. Beginning scanning process."
The thrum of engines was all that could be heard before the Astartes spoke. "Two vessels confirmed. Tentative contacts established in-atmosphere. Cannot identify whether they are attack craft or transports."
The voxcaster crackled, "Very well then. Return to the ship, Talon-9."
"By your will, Captain." The other Marine swiftly turned the craft around with a thrust from its vectored engines, sending them to full power a moment later. Now that they had something, there was no point in hiding any longer.

by **Feazanthia** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 6:35 am

"Alert. Thermal emissions source detected. Alert. Active scan emissions reflecting off hull,"

Meltoa jerked from her mental reverie as raw data coursed into her nervous system. Her mind interpreted it as useful information, and her mental eye instantly "saw" the contact along with data on its heading, luminosity, velocity, and acceleration. Instantly, she knew its engine output was too low in relation to its acceleration to be anything but a smallcraft or probe, and the intense beams of light currently bouncing off Klaazkal Kazuul lent validity to the former possibility. "Jak-phi," said the ship once more in its calm and soothing tones, "alteration in target aspect. Target has begun high negative acceleration."
"Verify range to target, switch all batteries from standby to active, plot pursuit course, and transmit challenge," ordered the Sobani commander before tapping into the open channel between the Kazuul and the Fal-kaval. "Anamehej Nawanet, we have detected an unknown target in orbital grid square eight-two mark seven-eight-eight. Designated as target one-one. I have begun my pursuit."
"We see it," said the mental voice of the Fal-kaval's commanding officer. "Do you request assistance?"

"Negative. Do not assist. Remain on station as orbital support. We shall investigate this on our own."

The leviathan war sailer became dotted with great plumes of rapidly expanding gas as reaction-control systems angled it towards the fleeing Sparrowhawk, and were followed shortly therafter by the igniting of the ship's primary fusion torch. The ship's active scanner array lashed out at at the Astartes craft with LIDAR of sufficient wattage to boil paint off of unshielded hulls as missile ports opened and laser arrays swiveled to track the target. From the communications dish, a message was beamed likewise with nearly ludicrous wattage behind it, and in all known languages and frequencies. It was audio only, and the voice was a cool, calm feminine that clashed harshly with the content of the message.
"Unidentified vessel, you have been acquired and targetted within a Sobani operational area. You are hereby ordered and required to transmit eye-eff-eff data or relevant equivalent for positive identification, along with origin and intent. Your response is required within thirty seconds of message receipt, or you will be designated as hostile and fired upon. There will be no further audio warnings. Soban war sailer Klaazkal Kazuul, clear."

The world ceased to move as it should.

Sonic sensors had warned of the threat a split second before it had showed itself. Training and instinct had thrown the heavily armored figure into motion instantly; sythetic "muscles" tensing with the application of electrical impulses and the entire humanoid body twisting to the side. When the metal slug had reached its target, the target was no longer there.

Hadat-ne Soban Irfriit uln-Saeed had turned to face the mid-air greenskin as time slowed for both of them. Impulses surged across his "body" as organic mind and synthetic systems recognized what his ocular implants and his armor's own sensors were seeing.

kuh-THUNK

Another muzzle flash coincided with the first carbon plate snapping into place. It, too, went wide; an indication of an organic mind still expecting his target to be stationary. Neurons fired in concert with circuits connecting. An automatic weapon, perhaps powder-based? Projectile, obviously. Software analyzed the weapon itself. Crude construction, seemingly from scavenged parts and scrap metal.

kuh-THUNK

Another plate snapped into place. Irfriit focused his attention now on the weapon's wielder. The suit's database still did not have sufficient physiology baselines for an accurate vitals check, but a quick visual scan showed a grievous injury on the creature's upper right torso. Likely shrapnel from a close-proximity pulser detonation. That it was up and moving at all spoke volumes about the creature's physical vitality. Distributed organic support systems? A distinct possibility; anything resembling a human nervous system should have shut down from the shock of such a wound.

kuh-THUNK

The vocalization the creature emitted was interesting. Its long, monosylabic warble was unlikely to be part of any real language syntax. More a brutish war cry. This, along with its weapon, suggested an unsophisticated social structure; but a social structure at all amongst a macroparasitic species was an intriguing anomaly.

kuh-THIK

The ork's furious expression turned to one of shock and pain as he found himself impaled on a spiked shield, suddenly existing along the arm of a target that should have been an easy kill. Its confusion did not last long, however, as a slender isoceles blade extended from the armored humanoid's other arm and passed cleanly through the ork's skull. Irfriit adjusted his body to bring the shield - and its new ornament - in-line with the center of his mass and huddled his body behind it. The shock of kinetic impacts ripping through the twitching corpse and smashing against the reinforced carbon plates rippled through the man's armor and artificial body. In a fluidic movement, the blade retracted and the boxy pulser was in his hand once more. It swung around, clipping easily against the side of the shield, and the weapon belched fire. It sounded less like a thunderous boom, and more like a loud series of coughs, but the sounds of the weapon itself were drowned out as cacophonous detonations ripped through the two additional greenskins that had attempted to approach from the Sobani's front.

A warning sounded in Irfriit's mind, and the image of a fungal spore flashed through it as the suit sealed itself automatically.
"Biohazard warning!" he hissed over his armor's communications network. "Seal suits in case of close quarters combat! Target species produces reproductive spores upon death!"
"Acknowledged," came the voice of his superior. "All units, avoid see-cue-bee if at all possible. Engage at maximum possible range. Direct wodaan to clear enclosed areas." There was a pause, and then "Use of incendiary measures is authorized."

Irfriit smiled without humor. He clapped the butt of his pulser against his thigh with calculated precision, and immediately the half-spent cartridge ejected into the reloader system to be replaced with a similar, yet full magazine. Only, it wasn't filled with the standard high-explosive darts of standard pulser rounds as its predecessor had been. Irfriit heard the scuffling of another small group approaching his position. His rifle was up in a heartbeat, and the first dart met its target just as its head rounded the corner. Where an orkish head had been a moment before, a ball of flame now expanded to consume the torso. Another round followed it, zeroing in on the center of mass and dousing the ork's companions with hellfire. Irfriit charged forward, exploiting the opening his burst had created, and delivered a third round through the flame directly into the other three humanoids. An indicator in his mind flashed, and he immediately recognized the IFF signals of another in his squad approaching from the south.

"Confirmed. Incendiary measures effective. Recommend sterilization of previously swept land. Unit moving on."

by **Caragonia** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 11:44 am

Sparrowhawk Call-Sign Talon-9, (Rex Maiestatis)
High Orbit, Returning to Heaven's Fire

The ancient craft's threat processors were going haywire as the behemoth chasing it targeted it. The two Astartes sat in the cockpit looked as the speakers began to relay the craft's strange message. "Azuhis, what is that thing transmitting?" asked the pilot as he put the engines to their limits. The other Marine began to dial through the different channels on the vox-caster, each one blanketed with the chatter of the approaching craft. "I am not sure, Brother. Best if we do not listen to it, nothing good could come of it. Relay it to the Captain, just in case. He will wish to know of it." The other Marine nodded agreement and turned back to piloting. "Xenos craft is approaching rapidly...incredible that something so large could accelerate so swiftly. We'll soon reach the ecliptic, then the Heaven's Fire can cover us as we dock." The small craft powered on through the vacuum, engines pulsating.

by **Feazanthia** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 10:34 am

"No response, my Jak-phi."

Meltoa swore as the tiny craft vanished over the world's ecliptic plane, having posessed a lower orbital position and superior base velocity to the Klaazkal Kazuul. Now, of course, she looked foolish. She'd promised to open fire on the craft, counting on her war sailer's superior acceleration to overhaul the target before it could have reversed course. A clock began ticking down in a corner of her mind - a revised time estimate to when her ship would overhaul, assuming all accelerations remained equal. It was too long, she knew, and she cursed again.

"Deploy single-stage missile, explosive warhead on internal detonator. Program for standard warning shot," said the Sobani Jak-phi. “I want them to know we can hit them should we choose.”

The immense warship shuddered slightly as magnetic coils spat out a cylindrical metal tube from the Klaazkal Kazuul’s prow. It coasted for a few breaths before igniting its own fusion torch and speeding away from the war sailer at accelerations the ship could never match. It, unlike the kuun-lamaat missiles adopted by the KFEF for anti ship operations, was armed with a shaped fusion warhead. These weapons were hardly used in actual combat, but all ships maintained a supply for surface bombardment operations…or for precisely what Soban Kamani Meltoa had in mind. It crossed the ecliptic quickly before its thermal sensors took in the starscape. The plume from Talon-9 was unmistakable, even against the otherwise warm backdrop of the planet. Active LIDAR rangefinder lashed out, and the missile bore in on an intercept course. It was tasked not with the Sparrowhawk’s destruction, but rather a show of force and capability. It would home in on the small craft, coming to within a few scant kilometers before suddenly and obviously veering off and detonating in all its nuclear fury at a safe, but poignant, distance.

by **Caragonia** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 4:28 am

Sparrowhawk Call-Sign Talon-9, (Rex Maiestatis)
High Orbit

Threat processors began to bleat alarms while the auspexes wailed as the Sparrowhawk-class gunship detected the inbound missile. "Incoming, brother." said one of the Marines, attempting to clarify the identity of the new signal for the pilot. Without speaking the pilot wrenched the Sparrowhawk into crazed twists and turns, attempting to avoid the incoming projectile with evasive manoeuvres. The G-forces were crushingly hurtful, even for such as an Astartes.

"Contact the Heaven's Fire, inform them of this."
The weapon officer quickly turned to the powerful voxcaster console, broadcasting the fact of the missile to the Heaven's Fire as well as the large ship pursuing them. Then, without warning the missile turned away. The two crew members looked at each other in bemusement. Was it a simple-minded thing, confused with a lack of the beneficent oversee of the Tech-priests? They soon received their answer. A powerful explosion lit up their sensors for a moment before burning them out with the power of its brilliance. "A warning shot..." whispered the pilot.

by **Feazanthia** » Fri Apr 22, 2011 6:19 pm

The War Sailer was not far behind its ordnance and rapidly accelerating; it took less than an hour for the leviathan to orbit far enough around the planet that it once again brought the diminutive Sparrowhawk into its sensor envelope. However, a fraction of a thought later, alarms and threat indicators washed through the neural network of the Klaazkal Kazuul.

"Identify that," demanded Meltoa, even as part of her augmented brain realized the folly. She'd been fully briefed on every ship profile used by this galaxy's inhabitants - barbarian and civilized alike. The emissions profile of both merchantman and warship were literally programmed into her long-term memory. This...thing, for as an experienced spacer she had no better word for it, matched nothing Kiith Soban knew of. It was a warship, that much was evident, and at first glance it was built along sensible axes. A massive fusion engine burned at its aft, and what appeared to be a spinal battery jutted from its prow, but its adherence to everything she knew about ship design ended there. It lacked lateral symmetry along its X-axis, something she knew for a fact must have given its designers fits and robbed engine efficiency. Such a glaring design flaw was puzzling enough, but she could see no real advantage to offset it. The vessel's "top", for indeed it looked as if it were designed for an environment where gravitational acceleration was a constant, consisted of towering spires. Its prow was likewise asymetrical, and it seemed to be layered in what appeared to be heavy metallic armor. What, did they intend to be ramming targets or breaking ice in the void? To be honest, a part of her mind insisted, they might very well be; their primary armament seemed to be locked in broadside configuration of all things. Did they really design the vessel around a doctrine of maneuvering the entire hull to fire a single shot?

"Target Two designated. Profile and spectral analysis complete - vessel is asimilar to any on record; closest match at four-eight percent. Hull metallurgy analysis complete: nine-six percent similarity to Target One. Similar origin deemed probable. Threat analysis of target capabilities inconclusive, radiological readings of primary batteries do not correspond with any known weapon system. Scans report intermittent interdiction by unidentified energy field surrounding Target Two."

"Defensive field?" inquired the Jak-phi.

"Probable. Scans inconclusive. Data on field capabilities and defensive strength unavailable."

This brought a mental frown from the Kazuul's commanding officer. Unknowns were liabilities. Liabilities were unacceptable. For all she knew, she could be leading her warship into a skaal's nest and be completely unaware.

"Deploy full spread of mestaa clee-alda, and deploy a communications satellite. I need to send a message to Anamehej Nawanjet," her "eyes" swept over the beyond-visual analysis of the strike cruiser. "Transmit challenge. Trade languages first, then cycle through everything in the data banks on all frequencies."

Cylindrical probes shot outward from the war sailer, accelerating away at velocities no man could survive and lashing the Heaven's Fire with harsh whips of electromagnetic surveillance. They left no crevice of the cruiser's hull unscanned, and shifted continually through the spectra and intensity to find out what the vessel's shields would interdict. Simultaneously, a message beamed out from the Sobani vessel in one of the most common trade languages, a derivative of an ancient Terran tongue.

"Unidentified warship, you have intruded upon a Sobani operational area, and your parasite craft has been identified fleeing an active war zone without acknowledging or submitting to challenges transmitted in the clear. You are hereby ordered and required to heave-to and submit identification data along with your intent in this region. All parasite craft are to be withdrawn immediately along with any surface assets. These terms are non-negotiable. Failure to comply will be considered an act of aggression and dealt with accordingly. You have three-zero seconds from time of message receipt to respond. Say again, three-zero seconds. Kiith Soban war sailer Klaazkal Kazuul, clear." The message than began to repeat, cycling through languages in order of known prevalence in the Milky Way.

At that same moment, a satellite was launched from the aft section of the 'sailer. It accelerated smoothly through turnover, coming to relative rest between the Klaazkal Kazuul and the Fal-kaval. As seams of data passed through the satellite's relay, the miirharozt altered its vector one-hundred-eighty degrees and began a hard acceleration around the other side of the planet. The satellite also turned and set a course for the world's pole in order to maintain its communications link between the two ships.

"Pa'taat!" came the curse over the squad link. This caused Irfriit to pause for the briefest of instants. A swear on an open channel, especially when it was tagged with the origin code of the takiim's commanding officer, was beyond irregular. "Savaseeda!" came the voice again, clearer but with no less venom. "Begin rolling retreat to the transports, let the wodaan finish here." Irfriit flinched involuntarily as a missile salvo from an armored Kurdaark infantry fighting vehicle rolled down a suburban block half a kilometer distant, scattering the charred remains of an alien armored column.

"As is ordered, my Jefet," said Hadat'ne Soban Irfriit as he began sending sub-vocal commands to his squad to fall back to their Kurdaark. "Have these slack-jaws broken a flank?"

"Bizk, Hadat'ne," came the reply. "We have confirmed contacts on the planet's far orbit. Not, I repeat, not macroparasites. Our orbital support has broken position to engage."

A few half-globes of moister formed on the side of the Sobani Hadat'ne's head, which were of course quickly whisked away by his suit's porous and body-hugging inner layer to be recycled into potable drinking water.

"...we are to remain under the vessel's cover and sweep possible landing positions, my Jefet?"

"Mor, Hadat'ne. Get your squad to your bird immediately and make yourselves ready for supersonic flight."

by **Caragonia** » Fri Apr 29, 2011 2:04 pm

Heaven's Fire

The silence of the Heaven's Fire bridge was broken by the first report of one of the Astartes crew. "Captain, Sparrowhawk Thirteen has reappeared on our sensors. They are being trailed by another vessel."
Heasus looked down from his throne at the other Astartes. "Another, Brother Caratus?" he replied.
Another Marine spoke up this time, answering his query. "Yes Captain. It appears to be scanning us, full active sensors and passives. A most intensive scan. Should we respond likewise?"
Heasus paused for a moment, thinking it over, one hand idly tapping the side-panel of the chair's arm. "...Yes. Have the Rex Maiestatis upload the scans it got to our main cogitator. Then have our own sensors paint this ship. Maybe we can discern something of them."

Another Marine manning the main communications console turned his chair to face Heasus in his throne, the metal groaning from lack of use. "Captain, the unknown ship. It's now broadcasting a message. The signal is in what sounds like Low Gothic."
Heasus' head twitched querulously. "Low Gothic? Put it through on the vox-caster."
The message from the Kiith's ship slowly filtered in through the harsh voice of the vox-caster's speakers. The assembled bridgecrew listened to it. As the last notes echoed between the great bulkheads, the captain spoke again. "Have our records searched for any reference to the terms Kiith or Sobani. Then have two of our Thunderhawks readied for launch to the surface."
Brother Caratus paused for a moment. "Captain, are...are we giving into their terms? Two Thunderhawks could not withdraw all the Astartes on the surface."
Heasus smiled grimly down at him. "No, we're not. I want Brother-Captain Denius to have more firepower in case he needs it. I believe we will be occupied ourselves before long."

Within ten minutes all was ready. The Thunderhawks had been prepped for their launch, the crew of the Rex Maiestatis and the rest of the Sparrowhawk crews aboard the Heaven's Fire were ready to launch if necessary and the Heaven's Fire had finished its own counter-scans. "Open a vox-link to the 'war-sailor'." ordered the captain brusquely. A few seconds later the demanded channel was open, ready to send his message whatever it was. Slowly he spoke, the message broadcasting in real-time.

"War-sailor, this is Captain Heasus of the Imperial Strike Cruiser Heaven's Fire of the Tempest Reapers Adeptus Astartes Chapter. You have demanded our withdrawal from a warzone where we fight the greenskin scum. Never. In the name of Him on Earth, I command you yourself to withdraw, or face the wrath of the Space Marines. Do not try my patience, for it is limited."

"Heasus, out."

by **Feazanthia** » Tue May 17, 2011 6:41 pm

"They certainly are a pleasant people, aren't they!" came the bubbling mental tickle of the Kazuul's cetace navigator. "Then again, my Jak'phi, we did threaten to fire on them."

Meltoa sent the Miik'til'kker Family officer a mental scowl informing him that now was not the time to make pointed critiques of contact protocols under combat conditions.

"Alert, separation detected," a knot formed in Meltoa's stomach as the cool mental voice of her ship announced this new development, a knot which only slightly loosened when the ship continued its observation. "Trajectory and mass readings confirmed. Two parasite vessels on zero-zero intercept vector with planetary surface, projected landing site concurrent with known urban population center."

"Somehow I don't think they're evacuation transports," quipped the engineering coordinator. This, too, drew a note of discontent from the Jak-phi. This was hostile contact situation well below the optimal range arc. Just because the warship being bombarded by active arrays looked primitive in its construction didn't mean this was anything but a serious combat situation. They were Sobani, for Qwaar-jet's sake!

"All nodes run pre-combat diagnostics, submit reports to core," ordered Meltoa, coupled with a reprimand for unspacemanlike conduct. "Weapons, load single-stage missiles in forward tubes one and two. Fusion warhead, spherical burst. Set for warning shots off the host vessel and parasite craft. Have number two warhead detonate two-hundred kilometers ahead of their parasites. Sear their hulls a bit; I want them to know who is Sa here."

Capacitors discharged their energy into electromagnetic coils, which in turn polarized and instantly generated an extremely strong magnetic field. The aluminum-nickel-cobalt acceleration cages surrounding a pair of tungsten-carbide cylinders responded and were attracted to this field, and the two were dragged down the length of their launch tubes. As they passed each coil, the polarity of that coil shifted and instead became a repulsor, and within a second the two missiles had been accelerated to incredible velocities. They rocketed from their launch tubes on the war sailer's conical bow, blooms of superheated gas and electricity expanding in their wake. Their acceleration cages shattered and fell away, quickly followed by the protective casings around the missiles' sensor equipment and torch drives; the glittering remnants of both impacted the Sobani ship's defense field and were vaporized. Tiny jets of superheated gas altered the trajectories of the twenty meter projectiles, and their comparatively small fusion torches ignited to propel them to even greater velocities in pursuit of their targets. One was sent across the bow of the Heaven's Fire to detonate a scant six-hundred kilometers off the hull. The second missile chased the Thunderhawks, overhauled them, and continued onward towards the atmosphere. It too detonated, a cloud of superheated generated plasma directly in the path of the two transports - it would diffuse sufficiently in the time it took for the craft to cross the gap in order to avoid damaging them more than cosmetically, but still be powerful enough to blacken their hulls and rattle their pilots.

"I am Soban Kamani Meltoa," came Meltoa's voice once more in a general transmission, "Jak-phi in the Sobani Military, commanding officer of the Klaazkal Kazuul, and designated overseer of this battlespace. My words carry the authority vested in me by the Phia of the Soban Military and the whole of the Sobani Phiamid. You have exhausted my supply of warning missiles," technically a lie, "as well as my patience," this was fact. "The next weapons that my launchers send at you shall carry stand-off attack warheads, and there will be many of them. I repeat my order a final time, in the interests," she sneered "of maintaining interstellar peace. Terra has no jurisdiction here, nor do I recognize yours. Your vessel will heave-to and submit to us. Your parasite craft and landing parties will withdraw. These terms are not negotiable, and failure to abide by them will result in lethal responses. I do not wish to send you to Koshiir-Ra's judgement, Captain, but invoke the wrath of the Sobani and in Qwaar-Jet's name I shall! Transmission terminated!"

She was emotional; angry, insulted, irrational, everything she was not supposed to be. She didn't care. LIDAR rangefinders lashed out once more at the Heaven's Fire as the Klaazkal Kazuul fired its retrograde RCS and backed away from its geosynchronous orbit and the Astartes warship. Anyone familiar with Kiith doctrine and tactics would recognize it as an effort to widen the gap to a point where the long-range weaponry of the Khontala-series war sailer would have operate to its greatest effect, and where their defensive doctrine of avoidance and deflection would perform far better. It remained to be seen how the Tempest Reapers interpreted it.

A single Lamon-cor streaked across the dividing line between the world's troposphere and stratosphere, where the air was thin enough for high-velocity cruise but still sufficient to operate its synergistic air-breathing rocket engines without resorting to tapping its internal metallic oxygen supplies. Three more Lamon-corda rocketed after it at Mach 7 - over two-thousand meters per second at that altitude - before the quartet angled lower and began accelerating. Great contrails spread out behind them as they quickly overflew the remains of the city, the scorched earth of the Heaven's Fire's bombardment...and the gathering of men and machines belonging to the Tempest Reapers.

by **Caragonia** » Sun May 22, 2011 5:35 am

Aboard The Heaven's Fire

"Incoming!" bellowed one of the Astartes bridge crew as threat sensors began to whine and alarm bells clanged in a fervoured din. "Missile separation, defence batteries arming."
The ship rocked as the blast wave from the nearby explosion battered it. "Missile seems to have been another warning shot, Captain. Either that or by His Will they missed us."
"Lord Captain, Sword One and Sword Two were also targeted by a missile. Both pilots report minimal damage, and some problems with sensors and communications, although they anticipate easy repairs."
The lord captain grimaced as the voxcaster relayed the last of the 'War Sailor' ship's message. "Brother Caratus, status of this 'War Sailor?"
"It appears to be moving away, Lord Captain. Shall we pursue?" asked the other over his shoulder.
Heasus paused for a moment. The Rex Maiestatis had indicated that there were two vessels, and if this was pulling back it could well be an ambush. "No..." he replied. "No, we shall not play their game. Helm, alter course fifty degrees to port, all ahead full. Let's make them work for their war."
"Sir, message from the surface. Captain Denius wishes to know our intentions."
"Put him through." Heasus waited while the vox-casters crackled into life. "This is Heasus receiving. Captain Denius, I must inform you that the Heaven's Fire is moving away from orbit of the planet. We'll try to draw this 'War Sailor' away from you and engage it in open space."
"Understood, Heaven's Fire. Denius, out."
The lord captain just smiled grimly, facial scars mocking the expression as they were pulled.

On The Surface

"Understood Heaven's Fire, Denius, out." The Astartes commander looked round at the rest of his gathered force. It had been a good battle, the first true one of the Tempest Reapers since the Great Sleep, and the toll of casualties proved it. Eight Marines dead, another eleven wounded. "Brother Apothecary." he nodded as Flavius strode over. The apothecary was the backbone of the Third Company, with nearly every Astartes in it owing their life at least once to his skill with a narthecium.
"Brother Captain." returned Flavius with a nod. "I regret to inform you that Brother Gamael has been granted the Emperor's Peace. His wounds were too severe."
"I understan-" Denius' next words were cut off as the sonic boom overhead wiped out all sense of noise. Not even the enhanced hearing of the Marines could obviate such a sound. A squadron of four craft swiped overhead, completely different to anything the Astartes had seen before.

Denius knew instinctively that there would be nothing but hostile intentions from these craft. "Take cover my brothers! Heavy weapons crews, present!" All the Tempest Reapers ducked away from the open square, running into the cover of other buildings or wrecked Ork vehicles. Most settled with their bolters raised ready for any ground forces that appeared, while the few Astartes who bore heavy weapons settled their sights on the four aircraft. "Wait for it..." chanted the leader of the Devastator squad. "Wait for it..." Then he bellowed furiously, "Now!" Two beams of light spat from the lascannons while three krak missiles roared out to meet the enemy ships.
Denius squatted back behind the colonnaded façade of the town's hall, peering upwards to see the result.

by **Feazanthia** » Tue May 31, 2011 7:30 pm

She watched with predator's eyes as the strike cruiser ignited its own torchdrive and accelerated quickly away from orbit. This was, of course, the exact wrong thing to do when facing a yewonrozt, but she was not about to inform them of this. She did, of course, give them credit. Their warship was nimble. Already, the Strike Cruiser was accelerating at a rate her War Sailer could not match. Well, physically it could; the fusion torches that propelled the vessel were capable of accelerations far in excess of what any 'sailer had actually ever pulled. The problem was that the crew, even as augmented as they were and suspended within half a ton a piece of force-absorbing gel, could not survive the G-forces the ship was physically able to pull off for very long.

"Range to target is now three-million kilometers and opening. Target will pass beyond optimal range for secondary energy battery in six seconds," informed the Klaazkal Kazuul's melodic voice. Meltoa watched it all unfold in slow motion, her own senses accelerated well beyond that of an ordinary human by the carefully measured mix of chemicals being administered intravenously to her brain, and by the technology wired directly into her processing centers.

---

The lasers came without warning, not even the telltales of RADAR or LIDAR to announce they were being targeted. One of the dark gray arrowheads was rocked by a brief spontaneous fireball before seeming to disintegrate into a hundred superheated parts. Another also took a hit, though on the thicker and more heat-resistant reentry plating, and it trailed a black contrail of vaporized armor as it peeled away from the formation. The collective mind of the fighters was machine, coldly logical and strictly concerned with the mathematics of the engagement. The remaining two broke formation instantly, heedless of the cartwheeling conflagration that had once been their wingmate or the injured limping of the other that survived.

Beams of light, invisible to the naked eye, arced out and speared two of the incoming missiles. The third survived, fought through the hail of flares released by the twin fighters, and detonated a scant few yards from one of the fighters’ engines. The drone wavered and struggled to stay aloft before four of its octet of rocket engines sputtered and died. With only half its propulsive power remaining and an unbalanced distribution to boot, the lamon-cor began a shallow dive towards the remnants of the city some six-hundred yards from the huddled Astartes. The sole remaining fighter instantly dove towards the deck at supersonic speeds and rocked the still-standing structures with its sonic boom. It reduced its speed and wove between city buildings before a half-dozen smaller contrails signaled the launch of its payload. The missiles streaked in on the marines while the lamon-cor once more accelerated into a one-hundred eighty degree high-G turn that would have shorn a man in half and rocketed away the way it had come.

---

"Lamon-corda wing seven is taking fire,” came the Kazuul's voice before a pause. “Unit Seven-two destroyed by directed energy weaponry, unit Seven-one damaged and fleeing the mission area. Remaining units report incoming missiles and are deploying countermeasures.” A tactical map of the proceedings exploded in Meltoa's mind, and she watched the projections of her Kiith's aerial weaponry being engaged by a rapidly resolving image of the enemy force. It all ticked by, second by second, at seemingly interminably slow speeds in the augmented reality of her existence. She was forced to passively view this conflict; knowing that it had already taken place over what was now a three-second delay from the surface, to the transmitter, to the relay satellite, and finally to her vessel. Forced to watch helplessly as the lasers obliterated two missiles but failed to stop a third, and as that final missile managed to break through the cloud of countermeasures and force unit Seven-three to crash. Part of her cheered as Seven-four managed to evade a second attack and launch a reprisal of its own before blasting away to rejoin with its injured wingmate and the rest of the approaching army.

“My Jak-phi,” the Kazuul interrupted her brief reverie, “the Lamon-corda were able to resolve an image of their assailants before having to break off. Their equipment and doctrine does not coincide with any known macroparasitical equivalents.” An image of the Astartes battalions resolved in her mind's eye, the shot taken while the shoulder-mounted launchers were still smoking.

They'd ambushed the best orbit-to-surface military strike craft deployed by Kiith Soban with mere man-portable weaponry. Destroyed Sobani hardware with the equivalent of pea shooters in an artillery battle. This thought enraged her, coursed through her brain like a white-hot torrent of molten lead. They were arrogant, primitive, and warlike. Everything she had been taught was indicative of the Milky Way barbarians. She knew she would be held accountable for this outrage, her actions pored over with a fine-toothed comb by officer and synthetic intelligence alike, compared to those of her predecessors and ancestors back to Soban Fiirkal, and used to teach generations of Sobani to come. They were warriors, the finest the Kiith had ever known. Feared and respected throughout the Dominion for their might. Challenged, but never truly beaten. These...”Tempest Reapers”, whoever they were, had challenged the Sobani.

She had a reputation to maintain.

"Plot pursuit course," said the Jak-phi cooly. "Coordinate with the Fal-kaval, let's drive them into open space. Not having to worry about them slipping around the ecliptic again will be good on my nerves. Weapons, discharge a full load, set for burn at minimum safe distance, spread at optimal. I want their engines and weapons systems as primary targets, sensors and reaction-control systems as secondary, but do not place too high a priority on damage containment. If they die, I will not lose much sleep.”

The Klaazkal Kazuul ignited its primary drives once more while still firing its ventral thrusters, propelling the vessel on an elliptical course to simultaneously pursue the Heaven's Fire while taking it further away from the planet's orbit. Almost immediately, electromagnetic coils sent fifty massive superheated cylinders shooting out on courses perpendicular to the ship's long axis. Metal acceleration cages shattered and fell away as the cylinders ignited their own fusion torches and, not held back by the limitations of organic cargo, quickly overtook the Kazuul and closed with the Heaven's Fire. At five-hundred thousand kilometers relative to the Astartes craft, dust shields covering the vehicles' sensors and launchers broke away in the fire of chemical explosives and, a split second later, each vehicle was consumed as ten smaller cylinders a piece accelerated at a still greater rate on shorter-ranged engines. Of each group of ten, one was equipped without a warhead but rather a sophisticated suite of active and passive detection and rangefinding systems along with a communications suite and advanced targeting computer. Another was likewise without a warhead, but instead hosted a set of directional RADAR- and sensor-blinding penetration aids designed to confuse and draw off anti-missile active defenses such as point-defense guns and anti-missile missiles.

The remaining eight were all anti-ship Kuun-Lamaat stand-off attack vehicles rocketing on an arcing path towards the Heaven's Fire. All of the missiles were designed to fire their maneuvering thrusters on randomized intervals in order to throw off the enemy defenses that were (inevitably) not fooled by the ECM missiles. Once they reached one light-second - just three-hundred thousand kilometers – the Kuun-Lamaats were designed to each fire their single X-ray laser at the target for a full three seconds before their fusion reactors overloaded and burned out the missile while the remaining guidance and ECM drones would continue to accelerate in a (mostly futile) attempt to ram the target.

At that same moment, the flat and squat form of the mothership Fal-kaval appeared from the far side of the planet and began painting the Heaven's Fire with its own targetting LIDAR as well. It, however, held its fire until it saw the result of the war sailer's efforts.

by **Caragonia** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:56 pm

Aboard The Heaven's Fire

The alarm bells and sirens that had rung earlier had been deactivated at Heasus' behalf. Only a fool could not recognise that the ship was now fighting for its life. One of the handful of Astartes bridge crew looked to him after accepting a report from one of the myriad servitors hardwired into the Heaven's Fire itself. "Multiple missile separations, Lord Captain," he intoned gravely.
"Arm defence batteries. Brother Jaconabi, arm main batteries for area defence. Energise dorsal lance." The replies quickly rang back.
"Lance armed. Estimate time to range of enemy missiles in 20 seconds."
"Firing solution projected for main batteries. All missiles set for distance/time detonation."
Heasus nodded. He watched the trickle of the countdown as the numbers moved down to the time when the heavy plasma projectors and missile launchers of the Heaven's Fire broadside would be at their optimum firing position. It froze, blinking red to signify the end of the countdown. "Very well, fire main batteries."

In the few seconds it took for his command to be accepted and passed down to the Astartes who crewed the weapons console and then to be sent from the venerable cogitator to the main system trigger of the battery's guns, the missiles had come ever closer. Then the guns fired. Two of them lashed out with fiery pulses of plasma, covering large volumes of space by virtue of their very size. The missile launchers of the Strike Cruiser followed suit, sending missile after gargantuan missile racing out towards the area where the broadside would hopefully interact with the incoming missiles. The main defence batteries of the ship, a myriad swarm of autocannons, multi-barrelled lasers and small missile launchers remained dormant, waiting for the missiles to come closer.

Heasus turned from the view screen showing the fiery encounter. It was time they took more...direct action against this enemy. "Brother, present for a firing solution on the Klaazkal Kazuul with the lance." The cogitators of the console for the lance whirred as they tried to ascertain the perfect solution for firing at such a distant enemy. After nearly an entire minute the reply came back, "I have it now Captain."
Heasus looked down towards the Marine. "Brother, have a Techmarine summoned to work on the system. We cannot fight if we cannot even target the enemy."
"As you command, Lord Captain."
Heasus turned back to the centre pictscreen showing a vastly magnified view of the Klaazkal Kazuul. A single corner of his mouth curved upwards slowly. "...Open fire." The single turret pivoted agonisingly slowly towards the War Sailor, gears silently grating. The barrel was lit from within as the reactor began to glow. Then it fired, a single beam of red light plummeting towards the hull of the distant Kazuul.

Aerial Support Inbound

By now the two Thunderhawks were well down into the gravity well of the planet. Each one was crewed by a techmarine to operate the machine itself as well as a single other Astartes to take care of the weaponry aboard."Sword One to Sword Two, confirm that you have ground forces beacon on screen."
"Affirmative, Sword One. I am also picking up what appears to be a number of signals moving towards the settlement. Confirm?"
The other pilot quickly checked his systems before responding. "Confirm. I shall vox Captain Denius and inform him." He twirled the dial, changing the voxband to that used by Denius. "Brother captain, this is Sword One, inbound to your location. Be advised there are unknown signals approaching you on our screens."
"Understood, Sword One. Engage them."
The techmarine swung his machine about, afterburners on as he raced towards the incoming transports and attack craft of the Kiith army. Sword Two swung around to follow him, before jockeying into position to see who would score the first kill of the ship's attack wing.

by **Feazanthia** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:10 pm

Astartes counter-missiles and broadside cannons let loose just as the Kiith volley's third stage activated. Kiith missile doctrine had evolved substantially over the centuries, and thus each group of ten was well spaced out over the better part of a light-second. As such, the twin plasma cannons killed only a group a piece, leaving the missiles to pick up the slack. Immediately upon detection, ECM pods raced ahead of their kindred and began attempting to confuse or, failing that, lure away the massive vehicles. A few Imperial missiles wandered off course, having lost their lock thanks to the pods' efforts. Still more were tempted by the siren song of the pods, and detonated a safe distance away. But many - too many - remained true to their course. Sensor pods, realizing the danger, shepherded their lethal flock into more randomized vectors; trading precious fuel for the survival of their warheads. Seconds ticked by. Minutes. Then, the night was shattered as counter-missiles found their marks and thermonuclear detonations ripped the void. Few Kiith missiles were actually incinerated by their foes. Instead, radiation from close-range reactions burned out the sensitive scanners and communications hardware they relied on. Thirty-eight groups of missiles were instantly rendered useless, their computer systems blind and deaf, and their artificial brains subsequently martyred themselves by overloading their reactors to avoid capture and analysis by the enemy.

The spawn of ten launch vehicles, eighty missiles joined by another sixty survivors that linked into other Yorlastyu-Lamaat sensor pods, raced towards the defensive envelope of awaiting auto-cannons and laser clusters. The Kuun-Lamaats, however, never gave those gunnery crews the chance to further thin their numbers. Three-hundred thousand kilometers from the Heaven's Fire, ninety-six weapons synchronized their approach for a few fleeting seconds before lances of coherent X-rays once more broke the darkness. The spears of deadly, invisible light burned for six seconds; gigajoules of energy being pumped towards their target every second. Then, their reactors overtaxed with the task of powering their weapons, the weapons consumed themselves in small funeral pyres. Their task done, the remaining sensor pods calculated ballistic courses and tasked themselves with ramming the target - though ten brightly-burning targets would be easy fodder for the point-defense crews that remained.

Hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, defensive fields activated as the lance's energy bolt intercepted the Klaazkal Kazuul's course. The field flashed blindingly before becoming black as pitch; an ebony bubble surrounding and obscuring the Sobani yewonrozt from all sensors as its absorbed the lance's fire. Rather than deflecting or dissipating incoming fire, Kiith defense fields absorbed it and converted it into waste heat within the vessel itself. As a result, nearly 80% of the war sailor's outer hull was covered in shielded droplet radiators; and a great deal of volume was dedicated to the storage of vast coolant tanks. Unfortunately, the technology was still imperfect, and enough energy from the lance bled through to shatter one of the transparent shields preventing coolant leakage. Silvery droplets of coolant sprayed like a rain of diamonds into the vacuum before evaporating with the lack of pressure. The rest of the thermal burden fell to the remaining coolant systems, and the dull orange glow of the radiator surfaces grew in intensity.

"Damage to radiator system twelve," said the Kazuul. "Shield shattered, coolant leak detected. Coolant flow deactivated to system twelve, coolant redirected to undamaged systems. Heeshk drones dispatched. Recalculated radiator capacity at forty-three percent of maximum. With our decreased capacity, another direct hit may cause catastrophic overload."

Meltoa cursed her lack of foresight and caution. Who could have guessed they had the ability to project an energy beam at these ranges?
"Decrease acceleration to eighty percent of current," she ordered, a sense of grim satisfaction filling a corner of her mind as her order was carried out and the radiator system began to bleed radiation at a more acceptable rate. "Recalculate pursuit course, keep that ship away from the planet. Have the Fal-Kaval pressure them, I don't want them getting confident off a lucky shot.”

The flat, rounded miirharozt was not designed for straight combat. She was a transport and logistics vessel first and foremost; her capacity for direct warfare was more of an afterthought. Still, missile busses were catapulted into the vacuum before accelerating towards the Heaven's Fire. A total of fifteen missile carrying cylinders – one-hundred and fifty missiles – began crossing the void, followed five minutes later by another volley. The Fal-Kaval, however, kept her distance; actively keeping her torch drive between the strike cruiser and the mothership.

With the two warships no longer in close orbit, and the satellite surveillance net woefully sparse, the aerial convoy didn't immediately know that the pair of Thunderhawks were on an intercept course. In fact, a satellite didn't pick the telltale exhaust trail until the pair of gunships were almost across the horizon boundary and in RADAR range of the outlying wings. Immediately, electronic signals bounced between the numerous Lamon-corda and the larger transports.

Something tickled in the back of Savasee Jefet Soban Isaiid's mind. He unlocked his armor from its shock cage and reached to grasp a wire looped against the transport's inner hull. The connector, upon merging with the receptor at the back of the Jefet's armor, hummed with life. He looked about the load-bay as data downloaded into his mind. Throughout it, soldiers – HIS soldiers – enjoyed the brief calm before the storm. Several had unlocked their arms and were wolfing down nutrient biscuits. Jefet Isaiid shuddered inwardly, he knew at least some of them had elected not to undergo the taste receptor reassignment necessary to make the lumps of concentrated proteins and vitamins and carbohydrates palatable. That their bodies – synthetic as they were – required an incredibly concentrated and dense mixture of nutrients to fuel their artificial and highly accelerated metabolisms was immaterial, they felt it was a sign of weakness. That was, of course, foolish. Weakness was pride. Weakness was not taking every advantage available.

He pushed these thoughts from his mind. Information slammed into his consciousness, and fighters began asking for instructions. Two craft, heavy gunships based on their acceleration-thrust ratios, were inbound at high velocity. He had just under two squadrons of Lamon-corda – forty-five support fighters plus another damaged and two more that had been shot down. He'd sacrifice all of them, however; all of that firepower was worthless without the otherwise defenseless transports to protect. Still, every tactician's sense in him screamed that something was wrong. Two craft against four dozen? Nothing they'd seen so far suggested they were capable of such incredible force multiplication as to be a match for the squadrons. He doubted the two inbound gunships even had the ordnance to take on this many bogeys. What did their pilots intend to do, fly closer and hit them with their swords?

No. It had to be a trick. He instantly sent the four massive transports into an eastward dive towards a rolling plain some kilometers distant – an ideal makeshift landing pad for a ground-based advance into the city. Two wings of Lamon-corda – eight fighters – broke formation and rocketed towards the pair of Thunderhawks with their weapons armed and their RADARs constantly resolving a better firing solution. Even though the gunships had just come into RADAR range, four missiles streaked out – a test of the Thunderhawks' defenses. The rest of the Lamon-corda remained in a loose sphere around the transports as they swept the ground and sky with their RADARs for signs of hidden defenses.

by **Caragonia** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 6:49 am

Aboard The Heaven's Fire

They'd killed many. So many, Heasus had revelled in the thought of the enemy's defeat if this was all they could offer. Then they had exploded into bright fire-blossoms, stabbing lances of light at the hull of the venerable strike cruiser. The ship shuddered, the void shields protecting the Heaven's Fire straining. There were three of these arcane devices in total, one after the other to provide sequential lines of defence. The first flared blue at the impact, before evaporating under the titanic force of the laserheads. The whiplash reaction of this pulsed back into the primary generators, exploding one and overloading another. The second void shield followed, shuddering out of existence as the feedback destroyed yet more generators inside the strike cruiser.

It was only the third one that stopped them. The translucent, yet seemingly so solid field of the immense energy barrier wavered, straining, before near shattering under the barrage. But it held, if only barely. The remaining sensor pods, kamikazing towards the bulk of the ship were picked off by the waiting point-defence guns, a barrage of fire annihilating them. Even though the main force of the laserheads had been wasted on two of the void shields, the feedback caused by their explosive failure and the kinetic force ripping back into the hull of the ship. All four generators for those two shields had been destroyed, along with nearby point-defence batteries that had either been destroyed by the small explosions or had had their power cut off, rendering them all but useless unless power could be rerouted or the Heaven's Fire could make it to the orbital docks of Caragonia for generator repair. Heasus knew that both of those options weren't going to be anywhere near possible until this was over, however. "Helm, alter course another ten degrees to port, full power." He looked over to some of the Astartes on the bridge. "Brother Caratus, what is the status of the lance control system?"
The younger Marine looked back up to him, "Techmarine Argosia is currently rewiring part of the system. Permission to assist him sir?"
"Granted. Brother Jaconabi, cycle more rounds into the missile launchers and have the reactors divert power from the broadside plasma cannons to the tertiary shield. Then take some servitors and try to get turrets Alpha-38, 42 and 43 active."

All he had to do now was try to get the enemy ships away from the planet and allow Captain Denius to work his art. He silently prayed to Him that the other would stay alive.

Thunderhawk Aerial Support
Intercepting Enemy Aerial Units

"Incoming!" shouted the pilot of Sword One. The co-pilot simply nodded in acknowledgement, hammering down the firing studs of the cogitator-controlled sponson heavy bolters. The other craft did the same, filling the air with hundreds of heavy-calibre bolts screaming through the sky in an effort to knock out the incoming missiles. Another tone joined the alarm as the auspex of the craft picked up the incoming Lamon-corda. Again the pilot of Sword One slammed the firing studs, this time linked to the system for the win-tip heavy bolters. They began to spit out yet more shells, just as the lascannons mounted on the attack wings. Sword Two did the same, with neither Thunderhawk having the luxury of dedicated air-to-air missiles.

by **Feazanthia** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 11:57 am

The missiles proved completely ineffective against the pair of gunships. They were designed for ground attack, no air-to- air combat. As the Thunderhawks and the Lamon-corda rapidly closed the distance between one another, the latter group disconnected their bulky missile pylons and let their payloads fall to the earth. This would be an old-fashioned dogfight; unfortunately dogfighting was not the intended purpose of the Lamon-cor. It was madness, Soban Isaiid knew. This was not supposed to happen. The presence of enemy aerial assets was considered an outside contingency at worst. Swatting them was the job of warships, not the savaseeda! Airfields, fuel depots, launch pads...all of these were readily visible targets from orbit no matter how well the enemy tried to hide them. Lamon-cor platforms could be refitted for air-to-air operations, of course, but Isaiid had brought none with him. There were no fliers amongst the greenskin forces, and none amongst what had been left of the planetary militia when he had been dispatched. By Qwaar-jet, he was tasked for little more than mop-up!

The lascannons proved far more lethal against the Lamon-corda than the bolters. Two of the Kiith attackers were cut down the moment they came into range. The remaining six broke formation and unsecured their UV turret as they moved to surround the Thunderhawks. Nose-mounted half-globes swiveled and belched bolts of ultraviolet radiation at the larger planes as the Lamon-corda jockeyed to avoid the wing-mounted guns of their counterparts and drop into their kill slots.

Primitive hollow grasses, already blackened and covered in ash as a result of the orks' handiwork in the city to the north, curled and shriveled before disintegrating under the thruster heat as massive, eighty-meter-long transports hovered into a landing on the rocky field. The remaining Lamon-corda wings not sent to engage the Thunderhawks rocketed overhead on a constant combat air patrol. A squat, boxy vehicle rumbled down the loading ramp of each transport, covered and flanked by a swarm of wodaan drones with their pulsers already unfurled. The vehicles were plated in sloping, segmented slate-gray armor and adorned with what appeared to be a much larger version of the pulser weapons equipped by the wodaan and savaseeda themselves. Large, crab claw-like manipulators jutted from the forward armor of the vehicles. These were what had given the IFVs their nickname – the Kudaark, after the large burrowing mammal native to Kush's northern grasslands.

Isaiid watched with approval as one of his soldiers commanded a Kudaark to enter a diagnostic mode, and inspected the two sponson-mounted pulsers that emerged from each side of the vehicle above the treads visually rather than relying solely on the vehicle's internal systems. Isaiid now regretted leaving the modular missile mounts for more than one of the Kudaarks' turrets aboard the Fal-kaval, but hindsight was always perfect. He could still see the smoke from the Heaven's Fire's bombardment coupled with what fires still raged within the city from the battle between the orks and the Tempest Reapers, and frowned. Enemy positions were unknown; he dare not commit his remaining Lamon-corda to sorties deep into enemy territory until he had a greater understanding of their man-portable laser weapons. Part of him burned to know how they had managed to fit the power source needed for such a weapon into something an individual could carry and aim effectively, but a greater part cared more for smashing those emplacements first.

"Aleen, Irfriit,” he said, indicating two of his squad leaders. “Your rifle squads will take point.” The two Hadat-ne - uln-Saeed and Aleen luun-Maskatin – saluted their acknowledgment and began issuing instructions to the soldiers under their direct command. “Korsaan, your rifle squad and Telmet's heavy weapons squad shall cover our flanks as we approach,” he continued as the fifth Kudaark rumbled off one of the transports. “Remember, use your drones to scout enemy positions and engage with indirect fire as much as possible. Stick to your training; we may lack orbital support but we are still Sobani savaseeda. We are still expected to do our jobs. At least one enemy squad is equipped with heavy anti-vehicle directed-energy weapons along with indirect fire missiles. I want seejur shields out whenever you're in the field. Recommend a loadout of armor-piercers and incendiaries, we don't know if any macroparasites are still active within the city,” he slapped the grip of his pulse rifle against his hip, replacing one of the clips of incendiary 4.7x53mm fin-stabilized darts with a clip of armor-piercing high-explosive ones.

"Anything heavy, my Jefet?" inquired Hadat-ne Aleen as she too loaded armor-piercing rounds into her weapon.

“The Lamon-corda didn't spot any armor assets before they went down, but that does not mean they are not out there. Your mind is your most powerful weapon. Remember this, and you will be back home and taunting limp-wristed Manaani pilots before you know it.” This earned him several chuckles over the comm. His tone turned serious once more. “Board your vehicles, and look to your equipment. We may not be able to return here until the enemy is defeated. Qwaar-Jet guides our hand, Sobani.”

Within the hour, five heavily armored infantry fighting vehicles and a swarm of four-limbed mechanical arachnids were closing in on the city's outer perimeter.

by **Caragonia** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:31 pm

Outskirts

The enemy's landing of ground forces and their advance had not gone unnoticed. Watching them were the five remaining members of what had been the fifth squad under Sergeant Arestdotes. They were the Second Company's recon and infiltration specialists whenever there were no attached Scout units, like now. Arestdotes opened his vox-link to the Captain, speaking quietly even inside his fully sealed helmet in case the enemy displayed exceptional audio-hunting sensors. They seemed to have a high technology level. Their equipment seemed to tend towards the functional, and to a Astartes used to the bulk of their own warmachines, rather slight.

"Arestdotes to Denius. My Captain, we have enemy ground forces approaching. Estimate five ground vehicles. Cannot determine if they are warmachines or transports. Also, I have sight on at least several hundred contacts besides them. Auspex is failing due to the volume, but they appear to be armed four-legged walkers. All appear short, spider-like. Depending on their armament, they could kill us all or be simple cannon-fodder."
"Understood Brother-Sergeant. Hold your position, and designate targets. Artillery, inbound."
"Roger," smiled the Astartes Sergeant.

The Town Square

The other squads of the Second Company had fortified themselves inside the square. Tactical squads piled wreckage up to form firing lanes and cover, settling behind them with bolters primed. The single Devastator squad the Company possessed was barricaded on the balcony and town mayor's governing chamber, ready to cover all angles with the firepower of their lascannons, heavy bolters, and missile launchers. Denius waited on the main promenade of the town hall with his command squad and the two assault squads assigned to the company, while a pair of Whirlwinds idled their engines on the dirt ground a few metres away. The north, the west, the east, all were sealed off. Only one path lay open, a broad avenue that led to the south remained open. Hopefully the enemy would be persuaded to follow it. If they did, it would be a slaughter. Every gun was capable of being aimed down that long thoroughfare, and Techmarine Servin Homas had cannibalised some of the mine warheads carried inside the formidable rocket artillery tanks.

They now strewed the path, a thick corridor emplaced to cripple any enemy advance and break it up. If they went up it they'd be disorganised meat for the guns of the Astartes. But that was for later. Denius turned to the waiting tanks, opening his vox. "Whirlwinds, lock on coordinates!" Right then the men of Arestdotes' squad were targeting the enemy forces. One beam tagged the lead Kudaark, while the other targeted the leading edge of the Wodaan swarm. The seconds ticked away glacially..."Fire!" The launchers shrieked, rockets streaking into the sky like incandescent flares, the slight modifications made to them during manufacture making them scream like banshees through the sky. Ten of the fearsome incendiary rockets launched from one were targeted by the squad at the Wodaan. The other ten were standard high-explosive Castellan missiles, all aimed in a five metres spread around the location of the targeter beam dancing on the hull of the lead IFV.

Without waiting to hear of the results, Denius changed the frequency. "Denius to Dies Irae. Advance and deny."

Southern Perimeter

A hundred metres away lay what would have been called a Warmaster in the Tarot by avid card-players. A rumbling began behind a perimeter wall, facing the area where the Kiith forces were stationed, but about two hundred metres on. The brickwork began to shiver, before slowly vibrating. That stopped when the behemoth arrived. Tall-statured, broad with sponson weapons hanging off the sides, bolt rounds cycling through a link to the guns. A pair of powerful lascannons completed the gunnery arrangement.

A none-too small skull and crossed bones festooned the back of the Predator tank, the name Dies Irae stencilled boldly on the flank of the adamantium beast. It stopped, turret swivelling to face the nearest Kudaark, this one on the furthest right of the advance. The turret bucked back ever so slightly as the guns fired, spitting brilliant azure beams at the IFV. The twin heavy bolters chattered, scything rounds at will at the softer Wodaan targets. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it reversed back out of sight.

by **Feazanthia** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 6:40 pm

The battlespace broke down in less time than a blink. Photoreceptive sensors embedded just within the armor plating screamed a warning into the lead Kudaark's synthetic mind. Threat response programs immediately came online, running through a seemingly infinite number of pre-programmed permutations of variables to find the closest match to its current situation. The main turret whipped forward and increased its elevation, following the beam back along its projected trajectory. It emitted a high-pitch whine as a torrent of explosive darts tore through the air at supersonic speeds. Brick and mortar were chewed apart as the detonations shredded them.

The IFVs were already swerving, information passing between them along whisker laser, when the missiles appeared over the buildings. Flares filled the air with confusing heat and smoke as anti-missile UV lasers went hot and lanced out at their assailants.

It wasn't enough. A missile impacted less than ten meters ahead of Irfriit's vehicle and detonated, sending a cloud of dirt and debris skyward. The Kudaark's front claws were shorn off, but that was just the prelude. A second missile detonated a scant foot off the Kudaark's right forward armor plating. The artificial mind was instantly dead as superheated fragments of armor were blown backwards and tore apart the housing. The vehicle spun, now helpless before the powers of Newton, dislodged armor panels flying in all directions. It flipped once, twice, finally coming to rest on its side. Its rear hatch shuddered and flew away, smoking from the usage of explosive bolts. The air was thick with the fire and smoke of incendiary warheads coupled with the sounds of wheels charging through what was left of the sparsely developed suburb and the clattering of both active and dying wodaan. Two savaseeda dragged the limp form of a third from the overturned and burning IFV, followed by the fourth trying to pull herself from the wreckage.

Then the Predator showed itself. There was barely enough time for the soldiers, wounded and disoriented, to deploy their shields. Waves of cerulean energy consumed what was left of the Kudaark's front quarter. Fuel reserves explosively ignited and ammunition stores cooked off as the reactor lost containment and sputtered to its death. The vehicle erupted into a brilliant fireball that sent waves of concussive force across the highway road and field. Nearby structures that had not been flattened by the missile bombardment now crumbled.

Soban Nasim luun-Kadresh, grenadier and Hadat in the Kiith Soban Savaseeda, did not even have the time to register her pain.

The rest of the squad, who had managed to get away from the vehicle, were sent sprawling. Irfriit's arm came up instinctively and he pushed into a forward roll. The shield clanked away in an instant as the soldier somersaulted across the soft earth and telescoped outward once again as he twisted. Heavy bolter fire pinged off the plates of carbonan, but the kinetic force pushed him back. Stimulants pulsed from his torso's medical supplies into his brain to keep him from blacking out. His gun arm hung useless at his side as damage warnings pulsed through his peripheral vision. His mind shouted orders over the whine and roar of vehicle mounted pulser cannons trading shots with heavy bolters. He felt the rumble as the tank reversed into the cover of the buildings. Flinched from the sudden impact to the air as two anti-armor missiles streaked after the Predator from the launchers on Jefet Isaiid's command IFV a kilometer and a half away.

Then it was over. The beastly thing was gone, and the missiles after it. Wodaan, their ranks thinned by the missile strikes, skittered and swarmed to the cover of the mid-level family homes. Across the expanse, buildings crumbled as the exchange of pulser fire took their toll on their support structures. The stimulants were cut off. He felt his mind fogging. One of his squad – HIS squad! - was dead. The readout of Nasim's vitals burned an angry red in his mind from the lost signal. Those of his rifler – Armakan – pulsed a weak yellow-blue of warning. He was damaged and badly, but he may yet live.

He'd lost someone. The first Sobani savasee killed in the line of duty in over two centuries. Snuffed out like she was nothing. The funeral pyre of what had once been a KSK-72 Kudaark still burned ahead of him, surrounded by the limp and struggling forms of dead and damaged wodaan. The gravity of his failure – his FAILURE! - raged in his mind. Part of him nagged at his rapidly decaying consciousness. A voice...orders? They shouted at him. He didn't hear, couldn't understand. And then he was being lifted, forced to his feet, and loaded into another Kudaark. His last thought was of something his Aklast-liin would have been furious with him for. A concept they were taught from the first day of juukmaan-jar was an unacceptable liability.

He thought of nothing but revenge.

“Report!” shouted Jefet Soban Isaiid's mind-voice harshly over the transmitter. “Casualty report, now!” Numbers and statistics were already rolling through both the organic and synthetic portions of his brain, and his IFV's vehicular sensors had gotten everything, but he had to hear it for himself.

“This is Aleem,” came luun-Maskatin's voice. “Kudaark Var is down. Repeat. Kudaark Var is down. Enemy missile strike hit our lead elements soundly, my jefet. They were using laser-guided warheads. Estimate one-hundred six wodaan destroyed, another fifty-two damaged and in need of serious repair.” Isaiid swore. They didn't have the spare parts for that many; they'd have to cannibalize some of the more heavily damaged units. “Hadat Armakan uln-Baruun suffered severe damage to his internal systems, but his head is only minorly injured. His condition is critical, but stable for now. Hadat-ne Irfriit uln-Saeed has taken heavy damage to his right arm, it will have to be replaced.” The jefet nodded.

“We'll be there as soon as we can,” he said, a measure of calm returning to him.

“My jefet...” Aleen began again, her voice halting and unsure. “Hadat Nasim luun-Kadresh has been confirmed killed-in-action.”

It hit the jefet like a pulser dart to the gut, and took an instant to fully absorb. Then his training kicked back in. His mind-voice was frosted steel over the transmitter.

“All squads, initiate evasive approach. Offer them no easy targets for a second barrage. I want anti-missile systems on full alert at all times. Make for the structures, break their ability for another strike. Wing two, trace exhaust to source and engage. All units, designate artillery units as priority target, heavy armor as secondary. Execute.”

A wing of four lamon-corda broke through the high clouds to the west of the city. A half-dozen missiles separated from each arrowhead-shaped flyer and streaked downwards. They came in low, executing a high-G alteration in vector to skim the tops of the city's structures. As the lamon-corda once more burned upwards into the cloud cover, the missiles acquired the thermal exhaust trail of the Castellan missiles and followed it right back to the town square. Twelve missiles were armed with cluster warheads designed to spread high-explosive ordnance over a wide area in order to cripple or kill unmounted infantry, the other twelve were shaped-charge anti-armor variants. The remaining Kudaarks raced forward, swerving in seemingly random patterns, before darting into the relative cover of a series of highrises.

by **Caragonia** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 3:53 pm

Outskirts

"Hold..." ordered Sergeant Arestdotes over the vox to the members of his unit as the incoming Whirlwind missiles screeched overhead to create a firestorm. The sound of the airburst detonations mingled with the countermeasures of the enemy forces even as the Kudaarks opened fire. Even while the members of Squad Arestdotes ducked into their cover, Brother Oziris was hit, a chunk of ceramite and flesh flying off as his arm fell to the dusty ground with a thud. He stooped over to peel the bolter from the fist of his severed arm, resting the heavy weapon on the rubble before him. Brother Ajans was less lucky. A quick burst of the darts punched straight through his helmet, covering the ground with quivering brain matter and shattered ceramite and plasteel even as thick crimson blood leaked down the corpse's spine to pool on the ground.

It was only after the Dies Irae appeared that Arestdotes dared look up. As he looked at the violent afterimage of the lead Kudaark's emphatic demise, he smiled coldly at the sight before him. "Enemy machines moving forward. Squad, aim and engage for the Emperor!" With that he led by example, sighting his bolter on the lead Wodaan, and fired. The others followed suit, boltguns coughing their heavy shells at the trio. They developed into a rhythm, one Marine always reloading so that there would always be someone to maintain fire on these infernal robots.

Southern Perimeter

The Dies Irae hadn't been unscathed. Despite only a brief appearance in front of the enemy, that had been enough time for a damnable pair of guided missiles to follow it. The tank revved it's way down the road. The two missiles were only feet away and getting close, but there was a turn right...now! The tank swerved even as the machine-spirit aboard fired off smoke launchers to hide its change of direction. One missile carried on through the smoke, plunging into a wall and bringing down an entire hab-block. The other hadn't been fooled. It had pursued the Dies Irae doggedly, and clipped the rear ramp before it exploded. The explosion was fierce, and the damage was beyond superficial. The top-leftmost corner of the ramp peeled away from the hull, while the engines began to cough like a diseased man about to fail.

The Town Square

There'd been no warning of the missiles. The first sign that the enemy had responded was when some of their own missiles had screeched in from above. Three, whether by luck or design, completely destroyed the target Whirlwind. One clipped the right rocket pod of the other artillery tank, blowing it off in a cloud of high-velocity shrapnel, which cut down one Astartes of the assault squads nearby in the open. The incendiaries did more damage, blasting high-temperature flame at the Marines. Not even their ceramite power armour could withstand the assault, and two more were transformed into blazing torches. Sergeant Previuns of Denius' own squad was hit full in the chest by such a rocket, arms flailing as he beat at the flames. Denius ran to the wrecked Whirlwind in a swift crouch, wary of the enemy craft that had now proved their deadly capabilities. He wrenched at the hull, twisting adamantium plates asunder with his own hands until he found what he needed.

He prised the coolant bottle out of the wrought brackets, tearing them out with a squeal of damaged metal. Clutching his prize he ran back, hacking the cylinder's top off before pouring the bottle over the form of Previuns as the fires burned. He reached down, hand grasping the gauntlet of the sergeant's left hand. "Brother, you are alright?"
"Indeed, Brother-Captain. I regret to inform you my armour seems to have melted partially, and I may not have full functionality." the other Astartes reported formally. He moved his arm to prove his point, the elbow and wrist joints partially melded together from the heat.

by **Feazanthia** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 8:00 pm

Soban Savaseeda Rally Point Eemeli
Corner of SW 3rd and SW 4th / Davis St.

Powerful synthetic muscles catapulted several dozen wodaan drones into the air. Sharpened carbon claws dug into the thick composite material used in the construction of the colony's structures, and the spider-like machines began scaling the building to establish suppression positions on the rooftop as another group flung themselves onto the building behind them.

On the floor of third squad's IFV (Kudaark See), Irfriit hung somewhere between consciousness and oblivion. One of the medics from first squad operated in tandem with a pair of heeshk drones – meter-long gray machines that resembled an ancient terran banded coral shrimp with innumerable cillia-like manipulators where its antennae should have been – carefully severing the connections of the damaged right arm and lowering a replacement from spares into its place. High-intensity scans swept the earth and structures around them. Jefet Isaiid was uneasy. They were far too exposed here. His first instinct was to call in orbital support to bombard the enemy in the town center, but of course their support had been cut off. Ironically, it seemed, the Space Marines and the Savaseeda had sacrificed their most vital combat asset in order to deprive their enemies of that same asset. It would have been funny if soldiers hadn't already died because of it.

He pushed that thought from his mind. Hadat Nasim would be avenged, but he had to remain focused. The jefet increased the amount of oxygen being pumped to his brain with a thought, and felt the clarity seeping through him.

“Aleem, Korsaan” he began ordering. “Set up a secondary data link with the TacNet and deploy a pair of skimmers. I want to know where that heavy armor is, and find where our enemies are weakest. Telmet, give me suppression fire in the direction of that weapons' fire,” he gestured to where the rear elements of the takiim's wodaan advance huddled together under debris to avoid the heavy bolters. “I don't want anything to get away without a meter-wide hole in it first.” Hadat-ne Telmet saluted before holstering his pulser and removing the 180mm short-ranged missile launcher from its magnetic anchor on his armor's backplate. The rest of his four-man squad mimicked the act, and the Hadat-ne began issuing sub-vocal orders to his half-dozen wodaan supporters. Anti-armor missiles streaked into the air before homing in on the heat and noise from the heavy bolters of Squad Arestdotes.

Hadat-ne Aleem and Korsaan finished with their task and new data streams wormed their way into the takiim's minds with an inaudible pop. Tiny, fragile-looking machines whose bodies seemed to shift and morph with the light shot into the air on two pairs of ornithoptic wings a piece. The five centimeter intelligence drones skimmed over the city. One instantly spotted the plume of smoke from the sputtering engine of the modified Predator. Its limited sensor array – designed more for stealth than capability – sized up the wounded metal beast before the covert drone ducked and hovered behind a lamp post to continue with its observation. The second zoomed towards the city center. It dove and weaved between offices and apartment complexes before darting into the blown-out windows of a high-rise overshadowing the town hall. Its photosensitive skin altered and shifted to keep it largely hidden to visual wavelength against the dull backdrop of the bombed-out structure as it took an assessment of the scene below.

“One piece of enemy artillery destroyed, my Jefet,” announced Aleem. “Second unit damaged, but appears to remain at fifty-percent firepower.”

“Enemy armor asset damaged, my Jefet,” said Korsaan. “Mobility has been reduced significantly, but its primary weapon remains operational.”

Isaiid smiled grimly as another pair of Telmet's squad's missiles streaked over where he crouched behind his idling Kudaark.

“Wodaan squads seventy through seventy-nine, concentrate indirect suppression fire on primary target package. Eighty through eighty-nine, indirect fire on secondary package, then close and engage. Aleem, get your recon drone scouting the approaches to that city center. I want to know what surprises they have lined up for us and how to kill them.”

Wodaan Rally Point Faarao
Above SW 3rd St.

The wodaan finished their ascent and immediately began moving. The jefet's orders passed through their relatively simple, artificial minds. Each of the meter-tall spiders locked its four legs to the roof of the high-rise and lowered its bulbous body to the surface. A pair of stubby pylons topped by a 105mm rocket extended from the body, and suddenly the air was filled with fire as two groups of one hundred unguided rocket-propelled grenades streaked into the sky. One group focused in on the city square barely eight-hundred meters away. Half of the rockets were aimed at the remaining Whirlwind artillery battery, the other half at unmounted marine targets as designated by the five-centimeter reconnaissance drone still hovering nearby. The other rocket volley streaked over (and into) the buildings towards the hiding place of the Dies Irae. These were aimed to suppress the tank crew and soften its armor if they could not penetrate directly. However, unlike the first volley, nearly fifty wodaan now skittered across rooftops and hurled themselves down the outer walls to descend upon the crippled tank; pulsers unfurled and armor-tearing claws ready to bring them to the tank's soft and meat-filled center.

by **Khandosia** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 6:37 pm

Rule Twenty-Nine (Closed, FT)

Rule Twenty-Nine (Closed, FT)

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