Tales from the Frencoverse [Canonical Anthology]

by **Imperium Sidhicum** » Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:24 pm

The Caliban Drop
SID/WAR

Date: September 1, 2549
Location: Federation of Mankind
Sycorax system
Former Imperial world Caliban
Time: 1315 Hours

"Incoming!"

The anti-armor missile roared overhead and impacted squarely in the narrow gap between the hull and the turret of a Battlemaster tank, where it's electro-reactive armor offered no enhanced protection, the thunderous explosion spraying troops covering ahead of the tank behind a slab of concrete with white-hot shards of metal, only their powered armor saving them from severe injuries. A gout of flame erupted from the turret hatch, popping it's cover off like a bottlecap and certainly incinerating everyone inside.

"We need fire support! We're being slaughtered out here!" one of the soldiers in cover cried, clutching his wounded shoulder, a bloodstained armature bar protruding from it.

"You there, rookie!" decurion Alaric bellowed over the battle noise, "Get to it! Contact Gorgon and call in a kinetic strike on that tower! This is our last fire mission, so make it count!"

"Aye," Serena said, tapping the appropriate holo-keys on her tacticomp as she set the built-in laser designator of her energy rifle to "designate" mode, "Gorgon actual, this is Kappa-Seven-Six, requesting fire mission, grid coordinates 70-56-83-25, danger close, designating target now!" With that, she leaned her rifle over the concrete slab her decury was covering behind, the link between her rifle's optics and her helmet visor allowing to see the target through the scope without exposing herself.

"Kappa-Seven-Six, this is Gorgon actual, fire mission confirmed, danger close! Specify ordnance!" the reply buzzed in the earphones inside Serena's helmet.

"Kinetic strike, precision, 5 kiloton range!"

"Roger that! Kinetic rod away, ETA 30 seconds, stand by!"

The thirty seconds seemed like an aeon with the volume of fire pouring at their position from the arcology tower half-a-click ahead. The defenders were surprisingly well entrenched and prepared, having decimated the armored column that Serena's decury was part of on the skybridge and pinned the survivors down. Then, a brilliant-white streak of fire pierced the clouds above and slammed hard into the arcology tower with the force of Thor's hammer itself, piercing the building in it's entire height, it's 500+ floors successively erupting in a colossal explosion from top down as the 500-ton tungsten rod passed through them. Chunks of supercrete the size of a city bus were broken off the building and flung far in every direction by the violence of the impact. Serena and a few others had made the mistake of standing up from cover just as the kinetic rod struck the building to better observe it's effects, and an instant later, the blast wave reached them, throwing them back violently. The last thing Serena felt was a blinding pain as her head struck the track of the burning tank behind her.

---

15 minutes ago
Aboard Typhon-class battleship Gorgon

"All personnel, prepare for drop in 60 seconds!" the feminine computer voice echoed throughout the drop bays as scores of armored troops hastily boarded the Thunderhawk dropships. Psychologists had determined a long time ago that males generally tended to respond better to a female voice, hence most Imperial ship AIs came pre-installed with a female voice package and personality. Given the prevalent suspicion towards artificial intelligence, it was also deemed necessary to make the ship AIs appear more friendly and sypathetic to the average soldier.

"Alright, lads, listen up!" centurion Aurelius bellowed over the general commotion, "This one's going to be a hot drop! While the humans don't know we're coming, and our infiltrators should have taken care of most of their orbital defenses by now, the same cannot be said about their ground forces! We're going in with the first wave, which means we'll be taking the brunt of their fire, but fear not - should you fall in battle, know that the Emperor himself awaits you in the Halls of Eternal Glory, where the brave live on forever! As I explained in the briefing already, we will be dropping straight on their positions, so anybody who isn't wearing powered armor is to be considered hostile and terminated with extreme prejudice! Be fearless, show no mercy, and may the Emperor's spirit hand guide you all! Ave Imperator!"

"Ave! Ave! Ave!" his century of 120 troops enthusiastically responded, pounding their armored chests with their fists.

"One more thing," centurion added, "I have issued an Imperial standard to each decury, as you already know! The first one to plant it on top of that arcology complex we'll be hitting will be promoted in rank, a promise given by the strategos himself, so make me proud today, and who knows, when this campaign is over, maybe I'll have to salute some of you!"

---

The troops assumed their seats aboard the dropship. Although regulations required everyone to be secured in their seats by safety harnesses, many deliberately failed to secure theirs - in the event their Thunderhawk was hit by AA fire, a distinct possibility especially for the first wave of a planetary assault, the second it took to undo the harness could mean the difference between life and death. It wasn't like an armor suit would help much if they had to bail at sub-orbital altitudes, travelling at speeds of several kilometres per second, but at lower altitudes, they would at least stand a chance of surviving, landing with the aid of their jetpacks, or in the old-fashioned way with parachutes if all else failed.

"Drop commencing! Stand by!" the ship's AI warned as the Thunderhawk's cargo bay door closed, shrouding the interior in darkness lit only by the dim red combat lighting as all power was routed to more critical systems. The ship shook slightly as the docking clamps began to move it inside the airlock. As the massive blast door behind closed, the ship was for a moment enveloped in complete darkness. The air outside began to hiss as it was vented from the airlock, the noise rapidly growing quieter until complete silence ensued, interrupted only by the steady hum of the Thunderhawk's fusion core, the occasional distant creaks and clanks from outside, conducted to the ship's interior through the metal of it's hull and the docking clamps, and the nervous, rapid breathing of the many troopers sitting quietly inside, audible outside even with their fully enclosed helmets on.

Then suddenly, the darkness was pierced by brilliant bluish-white light as the outer doors of the airlock were opened, revealing the planet about to be invaded below. Although only the pilots of the cockpit could see it, the sight was indeed breathtaking, seas, clouds and continents laid out before them a few hundred kilometers below, their ship racing over them at orbital speed. White trails of smoke and brilliant bluish streaks of light could be seen, rapidly rising towards the ship from the surface - the anti-ship missiles and plasma bolts fired by the human aerospace defenses. The density of incoming fire affirmed the predictions expressed in the briefing that this was going to be a tough fight.

"Drop commencing in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... " the ship AI that the crew had nicknamed Elena began the countdown. Some programming enthusiast had illicitly outfitted the AI with a holographic avatar of a well-endowed female with writhing snakes in place of hair, a pun on the ship's name. Although this had led to an internal investigation at first, the brass had soon relented without punishing anyone after finding out that the crew found this improvement rather pleasing compared to the AI's usual absence of physical presence.

"Launch!"

Next moment, zero gravity ensued inside the Thunderhawk as the docking clamps were released and the dropship left the mothership's artificial gravity plane, dropping out of it's bay in a free fall like a bomb. Troops who had not secured their harnesses held on tightly to keep themselves seated, especially after the ship's fusion engines kicked in. Acceleration wasn't much of an issue, since the Thunderhawk only needed engine power for maneuvering during the drop, planetary gravity doing the rest of the job.

---

Caliban was once an Imperial world, before the Age of War had torn the Old Imperium asunder. The surviving Sidhae had evacuated into uncharted space on what was now called the Second Pilgrimage by historians, while Caliban and countless other worlds had fallen prey to the greedy claws of the Federation of Mankind. Most of the old Sidh cities now laid in ruins, while others had long since been redesigned and repurposed by their new owners. Being an Earth-like world that required no terraforming or special habitat protection, Caliban was a precious holding to anyone who controlled it. The Federal government had until recently left the world largely untouched, selling it's continents off to various mega-corporations for use as they saw fit at a nominal price.

Obviously, that was going to change today. For the last few weeks, Sidh armadas had been assembling at staging areas in uncharted systems beyond the Terminus Line, the line at which the Federation's conquest of old Imperium had stopped and, for the last three centuries, also the border of human-explored space. Awaiting the "all-clear" signal from the hundreds of infiltrator teams infiltrated in the targeted human systems years ago to sabotage their primary defenses, these fleets had grown in strength by the hour, new and new ships arriving from all over the new Imperium and ferrying in tens of millions of troops to finally strike back at the age-old foe and exact terrible revenge for the human treachery 300 years ago.

When the jump signal had finally been given, Imperial fleets almost instantly emerged dozens of light-years away in close proximity to target worlds in over a dozen Federation systems. Navigation computers and star drives had evolved considerably since the Age of War, jumping in large formations close to the gravity well of a world no longer being an act of valor bordering on foolishness - where battlefleets once took days of sub-light travel to reach their targets after a jump, giving the defenders ample time to prepare, now an entire armada could jump straight into high orbit of a target world, taking mere minutes to reach low orbit and start pummeling the completely-unprepared defenders with orbital strikes as the first waves of the invasion force would begin to rain down from the sky.

Now the sky above Caliban darkened as hundreds of ships simultaneously unleashed their payloads, thousands of dropships and tens of thousands of drop pods blazing down from heavens, carrying troops, tanks, mechs, artillery and whatnot to visit destruction planetside. Dozens of massive mushroom clouds erupted on Caliban's surface, expanding shockwaves pushing aside clouds as orbital bombardment hit key installations around the world. Fire from planetary defense systems was scarce and erratic, the systems having been sabotaged by Sidh agents already weeks ago.

The fact that the humans never expected any kind of attack, let alone a Sidh attack, come from this direction of space didn't make things any easier for them. There were only a handful of warships in orbit, none bigger than a cruiser and most of them docked when the Sidh armada emerged, never even firing a shot before their destruction as most of their crews were planetside on shore leave. According to intelligence reports, in the centuries following the Sidh exodus from their former domains, generations of humans had grown up believing the Sidhae were either extinct or, at worst, gone for good to resettle somewhere far away in the Galaxy. Although sporadic encounters with Sidh ships and scouting parties were constantly reported, most dismissed these reports as tall tales by drunken spacers.

All this had made it so easy for Sidh operatives to infiltrate the ignorant and complacent human society this side of the galaxy. The humans felt safe here, in the former heart of the Imperium, believing their arch-enemy, the Skargh Empire, to be too far away to pose any threat, oblivious to the storm rising just a single jump's distance away from them. Now they were about to learn the error of such thinking the hard way.

---

"How are you holding up, rook?" a soldier by the name of Valerian spoke to Serena, who looked visibly distraught even with helmet concealing her face, "This your first drop?"

"Fifth, actually," she responded uneasily.

"Combat drop, I mean!" Valerian corrected himself.

"Yes, this one's my first..." Serena almost whispered, nervously looking at the ominous red glare shining in through the open door from the cockpit as the pilots re-adjusted the Thunderhawk's re-entry angle to make sure it didn't burn up in the atmosphere and was descending heat-shield first, the increasing friction with air particles enveloping the ship in a bright plasma shroud. The interior of the ship would become measurably warmer, the craft shaking violently in turbulence, the roar of the raging sheath of fire outside penetrating into the hull. The gravitational pull of the planet also became increasingly more sensible as the ship descended into Caliban's atmosphere.

"Don't worry, girl, but be proud - today we are making history! Imagine - we will be the first to fight in the first battle of the war that will restore the glory of the Imperium and avenge the human betrayal of the great Emperor, praised be His name! What greater glory can there be!?" Valerian declared enthusiastically.

"Uh... I'd just be content with making it to the ground alive first," Serena quietly said, somewhat ashamed of her fearfulness. A Sidh soldier was supposed to embrace death, to strive for it, for there was nothing more noble and glorious than giving one's life in service of the Imperium, like the great Emperor himself had done.

"Your armor doesn't seem to have any markings besides your legion's, unit's and specialty's. You one of those second-year rooks?" Valerian inquired.

"Yes, never got to complete my third," Serena said. Normally, a Sidh soldier would train for three years before being deemed fully qualified, three years also being the minimum service term required for full citizenship that entailed political rights. The invasion of the Federation was scheduled for mid-2550, but with the increased Sidh activity in preparation for it, the numbers of detections and reports of Sidh activity on the human side had also increased, attracting the increased attention of Federation authorities. Fearing the impending invasion would be discovered, the Empress had ordered the hastening of preparations and authorized the enlistment of second-year trainees for the coming war to fully staff the invasion force a year ahead of the plan.

"Well, then you are about to get a crash course in everything you'd learn in the third," Valerian apparently grinned even though his helmet covered his face, "Of course, provided we make it to the ground alive!"

A flash of light briefly illuminated the cargo bay through the cockpit door, and moments later, a thunderous blast shook the Thunderhawk violently.

"Oops, there goes another one! If they keep pounding those humans like that, all we'll have to do is clean up the mess!" Valerian remarked in a ham-handed attempt to cheer up Serena, "You're a TAC, right? You'll be the one who'll get all the fun calling in orbital strikes and whatnot if things get hot for us!"

"That's what I do," Serena said, "You probably heard the centurion say in the briefing how every decury will only get three fire missions of their choice on the first day. Our supporting ship, the Gorgon, does, after all, have to handle the fire support for an entire cohort."

At that moment, the ship was shaken by several blasts outside, and the noise of continuous more distant explosions penetrated into the cargo bay. The ship made several rapid maneuvers, apparently attempting to evade enemy fire.

"30 seconds to target! Standby to jump!" centurion Aurelius commanded from near the rear ramp. The soldiers unsecured their harnesses and quickly configured their tacticomps to navigation mode so that they wouldn't miss their designated landing zone, also checking that their weapons and equipment were secured firmly. This would be a HALO jump, the troops jumping from the dropship at high altitude and making best speed to the ground in free fall before rapidly braking with their jetpacks for a soft touchdown.

"Have you ever done a HALO jump in training, at least?" Valerian questioned Serena, standing in line before her.

"Obviously I have, or they wouldn't have let me on this mission," Serena was beginning to be annoyed by his continuous interrogation.

"Cut the chatter, you two!" their decurion Alaric interrupted them from the front.

"Sorry, dec, I was merely trying to encourage our new TAC," Valerian said, "I didn't..."

A horrendous explosion cut him short, violently tossing around everyone in the cargo bay as the metal hull literally ripped like paper and alarms began to whine, while air rushed out of the decompressed cargo bay with a deafening roar.

"We're hit! Hawk-Seven-Six, going down, going down! Mayday, mayday!" the pilot could be heard screaming in the radio.

"Everyone bail out! Now!" centurion Aurelius bellowed on the radio so that every man in his century could hear it despite the surrounding noise through the communicators in their helmets. He pulled the emergency ramp release lever that blew open the rear door and the ramp with explosive bolts, every soldier rushing for the door just as the doomed Thunderhawk began to disintegrate.

The noise outside was deafening even though the helmet's sonic processors automatically adjusted digital mufflers to maximum protection. The roar of hundreds of fusion engines, the sonic booms of hundreds of passing dropships and aerospace fighters, the thunder of anti-aircraft artillery missile explosions and the ominous howl of air raid sirens all made up for a hellish cacophony. Various anti-air projectiles were bursting into clouds of black smoke all around, spraying the approaching dropships with deadly shrapnel. From the way their Thunderhawk was literally cut in half, Serena deduced it had been hit by a continuous-rod warhead, a simple yet effective type that explosively formed an expanding ring of joined metal rods near the target aerospace craft, easily capable of cutting it in two.

The HUD in her helmet visor indicated the integrity of her armor and jetpack wasn't compromised, the altimeter showing an altitude of 4000 metres and rapidly dropping. By the decrease rate in altitude and distance to the target, Serena estimated she was free-falling at roughly 250 kilometres per hour, terminal velocity. She spread her arms and legs to stabilize her flight as instructed during the airborne insertion exercises, making sure she was facing the designated drop zone on a skybridge between two arcology towers, one of which she had just passed. She saw another Thunderhawk take a direct hit from a missile, the blast shearing off one of it's stubby wings that served to support gravplates. Sleek and gracious as they were, the Thunderhawk-class aerospace craft weren't meant to stay airborne through aerodynamic lift, instead using grav power for take-off, landing and intra-atmospheric maneuver. The doomed dropship careened to one side and down, soldiers inside desperately attempting to bail through the rear ramp before the craft impacted on the arcology, exploding in a massive ball of fire, debris and smoke, fewer than two dozen soldiers of an entire century of 120 having bailed before it did.

"Warning! Exceeding recommended approach velocity! Reduce airspeed immediately!" her tacticomp warned. A properly trained Sidh could survive a 50-metre-fall in powered armor with no injury or damage if landing on feet, but certainly not a 2-kilometer fall. Serena pulled her legs close to her, adjusting her center of gravity so that her body turned towards the ground feet-first, and gave the command to activate jets just as the altimeter hit the 300-metre mark. The jetpack on her back roared to life, her stomach going to her feet instantly by the feel of it as the g-force of the rapid deceleration hit her.

Then suddenly she was struck by a violent blast, the shockwave wrenching her guts as it passed through her body, an alarm beginning to beep as the helmet's HUD now displayed a warning about jetpack integrity being compromised. An AA shell apparently had bursted nearby, some of the shrapnel having ruptured the fuel tanks or some other critical sub-systems. The ground was approaching rapidly, and Serena realized that the key to surviving this ordeal was not to panic. Quickly she reached for the lever on her right side that would detach the jetpack from her armor, feeling considerably relieved as it separated from her back, and pulled the ripcord for the emergency parachute a second later, hoping it wouldn't be shredded by shrapnel like the jetpack. With relief, she felt the pull of deceleration as it deployed mere 100 metres above the skybridge, gently gliding her down.

Eager to get on solid ground, Serena pulled the lever on the left side that detached the parachute when still some 10 metres off the ground, dropping to the ground and rolling to stop completely. The altimeter showed 2100 metres above planetary surface level, the altitude of the skybridge, her location being around 150 metres from the designated drop point.

---

As Serena grabbed her energy rifle, detaching it from it's magnetic charging slot on the back of her armor, next to the power pack, she gazed around and saw how the human populace of Caliban had been taken by complete surprise. The skybridge was still very much crowded with abandoned cars, civilians running here and there aimlessly in panic. A skytrain line that ran along the skybridge was severed by another downed dropship just as a speeding train approached. Serena used the zoom function of her visor, zooming in on the train as it derailed and saw the passengers inside, eyes wide and screaming in horror as they fell to their deaths over a mile below, trapped in the cars of the skytrain. A brilliant flash in the distance behind the skyline of surrounding towers, spires and arcologies caught her attention and moments later she saw a mushroom cloud rise high above the city structures. Another orbital strike, she thought.

"Kappa-Six-Seven, this is decurion Alaric! Sitrep!" her communicator buzzed, returning her to reality.

"TAC Romana, reporting in, status green," Serena replied first, using her nomen as was proper for formal responses.

"Engineer Corax, reporting in, status green," she recognized Valerian's voice and wondered how she had never caught his nomen earlier, given how it was written on every soldier's armor.

Several other of her decury-mates reported in, none of whom she knew on first-name basis, being the FNG of the unit, totalling 8 out of twelve. Two more reported in seriously injured, and two were apparently missing.

Serena made her way to the drop point, shoving aside any of the panicked human civilians that got in her way. Personally she felt no particular hatred for them, and they posed no danger to her, so Serena felt no compulsion to kill them. Same couldn't be said about other Sidhae that were deploying on the skybridge, either by hot-drop like she had, or the old-fashioned way by jumping out of a hovering dropship. Many of them were shooting at the humans indiscriminately, the fierce, crackling energy beams ripping them to smouldering shreds. A Thunderhawk Heavy transport descended over the skybridge, almost slowing to a halt as it dropped two externally-carried Battlemaster tanks that crushed the abandoned cars beneath them like tin cans, the nanotech heat shield plates mounted under their tracks to keep them from burning up during the ship's re-entry crumbling into inert dust.

"How many of our guys made it?" Serena asked decurion Alaric as she arrived at the rally point.

"Fewer than a half. For a complete surprise, those humans are surely putting up a good fight," the decurion said, busy checking something in his tacticomp, "Centurion Aurelius is alive and well, busy mustering the rest of of what's left of our century."

"So we're hitting that arcology complex today?" Serena asked, pointing at a huge pyramidal structure a few clicks ahead, towering like a mountain well above most surrounding spires, it's peak shrouded in clouds.

"That's right, and if the humans in there are as prepared as they are here, we're in for one hell of a fight," Alaric said grimly.

"Why not just blast it from orbit?" Serena asked, slightly jumping as the sudden sonic boom of a flight of Shtriga bombers soaring overhead startled her.

"Because half of the city is built on the same foundation as that complex. If that complex goes down, so does everything within 5 clicks of it. Besides, the brass seems to want it intact, or at least relatively intact," Alaric explained, "There are food production facilities and factories inside that could be put to good use..."

His words were interrupted by a terrible bang and the sound of twisting metal as a Battlemaster tank crashed into the pavement violently just a dozen metres away, crushing several soldiers unfortunate to stand there. Apparently, a Thunderhawk heavy transport had been shot out of the sky somewhere nearby, scattering it's cargo of two main battle tanks as it broke up in mid-air. Several armored bodies impacted the pavement nearby as well, flattening like tin cans from the impact, blood gouting out of every gap and crack. Medics rushed to their aid, but to no avail. Serena looked away, trying to surpress nausea. Yet unaccustomed to the horrors of war, she couldn't quite yet bear the sight of the mangled bodies of fellow Sidhae falling out of thin air.

"Move out!" centurion Aurelius's voice on the comm ordered, "Let's not stick around and wait until something bigger decides to drop here!"

Serena gave one last glance at the compressed, twisted, smoldering hull of the unfortunate tank that had buried itself into the pavement almost to the turret and moved on.

---

"I never quite asked you back on the dropship," Valerian spoke to Serena as they walked amidst the scores of abandoned cars next to one of the tanks deployed to their support, "How long are you awake?"

"Four years," Serena said, giving a wary look to the sky to make sure nothing was about to drop on their heads. It was already bad enough as it was, wreckage, whole vehicles and bodies raining from the sky all across the city.

Like all Sidhae, Valerian and Serena were cyborgs. Genetically-engineered, grown in vats to adult size, cyber-augmented in the process and neuro-coded with all the necessary life skills and knowledge that a 20-year-old human adult would possess. Hence, Sidhae had no birth dates like humans, but awakening dates, the dates they were awakened from the dream-like state that incomplete Sidhae were kept in while their bodies were grown and augmented, and their minds pre-programmed with the necessary knowledge.

This artificial nature was part of why there existed such an age-old enmity between their kind and the rest of humanity. The ancestors of Sidhae had sought to improve themselves, evolve the entire Mankind to ensure it's survival in a galaxy full of unspeakable alien horrors, yet the rest of Mankind had rejected and cast them out. Although embittered, the first Sidhae had still considered themselves part of Mankind, tried to act as it's stewards and protectors, only to be betrayed by humans yet again. This betrayal, where the humans had in their greed and envy sided with aliens rather than their Sidh brothers, had been the cause of the Age of War, and a breaking point that prompted Sidhae to denounce their humanity altogether and swear eternal enmity on Mankind.

"What did you do before enlisting?" Valerian asked.

"Various menial jobs I was assigned to by the authorities," Serena replied, "Pretty much the same things that all young Sidhae with no special talents do for their first years until they find their thing. I used to look upon soldiers as gods, so brave and dauntless, so dedicated to the service of our glorious nation and the exalted Empress. When it was told on the news that the military was preparing to retake the old Imperium and any volunteer would be highly appreciated, I signed up. Although being a soldier isn't quite as I had imagined it, I am still proud to do my part."

"Doing your part? You enlisted because of that ad?!" Valerian laughed, referring to "Doing your part", a popular propaganda advertisement regularly shown on public viewscreens throughout the Imperium.

"It was a certain influence..." Serena admitted, her helmet concealing the blush on her cheeks.

As they were walking and conversing, several Sidhae walking ahead of them had taken to dispatching of wounded human civilians crawling and moaning here and there between the cars that littered the skybridge, using a quick jab of energy bayonet or a handblaster shot to the head. Some of them had been wounded by shrapnel and debris falling from the sky, others had been injured in car collisions and pile-ups as the panicked drivers had initially attempted to drive to safety, yet others had been trampled by the fleeing crowd of panicked people as the roads would become clogged and unusuable by vehicles. Serena felt these acts of killing were merciful - it was a quick death, much preferable to the slow agony that surely awaited them now when most medical facilities in the city were either destroyed or overwhelmed by injured patients, and Sidh invaders had neither the means nor the interest to treat them.

Combat in the skies had lulled somewhat, most surviving dropships of the first wave having returned to the fleet in orbit for new cargo, the sky now being dominated by aerospace fighters, bombers and gunships running fire missions on request across the city. Granted, the air raid sirens were still howling, skies were still filled with tracers and streaks of missile exhaust, and the occasional mushroom cloud erupted in the distance, joining over a dozen others already looming around the city, black and ominous, but overall, there seemed to be a lot less aerospace craft in the air than minutes before. No human fighters were to be seen, apparently having been destroyed in their hangars and airfields by orbital strikes in the opening minutes of the invasion. Total aerospace superiority was a good thing, this much Serena knew - it meant they would only have to worry about enemy artillery, and even that would be a rather temporary problem, Sidh fighters and bombers quickly taking out any hostile artillery platforms. Not to mention that artillery would be next to useless in such a densely built-up area.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the soldier walking ahead of her, whose helmet suddenly split open like a tin can and exploded, richly spraying Serena with blood and brain matter.

"Sniper! Get down!" decurion Alaric bellowed, Sidh troops already rushing to the nearest cover without command, when a hail of gunfire rained down upon the Sidh column. Most rounds did no damage besides mild concussion, harmlessly impacting on the Sidh armor, but more than a few found their way through in weak spots of the armor. Given the number of misses, the enemy apparently was either too far away, or too numerous to bother aiming, but the sheer volume of fire indicated the attackers were facing at least a company-strength force, several bullets grazing Serena's armor as she dodged for cover behind the tank.

"Multiple contacts at 11'o'clock, in the arcology spire! Enemy armor at 12'o'clock, on the skybridge!" spotters called in visible contacts, marking them as they spoke, the networked tacticomps of every Sidh soldier and vehicle instantly updating the tactical map and marking the hostiles on the HUDs for easy detection.

Next moment, the main gun of the tank Serena was covering behind thundered, the blast shattering the windows of the surrounding cars. Something exploded in the distance, and moments later, an enemy projectile impacted just next to the tank, ripping to shreds and throwing high in the air a car. This Battlemaster was outfitted with a rather old-fashioned chemical propellant gun. Although more modern substitutes such as electromagnetic guns and various energy weapons existed, the age-old chemical-propelled pieces still had their uses - no other type of tank gun could fire such a diversity of munitions, electromagnetic weapons being limited to solid armor-piercing metal slugs and energy weapons to their respective variable power outputs. Traditional smoothbore pieces like this one could, however, shoot just about anything from high-explosive shells to artillery-deployed landmines to surveillance drones and even guided AT missiles, pretty much anything that could fit through the barrel.

"Stay clear of the tanks and move aside!" came the order from centurion Aurelius, "Metal-Seven-Six-Alpha, what is your status?!"

"Status green, targeting three hostiles, two Hoplites and a light walker!" a voice on the comm apparently belonging to the commander of the lead tank reported

"Have Metal-Beta move up next to you and hit the walker first!"

"Roger that, targeting the walker!"

The tank's main gun thundered again while it's companion from the rear began to approach, crushing vehicles and bodies beneath it's treads. Serena again looked away in disgust as the Battlemaster drove over the corpse of an obese middle-aged man, spreading his innards and body fluids across the pavement in a gruesome pattern.

A bullet impact on the tank hull just inches from her head returned her to the reality of combat, reminding her that there were opponents to deal with nearby. She promptly took cover behind the tank and carefully aimed at the distant arcology tower from cover, zooming in her view to examine the targets closer. There were at least 50 of them, distributed over several dozen floors. Judging by their uniforms which weren't the standard issue of Federation military, these troops were apparently corporate security forces - Serena remembered them being mentioned as the likeliest opposition in the briefing. Caliban was occupied by several rivaling mega-corporations which, according to Sidh intel, often resorted to sabotage and even open attacks and air raids on each other's industrial facilities, the weak presence of the Federal government and law enforcement on this remote world making the corporations a law unto themselves. Other opponents were armed civilians, shooting with whatever they had in defense of their homes.

Serena zoomed her view in to maximum and took a careful aim at a security trooper manning an autogun. She had never killed anyone before and hesitated for a moment, but the incessant conditioning about humans as the enemy for all her conscious life made pulling the trigger easier. Firing in almost perfectly-straight line, the Mk.V energy rifle was as accurate and deadly 500 metres away as it was 50 metres away, striking true to Serena's aim. As the man's upper torso exploded in a mist of boiling blood and gore, sending his left arm flying in one direction and his head and right shoulder in the other, Serena felt no more guilt than over slaughtering a chicken. The time for persuasion and leading by example was long past - presently, humans existed only to be converted, or eradicated if they refused.

A violent kick to her shoulder knocked her down. The tank had fired it's gun again, the recoil pushing it backwards a bit, Serena having leaned all her weight on it's hull. An enemy shell grazed the turret of the other tank that had made it's way next to the lead Battlemaster and was now firing at the mech. She jumped up and continued to return fire. The two other tanks riding behind opened fire on the building ahead, explosions of their shells enveloping several stories in clouds of dust. Then suddenly, out of these dust clouds spiralled out the exhaust streak of a missile, speeding towards the tank designated Metal-Seven-Six-Beta. While Sidh tanks did have active defense systems, these tankers had apparently forgotten to switch them on, not expecting corporate security to pack anything beyond small arms, even though the two tanks and a mech on the far end of the skybridge attested the contrary. This mistake consequently cost them their life as the missile graciously twisted upward in a spiral motion and then slammed down right on top of the tank where it's armor was the thinnest. Serena barely managed to dodge the explosion behind Metal-Alpha. Peeking over the hull, she saw Metal-Beta engulfed in flames, everyone inside apparently dead. Then, loud bangs and crackling began inside the burning tank, jets of sparks shooting out of every opening and seam as the ammunition store began to cook off before a thunderous explosion blew off it's turret, throwing it good five stories high from where it crashed down back on the skybridge, almost crushing several Sidhae covering behind a car who barely managed to dodge it.

"They have ATs! Century, push forward at all costs!" centurion Aurelius bellowed over the comm, "Infantry, use tanks for cover!" Metal-Alpha and it's two surviving companions began to roll forward, more missiles coming in from the tower and exploding dangerously close, spraying the armored Sidh troops around with shrapnel that in most cases was too small to cause any significant damage.

"Romana, see if you can get us some air support on that armor over there!" decurion Alaric ordered, gesturing in the direction of enemy armor from which sporadic fire came, mostly missing or scoring glancing blows on the Sidh tanks since their view was obstructed by the many wrecked vehicles including large two-story busses and container trucks.

"Affirmative," Serena said, switching her comm to the appropriate frequency, "Gorgon actual, this is Kappa-Seven-Six, requesting air support, grid coordinates 70-57-83-20, anti-armor ordnance!"

"Kappa-Seven-Six, this is Gorgon actual, no dedicated anti-armor support available right now, redirecting a Thunderhawk gunship to your location , designated Warbird-Zero-Nine-Echo, ETA 60 seconds, recommend marking the target with smoke!"

"Somebody put some smoke on those tanks!" Serena shouted.

Valerian who happened to be closest to her nodded, pulling out a smoke grenade from his tactical vest and loaded it in the grenade launcher of his energy rifle. After briefly estimating the trajectory, he let it loose, and the projectile left the launcher with a loud thump, arcing over the obstacles towards the enemy.

In the meantime, another missile struck one of the tanks behind, disabling it. The crew hastily abandoned the vehicle before the human AT troops decided to finish it off.

"We're down to two tanks, centurion!" the voice of Metal-Alpha commander reported, "We can't keep pushing on much longer!"

"Keep pushing, by Emperor's blood! Gunship is on it's way!" centurion Aurelius bellowed. Serena could see him a few dozen paces ahead, leading the advance, nimbly navigating between the abandoned cars and fiercely firing back at the enemies in the tower even as troops around him fell from sniper fire. Then, a missile impacted one of the overhead supercrete support struts that held the skybridge up, breaking off a large slab that fell to the ground, crushing a bus below like a tin can and blocking the road. The slab itself wasn't anything a tank couldn't drive over, but it had just destroyed the bus that had so far covered the Sidh advance from direct sight of the armor holding the far end of the bridge. Now both tanks and the mechwalker opened fire, their guns and autocannons cutting into Sidh ranks with deadly effect, ripping men apart with ease and sending chunks of powered armor and body parts flying in all directions. Emboldened by the sudden involvement of their armored units, the defenders of the tower redoubled their efforts, laying down even more devastating suppressive fire that halted the Sidh advance in it's tracks. Worse, the human tankers and the mech pilot had noticed the cloud of green smoke forming around them from Valerian's grenade and suspected that air support was on it's way, and began to fall back closer to the tower, where missile-equipped troops could better cover them from air.

The familiar roar of Thunderhawk engines was greeted with jubilant cheers as the ship veered to the right and began it's circular orbit around the target, pummeling it with it's heavy on-board weaponry. Streams of tracer rounds, kinetic projectiles and bolts of plasma impacted around the armored vehicles, kicking up clouds of fire and dust. Several missiles streaked towards the gunship from the tower as it launched decoy flares that spread out in the air in a pattern reminiscent of fiery angel wings. Most missed wide, but one exploded nearby, damaging one of the ship's engines much to the dismay of Sidhae on the skybridge, who had hoped to further use it to pacify the tower defenders after dispatching of the armor.

"Warbird-Zero-Nine-Echo to Kappa-Seven-Six, we've lost an engine! Sorry, but we can't stick around to help any longer!" the pilot of the gunship announced, guiding his craft to safety.

Serena took cover behind the fallen concrete slab along with several other troops. The loss of gunship support really represented a problem.

---

Presently on the skybridge

Valerian watched the rookie TAC open her eyes. She had silky, light ash-brown hair and an attractive face that featured a strong jaw and fairly thin lips. Her eyes turned out to be of steely bluish-grey colour, having that eerie, unnatural shine like all of her kind, implanted circuits visible in her irises.

"How are you feeling, lass?" Valerian asked.

"Like morning after shore leave..." Serena groaned. Her head hurt like mauled with a hammer from the inside.

"The doc says you only have a mild concussion," Valerian gestured towards the nearby medic who was tending other wounded, "Set your armor's auto-injector to shoot some painkiller in you, and you should be alright in a moment."

Serena tapped a few keys on her tacticomp and fealt the familiar sting in her lower right arm as the auto-injector needle entered the implanted injection port and released it's contents into her bloodstream. The headache gradually receded. She looked in the direction of the tower that Gorgon's kinetic strike had destroyed upon her call. The whole building was ablaze and falling apart, a massive pillar of black smoke rising from it towards the darkened, ominously red sky illuminated in such manner by the countless fires raging in the embattled city. Massive blocks of concrete were breaking off from the tower and falling to the ground, and among other falling things, Serena noticed multiple small, fiery objects that seemed to move on their own among the falling debris. Out of curiousity she put her helmet back on and zoomed in.

The small, wriggling fires turned out to be burning people, flailing in agony as they jumped to their deaths, hoping to end their pain quickly. Given the height of the building, it was dubious, though - two kilometres of fall and high winds to further fuel the fire wouldn't make much difference for them. There were many more people, mostly civilians, who weren't on fire, but who also leapt to their deaths from the burning crumbling building. Serena watched almost entranced as she saw a teary-eyed young mother kiss her baby for one last time before holding it close and leaping from the crumbling building just as flames were creeping closer from behind. She could have turned on the helmet's parabolic microphone to hear everything that transpired in the place she was looking at, but felt no desire to do so for obvious reasons. Serena had seen people burn alive before, during an accident in training when a faulty white phosphorus grenade accidentally went off in the hands of a recruit surrounded by several others. Their screams still haunted her, and she had no desire to hear such screams again, even though she was largely indifferent to human suffering.

"Nasty way to go," Valerian agreed, having guessed what Serena was looking at and probably looking at the same horrid spectacle himself, "But this is just the first hour of the war, I imagine we'll be seeing far worse things soon enough."

The ground began to shake as the structure of the destroyed arcology tower finally gave way and the massive building collapsed, thundering towards the ground in a massive cloud of dust. The skybridge was visibly shaking from the vibration, and Serena was for a moment concerned the upper part of the building could fall on the skybridge with disastrous consequences.

"Alright, everybody!" the voice of centurion Aurelius rallied everyone to their feet, "Get ready to move out, we still have a long way to go! I want scouts 200 paces ahead scanning every building for potential resistence.

Serena pushed herself to her feet and checked time. It was just past 1400 hours.

"This has been the longest hour of my life..." she said to herself quietly.

by **The Nexus of Man** » Sun Apr 30, 2017 4:06 pm

by **Imperium Sidhicum** » Mon May 01, 2017 4:03 pm

Far Beneath the Distant Stars
MUS/POE/SID

Far beneath the distant stars
Emperor's light shall cover us,
We are warriors divine,
We have come to sanctify!
Let the banners fly in wind,
Let the fires be now lit,
We have come to purify,
We have come to sanctify!
Far beneath the distant stars
Emperor's light shall cover us,
We are doom and we are faith
Marchin' for our glorious race!
He is God of our kind,
He is wisdom, He is light,
We are prophets of His will,
And His wishes we fulfiill!
Our faith is the salvation,
We bring light to stars and lands,
We defend our glorious nation,
Our duty never ends!
We are servants, we are masters,
We perform what should be done,
And the Emperor's will shall guide us
In the world of billion suns!
As we march, we bring the glory
Only way to rule the world,
We are servants of the holy
Emperor who's our god!
All the heretics shall perish
As we're going to the stars,
We defend our glorious nation
From the perils of the war!

Emperor is our leader,
He is light among the storms,
We bring only value: freedom!
To the worlds the truth unfolds!
We are servants, we are masters,
We perform what should be done,
And the Emperor's will shall guide us
In the world of billion suns!
We are angels of redemption,
We bring vengeance to the front,
We are the Imperial army,
We are wisdom of the Word!
All the heretics shall perish
In the fires of the war,
We defend our glorious nation
From the perils of the war!

We are warriors divine,
We have come to sanctify!

The Emperor protects!!!

by **Imperium Sidhicum** » Wed May 03, 2017 5:59 pm

~ Ten Deadly Sins ~
SID

---excerpt from a Judicatorial training manual---

Ave Imperator, disciple!

As your master must surely have taught you by now, the Order of Judicators is not a place where failure is an option. You have been selected to be trained for a reason, because you have the potential and the qualities necessary to become one of the Imperium's very best - always remember this and know that mistakes which could be forgiven to lesser specimens than yourself will not be forgiven to you by the very nature of your work. Being one of the best naturally comes with greater responsibilities and higher standards than are applied to the rest. To an ordinary Sidh, a failure that doesn't kill him is merely a setback. To you, failure is a sin against the great Emperor himself - condition yourself to think of it that way from now on and always. Always remember that it only takes once for your enemies to get it right and kill you. Being dead, you are useless to the Imperium, and the nature of your tasks as a Judicator will invariably entail numberless lives of your compatriots lost simply because you were too incompetent to stay alive and get the job done. This is why failure is not an option for a Judicator and constitutes a sin against the Allfather.

This manual hereby provides you with a list of 10 Deadly Sins, common fatal mistakes made in the line of Judicatorial, military and security work. Study these sins well, learn to notice them in yourself and others, and correct them in a timely manner at all times. Remember that you are a Sidh - Allfather himself has commanded you to better yourself in His Word. It is your duty and responsibility to train hard and improve yourself, for as a Judicator, you won't just demonstrate your own incompetence by falling victim to one of these mistakes - your failure will also highlight your lack of faith in the Word, you having failed in your obligation to better yourself.

---

1. Complacency

Ignorance, indifference, carelesness. The three worst enemies of any soldier or security trooper, and especially a Judicator. A lazy soldier who hasn't paid attention to intel briefing and waltzes straight into a minefield, a war-weary soldier who has given in to apathy and simply drifts along with the events in hopes of emerging alive in the end, an Urban Security trooper who goes on patrol in the ghetto thinking that his powered armor and Sidh status alone will protect him - all of these men sin against the Emperor with their complacency and consequently pay the price with their lives. Just their own, if they are lucky, and with those of many others if not. As an aspiring Judicator, you have no right whatsoever to allow yourself to grow complacent, ever. Always make effort to learn everything there is to know about your target and it's surrounding environment down to the tiniest detail, however trivial it may seem. As a Judicator, you will routinely operate in some of the most unforgiving and hostile environments known to man, so intimate knowledge of it will be instrumental at ensuring your survival. Never ever assume that your current job is going to be a walk in the park, however insultingly easy it might seem - out in the field, things can change from safe to lethal in an eyeblink. And most importantly, never ever give in to apathy and indifference - you are the Emperor's Spear, who always strikes hard and strikes true, for the consequences of a botched strike are always dire.

2. Poor positioning

A soldier who picks his position poorly soon ends up with a one-way ticket to Aedun in an urn. This is even more true for a Judicator, who must often operate deep behind enemy lines alone. The careless soldier at least has his comrades who can rectify his mistake or at least mitigate it's consequences, he has orbital strikes, gunships, artillery and everthing else down to his trusty autogunner comrade at his disposal. A Judicator on a mission most often has none of these things. By neglecting to pick a suitable posession, you sin against the glorious Emperor by taking unacceptable risks with His most precious investment - you. Therefore your first and foremost concern when picking a position should be cover. Whenever possible, you should also consider line of sight to the target, but always remember that your own survival is your top priority - you cannot accomplish your mission if you are dead or crippled. You must also think ahead - while choosing your cover, also consider the optimal advance and retreat routes if for some reason your chosen position becomes untenable.

3. Threat misidentification

There is a burly man with an energy sword, a frail woman with a handblaster, and a monkey with a plasma grenade in a room you must clear. In what order will you pick your targets and why? A Judicator often faces situations where he must make a threat assessment on a moment's notice and set his priorities accordingly. Failure to properly identify threats, and to determine if there are indeed any threats at all, is another fast route to the Halls.

4. Poor searching

A Judicator is assigned to find evidence of a ranking official's corruption and commences a search of the offender's premises. He fails to turn up any evidence and the corrupt official continues to defraud the Emperor and His state in impunity. Not because there wouldn't have been any evidence, but simply because the Judicator in question deemed it beneath himself to delve into the dumpster behind the target's residence. A DomSec trooper arrests an enemy sympathizer spreading pamphlets of his vile heresies. Focusing on his pamphlets, he neglects to search the detainee, and the traitor later pulls out a plasma grenade in the precinct, blowing up himself and a whole decury of other DomSec troopers - all because of one man's negligence. A Judicator is lucky if the consequences of his negligence are limited to defrauded tax aurons. Whenever you search, be it a premise, building, vehicle or a prisoner, be meticulous to a fault. Condition yourself to think always that lives depend on it, starting with your own.

5. No restraint

There will be numerous occasions in your career when you will have to capture a target or it's associate alive to interrogate or hand over to the appropriate authorities. Naturally, the said individuals will unlikely be inclined to cooperate, even those few who will surrender themselves to you without resistence being capable of having a change of heart in an eyeblink. This will be even more true during actual interrogations. It is therefore imperative that your control over their movement remains absolute at all times. Even a frail old man or a child can lash out at an opportune moment if restrained improperly - remember that it only takes once for them to get it right and kill you.

6. Ignoring focal points

Weapons do not kill - hands that wield them do, as do eyes that guide the hands, and feet that carry both. Observe these key focal points for signs of attack at all times. Anticipation is fundamentally the observation of focal points in conjunction with applied knowledge and experience, all seamlessly honed to an instinctive level. Learn to gain as much information from these focal points about your enemy's intent as possible, and you will emerge victorious. While doing so, however, also endeavor to reveal as little information to the enemy with your own conscious and involuntary movements. Practice extensively so that you can attain full control of your body, overcome your natural reflexes and learn to see without looking directly at your object of intent, to place and parry attacks without your movements revealing your intent beforehand. Remember - you are the will of the Emperor made manifest! By betraying your intents to the enemy, you are betraying the intents of Allfather himself!

7. Relaxing prematurely

There is no such thing as "safe" in your line of work. The closest thing to "safe" is when you are off-duty in a Judicatorial compound, lying on a couch with a cold beer in hand, enjoying rest after a job well done, and even then it can change on a moment's notice. As soon as you step outside that compound, better get your game face on and stay sharp at all times. The Emperor detests laziness, and by assuming you are safe at any point of time while on a job, you are being lazy!

8. False assumptions

A decury of UrbSec troopers are dispatched to quell a human riot in the ghetto. Assuming that their armor, augmentations and training will make short work of the riotous scum, they rush in and start putting the humans back into their proper station - until the humans break out military-grade pulse rifles with armor-piercing ammunition. Assumptions are your worst enemy. Never ever assume anything you do not know as a fact, and if you do, always assume the worst possible scenario and plan to act accordingly. As a Judicator, you more than any other professional will have to deal with uncertainty, so make sure you base your actions on what can be ascertained for good.

9. Recklesness

The two kinds of people who get killed the most often in any armed service are inexperienced youths and hardened veterans - the former because they lack the skill and experience to survive, and the latter because they think themselves too smart to make stupid mistakes. Accept as a fact that no matter how strong, tough, brave, skillful and experienced you are, there will always be someone stronger, tougher, braver and more skilled and experienced than you out there - the person who will prove you otherwise by taking your life. Understand and accept that you will invariably die at some point, and die violently, but never forget that life is the Emperor's currency, so you must spend yours well, to the benefit of the Imperium. Do not squander His currency needlessly by taking unacceptable risks. The Emperor protects those who protect themselves.

10. Exhaustion

All of the aforementioned deadly sins can be committed under influence of exhaustion. On extended missions without the comforts of civilized living, exhaustion will become one of your chief enemies, but even when enjoying the comforts and luxuries of the civilians among whom you will typically operate, do not neglect to rest. Exhaustion will slow your reaction, dull your mind and make you pass questionable judgement, so make sure you rest properly at all times. The line between a tired Judicator and a dead Judicator is much too thin for comfort.

---

This concludes the introduction to the Ten Deadly Sins of a Judicator. For additional explanation and instruction on this subject, consult your master and follow his guidance carefully.

Ave Imperator, and may the Emperor's spirit guide you in your studies!

by **New Frenco Empire** » Wed May 24, 2017 8:09 am

-Paradox-
(ALT - CIN - MAT - NFE - PRO - PWE - TPP)

Outside Poznań, Occupied Polish Countryside
March 15th, 1942

The lone German soldier peeked around the front of the modest farmhouse. Barren. Just as it always was. Figures. There was no partisan activity in this area ever. Why they insisted on keeping a guard here was beyond him. If anything, it just pissed him off. Why should they get to have all the fun while he's stuck out here?
He sighed, and produced a cigarette from one of his pouches. However, as he lit it, he noticed a pair of lights on the horizon. Throwing the match aside, he took his rifle from his back, holding it out just in case.
A car approached the farmhouse, prompting the soldier to raise his hand in a halt formation. He wasn't sure just who it was, but felt a bit relieved when the figure who stepped out from behind the driver seat was dressed in a Wehrmacht uniform. He couldn't make out any details of the man, as his entirety was covered. He wore gloves, has face obscured with a cloth wrap, his hair hidden under a cap, and his eyes unremarkable past a pair of tinted goggles.
"Hey, how ya doin'?" The mysterious figure said, his German hampered by a thick accent of some sort.
"I'm alright." The soldier replied, still a bit suspicious. "Looking for a good time, I assume? Listen, I hate to be a pain, but...can I see some identification or something? We have a...clandestine operation going here. You understand..."
"Oh, sure sure!" The figure said, reaching into one of his pouches as he approached. When he was a few feet away from the soldier, he pulled something out. However, when the soldier looked down, it wasn't the expected badge or a paper...

Before the soldier could react, the figure squeezed the trigger, sending a round into his stomach and forcing him on his knees. dropping his rifle.
As he groaned, he looked back up at his assailant.
"Hope it all checks out, Jerry..." The figure said, finishing the soldier off with another .45 clean to the forehead. With that, the figure approached the farmhouse door, carefully opening it as to not alert all that were inside.
Looking immediately to his left, he noticed another grey-suited soldier, stumbling about in the kitchen, a bottle of cheap whiskey in his hand. The figure quickly took aim and dispatched him cleanly with a shot to the chest.
As the soldier died, he noticed another at the top of the nearby stairway. It seemed this one was drunk as well, as he stumbled trying to get a closer look at the figure rather than stopping to question him.
The figure merely climbed the stairs, raising his pistol and firing a shot into the other's head. He caught his body before it could tumble down, laying it gently down at the top of the stairwell as to not make any noise.
The figure scanned the small hallway, noticing three doors. One at the end was open, revealing an unoccupied water closet. He decided to investigate the room on the left, silently opening the door.

He discovered a child's room, complete with a crib in the center. In the crib lay a young child, fully-clothed, but sleeping. He was about three years' old by the figures' estimate. And he was exactly who he was looking for.
The figure quietly approached the child, but evidently not quietly enough, as the child's eyes fluttered open.
"Mommy?" The boy asked.
"Shh! I'm here to help you." The figure attempted to assure the young boy. "Just trust me, alright? You'll see your momma real soon, alright?"
His attempts proved to be for naught.
"Mommy! Help me! Mommy!" The boy yelled.
"Kid, no!"
"Jan?" A woman's voice echoed from the next room.
"Fuck..." The figure cursed to himself, approaching the screaming child. He produced a rag from one of his pockets, gently placing it over the child's face. After a mere few seconds, the boy was asleep again. With that, the figure took off across the hall, violently kicking open the door to the other bedroom.

Inside was another soldier, his bare chest exposed, and a young woman. The woman was quite attractive, but couldn't have been older than twenty, and the light freckles on her face only added to her almost childlike appearance. The figure would have been disgusted, had the girl not still had most of her clothes on, including a shirt, pinned with a yellow cloth star-of-david.
As the woman was frozen in fear, the soldier angrily attempted to charge the figure. This prompted him to fire three shots into the soldier's chest, killing him and sending him tumbling back into the bed.
The girl shrieked in terror, and darted into the bedroom's connected water closet, shutting the door behind her.
The figure followed as he reloaded his gun, carefully opening the door to see her reach down into the cupboard by the toilet and pull out a small revolver.
"Not another step, asshole!" The girl timidly threatened. "I know how to use this thing! I swear to God, if you hurt Jan!"
"Your kid is fine..." The figure assured. "Look, I ain't gonna hurt ya..."
"I'm don't believe you! You...murdered all my friends!"
"Those Jerries weren't your friends." The figure said. "They were here to fuck every hole on your pretty little body."
"Don't you dare judge me!" The girl tearfully exclaimed. "I do what I do to keep my child safe!"
"And it ain't gonna turn out how you think it will..." The figure sighed. "They already reported you to the SS. Trynna get brownie points with Mister Moustache's finest. There's a death squad on their way here right now to kill you and ship your kid off to one of their camps. Please.
Trust me. I'm trying to protect you...just come with me. I can explain..."
"You're a liar! You killed all these people in cold-blood! You're no better than the Fuhrer!" The girl said, her hands trembling. "I'm not coming with you!"
"Then I'm sorry..." The figure said, lowering his pistol to the girl's midsection. He pulled the trigger, sending a round into her stomach.

"AHHHHH!" The girl shrieked, falling to the floor and dropping her gun. "You...you shot me..."
"Yeah. I did." The figure said, cautiously approaching her. "I can't talk you out of it, so this was the only way. I didn't want to...but this was the only way I could save you given the time I have. I can patch you up good as new, if you'll just-"
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" The woman yelled, kicking at the figure's legs.
However, her kicks and punches didn't stop the figure from gently picking her up. The girl was silenced with a headbutt from the figure, knocking her out.
"Sorry..." He said one last time, exiting the room. He went back into the child's room and scooped up the unconscious toddler, carrying them both out of the house.

The shadowy figure laid the wounded girl into the backseat of his town car, quickly using a spare jacket to block the small hole in her stomach. He did much the same with the sleeping child, putting him right next to her mother in a safe position. He could fix the girl up later, and the kid had enough chems in him to keep him asleep for the rest of the night. He just needed to leave before those stormtroopers showed up...
The man reached over and yanked the yellow cloth badge off the girl's jacket, throwing it aside. He did the same with the toddler before moving to the driver's seat of the vehicle, intent on leaving all of it behind.
However, just as the man was about to depart, a sudden yell interrupted him before he could start the engine.
"Please...step out of the car." An anglo voice echoed from around the house.
The figure turned his head, peering out the car window and into the treeline. He couldn't make out the other figure from his position in the car, but he could see his aggressor's gun well enough. Shit.
"Why hello there!" The man said, gently raising his own pistol ever-so-slightly behind the car door. "Almost took ya for a Kraut, I did! You an American? I can tell by the voice. Don't see a lot of us in occupied Poland, right?"
"I think you know I'm not an American..." The other figure said, stepping from the shadows. This revealed a youthful caucasian man, clad in a dark trench coat. The cuffs on his sleeves were adorned with silvery eagles, and in his other hand, he flashed a badge - Jack Garrett. Investigator. Imperial Intelligence Agency. "I'm a Frenk. Just like-"

"A Frank?" The covered man nervously replied, his hand sweating around the grip of his Colt pistol. "Like a...Frenchman? Accent coulda fooled me, kid! If you're with the Free French, I'm afraid to say you're well a ways away from home. If you're one of Vichy's boys, well...it'd be company policy to shoot you dead! You understand..."
"Please. Stop playing dumb with me." The coated investigator, Garrett, said, lowering his gun a bit. "I know who you are...."
The man merely sighed and placed his gun back in it's holster. He opened the door and stepped out, his gloved hands reaching for his face. He removed the balaclava and tinted goggles, revealing a wrinkled, ebony face adorned with a silvery-gray moustache.
"Then who am I?" The black man asked, straight-faced.

"Your name is Jonathon Rollins." Garrett said, holstering his pistol. "You are, or...were one of the IIA's finest operatives. And now you're on detail many dimensions away..."
"Yep." Rollins nodded. "It's been a decade...or longer. Time don't move like it's supposed to here. How's home? What year is it there."
"Twenty-one seventy-two. And the Empire is doing just fine, Agent Rollins." Garrett said. "The Mechanocracy and the Sidhae Imperium are at each other's throats. They've been preparing for war, and they've seemingly...forgotten about us. We're in a very interesting position, Agent Rollins. In the years after the fourth World War, we've established ourselves as the dominant power of the home universe, but we're in a position to become the dominant power of many universes. That is why I am here."
"Oh, is that it?" Rollins chuckled. "You wanna drag me back there for another shady suicide op? Ol' Jane misses me already? Well tell her I'm kinda busy! I got Joseph Hightower's Great-Grandmother bleeding in my backseat, and his Grandfather's there too. Kinda why I'm here, kid..."
"That won't be necessary." Garrett said. "I'm just here for a few...questions, if you will."
"Well, I'll be happy to answer 'em if you hop in my car! I almost forgot, we gotta get out before-"
The rumbling of a distant engine interrupted them. This was soon accompanied by headlights shining over the horizon.
"...the Einsatzgruppen get here..." Rollins sighed, defeated.

"Do you fear them, Agent Rollins?" Garrett asked, straight-faced.
"Kid, I've killed more Nazis than the French Resistance to keep my charades goin'. No. I ain't scared of Hitler's thugs." Rollins said.
"Then we'll face them." Garrett said, crossing his hands behind his back as the truck screeched to a halt.
About twenty black-suited troops poured out of the back, rifles and submachine guns at the ready. In the cabin, the doors opened, and out stepped a Sergeant and an Officer.
All adorned with swastikas and totenkopfs, it wasn't hard to tell they were SS.
"Good evening." Garrett said. "I presume you gentlemen are searching for a young Jewish girl and her son?"
"We received a tip-off...why are you here, American? And why is there a negro wearing a Wehrmacht uniform?" The officer said, noting Rollins.
"Pleasure to meet you too, you fuckin' Nazi punk piece of sh-" Rollins said, his hand squeezing around the grip of his gun, indicating he was ready to start the shooting. However, a hand from Garrett settled him down, and the investigator turned back.
"Don't mind him. And yes, we do have the Jews. They're locked up, safe. And they'll stay that way." Garrett said. "Sorry, but these particular Jews are important to a cause far greater than your Fuhrer's delusions."
"Oh? And are you going to stop us from finding them, American?" The officer asked with a half-chuckle.
"Yes." Garrett plainly replied.
This spurned laughter from the rest of the squad.
"Boy, we'll put you in the ground! You don't want to die for a couple of Jews, do you?" The officer taunted. "We might be merciful and spare you the camp..."
"I'm waiting." Garrett answered, calling their bluff.

The officer blinked, red-faced, before seething in anger.
"Kill the American, kill the negro, then bring me the Jews!" He shouted to his men.
The sergeant next to him unholstered his pistol and took aim at Garrett.
However, before any of the bullets could strike him, Garrett gracefully slid to the ground, bringing out his own gun. He fired two bolts of burning green towards the two in front of him. The officer took one to the shin, causing him to shout in pain as he hit the ground. The sergeant, however, wasn't so lucky, as the bolt struck him in the face.
After a second of agonized screaming as his facial tissue melted away, he fell, dead. The horrified men behind them took that as their cue to jump into action.
Garrett sprung back up to his feet and darted toward one of the treelines, dodging several waves of fire. His speed allowed him to impact one of the trunks and run up it a considerable distance. As his momentum died, he leaped off the tree, spinning through the air. While he soared, he let loose three more bolts, each one killing a nearby stormtrooper with hits to the head or chest.
He landed with cat-like grace. However, as he recovered, he noticed five more approach him. He would have to act fast if he was going to come out of it...
However, they all suddenly toppled over, gunshot wounds adorning their bodies.
He looked over to see Rollins, taking cover behind the farmhouse, his M1911 in hand. They nodded at one another before Garrett continued on his slaughter.

He sprinted to the truck, where most of the soldiers were still gathered. He took most by surprise, firing off his pistol into the main mass. He popped a wristblade out of his other sleeve, and jabbed and slashed at faces and necks where he could reach them. He managed to kill four before he risked getting overwhelmed.
With an agile jump, he climbed to the top of the truck and hopped the other side, encountering a single trooper and spooking him.
The soldier attempted to smack him with the butt of his rifle. However, this proved to be a mistake, as Garrett merely grabbed the soldier's arm. In a show of formidable strength, he snapped the man's arm, breaking it and exposing bone.
As the soldier shouted in pain, he was finished off with a quick blade through the neck.
As Garrett threw the corpse aside, he heard the rest of the soldiers come around the other side. Wanting to end it quickly, he knelt down, and indiscriminately began cutting at various pipes along the side of the vehicle until the odorous black oil began pouring out.
When the rest of the SS turned the corner, Garrett was already a ways away, his pistol aimed. Before any of them could react, he fired, striking not any of them...but the pool of gasoline at their feet.
As a bright line of fire traveled up the spew from the truck, the soldiers were consumed in a magnificent blast.

It was over.
After ensuring the area was clear, Garrett repositioned his wristblade and holstered his pistol.
"Damn kid." Rollins said, awestruck. "Reminds me of my younger days. I know they're just thugs, but...you don't mess around. They must make investigators a lot different now, as opposed to back in my day."
"Affirmative." Garrett said.
"Mhm. Now that that's taken care of, I assume you wanna-"
A distinct groaning cut them off. The officer. He was still alive.
Rollins and Garrett approached the wounded officer.
"So...what do you say?" Garrett asked, a slight smile that betrayed his personality (at least, the personality Rollins had become accustomed to in the brief time he had known the man). "It was...partisans?"
Rollins merely laughed.
"Partisans." He said.
With that, Rollins aimed his pistol and let loose a single bullet into the officer's brain, silencing him and removing the last witness to the scene that transpired this night.

by **Gigaverse** » Sat Jun 10, 2017 6:43 am

(ALT - ESL - JAP - TPP)

Location: unknown. Date: unknown.

Her closed eyes opened wider to the world surrounding her by every second. Awareness was returning to her, yet she was still in a daze. The only things within her vague recollection at that moment consisted of her bouts lapsing in and out of consciousness. Each and every time her eyes were half-opened, she would see a blurred, humanoid shadow; followed by her sight fading back into blackness.

The first thing she noticed was her lying atop a bed, a soft blanket covering everything below her neck. It took her eyes a while to become acquainted with the lighting conditions around her. Coming to felt vastly different from those relapses she went through. For starters, there was no humanoid figure within her immediate line of sight - only the night sky, adorned with a "river" of stars. She stared, the flickers of light above reflecting in her bright blue irises.

"If you're still tired, you can go back to sleep, you know."

She blinked and turned her head to the left, where a low, masculine voice came from. A black-clad, blond-haired man of tall stature and athletic frame emerged and walked towards the side of her bed. A chair automatically rolled behind him, and he seated himself.

"W... Wh... Who are... you...?", the question she uttered as she glanced at him was barely audible.

"Your caretaker for the moment. I've been wondering the same thing about you.", the man responded.

"Who... I am? I can't... I can't remember."

"Huh. You must have been hit pretty hard in the head to not remember who you are."

"Do you know... who I am?"

The "caretaker" shook his head. "Afraid not. All I did was drag you from the cold Arctic waters. You had no belongings of note - not even clothes; only a bleeding wound from your neck." The girl lying on the bed did not pay much attention; the focus of her eyes lost, she murmured, "... A... Anzhela..."

"Hmm? Is that your name?", the man raised his eyebrow.

"I don't know. Is it... my name?", she asked back at him. He shrugged. "Well, in the mean time, while you still can't confirm, we'll have to take to calling you that."

"Anzhela...", she repeated herself.

"C'mon now, Anzhela. Wake up.", the man urged, "You've lied here days on end without bathing or food - you must need those now, do you not?" Just as he finished his sentence, a growl coming from the stomach of "Anzhela" was audible. The "caretaker" shrugged. "You see there? You need something to eat."

For the next thirty seconds, she stared at the blond man in silence; her expression neutral, her lips separated by a small distance. Then, as she conceded defeat, one of her legs slid out of the blanket that was covering most of her body. Only then did the absentminded her realize that she had not a single piece of cloth covering her behind the sheet. In an instance, her hands grabbed onto the blanket, and as she moved, it followed her movements, covering everything from her collar bone down to the upper parts of her thighs. Her attempt to cover herself, nevertheless, left out both of her long, pinkish-tinted legs. Her cream-colored hair glided along the surface of the bed, touching the lowest points of her back. The slight frown on her youthful face was coupled with the confused look she directed at the "caretaker".

Letting out a short snicker, the blond man stood up and stepped by a wall of glass opposite Anzhela's bed, staring out into the night. When his gloved hand touched one of the many pieces of framed glass, the frame lit up and slid aside, revealing behind it a bathroom, with the walls on all three sides, the floor and the ceiling all semi-transparent and acting as the chamber's source of lighting. The room took its title of "bathroom" as literally as it could: beside the sole bathtub and certain essentials for bathing such as shampoos and shower creams resting upon the shelves by the tub, there wasn't anything else to it.

The young woman advanced towards the entrance, her hands still grasping the blanket and dragging it along. The closer she got to his position, the more she began to turn to the side, until she came to a standstill by the door, trying to shield the sight of her nude form from the eyes of the domineering behemoth before her. The man only smiled and took slow steps back away from the bathroom, retreating to the entrance of the grand room. "I'll be waiting outside if you needed me." He said, exiting the space to leave her be.

She went into the bathroom, the automatic glass door closing behind her and the wall it was located on blurring away, forming a sixth semi-transparent side of the box that was enclosing her. Despite her awakened state, her mind was still muddled. However, she could still tell that she was supposed to immerse herself within the steaming foam-topped water waiting for her inside that rather large bathtub. So she did. She dropped her blanket cover by the side of the entrance and proceeded to the bath. Once she sat down, a warm sensation took a hold of her. Though she was in such comfort, her uneasiness only increased.

What she was doing was muscle memory. Her ability to speak normally in a language she couldn't even name, her knowing how to bathe... Muscle memories were the only kind of memory she was in possession of.

She didn't remember anything else other than the basics to sustain a normal life - how to walk, how to speak, how to eat, how to think. Only a single name. A name she wasn't even sure was hers to begin with.

In the void and quietness of that bathroom, she sat in the tub, her hands wrapped around her knees. She gazed aimlessly at the wall, the stars beyond no longer reflecting in her eyes like they did before thanks to the walls being only semi-transparent.

The bathing wasn't giving her any joy. After a mere ten minutes resting in the foam bath, she decided to stand up and grab a towel nearby to wipe her hair and herself. When he raised her head, a white dress hung from a wall nearby came into her full view. The dress was no more extraordinary than anything an average teenage girl would wear for a night out in town - rather short, sleeveless and would reach below her knee if she wore it, with moderate decorations that enhanced its value beyond that of a stylized monochrome piece of cloth with only a single straight pattern throughout.

An unexpected image encroached her mind while she inspected the dress. It wasn't clear, but she could tell it was a girl standing before the mirror, turning left and right to check how she looked. Her hair was cream-colored, its length reaching the middle of her back, and the dress she wore... was no different from the one that Anzhela was inspecting.

"Anzhelina, that's enough already!", a young, feminine voice that didn't come from the girl before the mirror resounded. Behind the back of the girl in front of the mirror, another girl wearing a very similar black dress, little bit lesser in height and with much shorter hair, jumped at her. Her hand upon the shoulder of the long-haired girl, she exclaimed, "You, are, pretty!"

And that was everything. Anzhela was back to reality, where she noticed her hand touching the white dress.

Outside, with his eyes closed, his arms crossed, his back against the wall and one of his foot positioned by it, the "caretaker" awaited the emergence of the cream-haired girl from the door on his left. Soon enough, it slid aside. She took small, slow steps outside. Anzhela, in the white dress she found hanging on the bathroom's wall, her hair still somewhat wet.

"Come.", the man signaled, "Hope you will not mind, the dinner I've prepared is rather humble."

Taking the lead, the black-clad blond walked before Anzhela, and she simply followed, neither knowing the way nor being able to see beyond him. They reached a large entrance marked by two tall columns. With a snap of the man's fingers, the room was fully illuminated. In the very center of that spacious hall was a comparatively small, lone table, with two chairs on its two ends. The man hurried towards one of the chairs and pulled it, circling his hand before pointing to the chair. Getting the invitation, the female in white dress seated herself.

"Please excuse me as I go get your meal, Miss."

As his back faced her and he stepped to the kitchen, Anzhela was left by herself aside the lone table. She paid no mind to her grandiose surroundings, for something else was troubling her mind. Her hands gripped the skirt she was wearing. Her focus drifted away from reality once again, back to the scene revealed to her when she first saw the dress. "Anzhelina", the long-haired girl was called; that they both indeed looked alike, she and that girl, Anzhela had no doubt. Although, if they were in fact one and the same, then who was that short-haired girl in the black dress? The question lingered. The more she tried to think, the more Anzhela's head hurt.

"Not happy with the dress, mm?"

The voice of the "caretaker" was audible near her. She glimpsed upward: he had returned, two plates on both hands, each with ample foodstuffs. He placed one on her side of the table, prepared the utensils, mouthed "bon appétit", and seated himself on the other side. A sluggish Anzhela picked up the fork and knife she was provided with. She observed the food served on her dish: it was a chaos of colors, chiefly of orange, yellow and green shades. She poked one of the yellow cubes, before deciding to give it a try.

It was Anzhela's first taste of her first meal in what was possibly a while. As the two separate tastes of sour creaminess and crispy starchiness blended together within her mouth, the feeling that possessed her was strange, but so familiar at the same time. She had never stayed with the stranger in front of her and had never eaten anything from him prior to sitting in that table, yet his cooking was giving her a sense of déjà vu. She craved for more. Her pace picked up, she planted the fork into the lively mess on her plate. Coming with every bite was a melange of the sour, creamy substance spread over her dish in moderation, balanced by a dose of multiple crispy, fresh vegetables. She slowly recalled their names: potatoes, carrots, cucumbers, mayonnaise... On the other side, the blond man had not touched his dish yet. His elbow resting atop the table, his chin rested on the back of his hand, he quietly gazed at the cream-haired girl chowing down her food, smiles inching upon each of their faces.

When half of the contents upon her dish was gone and her joy radiated over her visage, Anzhela froze in place just as she swallowed another forkful of the dish. Seated opposite her was no longer the "caretaker": yet again, it was the short-haired girl she kept wondering about, but in casual clothes, rather than some formal black gown. Instead of the grand chamber she was eating in, she found herself in what appeared to be a kitchen and a dining room combined, as the table was positioned close to an assortment of bright kitchen appliances. Notable also was the figure of a man working by the stove. Perhaps he was cooking. "Anzhelina" was nowhere to be found. Anzhela wanted to turn and see, but she had no control over "her" body.

"Alright, young ladies. This is your dinner.", the man, who wore an apron and two large gloves, turned to them with a small pot. Anzhela's sight turned to him, and so did the short-haired girl, who did not seem the least bit content. "Gee! You always make vegetarian food! Can we get meat more frequently?", she complained.

"You should take after Anzhelina more then!" The man stifled a laugh, then approached the empty dish of "Anzhela". "There you go, Anzhelina: your favorite dish!", he exclaimed, as a portion of the pot was given to her dish.

"Thank you, uncle!", the voice came from Anzhela's direction.

There was nary a difference between the voice and that of Anzhela.

"Sis, you look happy...", the short-haired girl frowned.

Anzhel(in)a blinked.

The "caretaker" was opposite her again, his frown of puzzlement and concern indicating that Anzhela had been sitting in the same position for a moment.

"Is something wrong with the food?", he asked.

"N... No. It's... great!", she uttered.

The rest of Anzhela's dinner was finished in silence. The "caretaker" collected the dishes. Anzhela was told she could wander anywhere she liked, but decided against doing so in the meantime. Regardless, a single good meal had given her energy and reduced her initial uneasiness. Many questions rested in her mind, with which she did not want to burden herself too much just yet. She would just be lazy and stay at her seat, recalling those visions of happiness she had been acquiring.

With a sigh, Anzhela stood up. She made way towards the entrance into the grand room.

"You two look beautiful."

The voice of the man Anzhela called "uncle" in her vision caused her to slow down.

"We do? We do? Anzhelina, Uncle Dima is calling us 'beautiful'!"

Audible by Anzhela's ears was the short-haired girl speaking.

"Well now, I'm not going to mock you all the time, Sonya! You two are still my nieces, aren't you?", the voice of "Uncle Dima" gave her his response.

"Thank you so much, Uncle. We love you so much."

Anzhelina was the last to speak. In reality, Anzhela had stopped at the entrance into the room. She blinked continuously. Something under her eyes seemed almost ready to pour down at any point, but it wasn't coming. Her lips repeated the names of "Uncle Dima" and "Sonya", as her hands formed a circle around thin air.

A hand put on her shoulder startled her. The "caretaker" was done with the cleaning.

"Are you OK there?", he asked, his calm demeanor remaining constant throughout.

"I...", Anzhela was hard-pressed for words, "I just remembered their names."

"Their?", he raised his eyebrow.

"Uncle Dima... and Sonya.", Anzhela paused for a few seconds, before resuming, "They are my... uncle and sister. My family."

They stood still and stared at each other. The "caretaker" was quick to break the ice with his own answer:

"Ah! I almost forgot. Speaking of names, I haven't told you mine yet - that would be rude. Please, call me... Phantom.", the blond's hand rested upon his chest as he spoke.

"I... I am...", Anzhela wanted to deliver her own answer. At least, she was finally sure what her name really was.

"Anzhela. Call me Anzhelina, if you would like."

As part of their exchange of smiles, "Phantom" shrugged.

"Nice to meet you; Anzhelina."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

- The Lifesaver -
Anzhelina

by **Blakullar** » Tue Jun 13, 2017 8:10 am

~ The Cerulean Herald ~
(CAN - DIA - QHN)

Timestamp D-310:Y-281:M-1345.

I'm in the palace gardens again, facing the ziggurats in the distance on our people's crownworld, the Valley of the Kings. Father says it's good to relax and meditate – it opens the mind and offers time to dwell upon our studies, to reflect upon and question our visions of the great universe before us. For me in particular, such knowledge is paramount. An ignorant phaeron, says Father, is one whose people are doomed to follow. An ignorant people is quick to fall prey to weakness. As I am to succeed Father as the phaeroness of our dynasty, it will be my divine duty to ensure that our people survive.

Yet while I'm supposed to be considering such matters of state, I can't help but dwell upon what the Mindflayer told me about his journey to the Seventh Constellation. The shapes, the wondrous objects he claims to have seen out there! Brother says he's just a crazy old fool – that he prattles about the whimsical to the point of annoyance – but if that is the case, then I must say such confidence in madness is truly commendable.

And if the Mindflayer is indeed foolish because of his age, then that does not bode well for me or Brother. The Mindflayer is twenty-five thousand years younger than me, yet as far as I am aware, I'm still sound of mind. I have resolved to investigate the truth behind his purported madness to-morrow: the other lesson that Father has ensured my fluency in is the importance of science. To reach an empirical, logical conclusion to a theory, one must actively search for evidence.

Timestamp D-311:Y-281:M-1345.

Once again I lie in the gardens at my usual resting place. I have at my side one of the Mindflayer's notes, borrowed from his laboratory while he wasn't looking: the paper is covered in sigils, phrases, emblems. Most of them I know to be incantations from my studies of the Gift and its usage. They revolve around manipulation of the mind, this being the Mindflayer's modus operandi.

Yet it is this symbol in particular that I find the most intriguing. Its geometry is peculiar, reminding me of an eye, and its coloration blue like the sky. I have never seen anything of its like before – it doesn't correlate with anything that I am aware of. Yet it is by far the most prominent on the entire page. Why? What does it mean?

I shall examine it in greater detail to-night. Father has noticed that I am less attentive than usual, and I will likely be reprimanded if he discovers that I have raided the Mindflayer's laboratory for his belongings.

Timestamp D-312:Y-281:M-1345.

What a tremendously unique experience have I had!!! It is very late at night and I should be asleep, but I simply MUST write this down!!! As I said I would in the previous entry to my diary I endeavoured to search for anything related to this bizarre blue symbol. Even the librarian AIs couldn't decipher the symbol, which left me truly intrigued and frustrated at the same time. So I returned to my quarters and, in the belief that it was some kind of Gift-sigil, I used my own powers in its use to probe it.

I saw the fall of our empire, the destruction of our people! The death of our great Machine King and the rise of a new entity. A portal to a whole different world, as if such were even possible! A creature crowned with gold, draped in dark crimson – a trillion-strong empire whose black-clad hordes march as one – a monstrous hound, burning with blue fire – a faceless biped, wild hair tipped like snow and dressed in indigo – and an entire planet draped in snow and machinery!

But most concerning of all was the truly ineffable horror that I saw towards the end of my dream. Its eyes flamed a brilliant red, its skin white as snow, long, flowing hair dark as night, and metallic teeth filed to fangs! Clad in a crimson robe and laughing – by the Old Gods, what ineffable shrieks of laughter issued from its dreadful, all-devouring maw! Millions of seething, razor-tipped tentacles trailed off of the ends of its cloak, hungry for flesh and metal alike, chasing after me like long, hounding vines!!!

I am certain that I could have awoken screaming were it not for the peace granted to me by a white, angelic figure that followed, a cerulean aura wrapping around it. Its mere presence was enough to calm even the most tenacious of beasts, numbing the mind and purging it of all horrors. It spoke to me – I could not decipher what it told me, for I spoke not its tongue, but the tone was soothing, alike a lullaby...

And moments later I awoke in my room once again. I know not for how long I experienced that vision, but rest assured that I will definitely ask the Mindflayer about it tomorrow. I wonder if he too has seen what the Cerulean Herald has shown to me.

by **Imperium Sidhicum** » Tue Jun 20, 2017 4:03 pm

~ The Drax That I Know ~
SID/WAR/DIA/COM

~~Dear Diary,~~ fuck, this is lame

Since writing this nonsense is apparently part of my compulsory psychological rehabilitation course, I'll just cut the bullshit and get to business. I'm probably the first Alpha to have gotten his very own rehab course in the history of the Imperium.

I call myself me. Superiors call me You-There. Enemies usually call me various nasty names from a safe distance, and God when I'm within arm's reach of them, usually accompanied by pathetic begging that typically accompanies such invocations. Buddies call me just Halko.

I don't like talking much about myself. Tends to creep people out when I do. What I can tell you is that I'm actually a fun guy to be around, if you can get around my rough sense of humour. I like to keep company of people who can, and my old legion was for most part just such a bunch. As to who's the most memorable fun guy among this one-or-so million bunch of jokers, ask any Alpha that question, and you will invariably get the same answer. It's our long-time strategos, the mighty Arcadius Drax - The Old Man, Ol' One-eye, Hammer of the Emperor, Butcher of a Thousand Worlds, and all the other less flattering nicknames given to him by enemies and envious rivals.

Now, to outsiders Drax might look like an old grouch, dead-serious no-nonsense tough-as-nails hard-ass, as gruff and tough as they ever come, and objectively speaking they would be right. To those in the know, however, he is the single most jovial character to have ever held a rank of command in the Imperial Army. I can fondly recount the many occasions when brightened our moods.

---

My first and probably favourite encounter with Arcadius Drax was during the Liberation of Nakder Quintus. Used to be an agri-world back in ol' Emperor's day, the Feds had since turned it into a nice holiday resort. The garrison, a bunch of second-rate losers and weekend soldiers, had grown slack, believing the frontline to be five jumps away and were consequently more preoccupied with surfing, sunbathing and chasing girls than preparing for defense. Dumb cunt-borns never thought we could sneak an entire battlefleet along with a whole drive charging station that deep into Fed space. Wasn't easy, or so the Navy guys tell me, but we got it done and hopped straight into low orbit from the interstellar void.

My century, the 24th Assault, was dropped on some resort town straight on a beach party in progress. You should've seen the faces on those cunt-borns, half of them screaming and scurrying around in panic like cockroaches, and the other half so drunk and/or high as to only stand with mouths agape, trying to figure out whether they were seeing us for real. Made for a real fun target practice, especially when we made our way to the pier where the biggest crowd was - the waves on the beach were red for the next two days. Even made me decide that day that I want to learn how to surf. Lads from the 15th who were left on garrison duty later told me the pier was the single best fishing spot in town for months afterwards, needing no chumming.

Anyway, once we had absolutely positively trashed the original party and set up a perimeter around town, our centurion let us take a day off as more of our boys arrived. So we promptly elected to use the original recreational amenities ourselves.

What a wonderful day it was... Someone who has never had to go in a power suit for months on end will never quite appreciate the feeling of finally slipping out of it and feeling the warmth of sunlight on his skin for a change. Granted, since it was warm, the stench on the beach did get a bit annoying, as did all the seabirds, but we promptly rounded up a hundred or so survivors and had them clean the place up for us and fetch us some booze.

Now, I know for a fact that our strategos enjoys some drink himself, but he's nonetheless very strict about drinking on a job. Consequently, the lot of us had spent a month in transit dry, and when you haven't had your drink this long, it hits you like a hammer when you finally do. This, the understandably sour mood of the natives and the patent lack of entertainment prompted many of the guys to come up with their own creative solutions.

Some, being healthy red-blooded males, obviously went for the girls. Where did the cunt-borns here come up with such wonderful pussy, beats me - black wavy hair, bronze skin, tits like cabbages, wearing nothing but hula skirts and those thick flower necklaces. Turned out those broads were the waitresses and dancers in the local beachside hotel's titty-bar. In any case, they didn't seem to appreciate the attentions, but you know how we Alpha males can be, never taking a "no" for an answer... This in turn upset some of the native boys, and our guys were also quarreling over the girls, so our dec-prime decided some order had to imposed. He wisely assigned a girl for every three guys, and the cockiest native boys for those who came out short with a promise that others would have to share with their ladies when they were done. When you've literally got testosterone pouring from your ears after a month of doing nothing but drilling and training for the coming job, you're really not picky anymore.

While the remaining cunt-born men were understandably upset about being excluded from the upcoming beach orgy, dec-prime didn't want to leave them unhappy, so the rest of us took them aside for a friendly game of beachball against the neighboring century. Since nobody could find a ball, we volunteered our native guests for that most vital role. Don't believe when anyone says humans can't fly, especially when assisted by someone in a Mk. VI Paladin power suit.

We played for some time and were about to run out of functional balls, when suddenly we saw commotion by the hotel, dec-prime running over and bellowing us to drop what we were doing and shape up, the Old Man himself having graced us with his presence for inspection. No sooner had the lot of us gotten into our armor, me and other beachballers having wiped our suits more or less clean, when Arcadius Drax himself indeed appeared on the beach in all his glory, in his usual company of centurion van Halen and that hulking scimitar-wielding attack dog of his.

It was the first time I saw our boss up this close, and I frankly I was scared shitless. The only thing an Alpha Legionnaire ever fears is his commander, so they say, and it's true - I've been wrestling up close with a Skargh berserker and jumped from low orbit with nothing but my power suit on, but none of those things ever came quite close to truly scaring me. So I stood there at attention, stiff like a candle, sweating like a slig and hoping the Old One-eye would pass his piercing gaze past me as he came to inspect our ranks, ordering his bodyguard to silence a few of the girls and guys sobbing and moaning too loudly behind us, which he promptly did by applying his massive boot to their heads. My luck failed me, unfortunately, as Drax's aquiline good eye fixated on me.

"You there!" the strategos bellowed at me, "Why is your armor dirty!?"

After patiently listening to me awkwardly struggle to explain the purpose of our most recent activity, he suddenly grinned just as I was about expecting to be given the lashes for neglecting my equipment.

"Sport," he bellowed, "is a key element to martial fitness! The rest of you, take example from this soldier and his comrades who spend their time exercising rather than indulging in lascivious debauchery!"

"Uh... Thank you, sir! Ave Imperator!" I couldn't come up with any better response.

"Now, with that being said," he continued on a more subtle tone, "I could use some recreation too, but from what I've seen thus far, this place seems dreadfully dull. I have already commanded to begin preparations for a proper beach party this evening, and will share it's joys with my fine men! The snacks and booze is on me! This inspection is over, dismissed!"

As he went off to our jubilant roar and chest-pounding in his honour, I could swear I saw Drax smile.

---

Evening came, and our lord and master held true to his word - and what a party it was. A few beachside bungalows and seaside hotels served as illumination, kept properly alight by flamethrower drones and in check by the native fire brigade. White phosphorus and illumination shells were fired over the sea by artillery from out of town to show the natives what real fireworks were all about. Every single building in town had been searched over twice for booze, everything being brought here and set up on large racks for our convenience. Drax himself sat astride an improvised throne of skulls set on top of a Battlemaster tank turret, leisurely cruising back and forth along the beach to see that we were enjoying our time. The town's only surviving DJ had initially been appointed to entertain us with a selection of his best music, but after 30 minutes or so of nothing but cunt-born pop garbage, Drax consulted with his companions and had the guy hanged from the ferris wheel, instead appointing his secretary D'Anna as the master of music for the night, her putting on a selection of Old Terran heavy metal classics from the strategos's personal music library. Whole cows and boars were roasted over fires, and the boys were gleefully taking their time with what native girls and lads still remained functional from earlier in the day.

As I and my mates were busy trying to drink ourselves silly, I saw Drax stop by with his tank.

"Come here, soldier," he beckoned to me.

"Show me that game you were playing back in the morning," he commanded as I obeyed. From the glazed look in his one eye, the near-empty bottle of Qadessian in his hand and a few more stashed in the empty barrels of the tank's smoke launchers, I concluded he too was well-drunk like ourselves.

"Alright, lads," I turned to my decury-mates, "The strategos wants a demonstration of beachball Alpha-style!"

It took us some time to find a suitable ball, the natives having by now learned to scatter and hide at the mere mention of "beachball" in Sidh, but we did eventually manage to secure one, a short obese Chinese hotel manager who simply couldn't run as fast as his co-workers. Although the man wasn't overjoyed by the honour of serving as the beachball in the demonstration for such a prominent individual as a Sidh strategos, we deliberately went gently with him, not wanting to ruin our only available ball too quickly.

Drax watched our game for a while, being visibly amused by the ball's effete screams and grunts.

"STOOOOP!" he finally bellowed, us freezing at attention instantly as our plaything was still in mid-air, him landing and breaking both ankles amidst us.

"Let me show you," Drax grumbled, slouching off the tank, "What a real sport is all about! Any of you ever played golf?!"

"No, sir..." we responded.

"Then watch this," Drax grinned, removing his polymorph weapon, the fabled Tyrwing, from his belt, "You see that shellhole down the beach there?"

And he pointed towards a shellhole some half-click down the beach, blasted there during our brief assault on the city earlier today. As we nodded in confirmation, he wasted no more words, suddenly powering up his Tyrwing that instantly reshaped into a thunder hammer. With an almighty swing, he struck our moaning fat Chinese friend square on his backside as he rolled about in the sand, curled in a tight ball clutching his wounded ankles, sending the man flying like a cannonball. Some seconds passed, his screaming disappearing into the night before a distant thud and a cloud of dust marked a square landing in the shellhole.

"SCORE!!!" Drax pumped his fist to our jubilant applause.

"I think it's safe to say that's a hole-in-one, sir," I remarked. Much to my surprise, Drax turned and high-fived me.

What a joker...

---

Later that night, I came across our strategos again. Two of the men, both heavily drunk, were about to duke it out about who's turn it was to have a girl, jerking the shrieking broad back and forth like two cunt-born children argue over a toy in a sandbox. No sooner were fists about to fly when Drax stopped by on his tank, bellowing at the two to belay the petty bickering and starting to ascertain the situation. Both lads claimed it was their turn to have the girl, referring to our dec-prim's earlier promise of everybody who wanted one getting one eventually during the day. As their argument heated up again, Drax was visibly growing impatient.

Then without a further word, he hopped down from his tank, towering over two quarellers, snatched the by now almost-unconscious girl from their grasp and simply tore the unlucky broad in two.

"Here!" he bellowed, handing a still-twitching half to each of them, "If you can't agree to share a whole, then a half for each will have to suffice!"

The two embarassed men parted their ways in silence, walking off in opposite directions dragging along their respective halves with sheepish expressions to the peals of laughter of onlooking legionnaires, while Drax trotted off contently, knowing that order had been re-established in his legion.

If that ain't true Solomon's justice, I don't know what is...

---

Next morning I woke up on the beach with a terrible headache to the tune of an abysmaly poorly played trumpet fanfare. Turned out our centurion was calling us to duty, but being well hung over himself and not wanting to risk inviting the ire of 120 power-armored and hung-over men by making a wake up call, had instead appointed some poor human sod for the job. The chap was now standing on Drax's tank at our centurion's gunpoint and blowing the trumpet to the best of his ability.

Quietly muttering every form of horrible blasphemy, I got up and slumped towards the where the drink racks were last to be seen, hoping to find a bottle of some refreshing soft drink amids armored bulks still snoring in drunken sleep and the occasional corpse of a native who hadn't survived our yesterday's carousing for one reason or another. As I went past the tank, I saw Drax snoring loudly in the shadow of his tank.

"AGAAAIN!!!" our centurion roared at the terrified trumpetist, threatening him with his Enforcer despite the lad's protests that there was a sleeping Sidh strategos within arm's reach of him. Not wanting to test the centurion's patience, the man began to blow his trumpet again, when a huge armored hand reached up from behind him and seized him with the dexterity of a striking serpent. I didn't saw what transpired behind the tank asides from noises of violence and muffled screams, being busy refreshing myself with some mineral water. As I returned back, about to report to my centurion, Drax finally emerged from his place of slumber. In his right, he held the trumpet like the grip of a sabre, the instrument being rammed half-way up the now-unconscious human's rectum.

"Belay that order, centurion!" Drax roared at him, pointing the human at him in extended hand like a rapier, "Or you will be next!!!"

Our centurion naturally had nothing to object, so Drax earned our everlasting love that day by letting us sleep it out until noon.

I'm telling you, he is a real fun guy once you get to know him...

by **Imperium Sidhicum** » Sun Jul 09, 2017 6:59 pm

~ The Birthday Gift ~
SID/DIA

Four years. Four whole years.

Seems like a century in hindsight. Four years of grueling effort and pain. But I don't complain - it has been a good pain. Pain is just weakness leaving the body, so my Angel has taught me. And now... now I am finally pure. Devoid of pain, devoid of weakness. Ave Imperator!

"Come, my child," my Angel tells me, beckoning towards the dark room where my final test awaits me. I eagerly follow.

It is dark inside. Just the bare minimum of light to see without having to use night-optics. The smell of damp concrete, mold and rust. Also of sweat, blood, fear and pain. I would have never noticed these nuances of scent were it not for my recent... enhancements. Chains rattle and someone groans in unmistakable pain.

"This is your graduation gift," my Angel explains, "And your final exam. Do as you have been taught."

It doesn't take me long to recognize the figure struggling in the snare of the chains. Because how could I forget? How could anyone who has been at the hands of his ilk ever forget?

"I have taught you to know flesh," my Angel speaks, "Now it is your turn to know his!"

Oh, Pavlik... How could I possibly forget you... The filthy, backstabbing degenerate scumbag who took advantage and knew my flesh when I was the weakest... Pavlik, Pavlik... Many an unfortunate girl accurses your name in her last moments...

"What... What the fuck!?" he screams angrily as he comes to his senses, struggling against the unforgiving chains. I can smell his fear. And anger. There is a lot of it. He is not like others, my sweet Pavlik - alas, he is a sociopath. Where others fear and hope to escape or receive mercy, he will look for a chance to kill you even as he begs for his life. He is kind of like us that way. Strange to think that I must evidently be a sociopath too now...

"Do you remember me?" I caress his cheek gently. He looks at me with a mix of rage and shock.

"No... This can't be... Who the fuck are you people?! Do you even know who I am?!" he roars, "When I get out, I swear I'll..."

"WHEN you get out?" my Angel chuckles and gives me a thoughtful look, "I like his optimism..."

"Motherfuckers! You are dead! You hear me?! YOU'RE DEAD!!!" Pavlik roars, struggling against the chains that rattle like metallic corpse-bones.

"We are all dead," I caress his cheek gently, "Except the lot of us don't know that yet. Fear not, for it is a good feeling."

"What the fuck... You... You are dead! I found you dead! What the fuck..." Pavlik curses. I ignore him for the time being.

Indeed I am. That bridge where I left my old life and found a new one at the hands of my Angel, that bridge is where he believes to have found my remains. Or so he thinks...

"Yes, Pavlik, I am dead," I explain kindly, "And now I am reborn. You thought I would forget you?" For how could a girl ever forget a man like Pavlik.

"No... This can't be... Leave me alone you STUPID BITCH!" he shrieks, and I can smell real fear for his life creeping in his wretched soul for the first time. The kind of fear I reeked of when he first got to know my flesh, and that of the other girls. The kind that his "demonstrable examples" instilled in me and the others.

"Today is my 20th birthday," I smile, enjoying how he cringes as I caress his cheek, "I have spent the last 4 years thinking of nothing but you. And today is my birthday, and you are my gift..."

"FUCK YOU!!!" he roars, struggling in vain to reach for my throat. Oh, how many times did he practice that move back in the day... But no more. Nor ever again.

"You already did," I smile, "It will only be proper to return the favour."

Pavlik's swearing disintegrates into incoherent gibberish as I near him. His chains rattle furiously as he struggles in vain to reach out for me, screaming out my old name and demanding that I back off.

"That is no longer my name," I explain him, "The girl with that name died there on the bridge, remember? I am merely what took her place."

The putrid stench of Pavlik's fear is almost palpable, every bit as vile and rotten as his whole petty little rotten soul of a degenerate small-time thug. For all it's vileness, it still delights my nostrils.

"Don't worry," I assure him, "I will have centuries to know your flesh."

He continues to scream, and I can hear the sound of his urine dripping down to the floor, smelling it's vile stench as he soils himself at my approach. Disgusting, but hardly a surprise from a pathetic craven cur like him.

"Don't worry, Pavlik," I reassure my birthday gift, "You are in good hands now. I know you like to feel good. I will make you feel good..."

---

As I take to the instrument table arranged before Pavlik for his privileged personal examination, there is only peace and joy in my heart. And more importantly, I see my Angel smile. He is satisfied, having forged me into what I am now. I smile back at him and gesture to close the door when he leaves. Either way, we are going to have a lot of great time together in the coming weeks...

My Angel, you truly have kept your word and made me greater than what I was... Ave Imperator!

by **Imperium Sidhicum** » Sun Jul 30, 2017 5:17 pm

~ The Fortunate Son ~
SID/WAR

Jungle's never been my favourite place to fight in. Blistering heat, 100% air humidity, zero visibility and all sorts of nasty critters and diseases out there to eat, infect or otherwise kill you. Still, jungles do have their fun points as well. Namely, a shit-ton of things to set on fire.

Nova Brazil ain't the worst patch of jungle floating the voids of space that I've been on by far. In the more developed areas, it's actually a pretty neat place, or so the boys from Sigma Legion keep saying. Sunny weather year-round, lots of beaches with great waves to surf on, lots of pretty girls to fuck... Hell, the ones at least from Neo de Janeiro aren't even overly averse to the idea of fucking a Sidh. At least the Sigmas say so - that you don't even have to go through with all the fighting, screaming and crying that sex with a human female usually entails, just ask her to follow, give her a couple MRE packs, maybe buy her a drink if you're feeling especially generous, and she's yours for the whole evening. I guess the Old Man's idea of requisitioning all the foodstuffs down to the last moldy bit of bread and making the civilians dependent on rationing is beginning to pay off after all. I don't know if it's the girls or the surfing spots that sound more tempting, with any luck, my next off-time might be reasonably near some half-starved seaside resort town.

But it's not like I'm going to find that out anytime soon. My pending deployment spot is half-way around Nova Brazil in the ass end of the jungle, where resistence is still rife and in need of pacification.

We Alphas pride ourselves on being the Emperor's First, one of our many slogans being "No sign before the Alpha". True as far as I've experienced. Alphas lead the way, first in and last out. The rest like those pretentious elite-wannabe Sigmas just follow and sweep up what we have left for them. To tell the truth, our propaganda department seems to neglect our other speciality - pacification - a bit. I can vouch myself that my legion is at least as good at pacifying resistence as it is at leading the way. So effective, in fact, that our other motto should be "After us only silence".

Right now, some troublemaking cuntborn assholes in a region locally known as Carandiru District are about to find out the veracity of my words the hard way.

---

"Reckon we'll be hitting any major resistence?" my buddy Lincon asks over the comm. The doors of our Valkyrie are wide open and we are cruising over the jungle at some 600 mikes, so it's way too noisy to talk normally with helmets removed.

"I hope so," I chuckle, sitting at the door boltgun. Sam, I call her, short for Samantha. My Sammie spits fist-sized mass-reactive high-explosive spuds of death at a rate of 600 rounds per minute. The best piece of ass I've held in my arms since Carrie the rotary autogun, who unfortunately fell in service of the glorious Emperor on Alashayn Secundus three months back.

"I wouldn't worry about a lack of resistence," Dec intervenes, "The Sigmas had to evac two of their FOBs in the Carandiru Mountains last week before they were overrun by guerillas. So it's going to be our job for the next few weeks to explain the natives the gravity of their error in unlawfully occupying the premises of the Imperial Army."

"I'm so getting myself some native pussy...!" our biggest and burliest comrade Jonah, who is our decury's current record-holding rapist with a count of 583 scores to his name, exclaims excitedly and giggles sinisterly.

"No, you aren't, Jonah," Dec interrupts his enthusiasm, "In case you have forgotten, this is strictly a Red Sigil mission, no quarter given and none taken, not even for some innocent fun! Word from the very top brass."

I pause to examine the red sigil stamped on my armor, all of us including our Valkyrie bearing one as a reminder of the strict no-quarter policy for this mission. Whatever cunt-born sees it should fear it, and for a good reason, for that is bound to be the last red thing besides his own blood that he sees.

"What's the Old Man's beef with these savages anyway to deny us even the usual pussy?" Jonah grumbles unhappily, "It's not like those two FOBs were even ours for him to bother about."

"As far as I know, the Old Man wasn't overly impressed about the conduct of some of our boys back on Alashayn," Dec explains, "Word in the HQ was that he wants to remind us lot about wars being fought with weapons instead of our cocks rather than the other way around, as seems to have been the case back on A. That being said, I want you boys to take heed that I take my jobs especially with the Red Sigil very seriously, so I am going to personally neuter anyone I catch slacking off in the Emperor's work even if it is to get some pussy, understood?!"

"Roger that, dec..." Jonah grumbles discontently.

"Oh, looks like there go our LZs in the making!" I exclaim, pointing out to a formation of triangular shapes soaring overhead with a supersonic thunder. The Shtrigas are bound to drop some daisy cutters in the jungle to clear out landing spots and staging areas for us. Those things pack one hell of a bang, enough to wipe an area the size of a hive-city hab-block clean of all life and flora.

"The natives will probably be running scared just at the sound of that..." my buddy Lincon states, and I can tell from his slight rhytmic bouncing in his seat that he's listening to some fun tune inside his helmet. It's a habit of his, to listen to inspiring music during battle.

"What are you listening to, Linc?" I ask.

"Some Old Terran classics," he explains, "Figured they'd be appropriate for the setting. Want to listen to them too?"

"Uh, sure..." I shrug. Linc fiddles with his tacticom a bit to upload his collection of music to me.

"Heads up, lads!" the co-pilot shouts from the cockpit, "Cunt-born village ahead! Ready to Ragna-rock-n-roll?!"

"HA-OOH!" our fists thunder against our armored chests. I check my Sam to see that she's locked and loaded, and hit "Play" on the newly received audio file list in my tacticom.

The unfamiliar but pleasing old Terran melody hits my ears just as our gunship formation takes a steep dive to treetop height as jungles give way to farmland. I see numerous people working in the fields, scattering and running in panic as the loudspeakers mounted on our dec-prim's wings start to blare Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyries". The guy is real history buff, says he's watched pretty much every surviving historical film about Old Terran warfare, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. He's been telling us and has managed to convince even our centurion that Old Terran aerospace assault troops like ourselves had a tradition of playing Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyries" on external loudspeakers of their attack craft for intimidation as they rode into battle. I cannot claim any knowledge of the academic opinion on his statements, but they certainly seemed plausible after he demonstrated a historical combat footage to our entire century on the weekly movie night that affirmed his statements. While many of us suspected that this footage may have been a slightly-fictionalized account of actual combat back on Old Terra, dec-prim managed to present it convincingly enough for the centurion to secure formal approval of him installing loudspeakers on his Valkyrie as "means of conducting psychological warfare, raising troop morale and perpetuating ancestral military tradition". I hear a number of other units have been following our suit lately.

Thus far our repertoire has been limited to Wagner and a few Imperial battle-hymns. In all honesty, the playlist could use some refreshments. But first, there's a job to done.

A torrent of boltgun rounds from my Sam slams in the midst of fleeing human peasants, kicking up pillars of dirt and dismembered body parts. Some bovine beast disintegrates into a patch of steaming gore, a woman dragging her child by hand is parted by a well placed round between them, literally disarming and throwing them both apart. Two confused men explode into clouds of red mist, one's legs remaining standing for a second afterwards before dropping to the ground. The boys join in the door gunners on both sides for the fun, letting loose with their energy rifles, plasmacasters and boltguns. The Valkyrie's rocket pods scream to life, obscuring our sight for a moment in smoke as rockets streak off to their targets, and the gunship begins to vibrate as it's main autogun roars to life. The jolly tune of an ancient Terran song soothes my ears in the meanwhile, and I feel a certain connection to my distant ancestors back on Old Terra, who once listened to the same tune while delivering righteous wrath upon their foes.

Our flight roars over a village, it's panicked denizens scattering down below like the vermin they are. The boys and also myself keep raining down the Emperor's fury upon them. Some lily-livered peaceniks back home accuse us of barbarity, always forgetting what the cunt-borns did to our ancestors. What we are doing here is merely delivering the harvest long-sown by their ancestors for their reaping.

"They're all running to that church!" I point out to Dec as our flight circles around the village for another pass after I've unloaded my last ammo into what seems to have been some sort of schoolhouse, the reload servos now whirring as they replace the ammo crates below the floor and feed a new belt of bolts in my Sam. Indeed, the surviving villagers seem to be headed mostly for the local church, easily recognized by it's white walls and baroque design that I hear is characteristic for Latino human worlds.

"Probably have some sort of bomb shelter inside there," Dec nods, getting on the radio, "Metal-One, this is Metal-Seven, possible enemy bomb shelter inside a church building, grid coordinates 8-5-3-0-7-6-2-1, requesting precision strike!"

"Metal-One to Metal-Seven, strike request confirmed, stand by!" the response arrives soon enough, "All Metal elements, Safestance-2, package on the way!"

Our ship makes a sharp turn and kicks into high gear, heading directly away from the village. Safestance-2 means safe distance of 2 clicks, which most probably means that one of our ships in orbit has just shat a kinetic rod coming our way at 15 clicks per second. Less than a minute passes before our flight reaches the designated safe zone and stops to hover, and not a moment too soon. A bright streak pierces the sky, impacting square on the church with a blinding flash, the ground rising beneath the disintegrating village before bursting open like a giant bubble, unleashing a colossal explosion that sends a white dome of shock condensation expanding in all directions. The deafening blast reaches us an instant later, shaking our ships violently, and I see a colossal pillar of dirt and dust towering a good three clicks high collapsing in on itself into an ever expanding crater where the village once stood, the surge of falling dust spilling over the crater edges and spreading out into the surrounding jungle like volcanic pyroclastic flows.

Our flight returns to it's designated course. The black mushroom clouds billowing over the jungle in the distance indicate the Shtrigas have done their job of clearing way for us, the tracers of anti-aircraft fire streaking into the sky indicating we're in for quite some resistence. Vendettas and Thunderhawks circle over the place and strafe it, bright eruptions of napalm fire and the bright smoke-engulfed bursts of WP bombs and shells from the jungle demonstrating where their passes have hit their mark. I feel myself getting a hard-on at the mere thought of a hundred contorted bodies flailing in the flames, shrieking cries of agonized atonement for their crimes against our kind.

Glory of battle awaits us again when we reach those flame-engulfed jungles ahead. Some of us might not make it out, for sure. But then again, none of the cunt-borns almost certainly will. It's what Red Sigil missions are all about - kill them all, and keep on killing without even stopping to defile their corpses until there is nobody left to kill. A harsh practice, no doubt, but the humans in this jungle have brought it upon themselves.

"What are you listening to right now?" I hear Lincon asking. I check my tacticom for the name of the song.

"It's called Fortunate Son," I state, "I like it. We should ask dec-prim to refresh his playlist with these if the others are anywhere as good as this one."

"You two keep yammering about suitable battle-songs all the time..." Dec grumbles, "Lincon, send'em over to me so I can judge for myself what all the fuss is about!"

Lincon obeys, and I can feel Dec smile under his helmet after a few moments of listening.

"I think I might just put word in with dec-prim for that one," he states.

The song is kind of appropriate for the setting. I am a fortunate son of the great Emperor indeed, being among His First and having the privilege of doing His work of righteous retribution here on this enemy world.

So I get back to my job of blasting away at anything without powered armor moving down in the jungle. There's a lot of blasting still to be done before this lush landscape teeming with insurgent scum is reduced to a proper cratered and silent wasteland of ash and dirt without a soul left to even remember it's original name other than what we have given it afterwards. And I am fortunate indeed to take part in this ordeal.

by **Blakullar** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 1:12 pm

~ The Fafnir Principle ~
(MAT - MEK - UPS)

Just do it.

...

What are you waiting for, the Worker's Solstice?! GET ON WITH IT!

Elena Trotskaya remained posted like a sentinel in the inner sanctum of Jotunheim Citadel, caught in the talons of sheer terror. Her blank, corpselike gaze stayed fused to the SEND button on her desk's holographic keyboard; written on the screen, the command to fire the entire Mecharussian nuclear arsenal.

I cannot...

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CANNOT?! Are you telling me that you are so weak that you physically cannot even push a BUTTON?!

I will not consign my own home planet to destruction!

You rule over a HUNDRED worlds now! WHAT'S ONE?!! The necessities of the many override those of the few – is that not the most fundamental rule of leadership?!

The decision began to bear down on her – Trotskaya, the ruler of a nation, the rabbit in the sights of a hawk. It was now or never – would she or would she not bring about a second atomic holocaust and sweep her own homeworld clear of life?

A nation is a treasure that must be defended by its leader to the death – no matter the personal cost! Those arrogant Commonwealther scumbags clinging to a dead ideology, those warmongering mutant freaks that infest the Moon – and the Frenks, those sanctimonious, concupiscent MONKEYS that dared to lecture you on your darkest day about sinning, and then spent four years trying their hardest to destroy you! They are thieves who lost the right to live when they threatened you and your country!

I am not going to push that button! The war is over!

The war is NEVER over! Not while your enemies are given the freedom to persist!

All it will take to stop your Earthbound enemies is a single movement of the finger. You will be safe. Your family will be safe. Your nation, your greatest treasure, will survive! If a toe becomes infected, you cut it off to save the rest of the body!

Still, she failed to draw initiative. If she sent through the command to the AI, billions would meet their end. Billions of her enemies...

Look what happened to your beloved Victor the last time you hesitated! You entrusted her to stop that monster from harming him! Your trust was – IS – grossly misplaced, and now I am willing to bet that she is guzzling amasec and screwing her favoured rape victim while you sit here depressed and miserable!

Or, better yet – what if he is still alive, and she did intend to rob you of him all this time?

Why would she after going to such lengths to protect us?! And you yourself said that she is likelier to be copulating with Marylove!

And another thing! Why didn't you have that stupid bitch killed the instant you learned about her nature as a double-agent?! I would be willing to bet that this would never have happened without that bipolar freak to endanger your whole country! You literally had her by the scruff of the neck just before Sixteen July – one flick of the wrist, and this could have all been prevented!

This wasn't her fault! She was caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time! And Victor was doing his very damn best to take care of her!

And look where you both ended up after she gave away the Zorya Matrix to the enemy. But there is still time to redeem yourself, Elena. You, and you alone, can make things better, and all it will take to start is to Push. The. Button...

...

If you hesitate now, the enemy will NOT spare you a third time!

Do you remember the day after? After turning your back to your own father in scorn, you sit here doing nothing yourself?! You sit here and tell me that ONE PITIFUL LIFE takes precedence over those of the rest of your people?!

Pfffff. I was wrong. You are not a leader! YOU ARE WEAK! A DISGRACE TO EVERYTHING THAT YOU HAVE EVER FOUGHT FOR AND WHAT YOUR LOVED ONES HAVE DIED FOR!!!

I AM NOT GOING TO PUSH THAT FUCKING BUTTON!!!

Then tell me, Elena – did you hate him?

...

If you couldn't even give yourself up to protect him, how the hell am I supposed to expect you to do likewise for your country?! So did you loathe him so much?!

Is that why you abandoned him, Elena?!

IS THAT WHY YOU LEFT HIM TO DIE?!!

"GO TO HEEEEEEEELLLL!!!"

Trotskaya's deafening scream scorched the air with soul-burning fire, a deluge of tears erupting from the seething scarlet sun of her eye. But as soon her psychotic rage erupted, it was chilled in an eyeblink.

If she could not bring Earth under her control in this war, she would never realise the dream. Failure was tantamount to treason. For treason, there was only one punishment.

...

The transfer chip had been disabled. Everything was set. There would be no escape. Not this time.

Fobos, her ever-faithful plasma blaster, her weapon that had fought with her through her finest hours and her worst days, lay posted on her desk. It stood by her even now, like a beloved hound that would follow its mistress to the Tartarian depths of hell. It seemed natural that this magnificent weapon of hers would be the one to do the deed.

All sins are purged in death.

This axiom Trotskaya considered with a smile as she powered up her signature weapon for the final time, a crimson firestorm beginning to brew in its magmatic depths. Soon, she would be there with him again, and all of her beloved soldiers, all of whom had died because of her foolishness. There would be no more darkness. No more pain, anger, fear, sadness or hate. Only eternal serenity in the comfort of Hades' sweet embrace.

It was all over.

...

It wasn't over yet.

Beloved Victor had given her thirty years to realise the dream. Eight had passed since that day. In that time she had already made her Mechanocracy far more powerful than it had ever been in its entire history. In twenty-two years, there would be even greater glory lying ahead.

Turner had told her that all they ever were was killers. Great truth, indeed...

All sins are purged in death.

Now she was tired of being afraid. She was done with hiding in the shadows. Earth would be spared her fury on this day, but if she could not defend her nation herself, then she would become a weapon more powerful than anything that her foes could imagine. A weapon that would permanently ensure that nothing would ever be stolen from her again. Her heart was set on the final solution to her terrible predicament.

To protect her treasure from those who would dare to steal from it, Trotskaya would consume the blood of the gods.

by **Imperium Sidhicum** » Fri Sep 01, 2017 1:51 pm

~ Fratricide ~
SID/DIA

I gaze at her with trepidation. Her blonde hair waves in the wind as she observes us with equal measure of confusion and anticipation. My breath is slightly short from the altitude. Then again, so is his. Picking this spot atop a hive spire to settle our differences was perhaps a good idea after all.

"So then," my old battle-brother speaks out, "May the better of us prevail?"

"May the better of us prevail!" I affirm without hesitation, already feeling the rage build inside me.

The past months in the legion haven't been easy on us. We entered raw and unpolished, and emerged hardened, tempered in the fires of war like few others. We fought side by side, sending scores of enemies of the Emperor into early grave, having each other's back like true brothers, our brotherhood forged in the fury of battle. And yet here we stand now, about to battle as fiercest foes in mortal combat over the heart of a woman.

"May the better of us prevail," my battle-brother affirms with a firm nod, his energy sword crackling to life. I power up mine, and we gaze into each other's eyes with single-minded determination, awaiting the signal.

"May the Emperor's will be done! You may begin!" the supervising magistrate announces.

Roaring in berserk fury, we charge into each other. He lands the first blow, and I parry it, our blades shedding brilliant sparks. Even as I look into my brother's eyes, all I try to see is an enemy out to kill me - the eyes of a cunt-born filled with impotent rage as he struggles against the might of a righteous servant of the Emperor, the beady slit-pupilled eyes of a head-hunting scalie, burning with fury as he battles for his anticipated trophy. He probably does the same, our gazes colliding with equal sharpness as our blades.

I shove him back and strike at him with all my might, but my brother is no weakling, parrying my blow like I parried his. I would not want it any other way. Before this fight is over, I want to bleed by his hand just as I make him bleed, so that ages ahead I have the scars to demonstrate of this event. He steps back and spins, lashing at me, but I anticipate his move and our swords collide again.

We take a step back, circling each other and waiting for an opening in each other's defense. He budges first. I've noticed he always lowers his guard on the left when impatient briefly, until someone reminds him of the importance of keeping it up. That's how he got two of his most memorable scars. I strike, and my blade strikes true, him groaning as the brilliant energy blade sizzles his flesh. Infuriated by his injury, my brother responds with a flurry of blows, and I am hard-pressed to defend myself as he forces me back. Finally, my kick to his gut shoves him back and allows me to retake the initiative. He stumbles, and I press my counter-attack, but suddenly he steps aside and lets me stumble forwards.

A searing pain strikes me across my back as his blade leaves it's mark, slicing a wide gash from shoulder to hip across my back. I'm lucky his blow was shallow, missing the spine. I remember my training - no matter how hard you suffer, there is nothing your enemy can do to you that you couldn't do back to him. Nimbly dodging his follow-up blow, I strike for his heart. He barely parries it, and I knock him off-balance with a roundhouse kick, striking immediately afterwards, hoping to land a finishing blow.

He fails to parry, barely dodging and my strike cutting a painful gash in his right shoulder. I can see his grip of his sword weakening, and press my advantage.

For a moment, I'm beginning to wonder why by Emperor's blood are we even fighting. Two Sidhae battling to the death need a truly good reason, and a woman is hardly one, rationally thinking. But she... she is no ordinary woman. She has both of our hearts in her hold, and since she cannot decide, we have to decide ourselves in her stead.

My battle-brother unfortunately picks up on my moment of reflection, and strikes through my block. I can feel parts of my ribs burning away as his blade enters my chest, it only being thanks to recent augmentation that it does not pierce bone entirely. I grab his arm and strike back, my blade piercing deep into his chest, only to strike augmented bone all the same.

We push each other back and stumble, bleeding and catching our breaths.

"Do any of you yield?" the magistrate inquires, as is the protocol.

"No," my battle-brother gasps.

"No!" I snarl, reassuming battle stance.

"You may continue!" the magistrate declares, and we savage each other again.

Blows follow blows, each countered by parries, and on the moments between each, I gaze at her. She stands there, her hair waving in the wind, looking at our exchange with eagerness and anticipation. I want to believe she will love me as strongly as I have fought for that love.

And yet again, she distracts me, long enough for my brother to cut a gash across my cheek. I can feel the tip of his blade scrape my teeth. The pain is tremendous. But we are Alpha Legionnaires - we eat pain for breakfast. Roaring in fury, I smash at his defense mindlessly. Whatever my brother was to me before is no longer true. He is now my worst enemy, and he will die as such.

I no longer feel the pain even as he lands a few more blows on me, and I on him. One of us will die today, and by Emperor's sacred blood it is not going to be me!

My leg goes limp as he manages to pierce my thigh even as I pierce his shoulder. The realization strikes me that this is it as I drop to the ground. He stands above me, his sword raised for the killing blow, yet I stare into his eyes with mindless fury, defiant as is becoming of a Sidh.

"Stop!" the magistrate shouts, "Do you yield?!"

"I... I..." I grunt. Sensing victory, my battle-brother turns his back on me. He has won. He will now spend his days banging the love of my life, while I lick my wounds... Flesh will heal, but pride will not... This cannot stand!

"Get back here," I snarl furiously, "I'm not done with you!"

Just as he snaps back to deliver the killing blow, I muster all my strength to spring to my feet. His strike comes late, as I put all my weight into my lunge forwards, driving the blue-glowing energy blade deep into his chest. She covers her mouth to conceal her shock.

Blood gurgling up from his mouth, my beloved battle-brother collapses to his knees as I limp up, standing to my full height, his sword clattering to the ground and unpowering itself.

"So then... it is settled..." he speaks even as blood flows from his mouth, "I want to go as a soldier..."

A pang of guilt and pain seizes my heart even as I struggle against the pain to stand.

"And so you shall," I mutter, preparing to deliver the coup de grace, "For the Emperor!"

"For the Emperor," my friend looks into my eyes unflinchingly, accepting his fate, "Enjoy your victory!"

His gaze burns into the very depths of my soul. I no longer feel myself even as my hands strike his head from his shoulders with all my might.

"The Emperor's will has been done!" the magistrate solemnly proclaims, the witnesses invited to this event solemnly applauding.

Grabbing my brother's head, I limp towards her, and toss it at her feet.

"My love... I have done what had to be done!" I gasp, "Will you be mine now, for as long as the Emperor has willed us?"

---

Oh, the trickery, the deception... The feminine guiles...

Surely I was proud, listening to her lavish praises upon me and my victory in her name. I felt a bittersweet pride as she compared the virtues of my fallen battle-brother that were nonetheless no match for mine in her eyes. But then she got to that last part, calling me "a nice guy, but..."

I don't mind being the nice guy, which is womenspeak for someone just not quite good enough for them. I'm man enough to deal with it. Even when I have just slain my battle-brother I went through hell and high water with in her name. But when she got to mentioning some lily-livered slack-jawed civilian asshole after the "but" part, I snapped.

Her last cry died down as she disappeared from my view, falling two miles from the hive spire, her blonde hair waving in the wind for the one last time. I collapsed to the floor, sobbing hysterically.

I have murdered. There is no excuse for that. The Emperor's justice is harsh but fair. Such are my words as I turn upon the magistrate and demand to be judged in the presence of the shocked witnesses. I have just slain my battle-brother, and slain the woman I love - for such a crime there can surely be no forgiveness!

"It is my verdict," he begins after pausing to reflect, "that the victim has acted dishonourably towards you without prior consideration of your state of mind. It is hence my verdict that you are guilty of the crime of murder, but acquitted in light of circumstances. May your own knowledge of your crime serve as your punishment!"

"No..." I groan, "No! I have trespassed against the Emperor! Judge me! Sentence me to death! I accept it! I embrace it!"

"Such is the Emperor's justice - harsh but fair!" the magistrate responds indifferently as he turns to leave along with the witnesses.

So there I remain, battered, broken and alone, with only my chosen seconds to tend to my wounds. Flesh will heal, but pride will not. My only solace from the horror and sorrow scorching my soul is a single thought - NEVER AGAIN!

by **Blakullar** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 12:54 pm

~ Greetings, Fellow Man ~
(MEK – SFW)

Greetings, fellow man!

If you are comfortably sitting in your home without your nation having fired a single shot, then we're pleased that your leaders had the sense to see the good in our cause. If we had to seize this planet through force of arms, we offer our sincerest apologies for any damage caused and our condolences if any loved ones were injured or killed. Whatever the circumstance, if you are receiving this broadcast, congratulations! Your world is in the process of being integrated into an ever-expanding interdimensional superpower spanning tens of thousands of worlds across over forty universes, all unified as one people under one nation and one Supreme Leader.

We are the Mechanocracy. Our goal is to protect our fellow humans from the many threats that exist across the vast multiverse – such as the Imperium of Sidhae and the Tandi-Nama Accord. Both of these expanding powers foster terrorism and banditry, and seek to reduce all of mankind to barbarity, a contingency that in good conscience we cannot allow. It is for this reason that we have stepped in to liberate your planet: to safeguard you from the depredations of these threats. Eventually, we hope to unite the whole human species under a single banner and Ideology, one that seeks the improvement of all peoples through technology, regardless of gender or race.

While we hope to make the sociocultural transition as inconspicuous as is possible, you'll soon start noticing some radical changes. First of all, although this announcement is being broadcast to you in your native tongue, the primary language of our nation is Russian, but we also speak English, Chinese and German as secondary languages. If none of these are your first language, then we provide language courses for your benefit – although these courses are free and can be done online if your planet has a worldwide web, completion of at least one is mandatory. This is to ensure smooth communication between our many peoples and your own.

Next, you might notice that our law enforcers are heavily armed. That's because we believe that a powerful and visible police force serves as the ideal deterrent against crime. Unlike our enemies, we know the benefits of stopping dangerous ideas from taking root before they become problematic for our society. We were once plagued by enemy thoughts, but within the first three years of our new order, we were able to convince the unenlightened to see the world from our point of view. Under our watchful eye, we hope that you too will follow our path to supremacy.

Finally, you will no doubt see that citizens will begin to possess strange metallic augmentations. Do not worry – these enlightened folk have joined our Machine Race. It is an inescapable truth that the baseline human body is weak and vulnerable, easily subdued by even the basest of creatures. However, the human mind is supreme in its reasoning and thinking capacity. By applying what we have learned through centuries of science and engineering to our own bodies, we have escaped our weakness and forged ourselves into a growing army of supermen. And our vast repository of knowledge expands as the days tick by. Soon, the Machine Race will be the most powerful species in the entire Multiverse, and we invite you to be a part of Mankind's bright future.

That concludes this introductory broadcast. If you wish to learn more about the Mechanocracy, our goals, culture and history, ask any of our soldiers and they will be happy to direct you to an education centre. We look forward to seeing you soon, and remember: we are here for you, and we are happy to help!

by **Lunar Union** » Sat Oct 07, 2017 12:13 pm

[RETCON'D LOL]

by **Blakullar** » Sat Nov 11, 2017 8:24 am

~ Crimson Seraph: The Proposition ~
(ESL – MAT – MCN – MEK – TPP)

Stand by...

Physical integrity of subject approaching nominal status; all prior internal injuries repaired and 84.4% of external injuries repaired. Estimated time until complete repairs: six hours. Analysing mental state...

Evidence of catastrophic mental trauma detected. Symptomatic diagnosis: Re-experience. Hyperarousal. Paranoia. Abnormally high activity in amygdala and hypothalamus. Early diagnostic suggestive of posttraumatic stress disorder.

ALERT! Consciousness of subject approaching nominal status. Verbal pacification measures to be effected once subject awakens. No physical force necessary. Psychiatric measures on standby.

...

"w-where am I...?"

"You are safe now. They cannot hurt you."

"Th-they killed Vasya... Mother! Where's my mother?! Don't let them hurt her..."

"Don't worry about her. Nobody can hurt you any longer."

...

Information regarding mother of subject redacted for pacification purposes. Divulge when mental integrity reaches nominal status. Run diagnostic on subject memory...

...

"Why am I here...? Let me go... I'll kill them all..."

"Your opportunity will come. For now though, do you recall your name?"

...

Last she remembered before the blackout, she was in the forests outside of Ufa. Stripped of her clothing, legs broken, barbs of agony threatening to swallow her alive, she crawled for her survival. Even though that pack of wolves had torn her to pieces, she would live. But the brilliant pain that ripped through her intimacies was too great. Every grunt that they uttered, every accusation of whoredom, every single rivulet of sweat shed by those vile beasts running across her flesh like acid. They bored into her and wore her down, leaving her as prey in the snow once they departed. Just when she could take it no longer, she saw him. A man, clad in a suit and fedora white as clouds, and eyes glowing like amethysts on a Caucasian face. A veritable angel of death, come to deliver her from hell corporeal to hell aethereal.

"Do you remember your name?" the same Angel questioned again.

"Yelena." Her answer was icicle-sharp.

"Yelena ... Trotskaya, is it?" he continued. "Born in Ufa, Bashkortostan? Studied at the local Technical College?"

"Yes," confirmed Yelena, trepidation growing by the minute.

The Angel examined his guest as he paced through the darkness beside the gunmetal table. Most of the injuries afflicting her youthful body had been healed, only a few knife-scars along her abdomen necessitating repair. Two slanted, bottle-green eyes on a pale face stared at him with painful curiosity, disappearing behind onyx hair flowing to her shoulders.

"You don't need to be afraid," the Angel noticed her worry.

"Then why are you holding me here...?" Yelena asked, struggling in the restraints holding her to the table. "I need to get back to my mother! If those monsters have hurt her..."

"I wouldn't struggle if I were you – you need to rest while your wounds heal."

"BUT THE THIEVES ARE STILL OUT THERE!" Yelena grew frantic. "I WON'T LET THEM HURT MY MOTHER LIKE THEY DID VASYAAAAAAAIIIEEE!!!"

A brilliant shriek pierced the chamber as a stitch on her leg split, blood leaking from the reopened injury. A robotic arm was quick to whir into action, appending a sterilised cloth to the bleeding cut. Another bore an auto-injector to null the pain. The Angel looked on, pity growing in his violet eyes as tears welled up in those of his charge.

"Who are you...?" Yelena cried. "Why are you holding me here...?"

A fatherly smile took hold of the Angel's countenance at that point.

"Because, Yelena, I have a proposition for you. You're a smart, strong-willed young woman. I see potential in you for greatness that far surpasses anything that you have seen as of yet. You are devoted to the betterment of mankind, a devotion in which unfortunately many of our fellow-humans are sorely lacking. To force you to take your chances with the cold and the criminals who robbed you of your beloved and your virginity would be a monumental waste of those gifts. And it would be an insult to my own people if I didn't take care of the greatest among them, would it not?"

At that instant, Yelena realised who she was staring at, her eyes widening as if beholding God Himself.

"You are Mir," she stated. "The Archaelect who has nurtured our great country since the old times..."

"Indeed I am," Mir confirmed. "So, Yelena Imranovna Trotskaya, will you help me in my grand quest to elevate humanity to greatness?"

A pause of five seconds for Yelena to rummage through her thoughts.

"I ask for only one thing in return," she enunciated through tears, fiery determination on her expression. "I ask you to make me strong. Stronger than I could ever hope to have been before. I care not how it is done, but I ask you to do all that you can so that those who I love the most will never suffer as I or my beloved Vasya have! Only then can I help you deliver this world from the darkness that has plagued it for so long!"

The Archaelect avatar's smile briefly straightened with interest.

"I think we have ourselves an agreement, Yelena." The grin soon returned to its face, even wider than before.

...

Consent from subject acquired. Protocol CRIMSON_SERAPH to be executed effective immediately.

by **Imperium Sidhicum** » Tue Nov 14, 2017 9:06 am

~ The Hawk's Nest ~
MCN

They say that war never changes. Whoever said that was probably right, though I'm inclined to say that it's the human nature that really does't change. It's been three generations now since we came perilously close to extinction as a species because of our warlike natures. One would think a nuclear armageddon would finally convince any survivors to change their ways. But it hasn't. Seventy years later, we are still as busy devising new and devious ways of killing each other as before.

I would know better than most. Where most of my compatriots take to arms as a matter of necessity, men like myself have made it their life's work to hone the craft of killing to a form of art. Weapons are our brushes, bullets and explosives our chisels, and the flesh and blood of our fellow man our paint and our marble. Even while most of us can convince ourselves that those we kill must die for a reason, whoever said that no decent man can put his fellow human to the sword without losing a part of himself was right. I'd like to think I am a decent man who is doing what he does for a good purpose, but I too sometimes have my doubts.

The people who died by my hand in this last expedition aren't among those I would be having any doubts about, though. Raiders, degenerate lowlife scum, all of them. Some would call us hypocrites over our occasional "deep-infiltration" jobs, but the lot of them have never seen the things that raiders and their sort are capable of - and that's mostly owing to the efforts of men like myself and their hypocritical cross-the-border runs. Though these days it's nowhere near as bad as in my father's day, especially since the Mekhs showed up, the world outside the safe zones is still pretty fucked up. Child soldiers smoking heroin, gangs of cross-dressing cannibals, crazy human-sacrificing cults - you name it. With all these dregs of humanity preying on the honest hard-working folk, someone simply must put the living fear of God in them for the sake of peace and safety. Which is exactly what I do for a living.

We return home riding outside of our armor, as all the troop trucks are occupied by the 200 or so civilians we liberated from the clutches of raider scum. Slavery and rape in their worst forms was the taste of raiders' hospitality that these poor souls got, doomed to a lifetime of slavery and rape beyond any hope of saving were it not for our timely intervention and rescue. These good folk are now free because of us, while the raiders that survived our ambush... Well, let's just say it was fortunate our convoy didn't bust any tires or run out of fuel on the way home, because we spent all our reserves... creatively despite best advice against such steps. The signs inscribed in several languages that we left behind on the bodies should be a clear indicator to the reasons of our rather brutal retaliation.

"It's your stop, skipper!" I hear my old friend Valdis shouting from inside the Iron Wolf on whose hull I sit, "Don't worry about the reports, I'll pass them down to the Colonel as soon as we get to town! Go on, your old girl's waiting for you, no doubt!"

"Right!" I say, "See you in town tomorrow then!"

Grabbing my duffel bag, I hop down from the tank, waving my boys goodbye. Ahead of me lies a field with the spring's crops sprouting from the ground, with a farmhouse in the distance, the road to it inside an alleyway of oak-trees. My family home, the trees planted by my grandfather shortly after the Great War.

As far as my family records go, which is 200 years back, my male ancestors have always been farmers and soldiers. The first known ancestor who bears my family name was a Staff Sergeant in the Latvian Rifle regiments of the First World War, fighting alongside his two sons. Of the three, only the youngest son survived till the end, retiring as a Sergeant at the tender age of 21 and marrying a peasant girl who saved his life from the Communists. Ever since those days, every single one of my ancestors had to fight in one war or another for various reasons, but once they had laid down their rifles, they all would invariably pick up the plow and till the land that their ancestors had tilled before them. I proudly make no exception of myself.

"G'afternoon, Captain!" one of my four farmhands, a reformed raider, greets me as I make my way down the gravel road. Scumbags as they may be, some of them can still redeem themselves, taking up interest in honest work.

"Hello, Nikolai," I nod, "I trust that everything has been well in my absence?"

"As you can see, Captain," he gestures at the fields, "The crops are growing remarkably well this year."

"I see you lads have done a good job," I agree. If all goes well, this year's harvest should provide a welcome bonus for the communal granaries. "How's my wife been doing?"

"As well as can be," Nikolai smirks, "Go on, Captain, you should get home sooner! Your lady's been longing for you much."

Strange to think that two years back, this same guy was looting, pillaging and raping like the rest of his former no-good lot. I guess there is truth to honest work doing miracles even to hardened scumbags. Although I had my doubts at first, thus far I have had no reason to regret sparing this chap's life.

No sooner have I entered my yard when I see my two dearest people exit the house and rush towards me.

"Papa!"

Two little strong hands wrap around me before I lift my boy up. Marek has grown visibly in the months of my absence. Surely he will make a fine soldier when his time comes.

"Hendrik..." my beloved Gloria whimpers, following in our son's footsteps, wrapping me in her embrace and joining us all in a single heartfelt family hug. She presses her lips against mine again and again, only stopping to wipe away tears of joy. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of the thick honey-blonde silk of her hair, a refreshing change after three months of fuel, metal and blood as the predominant scents.

Only in quite some time does she finally relent and guide me home by hand, starting to recount the local events of the past few months, at times mixing up Latvian with her native English. My wife is a Westerner, American by ancestry. Her family has been living here since before the Great War, retaining their old language along with learning ours, given the semi-official nature of English these days. Her adorable Southern accent just melts my heart whenever I hear it, just as it did the first time when we met.

"I would have fixed up a proper lunch if only I knew you were coming home today," she speaks, "But we still have some chicken left from yesterday."

"Chicken will do," I smile, "How have things been here otherwise?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary. Did some work on the tunnels, spent the last weekend practicing medical aid," Gloria states, "They now have a hydraulic barrier set up in Section 14. Other than that, just the usual work around the house."

"Did you kill many bad guys on your mission, papa?" Marek asks, eager to hear my latest exploits.

"Marek!" Gloria protests, "I'm sure your father doesn't want to talk of such things now!"

"But mom..." my boy grumbles.

"Yes, your papa got many bad guys alright," I say to appease his curiousity. A hyperactive seven-year-old whose greatest dream is to be like his old man when he grows up will not relent until hearing his share of war stories, that I know for certain.

"Did you find anything useful for the town?" he asks.

"Well, we did take quite a bit of weapons from the bad guys," I explain, "Also some generators and other useful stuff. And we saved some 30 people that the raiders wanted to sell as slaves. Some of them might even become our neighbors if they'll want to live here."

"Papa, how come we don't make the raiders our slaves? They are bad people, they deserve it!" Marek asks thoughtfully after a short while.

"Because we are the good guys, Marek," I explain, "Good people don't treat other folks like that, even if those other folk are bad people."

"Besides, sometimes even bad people can have a change of heart and become good," Gloria adds, "Nikolai used to be a raider once, but he is one of us now. You like Nikolai, right?"

"Yes, Nikolai is different," Marek agrees, "Papa, did you know that Nikolai taught me how to set animal traps while you were away? He showed me how to make a trap from a boot lace and a small tree, and I even caught a hare in it a week ago!"

"He did bring a hare back home indeed," Gloria affirms, though the smile on her face hints that perhaps the credit is more due to Nikolai than our son.

"Well done!" I praise Marek, "Next thing I'll know, you'll be hauling deer home!"

"Did any of our soldiers die on your mission, papa?" Marek suddenly asks very seriously.

"Marek..." Gloria protests again.

"No, none of our men died," I say, "A few got hurt, but they will be alright."

---

Since the weather is warm, I sit down on the bench outside to take off my exosuit, my son eager to help me out. It is his dream to have one when he grows up, the mark of an elite soldier. His commitment to it would do credit to quite a few adults - the boy always wakes up early in the morning to exercise with me and constantly pesters me to teach him some fighting moves when I'm around. I got him an air rifle for his birthday. Now I can hardly deliver a sufficient supply of ball bearings and empty beer cans for my boy to practice on, him spending much of his free time behind the house practicing. If he keeps at it, he'll be able to pass the Army marksmanship tests already by the time he goes off to the boot camp at 13.

"Papa, will you take me hopping tomorrow?" Marek asks, helping me undo the suit's straps. He refers to jumping on roofs from house to house in the abandoned town a few clicks from our place. I occasionally go there to test my exo after any repairs or tweaks, and have taken Marek with me on a few occasions, letting him piggy-back me while putting the leg servos through some jump and sprint tests, much to his excitement.

"I have some work tomorrow, but we can go later this week if you promise not to tell mom," I say.

"I won't say anything!" Marek's eyes sparkle with excitement. Gloria doesn't exactly approve of such risky pastimes, so we both figure it's best she doesn't know.

---

As I eat the yesterday's chicken and potatoes at the dinner table, Marek again continues to pester me about my latest mission, new questions having come to his young mind. I don't try to sugarcoat the details, much to my wife's chagrin, though I do leave some parts unmentioned. It's not exactly an easy thing to explain a seven-year-old boy why good guys would necklace 15 defenseless prisoners, even if they are slavers and murdering rapist scum. Nor to one's wife or even oneself, for that matter. Things like that do happen in the heat of passion occasionally, leaving even otherwise decent men ashamed and bewildered about their earlier actions afterwards. Although I have done a lot of things I'm not proud of, I try not to dwell on them. What's done is done, and I'd like to believe that whatever I have done has served to make my country and family at least a tad little bit safer.

"I heard word in town the other day," Gloria speaks, "There's been an increase in Mekh activity along the border lately."

"Raiders?" I ask.

"No, UAVs. Don't know much more than that, perhaps you could ask the Colonel when you go to town tomorrow, see if he knows more."

"Probably just showing off their presence as usual..." I shrug. Mekh drones buzzing our border outposts isn't anything out of the ordinary, given the usual cool relations between our countries, especially now with all the clusterfuck going on in Europe.

"Papa, can I go out and play with the neighbor boys?" Marek asks once he's done eating.

"Sure," I say, "Just be back by dark!"

---

As my son storms off to new adventures, I take my plate to the kitchen. As I'm about to wash it, I feel Gloria's hands wrap around my waist, her cheek resting on my shoulder.

"So, we were working around the house with your son the other day... You know what he asked me?" she purrs.

"Tell me."

"He said that he'd like to have a baby sister, so that he can protect her and teach her how to fight when she grows up."

Judging by the fact that my wife has a sly grin on her face and has switched to English, knowing how particular I am to her peculiar accent, it doesn't take long for me to get where she's going with that.

"Well," I turn to kiss her, "Our son will be away for a couple hours, so maybe we can see what can be done about that..."

by **Blakullar** » Wed Jan 10, 2018 2:28 pm

~ Crimson Seraph: The Judgement ~
(ESL – MAT – MCN – MEK – TPP)

"Supreme Leader, you cannot possibly be serious about this! You are about to simply give a commissioned officer rank in MY REGIMENT to a CHILD without any experience with leadership whatsoever!"

"That's why she's to learn from the very best. Besides, you're well aware of the promise."

"I am aware indeed, but it still does not answer what exactly is so special about this particular girl. Or why I have only now been made aware of your plans with her."

"You will see for yourself soon enough, marshal. She has a spark of determination about her that none of the others had. The will to survive, to fight and to bring ultimate greatness to our creation."

"I have trusted your judgement before, and although I sometimes question your methods, I have no reason not to trust you now. Will you at least allow me to assess the child before I consider taking her under my wing?"

"That is why we are here."

...

One of the figures traversing the gently-lit gunmetal hallway was the white-suited shape of the Archaelect Mir. The second was dressed in heavy-duty, matt-black armour plating, trimmed in red and sans the helmet. The figure's gilded shoulder-straps bore a Winged Red Star above a crimson-bordered gold star superimposed over a silver pentagon, denoting her rank as Marshal of the Mechanocracy, the highest in the armed forces. The woman's hair was cropped short, toned twice in platinum-white and blood-red. Bearing the solid black eyes of a Reasoning Machine, her triangular irises painted deep crimson, an array of scars crossed over her milk-white face, one particularly gruesome knife-wound carving her mouth into a permanent scowl. A sword bearing a black skull-pommel rested in a sheath on the woman's side, and the barrel of a large cannon-like weapon stood into the air from a fixture on her back.

At the end of the hall, a sliding-door split open. On the other side stood a collection of computer screens affixed to the wall, a crimson holographic keyboard giving physical access to the screen. Hovering over the keyboard was a figure dressed in a dark-grey lab-coat, with long shaggy brown hair starting to grey. A silvering stubble covered the old man's chin, his vermilion eyes boring into the screens as he perused the data flowing forth from it.

"Hello, Golovkin," Mir addressed the doctor. "How's Yelena doing?"

"She's on her usual morning routine, sir," Golovkin responded in a gravelly voice. "Ten rounds in the sparring chamber after her walk. She is on round two at the moment."

"Good to hear. Now, I'm certain you've heard of Marshal Okhotnova?"

The announcement of the marshal's presence prompted the scientist to turn. When he did, his face dropped.

"Heard of her I have," his voice became cold. "After all, it's quite hard to forget about the gynoid who oversaw the slaughter at Shostka..."

"The marshal is here to observe Yelena in action," Mir continued. "Could you show her to the sparring chamber?"

"Of course."

With that, the figure of Mir disappeared in a burst of crimson sparks, revealing him to be a holographic projection. The door to Okhotnova's left parted, leaving her and Golovkin to walk alone side by side.

"So, marshal, do you ever think about what you did?" the doctor enquired as they made their way to the sparring arena.

"No," Okhotnova bluntly enunciated.

"So you don't care that you killed three thousand men, women and children?" Golovkin enunciated his disbelief. "Innocent people with families?"

"Do not bother wasting precious oxygen with virtue-signalling, civilian," the marshal smirked. "You know very well that without those platitudinous sob-stories in the tabloids, you would never have spared those rebellious scumbags a second thought."

"I know you're an unfeeling machine, but I never knew you were so heartless..."

"I have a suggestion: put your bleeding heart to use for your country and protest what the tankies across the Atlantic are doing to undesirables in their 'reservations'," Okhotnova barked back.

The sparring arena was a hexagonal chamber, measuring some forty metres in diameter and measuring an indeterminate height, for the ceiling seemed to disappear into the sky where a sun-like white light shone from above. Three huge trapezoid doors marked half the sides of the arena, from which those doing battle would emerge. Two of them were open, their contents hidden by a darkness that the light failed to penetrate. Jutting out of one of the walls, high above, was a transparent observation box – the present location of Golovkin and Okhotnova.

At the centre of the arena, amidst the gnarled white wrecks of several sparring droids stood a curvaceous young woman, clad in a black leotard and combat trainers. Her raven-black hair was tied backward into a bun, the metallic shimmer in the light as she turned suggesting its composition to not entirely be keratin. Her skin bore a heavy silver colour along with her full black lips and dark-grey eyeshadow shaped into the wings of some bird of prey. The skin itself was arranged across her body like detachable plates, each segregated by a thin black line. The whites of her eyes were lined with reflective circuitry pressing into her circular crimson iris, her black pupils bearing luminescent red triangles arranged as targeting reticles.

"Those augmentations look recent," Okhotnova pointed out. "Considering that she has been here for a year, I would have thought that Mir would have been hastier about the matter."

"We fitted her last augments the night before," Golovkin explained. "The process has indeed been somewhat slow."

"And why is that?"

"Because she insists on getting accustomed to each one on an individual basis. She wants to make sure that they're the very best she can get her hands on. Fortunately, she's been satisfied with her build so far."

"I see."

"Stepan, please restart this round when I return," the girl identified as Yelena Trotskaya commanded to an unseen figure with a harsh alto in her voice.

"Are you certain, Miss Trotskaya?" a robotic intone boomed from speakers dotted along the arena walls. "You have done quite well so-"

"The score is absolutely dismal!" Yelena interrupted. "It is twenty-six points worse than my previous, and that was not even my best!"

"Very well, Miss Trotskaya, I will reset the round score for you," Stepan dutifully remarked, the scoreboard resetting to an earlier figure on prompt. "Better luck for your next attempt!"

"I do not believe in luck," Yelena retorted as she strolled up to the closed gate, the doorway starting to open with a thunderous metallic clank.

"It would appear that she might be dissatisfied with your handiwork, doctor," Okhotnova stated from the observation box with a gentle, sardonic grin.

...

The gate of return led to her private chamber, a small, unremarkable room deep within the Mir Complex. Decorations were sparse, save for a coathanger where a blood-red hood and cloak hung, a short cream-coloured synthwood table, a matching chair and a bed. A corkboard rested on the wall above the bed, with a handwritten panoply of apparent research notes pinned to it in a somewhat chaotic fashion. On the table lay a schematic for what appeared to be a longsword, next to a half-finished flask of water and a small plant pot growing a poppy flower.

Mir found its expression burnished with surprise to discover that Yelena was not in here. Then, with a smirk, it realised where she was going to be – the room next door, discovering this by seeing Yelena's electrostaff mounted on a hanger just outside. The Archaelect opened the sliding-door to find Yelena over a baby's crib, with a well-decorated mobile hanging over it.

"How is he?" asked the Archaelect.

"Still as wonderful as ever..." Yelena smiled, following with a sigh. "Thank you for allowing me to keep Alexey, and thank you for looking after him."

"It was on your insistence that I did," Mir stated as the two left the infant to sleep, leaving his chamber. "That's not to say I wouldn't have looked after him anyway. He is your son, after all. Anyway, how are you liking the new augments?"

"They ache a little, but I surmised that this is because I am still not used to them yet," Yelena answered, stretching her right arm outward. "Their construction is impressive, however. Mister Golovkin has outdone himself yet again."

She punctuated the latter point by flexing her left forearm and bending it at an unnatural angle, far further backward than normal joints would allow. Her left hand rotated on its joint by three hundred and sixty degrees, assisted by her lacking a single combined sheath of skin.

"Mister Golovkin has been putting that livingmetal lubricant you devised to good use," Mir stated as Yelena returned her arm to normal before springing into a cartwheel and then a spectacular front-flip, landing infallibly on her feet.

"Good to hear. The Immortal project is coming along perfectly as well, thanks to the access that I have to your databanks."

Then, seemingly unexpectedly, Yelena threw her leg around in a spinning kick. Her foot landed on the mounted electrostaff, coiling around the weapon's pole and lifting it from its holder. With a smug grin, she turned the staff into her right hand.

"You enjoy that, don't you?" Mir remarked.

"I do. It is my party trick," Yelena's grin stretched even wider. "Shall we return to the arena?"

"I believe we shall," the Archaelect by her side dissipated into sparks again as they approached the entrance, proceeding from the darkness of the hall out into the arena once more.

"Round two – score, four-thirty-seven," Stepan's voice boomed from the speakers.

Yelena's electrostaff flared to life, both ends seething and snapping with red electricity as the door behind her slammed down with a tonitruant crash. The other two doors at the ends of the arena flew upward; from each door came five figures, each with robotic bodies and spherical heads with a single glowing eye at the centre. Four were bone-white, with blue eyes and carried a set of training weapons – two wielded longswords, one an axe and another a spear. The fifth was a dark, almost matt-black model, with a flaring red eye and two training swords in each hand, one shorter than the other. The sparring droids surrounded Yelena at the centre of the arena, forming a circle with the two black droids on point.

"There is a visitor here today," Mir informed Yelena from the shadows as she readied for battle.

"Hm, what kind?" she enquired, maintaining curiosity and focus in tandem.

One axe and one spear broke the stalemate, charging in from both sides of the circle. Yelena sprang for the axe, landing just in front of it to stop its charge. Blocking an overhead swing of its blade with her staff, she delivered a mighty kick upward with her hammer-like foot, leaving a huge dent in its chestplate. The spear thrust at her from behind, but she was quick enough to grab it with one hand and thrust backward with her staff, catching the droid square in the chest. Sparks rocketed through its frame, causing its eye to pop and the machine to fall to the ground with a clang. The first droid had no chance to recover before Yelena swept it off its feet with her staff, finishing the machine off with a stab to the abdomen.

"An important visitor who wishes to assess you."

"What kind of assessment are they looking for?"

Three swords and the other axe charged into the fray. Yelena met two of the swords with a mighty sweep of her electrostaff, knocking them down and bringing it around to face the third. The third sword parried the strike to buy time for the axe to cleave her in twain.

"They want to see if you're ready to join the officer corps of the Drakon Brigade."

With a thunderous crash, the axe-swinging droid was sent careening into the back of the arena, right shoulder joint sparking where an appendage once was. The other droid was sent spinning out of the arena missing half of its head, a clean blade-strike cutting a diagonal path denoting what had become of it.

"The Drakon Brigade? Why them?"

The last spear and the five remaining swords all charged Yelena at once, the swords surrounding her and attacking first. The silver human figure at the centre of the arena, however, sprang out of the circle, electrostaff clasped in her right hand and axe caught in her left foot. The spear realised that she was heading towards it and raised its menacing pike accordingly, but Yelena bashed the spear upward and threw her leg forward, bringing the axe's head sweeping like a pendulum into the droid's chest.

"Marshal Okhotnova wants to see if you're fit for field officer candidacy in her personal outfit."

The wreck of the spear droid careened into the crowd of swordsdroids, the carcass striking one as the others ducked out of the way. Yelena once again set upon them, snapping electrostaff twirling in her hand as she battled the swords. One swept its blade low to shear off Yelena's legs, but she parried with her staff and thrust into one droid's chest, knocking it offline.

"I thought that the Drakon Brigade was an honour guard. They have not fought on the battlefield for sixty years. Why do they require field officers?"

Yelena blocked a twofold swordstrike from above by two of the droids with her staff, jumping up and kicking outward. The augmented joints between her torso and pelvis began to spin like a wheel, delivering a devastating barrage of kicks to the droids' upper bodies and shattering their heads like glass before she landed with feline grace. As the machines fell to the ground, one more sword raised its blade up high and charged in.

"Because, Yelena, the coming years will be the toughest yet for the Mechanocracy. There will be much bloodshed and struggle as the world decides once again who will rule it."

She lashed out with her foot once again, and ensnared the machine's head between her thigh and shin. Before it could struggle to escape the vice-like grasp, Yelena squeezed and crushed the swordsdroid's metal skull like a nutcracker, the structure caving in and crumpling. The last sword charged in, only to be faced with Yelena's electrostaff and quickly disarmed in a literal sense when its appendages flew off under the force of the staff's strikes.

"Yet why would Marshal Okhotnova want to recruit me? She is a practical woman. She is not in the habit of simply giving officer ranks to whoever takes her fancy."

The last opponents in the arena were the two black droids, their swords and legs shifting into attack positions. Yelena, electrostaff in right hand and one of the sparring longswords in the left, tried to ascertain which would strike first, remaining still as a statue.

"Actually, I've asked her to train you as an officer. I want to see if you have what it takes."

"I guess she was not overly receptive to the idea of training a neophyte without battlefield experience."

Like restless vultures awaiting carrion the black droids circled, their sparring swords glimmering in the light of the arena, optics the colour of blood...

"You guess correctly."

"Then tell her that I will not bore her with prattle about my virtues."

Yelena too switched sight between the droids, her triangular pupils flexing and rotating like a clockwork mechanism as they burned with a sanguine flame...

"Because there is no better exhibition for one's ability..."

Suddenly, the droid to Yelena's right took off, swords swung backward like the wings of an eagle as it sprinted toward her, fully intent on bisecting the girl with a razor buffet.

"...than one's ACTIONS!"

A thunderous metallic crash resounded through the room as Yelena's sword swept through the machine's head with breakneck velocity, shearing the black-armoured machine in twain at the pelvis. The other moved forward to avenge its fallen comrade, coming under heavy assault from Yelena's staff and sword in an instant. As its different colouration denoted, the black droid was a far more capable fighter than the whites, exchanging strikes and parries between its enemy with astounding speed. Fighting with such haste that their battle was all but a blur to the baseline eye, one could easily have missed the bash that Yelena landed on the sparring droid's nose with her sword's pommel. It was almost an instant, but long enough for her to send both of its swords spinning out of its hands with a crippling torso-strike with her staff. With immediate effect, Yelena leapt astride the machine, her legs wrapping around its neck as she swung around. With a single twist, the droid's head popped free like a cork; Yelena landed on the ground with both feet and one hand as the machine's cranium hit the floor with a clang, its blazing eye flickering and dying moments later.

"Round two complete," Stepan's voice thundered through the arena once again. "New score: six ninety-nine. It's your best score so far!"

Yelena's expression brightened, her eyes flashing a delighted vermilion.

"Why don't you tell her yourself?" Mir remarked.

The query prompted her to look up to the observation box. There, she met eyes with the black-armoured, two-tone-haired Marshal of the Mechanocracy, Tisifona Okhotnova. In the general's eyes stood an optimistic glare, and Yelena could have sworn that she spotted a smile sliding up Okhotnova's battlescarred countenance.

by **Imperium Sidhicum** » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:58 pm

~ Song of the Forge World ~
SID

Outsiders and people even of our own kind often wonder what we forge-worlders find so appealing about heavy industry. To them, a forge world is no more than a huge factory, an ugly artificial, industrial landscape contaminated with poisonous fumes and noises of industry. At best they appreciate the production that a forge world churns out every day. At worst they just spew nonsensical tree-hugger drivel from the most extreme eco-freak interpretations of the holy Word. In short, only rarely do they see the beauty in the industry itself.

Every planet has a song of it's own. To a pristine garden world, that song is made up by the noises of nature - the howl of winds, the rumble of thunder, the roar of the ocean waves, the chorus of all the living things of that planet singing one grand symphony, and even the sound of silence itself. To a hive world, it is the incessant buzz of the billions of it's hive-city residents - the endless chatter of crowds milling about in the streets and tunnels, each talking his own business on a communicator, the thunderous beat of millions of troops marching on parades and the jubilant roar of vast crowds witnessing them, the merry singing of drunk partygoers in the numberless pubs of that planet, and even the orgasmic moans and grunts of numberless couples locked in sessions of lovemaking within the privacy of their small apartments, all to the tune of the low electric hum of the hive-city utilities. To an embattled world, it's song is a symphony of fury, played by the thunder of guns, roar of engines, creaking of tracks, cries of the wounded and the drone of corpse-flies seeking out their latest feast. Every planet, without exception, has a song.

A forge-world's song is one of many diverse beats, uniting together into one grand beat. Everything on a forge world has a beat, a rhythm, to which it plays its role in the world's continued existence. This song is intoned in it's many vast mines, as a slow, steady, grating, earth-shaking rumble as colossal bucket-wheel excavators steadily grind down entire mountain ranges in search of precious ores. A single bucket is oftentimes larger than the dump trucks that are themselves the size of two-story buildings that are supposed to take what's been dug up away for processing. This base beat is expanded upon with the whine of sirens that warn of an impending blast before a rumbling crescendo of explosions shatters entire mountains for their inner contents.

This base beat is then joined by different, faster beats, the roar of many engines. If you listen closely, you can tell apart the clatter of each individual valve and piston as they drive the crankshaft of an internal combustion engine, the steady whine of a gas turbine engine, the rhytmic clatter of steel wheels against the seams in the railroad tracks, even the sound of rubberized drive belts grinding against axles in some engines. And obviously the hair-raising, crackling electric hum of grav repulsors. This is the heartbeat of the forge world, the sound of it's life-blood flowing to it's massive organs.

Then comes the main song itself. The volcanic roar of numberless foundries. The steady pounding of mighty power hammers as they forge everything from machine parts to armor plate. The piercing shriek of saws and plasma cutters slicing whatever must be sliced into adequately-sized pieces. The electric crackle of power welders, and the never-ending whirr of robotic servo-motors and the clatter of ultra-high-speed precision arms as they machine their produce. There is a distinct rhythm to every assembly line, and there are billions of assembly lines on any given forge world.

And this song spreads far and wide, well beyond the confines of it's homeworld. If you listen carefully, you will hear this song whenever a Denerari handblaster lies in your grip. You will hear it whenever your fingertips touch the holo-keys of a Lastrateen tacticom. It will play in the back of your head whenever you shift the gearbox of a truck built on Lithore. You will hear it in the back of your head wherever you come across something once churned out by the foundries and factories of a forge world, and you will know it is from there even without reading the label.

If you are a forge-worlder, you will know without saying what I speak of. And if not, you can still hear it, this glorious symphony that is a testament to our race's achievement and technological might - if only you learn to shut out the irrelevant noise. If you haven't already, you should try it someday - it is well worth it...

by **New Frenco Empire** » Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:49 pm

-The River Kongo-
(MCN - UPS - CIN - ESL - MAT - NFE - PRO - WAR - TPP)

Major Kendrick Masterson
Outside Kinshasa Airspace, Frenco-African Border Region
September 10th, 2096

"Good morning Africa. This is...Navy Shipman Joey Garcia, here for the IFAN. Its a cool 85 degrees here in beautiful Windhoek. Dry, as per usual. Requests are open at the hour. Our military extension line is 11374. How that works is you type your request into that line...we open it up, and then we pull up the song to play here at the mainframe. Like this one. All I Have To Do Is Dream by the Everly Brothers. This one goes out to that, and I quote, 'cute green-haired grenadier from the 14th, C Company'. Stay healthy out there, lovebirds."

The song playing over the Raven Tiltwing's radio hummed lightly, with the slight crackle indicating the stereo wasn't of the highest quality. It was more than likely hastily installed by the heli's crew. After all, it wasn't as though music players came standard on warbirds...
Slow, melancholy songs such as this popular 1950s artifact became the anthems of the Frenkish soldier in Africa. Music was what really served as the unifying force out here. Not propaganda asserting the troops' righteousness here, not the welcoming gazes of some of the locals, but commercial music. Maybe the lyrics reminded them of a special someone back home, maybe drums and guitars reminded them of guns and rainfall. There were a myriad of reasons the soldier stationed in Africa considered music so sacrosanct. Perhaps most importantly, music served as the lifeline to home, and reminded the men and women in uniform that their entire world wasn't the fierce Congolese rainforests, the brutal Namib, nor the irradiated urban hellscapes of South Africa; once this was all over (which, as many hoped, was soon. HighCom approved one last campaign "to secure assets along the strategic Congo river region" before ending expansion), most of them would get to go home, back to the Empire. Back to comfort and easiness.

Major Kendrick Masterson, however, wouldn't be going back home in any case. He was an officer of the coveted Ranger Corps; the most elite of the elite that the Grand Imperial Military had to offer. With large-scale warfare coming to a close and the major militia factions excised from the newly-dubbed "Imperial Rhodesland", it would be up to Rangers like Masterson to move into the region and take up the duty of mopping up the insurgent holdouts in the wilderness.
However, Masterson wasn't going to be going after any traditional innies...
He meticulously studied the dossier, as he had done many times before (at least twice while on the Raven alone). In the mere hours before he found himself on the impromptu flight, he was rerouted to Malorey Town, where the current AFRICOM Headquarters stood. He remembered that he was summoned by General Benson with none other than Grand Marshal Edwin's blessing. With Buck and other members of High Command (including "special representatives" from the IIA) in attendance, he was presented with a mission that "only a man of his experience and skillset could complete". It was made clear that many attempts had been made to deal with this problem. Air raids, LRRP missions...none of it had worked. Masterson's involvement was indeed going "to the Triarii", in the words of Edwin.
So what was this problem? Masterson brushed his fingers on the big, bold name on the dossier, printed in red; JOSEF KURTZ - LEADER OF THE PMC GROUP "JAGERS".
"They were quite useful earlier on..." He remembered General Benson scoffed. "But we simply can't have them running about now that we're closing up shop. Kurtz's brutality, however effective, has no place in Imperial Rhodesland. Terminate him and whatever remains of the Jagers with extreme prejudice."
With extreme prejudice.

Kurtz was the leader of a small, yet elite private military outfit - the "Jagers". Mercenaries they might have been, Kurtz and his band were loyal patriots and dedicated to the imperialist cause. Well into his sixties, Kurtz had a storied past - he hunted as a youth, and sold his game for decent prices in his rural community, who were among the worst affected during the food shortages of the early-mid twentieth century. As a young man, he fought in Europe during the Resource Wars with the Bundeswehr, witnessing first-hand the nuclear holocaust when the time came. Finding himself on a Ukrainian battlefield when the first bombs fell, he was unable to shelter in any bunker or vault. Miraculously, he had managed to gather what remained of his men together and traveled across Europe during the deadly months directly after the exchange with nothing but sheer willpower and his tracking skills. Intent on reaching Germany, many of his troops died or suffered the effects of ghoulification on the trip there, but Kurtz somehow came out unharmed. Finding Germany in no better of shape than the east, he organized his former unit into a band of wasteland vigilantes, and hunted raiders, slavers, and various other brands of human scum during the deadly nuclear winter. Any history book will tell you that the Old Nations formed during the Winter. Instead of greeting Kurtz as a hero and welcoming back into the fold, he and his band were instead treated with suspicion. The ON authorities considered him on the same level as the armed outlaws he often hunted, and the many ghouls within his ranks (his comrades, whom he had seen as brothers) did nothing to help that assertion. When bounties were placed on the "Jagers" (a name given to them by the wastelanders), they relocated to the safety of the Commonwealth, who accepted the group as ghoul refugees fleeing from ON persecution on the condition that they disarm. Seeing no other choice for the wellbeing of himself and his comrades, Kurtz was forced to comply.

Enter the New Frenco Empire.

When the NFE emerged on the world stage in the wake of the Winter, they addressed the world their intents and ideologies. "We mean harm only to tyrants and opportunists," as was often quoted in propaganda broadcasts. "In the coming decades, we intend to reclaim the world's savage lands. We seek to ring in a bright new future, free of poverty, slavery, banditry and general suffering." Kurtz, who experienced all the things the Imperial authorities denounced firsthand, was intrigued by their promises of a better future free of these plagues. Over the next few months in the Commonwealth, as more information on the Empire became available, Kurtz became fanatically devoted to Imperial ideology. Extremely charismatic, Kurtz convinced his ex-Jagers to immigrate to the Empire in the 2070s, where they could once again take up arms and help the downtrodden that this post-nuclear world had created. Rejected for military service (as most of the remaining non-mutated Jagers were in their forties at least, and ghouls were not permitted to serve in the Grand Imperial Military "for their own safety"), Kurtz was instead allowed to rearm and form a PMC outfit, where he could carry out specialized contracts for the GIM. He would eventually grow the Jagers into a fairly large outfit, recruiting mostly ghouls rejected for military duty.

Aside from his enigmatic charisma and martial skills, he was a skilled writer and graphic designer, and published many books and pamphlets (complete with his own patriotic art) during his tenure as a naturalized Frenkish citizen. Kurtz was an early supporter of Imperial involvement in Southeast Asia and Africa, his pamphlet "On The Dignity Of Our African Brothers And Our Frenkish Burden" arguing for military intervention become particularly iconic within academic circles (especially due to its graphic cover art, depicting the Empire as a beautiful avenging angel, charging into Africa with flaming sword and books marked "prosperity" and "progress"). It was of no surprise that the Jagers, with their unique skills and ideological fanaticism, would soon receive a contract to map the inhospitable Congo Basin. Kurtz enthusiastically accepted.

However, what was originally planned to be a year-long expedition soon evolved into much more for Kurtz and the Jagers. Months turned into years as the band roamed deep in uncharted Central Africa, far away from the frontlines, and the war only grew more intense and destructive with each passing day. With every weekly report, it seemed, the Jagers strayed farther and farther from their original mission. What started out as a relatively simple reconnaissance and geographical survey operation soon turned into some kind of crusade for Kurtz. Along with performing force recon and eliminating major threats in the region, he wanted to "civilize" the many indigenous people in the region (most of whom had regressed into tribal lifestyles and had lost all contact with the outside world until the Jagers' entrance into the region) and make the area a "haven of imperial support...long before the rest of the military even arrives". Despite AFRICOM's reluctance, they allowed him to continue, seeing the potential in winning the support of locals for the war effort and the advance disbanding of problem groups. However, over the past couple of years, reports from Kurtz became fewer and far between, and what was sent had disturbing implications - he was engaged in a brutal guerilla campaign with the local militias. He had gotten the tribals to revere him as a supernatural being somehow, and had militarized many of them to make up for his dwindling numbers. What little evidence existed of his combat methods suggested nothing short of "complete savagery".

About a year back, the reports stopped entirely.
AFRICOM deemed the man "completely and utterly insane" and pursued methods to remove him as covertly as possible. Recent intel suggested he had a hidden compound somewhere along the Congo River, deep into uncharted jungle land.
"Major Masterson," Benson briefed. "You'll be going solo for this op. This is to be kept as clandestine as possible, understood? Good...You'll be provided a patrol boat to traverse the river, along with a crew to operate it. They won't be briefed on your mission; they only know to drop you off once the compound is in sight and then retrieve you at a rendezvous point of your discretion. They say you are among the best, Major Masterson, and while we are confident in your capabilities for this task...we've authorized a Section Two tactical strike on your location should you call for it. You have to understand, Major...Kurtz has to die at any cost. All of Rhodesland depends on it."
Section Two was as serious as it got - a danger-close tactical nuclear weapon ready to be dropped from an orbiting bomber in a minute's notice. Calling a Section Two was usually a one-way-trip, especially in such a dense environment; a scarce handful of minutes would hardly be enough to get clear of the blast radius. Hence, within the SOF community, it was generally associated with the most covert missions that depended more on a successful mission than the lives of the operatives involved.
"I understand, sir." Masterson recalled his stoic reply. "The target will be neutralized, one way or another."
And with that, he found himself aboard the next UH-14 Raven Tiltwing to the extent of Imperial territory - Kinshasa. Or, rather, the outskirts of the pre-war Congolese capital. The city proper was still occupied by a significant presence of the People's Republican Militia and under heavy siege by Imperial forces. Masterson was deployed alongside an airborne cavalry company being shipped in to the Army staging grounds, and it was there that he would meet the commanding officer of the local forces, Colonel Kirkpatrick. After receiving his intelligence on the river, Masterson would meet his new crew and depart.

As it were, there was civilization in these parts, despite what Imperial propaganda dictated. A very brutal, survivalist civilization headed by warlords and petty autocrats, but with some level of unity and security. None represented that better than the PRM, the Empire's last major foe in the Basin. The PRM was led by some arms-dealer-turned-budget-dictator whose extremely exotic and foreign name Masterson didn't bother to remember. The only thing that mattered was that he was dead and had been for some months. Assassinated via drone strike in his own palace. The remnants here, it seemed, were only resisting because they didn't know any better...
Regardless, the Empire was on the cusp of wiping all of it away with extreme prejudice in the hopes of providing something better. Masterson remembered a time when Emperor Vasquez regularly visited Africa to give rousing speeches to arriving troops at the beginning of the campaign almost a decade earlier, confirming the Empire's righteousness in this affair and wiping out all traces of uncertainty. "The humble man of South and Central Africa," he would always say, "is as much guaranteed the right to happiness, health, security, and the right to freedom as the man of the Empire. This is the truth of our Revolution. It will be your responsibility to bring him into the domain, as it will be my responsibility to make them properly welcome". With Vasquez's vocal support, public support remained consistently high, despite the casualty rates. However, Vasquez (who was nearing a hundred years old at this point) was soon confined to New Rome due to failing health. He still regularly appeared in radio broadcasts, saying much the same. However, with the end so close, many forgot about all that and simply wanted it to be over with.
None would know that many of Vasquez's talking points, regardless of where he gave them, were taken straight from some of Kurtz's writings...

"Approaching Kinshasa airspace!" The Tiltwing's pilot echoed through her PA. "Hot and heavy down there, better hang onto somethin'!"
Aside from the two pilots and a dozing crew chief, Masterson was the only one aboard this particular helicopter, but the skies around the craft hosted dozens more like it, each containing a squad of grunts eager for action. Masterson figured how hopeless it might have looked to some hapless militiaman on the ground. The sun nearly blotted out by hordes of helicopters, each containing a large enough complement of Imperial troops to ruin his day. It was a shame he couldn't help out a bit, but he had his mission.
He replaced the dossier back into his duster pocket, and pulled out the target designator. The same one that would call in the Section Two should he need it. He couldn't help but to grasp it tightly, determination in his eyes. He wielded serious power in his hands. The switch was attuned to his thumbprint, and as an additional security measure, featured a hard plastic covering. There was no chance of accidental misfire. If he was going to use it, it was going to be certain. Even though using it would spell his doom, it was comforting to know just how important it all was...

"Shit! LZ is hot, LZ is hot! Bastards breached the outer walls!"
The crew chief had long since woken up from his nap and had taken his position manning the minigun and remotely swinging the right door open, revealing the chaos below the descending Tiltwing. It was hard to see through all the smoke, but Masterson could make out the hordes of camouflage-clad PRM fighters charging over a section of destroyed wall to the west. Imperial forces were responding to the invading force with ample amounts of shelling and small-arms fire. The mob of helicopters that surrounded them previously began landing at various points around the area, though Masterson saw one unlucky bird take a stinger directly to the cockpit, and watched as it sputtered crashed off somewhere in the distance.
"This LZ is not secure! We cannot land! Get ready to jump! My mark!" The crew chief barked, immediately following up with a ferocious volley of microgun fire directed at the distant foe...
Masterson grabbed his scoped rifle and his hat from the seat next to him, nonchalantly sliding the latter before checking the magazine of the former. It seemed he was going to see a little bit of early action after all...
"MARK!"

by **New Frenco Empire** » Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:05 am

-The River Kongo: Chapter II-
(MCN - UPS - CIN - ESL - MAT - NFE - PRO - WAR - TPP)

Major Kendrick Masterson
Nsele FOB, Outskirts of Kinshasa, Frenco-African Border Region
September 10th, 2096

Masterson hit the ground, negating the impact with a skilled roll, quickly springing back up to his feet and rushing forward into the thick of the fighting. The Colonel would be in no position to meet with him in the thick of a fight, so the Ranger figured that he would lend his special skillset to the garrison in the meantime.
He quickly dashed to the side of the nearest building, where a group of about five olive-garbed soldiers were sheltering from the advancing enemy not a hundred yards away.
"Who's in charge here?" He asked.
"I am!" A short, slightly heavy-set olive-skinned young woman wearing Lieutenant's bars responded, blinking once she looked over at him.
"Wait...you're that Ranger the CO is expecting." She continued, wide-eyed once she finally laid eyes upon him. His duster-coat and slouch hat, the tell-tale dress of one of the "legendary" Rangers, announced what he was well-enough. "Lieutenant Grace, A Company. I was s'posed to escort you to Colonel Kirkpatrick once you landed, but I'm sure you can forgive my tardiness..."
"Where is the Colonel?" Masterson asked.
"Behind the inner walls!" She said. "But we ain't gettin' in there til' this lets up!"
"Yeah, that's what I thought..." Masterson said. Nsele FOB was a fairly makeshift firebase, built as a series of dirt trenches and walls surrounding a mix of old abandoned housing and newer prefabricated structures. And it was across the dirt trenches and walls to the west that the enemy was approaching. The Ranger noticed (through a pair of binoculars) the Frenks had abandoned the outer trenches, and the PRM was closing in with bundles of wooden planks. He had an idea...

"Cover me." Masterson requested of Grace. "But don't worry if you lose sight of me..."
"Huh?" Before Grace could ask for more details, Masterson darted across the dirt path, covering behind another concrete structure. Several militia forward troops had already broken through the line, and he took quick aim, dispatching any that he saw with a nonchalant squeeze of the trigger. He counted four incapacitated before he decided to move closer to the trench.
After taking a few repeated potshots with his shoot-and-scoot method, he arrived near the trench entrance. Before jumping in, he pulled his refraction generator off of his belt and activated it, cloaking himself in a near-invisible field.
As he moved through the trench, the militiamen were beginning their main assault, laying the wooden planks across the tops of the trenches allowing easy clearance. They seemed uninterested in checking the trenches for any Imperials that might have still been lingering, not that they would have seen him anyway...

Masterson ran through the trenches, fast enough to get under the falling planks at just the right time, but slow enough to not disturb his stealth field. Once he found himself under a plank, he dropped a fragmentation grenade at his feet, and repeated it several times until the first detonated, kicking fire and shrapnel upwards onto the board and any militiaman unlucky to be crossing it at the time.
Eventually, it became clear to the militia that the planks weren't safe, and they backed off of them, fearing they would be the next to perish in the fiery hellstorm...
Seeing that his work was done, Masterson quickly evacuated the trench and gunned it back towards Grace's position before his generator ran out of energy. He noted that his little trick caused the attack to lose momentum, at least, and given the Imperial forces enough time to regroup - he noted a few dozen olives pop out from various places and fire on the confused militia. At least two of them wore powered-armor and toted heavy machine guns.
As his invisibility cloak lost power, he slowly rematerialized in front of Grace and her men.
"Ranger...I don't know what the hell you did, but that was...that was incredible..." She shook her head, dumbstruck. "I guess you guys really are as badass as they say..."

"Icarus One-One inbound on grid kilo alpha niner." A comms officer stated over the global battlenet. "Starlight inbound, repeat, Starlight inbound."
"They're calling in Starlight!" Grace said to her group, before yelling out to the wider mass of troops. "Starlight!"
Soon enough, the word "Starlight" was being repeatedly yelled among the soldiers, seemingly both in excitement and as a warning...
"This is Bigbird. Package en-route." The SB-104 pilot replied.
"Hang on to your helmets!" The comms officer ordered.
The soldiers around Masterson complied with the order, falling to their knees and grabbing their helmets, hanging on for dear life. Masterson, however, merely slung his rifle on his back and took hold of his hat, tilting it downwards slightly and securing it firmly...
A slight whirring sound. Then silence.
But after second of the silence, a rumble shook the ground as the horizon lit up in a flurry of red and orange.
The shockwave made the Ranger's duster flutter in the wind, and his hat likely would have flied away had he not still been holding it. After a few seconds of withstanding the fierce wind, it ceased, and Masterson released his hat, tipping it back up to the proper position on his head. Once the coast was clear, the soldiers rose, surveying the destruction in front of them.
It was clear that the ground before them were locations of previous Starlight strikes, with nothing alive in a nearly half-mile radius out and the ground pockmarked and scarred, but it was equally as clear that each new strike changed the geography considerably. This was no exception, and
"Can't beat Starlight. Mumba never know what's comin'..." One of them stated, impressed.
"Man, why don't we just call Starlight on the whole damn city and be done with it!?" One of them inquired.
"Because we're trying to liberate the city, Private. Not destroy it." Grace interjected. "If we're all done here, we can go track down the Colonel if you want..."
"That would be preferable, Lieutenant..." Masterson nodded.

Before departing with a curt nod, Grace pointed the Colonel out to him after a short walk into the inner base, standing with two soldiers over an injured PRM prisoner. a few yards away near a series of fences.
Masterson studied him as he approached; Kirkpatrick was a tall, well-sculpted man of about forty-five. Right now at least, he was lacking a shirt, wearing only his olive drab combat pants, boots, and peaked officer cap. The well-tanned, glistening skin shown with this lack of modesty reflected his active nature out here.
Masterson knew a bit about Kirkpatrick, who had become somewhat of a local legend around the place. He had a strange presence about him. He was well-loved by his men. He had a code of honor. Enthusiastic about the thrill of battle. Believed in the Imperial mission out here, but wasn't your average ideological drone. You could tell by the way he strutted about the place among the men that he started off as some lowly field Lieutenant, only promoted to his position (perhaps against his wishes) because he was simply a bit too successful. If he died out here fighting, well...he probably wouldn't hate that prospect. He knew there were certainly worse ways to go out.

"What about this one? Why ain't you marched him to the camp yet?" Colonel Kirkpatrick inquired in a flowery southern accent, studying over the prisoner at their feet.
"He says he hasn't eaten in over a week. He says they 'led him to die...so there'd be fewer mouths to feed'. He's asking for food..." The kneeling soldier said, translating for the French-speaking Congolese man.
"Hell, look at his stomach, Colonel. Goddamn skeleton. Whatever energy he had left was lost in the fighting..." The second soldier added.
"Well?" The Colonel replied, dumbstruck. "What are ya gonna do about it?"
"This one almost killed three of my guys with a goddamn machete! He can eat shit." The standing soldier blew. "Savages."
"What? I should kick your fuckin' ass!" The Colonel furiously replied, shoving the soldier away the wounded Bantu. "Get the hell out of my sight! Git! Any man brave enough to fight off three of the Empire's finest with nothin' more than a sharp stick while his fuckin' stomach is eatin' itself can have a fuckin' chocolate bar!"
As the offending soldier scurried off, Kirkpatrick fished a ration bar out of one of the pouches on his belt and handed it to the kneeling soldier, nodding at him.
"When he's done, get him on his feet, throw him in the camp, and tell 'em I said double-portions 'til his bones disappear! And that goes for anyone who comes in there malnourished! We ain't lettin' anyone starve, savage or not!"
"Yes sir." The soldier replied as he unwrapped the bar and handed it off to the Bantu.

The Colonel then took notice of Masterson watching the scene and smiled, calmly swaggering over to him as though they were two old friends, recently reunited after a long absence.
"Major Masterson, right!?" Kirkpatrick asked loudly, over the sound of a helicopter which had just started landing about thirty feet away. "The Ranger they told me about!?"
"Yes sir!" The Ranger responded. "If you wanna take me to your office so we can discuss-"
"I ain't got no office son! My 'office' is what you see! Wide open space! The sights, sounds, and smells of the Congo! How I work best!" Kirkpatrick laughed, clapping his hands together and planted his right hand on Masterson's shoulder, leading him away from the commotion. "But we can go somewhere a bit quieter to talk things over! Come on!"

Kirkpatrick led Masterson to a remote clearing, near the east wall of the compound.
"Pop a squat, Ranger-boy!" The Colonel said. "I ain't got much to tell ya, honestly. Benson sent word to me this mornin' to give ya intel, without accountin' that I ain't got much myself. Mmmm. Ya smell that?"
"What?" Masterson asked, wondering the reason for his sudden change in-topic.
"Heh. Of course ya don't smell it. That's the smell of plasma back-burn! Enough bullets get shot, enough bombs drop, and the air just becomes thick with the stuff. Most troops don't notice it they've become so damn used to it. But goddamn if I haven't started noticin' it ever since I came to Africa four years back! And I love the smell of plasma in the morning!" Kirkpatrick laughed. "Gotta appreciate the little things, Major! Can't be all work! But here. If you're in such a big damn hurry..."

The Colonel produced a folded map from one of his pockets and handed it over to Masterson, who promptly unfolded it and studied it.
It was as crude a map as any, obviously done by some low-ranking LRRP or another. It covered a good chunk of West Congo, from Kinshasa-Brazzaville to Lisala in the far-north. It seemed to incorporate all of the region's rivers and runoffs as "The River Kongo", marking potential travel points. Whoever made it evidently had fun with it, and took plenty of artistic license, evidently trying to make it seem as though it were something from the age of colonialism. Masterson was particularly amused by the section marked "MANEATERS" not far from their current position, with a number of crudely drawn savage spearchuckers lurking in equally-as-crude brush. It certainly wasn't for lack of detail.
"Hehe, I know its a bit of an...eccentric map, but the Lurps practically live in those forests nowadays. They gotta have fun somehow..." Kirkpatrick remarked.
"Uh-huh. Anything else you can tell me, Colonel?" Masterson asked. He knew, somehow, that there wouldn't be much else...
"From what I hear, there's some government fat-cat up there doin' his own thing." The Colonel recalled. "And there's plenty of indies down the river, ones even more barbaric than the PRM. I think the map illustrates it fairly well. I'm talkin' cannibals and spearchuckers. Nasty fuckers, but probably easy to scare off."
"I take it there's significant militia presence down the river?" Masterson asked.
"Actually, it's the opposite. The prisoners we've captured have all said that somethin', or hell...someone deep in the jungles have been slaughtering 'em like crazy if they try to go too deep in there. So they don't go down the river too often anymore. Well, 'cept for the odd deserter or two..."
"Down the river? But we control the east half..." The Ranger noted. The Imperial Army was supposed to have the river completely locked down, at least for a few miles east of Kinshasa-Brazzaville. Masterson would expect travel over highways or railways deeper in, not the river. "They'd have to pass right by Nsele to get in the jungle. Have your troops not been intercepting them?"
"I'll be honest with ya...it's been a long campaign, and we've lost a lot of good boys and girls tryin' to take this godforsaken city..." Kirkpatrick shook his head. "The only thing left of the 'People's Republic' are greedy officers fightin' amongst themselves to be top-dog, and the only reason any of the militia are still followin' 'em is 'cause they're too scared, too fanatical, too stupid, or too drugged up to care. There ain't no reason to try and get past the our base unless they're that desperate to get out. Most of 'em just surrender. Hell, I don't blame 'em; POW camp's definitely better than what they have in the city center anyway. But still...some of 'em try to sneak past the base, usually at night, and usually in dingy little rust buckets. Must be scared we'll treat 'em like they treat us! But hell...its not like they're gonna continue the war effort. I tell the sentries to let 'em pass if they don't seem to be too big a threat. Ain't no reason to lose even more good people tryin' to nab a few would-be deserters. Hell, not like the jungle's gonna show 'em any mercy..."
Kirkpatrick chuckled darkly.

Despite Masterson's confusion at Kirkpatrick allowing deserters through, it made sense on why it was happening. When Frenkish troops first entered the area a few months ago, the VIPs of the PR were being moved to the Brazzaville half of the river, which was safer than the Kinshasa that was soon to be surrounded by Imperial forces. The railbridge connecting the two cities was blown with artillery, and power-armored frogmen braved the rapids to mine the river crossing. Most of the militia was trapped in Kinshasa with no way out, beginning the brutal siege. AFRICOM expected an immediate surrender, but even with no clear leadership and dwindling supplies, the PRM proved themselves a fierce foe, and fought off all attempted incursions into the center (even occasionally launching hopeless counterattacks, like the one just witnessed). However, time was wearing down the defenders, and something told Masterson this little counterattack would be the last of its kind. The militiamen who were starting to come to their senses were fleeing, either straight into the guns of Frenks or down the river. He wouldn't be surprised to return from his mission and see the city in Frenkish hands...

"So is that it then?" Masterson inquired. "Scarce militia resistance, scarce Imperial presence, scarce...everything up the river?"
"Pretty much." Kirkpatrick shrugged. "I have no idea why they wanna send a Ranger so high up in that mess. Plenty'a Lurps have scouted out what needs scoutin' out, but it ain't my place to question it..."
"What about the boat?" Masterson replied, ignoring Kirkpatrick's subtle inquiries. If AFRICOM and the IIA didn't feel privy to inform Kirkpatrick of the situation, Masterson didn't either.
"Oh yeah, I got a boat ready for ya alright! River Five-Fifteen. Its a respectable raider, alright, and the she's probably been farther up the river than most of the other boats. Not as far as you wanna take her, granted, but the crew'll know what to do!" Kirkpatrick nodded. "She should be waiting at the dock, half-a-klick north."
"You've been a great help, Colonel." Masterson grinned, shaking the officer's hand as he turned and left.
"Sure you don't wanna stay the night at least? Gonna be a long trip, and I'm havin' 'em bring out the whiskey and sirloins!" Kirkpatrick proudly stated. "No one would blame ya for takin' a little R&R beforehand!"
"No sir. This is a grave matter of national security. AFRICOM thanks you for your understanding..." Masterson replied, not looking back.
"Yeah, I'm sure they do..." Kirkpatrick blew, perhaps cynically.

Masterson made his way through the northern half of the base, towards the small dock that housed the Army's local raider fleet. The fighting that took place here seemed pretty heavy, judging by all the bodies still strewn about, but seemed to have ended long before the Starlight drove the bulk of the enemy force back.
As he walked, he noted one corpse in-particular - a child soldier of about thirteen years, laying dead in a pool of his own blood, still clutching an old Kalashnikov. The PRM were somewhat civilized (at least when compared to the other resistance groups in the region), but when the war started taking more young men than they could give, they had to think outside the box to get additional manpower...
He also noticed an Imperial soldier looming over the body, silent (and perhaps horrified) at the sight. Masterson noted a patch on her arm. River 5-15. My boat.
"Fucked up, I know..." Masterson said, spooking the girl and causing her to visibly jump. "But no matter how old they are, an armed combatant is an armed combatant..."
She turned to the man addressing her, eyes suddenly widening as she saw his outfit.
"You...you're the Ranger, right?" The girl timidly asked with a high-pitched Northwestern accent, obviously awestruck at being directly addressed by a Ranger. "The one that's leading our boat down the river?"
Masterson took a second to look over the young soldier. Small in stature, with a clean face and skin, unlike many of the more hardened troops he saw around camp. Her uniform (which read "KEYES") seemed to be a tad bit too big for her, and her helmet wasn't properly aligned on her head, revealing a few light-blonde locks of hair flowing from underneath. Regardless, the uniform was exceptionally clean and stain-free, and lacked any sort of personal knick-knacks or customizations. She probably wasn't in the Congo very long.
And on top of all of that, there was no way she was out of her teens.
She looked like a child trying to play soldier. It would have been funny if not for the reality of things. It was probably well-and good she focused so much on the dead kid - they couldn't have been more than five years apart.
"Sorry, kid; he couldn't make it." Masterson lied in such a manner where it was obvious he was doing so. "But I will be commanding the expedition. Why don't you go to the boat and ready up? It's probably gonna be a long trip. I'm sure the guys here will clean up the mess..."
"Uh, yes sir!" She replied with a salute. Another betrayal of her greenness, Masterson thought. Only a kid fresh out of the academy would bother with all the grand formalities out here...

"I see you're starting to meet the crew..." He heard another woman's voice, this one deeper and much more commanding. The Ranger turned to see a black woman grinning at him. This one was more-or-less what he was expecting. Her uniform, though clean and dignified, was well-worn, and her dusky skin was scarred in some places, caked with paint in others. Her beret gave away her status as a higher-ranked NCO, hence, likely the captain of the boat.
"Sergeant First-Class Jameson, I take it?" Masterson asked.
"Ah. Perceptive." She chuckled slightly. "But on my boat, we all go by nicknames. A bit cliche, but it suits us fine. They call me 'Cap'. Captain of the boat, see? They wanted to do 'Sarge' at first, but...that's a bit too much. Come with me. I'll introduce you to the others..."
Masterson followed her over to the docks, where, sure enough, the boat was waiting - sure enough, it was a standard Raider-class FAC, with standard river loadout. Raiders became ubiquitous to the area, taking over as the most common deployment method farther down the river where the jungle was too thick to move vehicles or land helicopters in. Masterson had never ridden one one, though he figured now would be his time to get acquainted.

Cap looked over to the two young men relaxing by the boat, chatting to themselves. "Corporal Mendez, over to the left. Grease monkey and driver when I don't feel like steering. We call him 'Lancer'..." The young, bronze-skinned NCO acknowledged Masterson with a smile and a respectful nod. "Pee-Eff-Cee Lewandowski," She continued. "He answers to 'Cookie'. Hell of a gunner." The second, a tall dark-headed youth with a face covered with camouflage paint, gave a grin and motioned his fingers up in a friendly greeting. Young crew, Masterson noted. Of the two men, neither of them could have been over 25. Even Cap had a way to go until her thirties.
"And what about the blonde kid? Keyes?" Masterson asked, glancing over at the young trooper, who had since taken position in the boat, still awkwardly distraught over the sights and smells.
"Her? Private Keyes. Fucking New Girl. She's got navigational training, so they sent her over for this mission special. She'll probably end up staying with us after its all over with, though. No one gets transfers out. She's sharp, and can read the guider well enough, but as you can see...she's still very fresh. Maybe this mission will harden her up a bit. The boys have been calling her 'Squeaky'. Whether it's because her voice 'squeaks' sometimes or because she's still 'squeaky-clean' and fresh from the Empire, I can't say. She doesn't seem to be offended by the name, and she answers to it, so I guess that's what you can call her."
Cap then studied Masterson over once-more. "And what should we call you, Major Masterson?"
"Exactly that - Major Masterson. Or just Major." The Ranger coldly replied. "With all due respect, I'm not on your boat to make friends, Sergeant. In fact, let's lay some rules down. Starting from now on, I put on my CO face; you and your people are to listen to me no matter what I say or do, alright? I'm an officer on a covert mission directly from AFRICOM. Everything is strictly need-to-know. Do. Not. Ask. Questions. Am I making myself clear?"
"..." Cap's grin suddenly formed into a frown. "...yes sir."
"And one more thing? No one dies, alright? Especially not Private Keyes, or...'Squeaky'. I don't want any dead kids on my hands."
"That ain't something you gotta worry about...sir." Cap coldly responded. Masterson could tell she was going to be somewhat problematic. Truthfully, he didn't blame her - the officers either became really close to their men out here, or they were washed-out and transferred. However, this wasn't a mission for someone like Kirkpatrick. This was for their own good as well as his own.
"Good. Now start up the boat. It's time to go. I was expecting to be some ways down the river by now..."

With a simple hand-motion from Cap, the crew took their positions - Cap at the wheel, Squeaky next to her on the holopanel, Cookie on the heavy gun, and Lancer on the rear turret (his tools handy). Masterson settled for one of the passenger seats that still remained on the lower deck - the boat crews worked long hours, hence, they were allowed to sacrifice some passenger space for cots. He had no idea how long they would be on the river, but with any luck, it wouldn't be too long.
The sooner he could find Kurtz, the better. Kill Kurtz. Whatever it takes...

by **Blakullar** » Sun Feb 11, 2018 2:14 pm

~ Crimson Seraph: The Absolution ~
(ESL – MAT – MCN – MEK – TPP)

~ Blessed are the vengeful; for their predators will become their prey. ~

Nikolay stood eyeing a rain-filled pothole on the road, the water shimmering a bright teal in the moonlight. Despite a small storm earlier in the evening, the sky was as clearly visible as the cerulean day, the Bashkir forests rising into the air like a black skyline against the deep blue haze of the star-pecked empyrean.

Guarding the mansion of Anatoly Rakovsky was as baffling as it was lucrative. Nikolay could not entirely understand how a vozhd of his boss' prominence managed to get away with placing such an ostentatious structure as this walled, gatehoused edifice without attracting the attention of the authorities, right outside of Ufa no less. Further bemusing was how on Earth he could get away with hosting an entire meeting of vozhdi at this same place, tonight. All he could ascertain was that both most likely had something to do with Rakovsky's father.

Deciding not to dwell on it much further, Nikolay flicked out his cigarette, brushed down his white suit and returned to the gatehouse.

"Deal me back in!" he called out.

"Hey, wait 'til the next round, blin! I'm on a roll here!"

The other two guards on duty at the gatehouse were slaking their boredom with a poker game beneath a dingy yellow lightbulb. Nikolay had been sat at the other chair on the plastic fold-out table prior to his smoke-break and was eager to get back to it. Guard duty was dull, and often profusely so. Then again, whenever anything exciting transpired, it was usually lethal.

"Heh! Read 'em and weep, Volodya!"

Onto the table went a full house.

"Nah-ah," Volodya chuckled, and laid down his hand for all to see.

Four of a kind.

"PIZDETS...!" his opponent cursed and threw his cards onto the table. "That was my last note!!!"

Nikolay looked back outside as he waited for his turn to jump back in. What he saw raised his eyebrows.

Approaching the gatehouse on foot was a woman, face shrouded with a hood as red as blood, a large cloak draped across her body just as scarlet. Her face, just about visible in the moonlight, was a pallid silver, her slanted burgundy Asiatic eyes shadowed with gunmetal, and her lips black as the starless night. Strands of raven-black peered from under the hood's zenith.

"Ay, we got company!" Nikolay called out, prompting his comrades to rise to their feet.

"Hey Kolya, didn't you say you had a thing for slant-eyes?" Volodya remarked. "This could be your chance to score a fuck!"

He visibly winced at the thought. "You're joking, right? She looks like a fucking vampire, this being without the freaky getup! I wouldn't be surprised if she turns to dust the morning after!"

"Your loss," his comrade shrugged, before proceeding with the other guards to greet this ghostlike newcomer as her approach slowed to a militarised halt.

"What do you want?"

"Hey debil, watch your tone!" Volodya hissed at the third man. "If you fuck this up for me, I'll shove my fist so far up your ass you'll choke on my knuckle..."

"I am here for Anatoly Rakovsky," the woman announced herself, her voice a crisp, local alto.

"Who's asking?"

"Does he remember Vasiliy Kuznetsov?" the woman asked another question.

"Who?" Kolya furrowed his eyebrows with bemusement.

"Look, Ochi Cherniye," Volodya chuckled. "I don't know who the fuck you think you are with that edgy red cloak, but unless you've got a pass, you're gonna have to get moving. Of course, if you wanna see the big guy, there's another price you can pay, if you catch my-
AEGHCK!!!"

His sentence was choked with a terse grasp around his throat from the woman's right hand. Lifting him aloft without any effort, she had only to flick her wrist; a muffled krak, and Volodya fell limp to be tossed aside.

"BLYAT! She's with the fucking musora! We gotta get-"

KHWOKK!

The final guard trembled at the sight of the woman's bloodstained hand, clutching Kolya's heart through his chest. At the behest of a clench, the organ detonated into haematic fog, and the woman of death withdrew her hand back into her cloak. Her augmented eyes then turned to face him, gunsights flaring crimson red as she zeroed in on her mark. One step forward. Left hand around his throat. Right on left shoulder. Pull.

The last guard's strangled screams transitioned to choking splutters as his head detached with a crackled schlop, drawing with it a length of blood-caked spinal cord as the body dropped to the ground. As her attention turned past the gates to what lay inside of the compound, the head joined the body on the tarmac.

~ Blessed are the merciless; for they demand no mercy in return. ~

Gigabytes of data buzzed before the eyes of one Yelena Trotskaya as she considered the prior beatitude. The vermilion triangles in her pupils flexed and turned in contratandem like clockwork, directed toward the mansion ahead of her. The edifice's architecture was conducted in the techno-classical Chistaya style, an art tailored for the glories of the New World – a showcase to the survival of mankind. An abandonment of the decadence and evil that once brought Earth to the ground, now home to a kingpin of vice and deadly sin, the luxurious cars of his equally loathsome associates parked around the entrance.

As far as Yelena was concerned, it was blasphemy of the highest order.

Her hands emerged from her cloak once more, grasping the bars of the gates. She yanked the wrought iron apart like a curtain, a shrill creak reverberating through the night, to create her own entrance.

Yelena unfastened the scarlet shroud, allowing it to crumple on the ground in a heap. A pair of black metal boots, soles studded with an array of small spikes, covered her feet. Similarly black, skintight armour plates hugged her abdomen, upper arms, thighs and kneecaps, with grey plates covering her breasts, shins and neck. Two grey pauldrons decorated her shoulders next to her hood, the red garment fastened to the front of the shoulders with two gold-coloured brooches. Across her back lay a sheathed longsword, bearing a black skull pommel with angry ruby eyes.

Two huge, blocky firearms, each the size of a sawed-off shotgun, lay strapped to her thighs. On her right was a two-barrel energy weapon, one barrel belonging to an underslung projectile launcher. On her left was a vastly-oversized, pared-down machine pistol, an enormous sickle magazine curving down from the front. Around her wrists were wrapped another two implements of destruction – one fitted with a narrow muzzle, another with a short-blade.

The unbidden blood-wraith to whom this veritable arsenal belonged opened her mouth for but a second; an issue of flanged, electronic chirrups and hisses flowed forth. All but inaudible to the baseline ear, yet whirring mechanisms at her side rallied forth to answer the call. Inside her energy weapon, a deep thrumming fire erupted to life, luminous as a red star. The giant rifle at her left racked and clicked as the vast shells in its girthy magazine were locked and loaded. More information about her personal armoury sparked across Yelena's optics, all of them ready and waiting for deployment.

Weapon readiness test complete.

~ Blessed are the strong; for the weak shall be their chattels. ~

As her rightmost fingers coiled around the grip of her 6P30 Britva plasmacaster Fobos, Yelena fused her sight to the leftmost balcony on the abode's western wing, beyond the barred windows. Two guards in white suits and blue ties left the building, oblivious to her presence as one smoked. In her eyes she recognised triangular optic sensors on the non-smoker, a sight that twisted her mouth in disgust. A Reasoning Machine. A new man, for the new world, kowtowing to the depredations of the old.

A schematic of the house flashed onto Yelena's HUD. All doors led to the hallway – the house had no side exits, only a single door into the main courtyard and another into the walled main garden. There was one route for captured slaves to escape. One route for the decadent scum gathered in the eastern wing of the mansion to escape.

The heretical Reasoning Machine would be among the first to be purged.

A metallic thunk from the gate snapped the heads of the two guards on the balcony in its direction. The whistle of an incoming grenade would be the last sound that ever met their ears.

The night sky was suddenly illuminated by an almighty fulmination of electric red energy from within the house, an explosive, rumbling bass mightier than the loudest thunderclap causing the very air to shudder. The blast-wave rolled past Yelena like a tsunami, blowing her hood down and revealing a raven-black shoulder-length bob as the guardhouse windows shattered and pecked the wall behind the glass with shards. The colossal plasmatic eruption left a wake of lightning-lashed fire and a meteoric shower of molten brick-stone from the heavens above, peppering the courtyard around her like sparks from the forge. All else that had once been the entire western wing of Anatoly Rakovsky's mansion had been completely vaporised.

Standing unscathed as her hair shimmered in the moonlight, Yelena used her unoccupied left hand to return her hood to its prior glory. The new focus of Fobos' deadly attention was another trio of suited guards rounding the corner of the garage, their faces betraying panic at the prior fiery spectacle. One was armed with a rifle, an Ivankov carbine if the identification on her HUD was any measure – this one being the first to witness her.

Not the crack of a bullet, but the sharp electric thump of the plasmacaster as it coughed forth a crimson orb of seething gas at each of the three thugs ahead of her. Each impact against the fabric of their suits showered her marks with burning plasma, detonating with sufficient force as to blast apart whatever body part they struck. Microcosms of the magnificent fulmination of energy from the fusion grenade launched from Fobos' underbarrel launcher – three were sufficient to destroy the guard detail about to assail her.

As her left hand drifted toward the grip of her other weapon, a GSh-23/12 gyrojet rocket rifle, her eyes darted from the heaps of melted flesh ahead of her to spy another group of guards running out of the building, submachine guns at the ready. Four of them this time, evidently having been watching over the internal corridor for escapees. Or running for their pathetic lives at the first sign of trouble, before bumping headlong into the crimson seraph waiting to pass her judgement.

With an almighty leap into the air, Yelena sprang into action once again. The rocket rifle at her side barked thrice, unleashing a trio of shrieking micromissiles whistling toward their marks. A tonitruant trifecta cleared the landing site for her, eliminating the first three guards; the final was dispatched as Yelena's boot clutched his head like an eagle's talons. Eighty-two kilogrammes of armour and cybernetic fury brought him crashing to the ground, his skull detonating in a shower of bone fragments and viscera as he was crushed beneath her heel. The seraph spared not a glance at the gore-spattered entrance to the mansion, but instead downward to herself. Her onboard systems had detected two gunshots before the guards were dealt with, and sure enough, there were two bright scuff marks on her torso – one on her abdomen, the other on her right breast. The armour, however, had played its role.

~ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; for they will be filled. ~

Now into the mansion. One of the front doors buckled and crashed to the floor, a magenta boot-print on its platinum-coloured frame. Entered the blood-wraith, striding across the monochrome chequered floor as she evaluated her surroundings. At the base of the staircase's railings stood two marble statues of past vozhdi who had been prominent actors in Rakovsky's life. Paintings of past human glories stood side by side with portraits of monsters who epitomised its shames. The entire foyer was a magnificent spit in the face to Chistaya art. Yelena recalled, as she was once led through this room, that Rakovsky taunted her about the hypocrisy of the new world and how pathetic it was, before being dragged off to the dungeons beneath.

But Yelena was here not to reminisce nor gawk at art. She was here to destroy it, along with her former owners. The same men whose voices she could hear beyond the door. The same voices who grunted and shouted accusations of whoredom at her, then left her to die in the woods when they were done with her.

A door on her right side turned open, and pouring from within were more men in suits. Men whose faces, once bearing confidence in their escape, now feared retribution as they came face-to-face with the scowling seraph who recognised them all. Accomplices of Rakovsky's who wore the dress of New Russians yet lied and sinned just like the old. A curt glance determined that Rakovsky was not among this multicoloured cluster of criminals.

Yet.

The brace on Yelena's right gauntlet arose, revealing the muzzled wrist-weapon as the vozhdi before her eyes balked, their faces now unveiling unadulterated terror. With a shrill whine, the muzzle welled up with a flare of amber; a fraction of a second segregated the shriek and a fulminant whiplash of flame, thrown forth with a daemonic roar. Memories of sexual violence flashed before her eyes as screams of agony and horror boiled into gurgles of death, the fragrance of roasted meat and sweet musk perfuming the air.

~ Blessed are those who mourn; for they will be comforted. ~

Once her plasmathrower powered down, Yelena observed the charred, blackened, twitching remnants of her former tormentors. Their faces were twisted into horror at being licked all over by tongues of flame as the walls and floor around them began to burn with them, just as hers once had before theirs. She drew a long breath, allowing the redolence of death to satisfy her nostrils before resuming her mortal work. There was still one final matter to attend to, and Yelena knew for certain where the Monster was hiding.

The dungeons appeared on no schematic, but her memory served her well as she paced along the walls, having returned her rocket rifle to its prior place on her thigh. Her freed fingers drummed on the wallpaper in search of a hollow, a secret entrance – a drum in sufficient silence for her to hear without alerting anyone on the other side.

She found her entrance.

A shower of plaster and mortar greeted a group of four additional guards as a woman, hood and eyes blazing red as blood, burst through the wall. One guard choked as a blade burst from her left gauntlet-mount and impaled him through the chest, his white suit turning scarlet as he died. The thump of her plasmacaster, three in succession, terminated the rest.

Now Yelena, with nought but Fobos and her gauntlet-blade ready to use, was alone. The dungeons were in a musty old basement, with storage closets to her left and right as she began to traverse the corridor. She remembered this place all too well – there were eight rooms, each one being where a slave would live for the duration of their captivity. A torture rack existed in each one, to which the slave would be lashed and ravished by whoever had the money. No fantasies were off-limits in this marketplace – for the right price, anyone's wildest imaginations would be seen to.

Next came the slave auction room, a theatre where a camera stood facing the centre stage. Benches where prospective buyers would gather to examine the wares on sale. And beyond that, the office where the proprietor would make phone-calls with associates and count his cold, hard cash.

"Anatoly Semyonovich Rakovsky!" the crimson seraph subpoenaed her enemy with a shout. "Come forth and be judged for your cause!"

Silence, save for the dripping of a faulty water pipe. No life signs detected. Perhaps the beast had escaped Yelena's retribution...

Three footsteps from behind her broke into a run. Then, a wooden blunt force against the right side of her head, sufficient to batter any normal woman into unconsciousness in an instant.

A pitying guffaw issued from Yelena's mouth, and her left hand reached for a collar behind her. Her head snapped around to meet eyes with a middle-aged man, frozen with shock as a shattered baseball bat clattered to the stone-cold floor. She pulled him around and threw him forward into the room's corner, the man colliding headfirst into the wall and collapsing to the ground. With the crimson seraph that had slaughtered her way through his minions as if they were not even there standing between him and the exit, there was no escape.

It was him alright. The man himself, dressed in a black, gold-trimmed tuxedo suit, with dark, platinum-blonde hair and luminescent blue optic augments, the prior youth in his countenance marred by a trickle of blood from his cheek. The Monster, the Arch-Fiend, the beast who had orchestrated Yelena's week-long horror over a debt, in all of his hateful glory.

Anatoly Rakovsky.

"Took your sweet time to finally come for me, didn't you?!" he snarled at her, beaten and grasping his injured face in pain. "Get it over and fucking done with, you pen-pushing government pizdomudaki-"

Rakovsky found his challenge interrupted by a stark realisation as he stared into his enemy's face.

"I... i... i... it's YOU!!!"

Yelena's eyes brightened, and she finally smiled. "Did you miss me, Tolya?"

"That's not fucking POSSIBLE!" Rakovsky roared at her. "You're supposed to be-"

"Dead, Mister Rakovsky?" Yelena scoffed. "Remarkable, is it not? You told me as I begged for mercy that that was not how the world works. Even when you had ample opportunity to escape, your phenomenal greed led you to try and knock me out, hoping that you could sell me on the slave market – just as you attempted the first time. Now your sinful arrogance will be your undoing."

"You shouldn't have escaped...! We left you in warg-infested woods on PURPOSE!!!"

"And yet here I stand. For you see, Mister Rakovsky, it has been determined by powers much higher than yourself that I live. Those same powers now cry out for blood. Your blood, and those of your associates."

"Just because you had help doesn't mean you'll survive!" Rakovsky continued his defiance. "I am the king of the fucking castle! I am a KING, you dumb, slant-eyed whore! You kill me, the whole fucking underworld will hunt you down! They won't stop until you and your stupid friends are DEAD!!! YOU HEAR ME?! YOU CAN'T TOUCH ME! BECAUSE YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD IF YOU-"

"I forgive you."

The Monster's desperate fury was undone in an instant.

"...Eh?"

"When you butchered my mother like an animal, shot my beloved Vasya's brains across the pavement over a debt and subjected me to a week of unfathomable torture and humiliation for your own amusement, you gave me sight. Before you so rudely irrupted into my life, I was blind. But now I see."

With that, she sheathed her plasmacaster back onto her thigh.

"I see just how much the corruptions and vices of the Old World have infected the New. I see that every single vestige of the Old World must be eradicated if we are to survive. Thanks to you, I have the resolve and the strength to carry out this cleansing. In return, you are about to learn that no sinner is beyond the Ideology's forgiveness."

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!"

The metallic rasp of a sword-blade being withdrawn from its back mount delivered the answer to the utterly confused Rakovsky. It began as a flash of orange lightning at the base of the blade, then the energetic sparkle was subsumed by a brilliant eruption of crimson light, enveloping the sword-blade and illuminating the chamber with bloody warmth. Infernal fire rippled across the now fully enshrouded blade, arcs of lightning cascading toward its tip filling the dungeon with the cacophony of crackling electricity.

"Anatoly Rakovsky, for the glorious sight that you have bestowed upon me, for the future that you have bestowed upon the New World, I have made it my mission to purge you of your many sins."

Finally, he realised his own future.

"No... No! NOOOOO!!!" the Monster whimpered as Yelena and her bolt-marbled fusion blade approached, trying to back into the corner as the scarlet fire expanded around him.

"No! Please, if you have any decency or soul in y-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAARRRRRRGGHHHH!!!!"

~ Blessed are the visionaries; for they will inherit the earth. ~

by **Imperium Sidhicum** » Wed Feb 14, 2018 9:08 am

~ Cooking with Halko: Karrehan Fried Chicken ~
SID/COM

People who know what line of work I am into and survive long enough to have a friendly chat with me usually ask if I have a particular favourite mission I am fond to remember at some point. In all honesty, it's a rather difficult question to answer - most of my missions entail shooting or chopping people and blowing shit up for the glory of the Emperor, and Emperor himself could attest that few are my rivals in this particular brand of His glorious work. But my true favourite might actually surprise the lot of you, since it entailed fairly little in the way of violence and was more about freaking the hell out of people - and cooking food. Believe it or not, I ran my very own cooking show on Fed TV once as part of my cover. Much to my surprise, it actually turned out quite popular too.

Let's turn on the holojector now and review some of my favourite episodes.

---

(The show's jingle with an Imperial anthem theme plays, and the camera pans to the kitchen-stage. Halko appears on-stage dressed as a chef, followed by his three Berserkers in white kitchen-worker aprons two sizes too small.)

Good evening, boys and girls! I am Halko the Master Chef, and I am here to make your every culinary desire to come true! These here fine chaps are my assistants Bjorn, Ragnar and Skjalli, and together we will show you what real cooking is all about!

The audience in the studio applauds enthusiastically, but the camera turning towards them overshoots slightly, revealing a glimpse of armed Sidh guards with their guns trained at the backs of the audience, before quickly correcting the mistake.

You probably wonder what business does a bunch of Sidh war vets have in running their own cooking show. Well, let me tell you somethin' - we might be the toughest bastards alive, accustomed to subsisting on nothing but marrow sucked from two-weeks-old corpse-bones and our own piss, but that don't mean we don't know how to appreciate a good chow all the same. Try spending a few years out there, eating nothing but synthetic nutri-paste that don't even have a name beyond a combination of letters and digits and Soylent protein wafers that are made from rendered-down battlefield casualties and taste accordingly, and you'll get what I'm talkin' about, get why we former grunts can get mighty picky with our chow outside service. Now, dunno about you bunch, but me and the boys have had enough shit food for a lifetime, so we've decided to dedicate our civilian lives to the promotion of good food and proper cookin'.

But enough yammering about us, let's get to business. Our today's meal of choice is - and this is gonna be especially great news for all you Black folk out there - KFC, also known as Karrehan Fried Chicken! Now, I'm fully aware that Black people subsisting on fried chicken is a stereotype as old as this damn universe, and there's gonna be a whole lot of you who are gonna be offended, call me a racist, try to sue me, send me hate mail and death threats and whatnot. But we are Sidhae, which means we eat racism with our morning corn flakes and simply don't give a fuck, so you'll just have to get used to that.

Now, the first thing about cooking chicken, and any meat really, is a proper marinade. A marinade is just like foreplay - just like you can't start fucking without making sure she's all nice and wet, you can't cook a meat properly without introducing proper seasoning to it, and picklin' it in a marinade is one sure way of doin' that. Obviously you can fuck without foreplay, but unless your gal is already real horny and you know what you're doing, you'll most probably just end up sleeping on the couch that night - unless of course you want to force it and sleep in a jail cell afterwards instead. Same thing is true with meat - you can obviously cook it the grandma's way with just salt and pepper, and it will be good enough for eatin', but that meal's ain't gonna be no good for any special occasion - and the fact that you are alive, breathing and able to fuck up a meal with your poor cooking indicates your grandma did know somethin' more about cooking than just salt and pepper, or your gramps would have ditched her a long time ago and you wouldn't have happened. Which is why we Sidhae thank the Emperor for being bred in tanks, our existence not being dependent on our average cooking skills, or we'd have gone extinct by now for sure.

Now, this particular recipe, the KFC, I learned during a stint on Karrech Secundus. My outfit was doing some urban pacification duty, and we were under command of this one Cohortarch, what you humans would be calling a Colonel. One day, we had just taken down a rebel safe-house. T'was a finely disguised place, lookin' just like an ordinary family home, except for a big stash of weapons, maps and bomb-making manuals under the floorboards. I and the boys were going around for a routine patrol, checking out what's what, under orders to be nice to the civvies without a good cause to be otherwise. So, we came over to this place, the man of the house welcoming us with open arms, letting us search the place and even offering us to stay over with his old lass and brood of four for dinner. Being under orders to act nice and also fed up with Soylent and nutri-paste three times a day, we didn't mind at all. So, the lady of the house would serve a mighty big bowl of finest fried chicken I've ever seen this side of the Murasaki Line. Mind our hosts were Black, so I guess there just gotta be something about stereotypes having some truth in them.

Anyway, we were chatting with them good folk, when I accidentally dropped a drumstick dipped in curry sauce to the floor. As I leaned to pick it up, I noticed the sauce seep in between the floorboards. Now, experience has taught me to be rather curious where it comes to investigating things, so, making long story short, that's how we came across that arms stash beneath the floorboards. Since our hosts were now officially confirmed resistence fighters, we didn't play nice no more. The man was initially reluctant to talk, but a few boltgun slugs to his sons' knees and the boys having their way with his old lady and teenage daughters have a way of loosening even the most stubborn tongues. After getting everything out of them and delivering Emperor's justice to the scumbags, we were about to set out back to the barracks, when Bjorn here came up with the idea that it would be a shame to let a bowl of such delicious chicken to waste. So, after picking out all the bits of bone and brain matter from it, we took the bowl back to the barracks after the investigation team arrived to take over. So, me and the boys were sitting there enjoying our snacks, when the Colonel suddenly barged in and demanded to know what that delicious smell was. After I explained him briefly, he demanded a sample.

"I'm taking this bowl for myself!" he declared after having had a taste.

Now, the greedy asshole might have had the lion's share of Karrehan Fried Chicken that day, but we did get the recipe after going back to that house and digging through the family's belongings for a second time, looking for cookbooks explicitly. Which brings us to how KFC is being done.

(Halko removes a bucket of buttermilk with pieces of chicken pickling in it from the refrigerator, and another of marinade)

Now, this here is the marinade I've been babblin' about for the past half-hour. It takes whole four days to pickle the chicken just right, which is too long for this show. Just for the sake of demonstration, the boys will be showing the initial steps of preparation, while we actually cook these here ready ones.

(Bjorn steps up, wielding an intimidating meat cleaver. Skjalli retrieves a pair of whole chicken from the fridge. Ragnar in the meantime sets to getting the stove ready)

So, uh... These here are two ordinary Terran chickens, no fancy greasel, xenos, transgenic or whatnot stuff they eat these days. You're supposed to divvy them up. First you chop away the wings and drumsticks, like this... Imagine this is your boss while you're at it...

(Halko) Hey!

(Bjorn) No offense, boss... Anyway, you chop them up like this... Reminds me how we questioned these guerilla fighters on this one jungle world once...

(Halko) Bjorn, you're not supposed to disgust the living guts out of the fucking viewers! That ain't no conversation for a cooking show!

(Bjorn) Well, excuse me, boss, you were the one who brought up how we came across this recipe...

(Halko) That ain't nearly as disgustin' as what you're babbling about! Besides, I'm the one doing most of the talkin' here, so you just stick to what you do best and keep cutting and chopping!

(Bjorn grumbles something about rape versus dismemberment and continues cutting the chicken)

So, once you've got all the pieces neat and ready, the fillets cut away and the bones discarded, you can get to pickling... RAGNAR, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DRINK THE FUCKING MARINADE, YOU NUMBSKULL!"

(Ragnar, putting down the bucket and retching heartily) Certainly helps with the hangover...

(Halko whacks him on the head with a ladle hard, mentioning some unprintable Sidh expletives. Ragnar grudgingly retreats to preparing the stove along with Skjalli)

Anyway, you gotta have 5 cups of pickle juice for marinade when you put the chicken in for three days. Thanks to this asshole, it's now closer to three cups, but I guess that for demonstration purposes that will just have to do. After those three days, you take them out and place them in another marinade, 4 cups of buttermilk, and chill for no less than 4 hours, preferably another day. Now that you have that done, you can get to the real cooking.

(Ragnar and Skjalli have prepared the stove and the seasoning in the meantime. Halko takes over to continue.)

Now, what we've got here is 4 tablespoons of cayenne pepper, one tablespoon each of coriander, cloves, mace, and I don't mean the pepper spray neither, smoked paprika, sweet paprika, generic poultry seasoning and fennel seeds. There's also 4 tablespoons of salt, but feel free to add more if you fancy. The recipe says it's gotta be "kosher" salt, but I don't see why that would matter unless you're a kike, sodium chloride being the same thing everywhere in the galaxy.

Now, the way it's done is you salt and pepper them chicken bits well, while Bjorn here mixes flour with the other spices. Then you roll the chicken pieces in the spiced flour, shaking off what's too much, and put them in this here frying pan in four inches of canola oil at 160 degrees...

(at this point, Halko is interrupted by a question from the audience asking something about Celsius and Fahrenheit)

How the fuck am I supposed to know how much is that in Fahrenheit!? It's the Emperor-damn 27th century, all civilized people in the galaxy use Celsius, your homeworld of shit-kicking sister-banging yokels excepting, apparently!

(grumbling, Halko returns to cooking)

When you put the chicken in the pan, leave it some room, so you can turn it around as it fries. You don't have to stuff the pan chock-full like a sardine can, it ain't no mass grave you got to shoot full by a schedule, with no time to dig it bigger. Fry the meat in batches if you have to.

Meanwhile, the boys here are slicing bread, lemons and prepping my very own secret recipe hot sauce to serve with the chicken when it's done. Probably's gonna taste just fine with watermelon too, but being Sidhae, we're gonna serve this the proper Sidh way. Once the chicken is done, gotta drain it real neat and put it on paper towels, so that it don't drip grease all over the place, and add some more salt and pepper. Let it cool for five minutes, and then serve and eat away!

(Halko's assistants have arranged the chicken and supplements neatly, Bjorn planting an Imperial banner on a toothpick in the center of the plate as a patriotic touch)

Hope this recipe becomes as useful to you as it once did to us. Have a good dinner and remember you heard it first here, on "Cooking with Halko"! Ave Imperator, and have a good evening!

by **New Frenco Empire** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 11:46 pm

-The River Kongo: Chapter III-
(MCN - UPS - CIN - ESL - MAT - NFE - PRO - WAR - TPP)

Major Kendrick Masterson
Congo River, Sub-Saharan Wildlands
September 10th, 2096

"Three youths fresh from Madagascar, certified to fly a gunship, can drop plasma bombs on villages, certainly burning several innocent civilians alive in return for negligible damage to the local insurgency. But, due to recent complaints...they cannot paint a naked savage woman on the side of their aircraft, for it would be considered 'offensive' to the locals..."
Kurtz spoke in a flat transatlantic, obviously adopted (or, perhaps, just picked up over the years) after moving to the Empire. Masterson sometimes caught hints of a German accent, but otherwise, Kurtz knew how to speak like a Frenk. That was for sure.
"I shouldn't have to explain the irony in this. Besides...it is not the duty of the Grand Imperial Army to cater to the tender sensibilities of the savage. They should be quick, ruthless, and effective in their work. They should be offended by the military! Military action is roughly comparable to the needle that pierces the savage's skin. It is going to hurt. It is going to bleed. It is not pleasant! But through the piercing this needle creates...the syringe that is the Empire can inject its sweet medicine into the savage's body. What is that medicine? Why, it's culture. It's wealth. It's civilization itself! Those protesting against this military action in the streets of New Rome are protesting not against the violence or brutality; no, they do not wish to uplift the noble savage! Many of them say that we have 'no right' to be here! We have no right to take the natives from their homes and 'civilize' them against their will! To them, I ask - 'Why do you wish for people to waste their lives away in straw huts, isolated from the rest of the world in location and language? Do you wish for them to subside themselves on the rotten flesh of mutant game for the rest of their days, not knowing what a juicy, tender cutlet of beef of the kind you likely enjoy everyday tastes like? Would you prefer it if they died at an early age of some disease that can be cured with a quick trip to a pharmacy counter here in the Empire?' This is nothing more than xenophobia disguised as humanism! I myself consider these protests treasonous, but unlike the Old Nations, the homeland I left behind to join the Empire and further its glorious cause...we are a beacon of liberty and self-determination, and I respect the free speech that it brings. If you know of anyone against the Empire's mission in Africa, let them listen to my words. If they truly cared about the greater good here...they would allow the Empire to fulfill its destiny, and uplift these savages into civility and prosperity! Are they not men and women? Brothers and sisters?"

As the audio log ended, Masterson jerked the headphones out of his ears, placed the small pods back onto the sides of the small media player, and placed it back into the dossier folder. Kurtz's website was taken down a year or two ago. Publicly, it was because his domain ran dry and the payments stopped to keep it running. However, the IIA was the one responsible, in the off-chance he managed to reconnect and leak his actions to the rest of the Empire. Kurtz wasn't wrong in his last log; as more troops died everyday and the economy was beginning to fatigue in its effort to both fuel an ever-growing war machine and respond to local developments (the Imperial homeland, for all the progress made in the decades since the Winter, still wasn't in optimal shape, especially west of the Mississippi and below the Rio Grande), resistance to Frenkish imperialism was rising on the homefront. After all, growing public dissolution was one of the reasons expansion would be halted in Africa (and partially the reason why Frenkish troops were in the process of pulling out of the Philippines and Indonesia. Asia, while successful in securing a few choice lands for the Empire, was far less successful than Africa. Underestimating "Austronesia" was sure to be an embarrassment the history books wouldn't soon forget). The state was content to settle with what it got, which was certainly no small amount.
But if (the apparently now "mad") Kurtz blew the whistle? They risked losing it all.

Before the plug was pulled, the IIA compiled most of the information on the website (including these audio logs) onto the dossier, to be handed off to someone like Masterson. They suggested giving the audio logs (at least, the ones produced during his African adventure) a good listen, in case there was some subtle clue or another that could give away an exact position for his compound, rather than just "on the river". Masterson wasn't sure why they thought he could find something some top IIA egghead couldn't, but he listened anyway. They made the right choice in selecting Masterson for the mission, as he was an excellent hunter. He had more confirmed kills on "choice targets" - raider warlords, big-time insurgents, and other assorted brands of scum and villainy - than any other Ranger he knew of. And in hunting prey, he liked to know the mark as much as he could. It wouldn't have been the first time some subtle detail or another awarded him with a clean kill...

Not even half an hour on the river and the downpour started. Masterson, situated on the upper deck, sheltered himself under the canopy shielding the back of the cabin, his legs protecting the dossier from any stray drops. In the windows behind him, he spotted SFC Jameson and PVT Keyes ("Cap" and "Squeaky", he supposed he was obliged to call them) at the helm, just as they had been. Cap on the wheel, Squeaky on the terminal next to her. He was careful to keep the folder and the contents within well-hidden by his frame, so those behind him in the cabin didn't run the risk of seeing any of it (intentionally or not).
When the rain began, he dismissed CPL Lancer and PFC Lewandowski ("Lancer" and "Cookie" respectively) from deck duty. Masterson intended to keep the boat going at all times until he found Kurtz, and that meant having some crew awake deep into the night. He volunteered Lancer and Cookie for the night shift, despite some grumbling from the young troops. Owing to almost twenty years of active field service, Masterson himself rarely needed a good night's sleep, and only planned to get shut-eye whenever it felt convenient (his rations of cocaine pills helped, too). After all, only he really knew what to look for. He couldn't afford to do shifts.

He slipped the dossier back into his coat and decided to make rounds. Placing his hat back on his head, he strolled out onto the deck, letting his hat and duster catch most of the rainfall. He pulled open the hatch to the lower deck, quickly climbing the small staircase leading down.
As he replaced the hatch, he noticed Lancer and Cookie weren't occupying their cots like he expected. Then he caught a hint of the scent in the air. He knew exactly what was going on in the engine compartment...

He opened the hatch and entered the small room where the engines were serviced, and sure enough, the atmosphere was thick a smoky haze. He noted the two missing soldiers sitting in a corner, leaning against the wall. Lancer seemed to be engaged in some rant, a burning marijuana cigarette between his fingers. Cookie just sat there, wide-eyed. Neither of them noticed him, despite him not attempting to be too subtle about it.
"...it's exploitation, man! Its rough here in the Congo, but hell, the Army gets the best guys. Give me some 'fuckup' like Kirkpatrick over some rich bitch. The Navy is runnin' the show over in Asia, and kids like us are dyin' by the hundreds every day. And you know what all the Commodores and Admirals get for gettin' em all killed? Fuckin' medals, man!"
"Yeah, man." Cookie chuckled, evidently more focused on his high than Lancer's speech. "Whatever you say, Lance..."
"Fuck, man, you ain't listenin'! Whatever...you want another hit of this?" The NCO offered his comrade the joint.
"How about you pass it to me?" Masterson interrupted.
Lancer shot up, looking directly at the looming Ranger. He seemed apprehensive, as though he knew what was coming next. Cookie was the opposite, and smiled widely, trying his hardest to suppress a laugh. He seemed very amused at the prospect of sharing a joint with his Ranger CO...

Not waiting for Lancer to hand it over, Masterson yanked the joint from his fingers and tossed it out the compartment's only porthole (already open to allow ventilation), watching as it impacted the surface of the murky green water and promptly sunk under the surface.
"What the hell, man!?" Lancer bellowed. "That shit don't go for cheap at the commissaries!"
"No more drugs on my mission." Masterson plainly stated. "I'm not about to come under attack by a savage warband while all my guns are strung out."
"We've been in Congo for over a year, man. You don't think we can handle a bit of grass!?" Lancer protested.
"Do you have any more?" The Ranger ignored his complaints. "Lie to me, and I'm going to rip this boat apart. Understand?"
"You just tossed all I had! Fifty fuckin' credits...just thrown into the river!" The young NCO continued to whine. "I ain't makin' O-Three kinds of cash, sir!"
"I'm a Ranger, so I'm closer to O-Five." Masterson responded bluntly. "And my pay has nothing to do with it. No drugs. Got it? Now, either hit the cots or get on the deck and help me keep watch."
"...yes sir." The two responded, Cookie a bit more enthusiastically than the other (again, probably owing to his high. Masterson considered himself lucky to have taken the joint before he in-particular got anymore).

As the Ranger led the pair out, he closed the hatch behind him. Cookie immediately dove into his bedding, clothes and all. Lancer, on the other hand, grabbed an M19 rifle off the shelf and silently stomped his way onto the upper deck.
Masterson made his way over to the cabin, and music greeted his ears as he opened the door. The choice in songs over at IFAN seemed to be mocking them as the windshield wipers, even on the maximum setting, could only barely keep what was in front of them visible.
The rainforests surrounding them were hidden behind the thick rainfall, but Masterson could see them starting to converge on them from either side - meaning they were about to clear Pool Malebo on get on the river proper. Personally, Masterson was eager to see the rains clear up and get a good look at the jungles surrounding them. If local legend was to be believed, the Congo Rainforest survived the apocalypse and the Winter (at least to a considerable degree) and was one of the world's least-damaged biomes. As a Ranger, he longed for wilderness, and it was certain he would get his fill of it here.
"Major," Cap curtly acknowledged his presence.
"Cap." He returned, eyes darting to the small, blonde-headed Squeaky tapping on the touchscreen terminal to the left of the wheel. Since their first encounter on shore, she had since taken off her helmet, letting hair hair flow down to neck level, and she had taken off her flak jacket. If Masterson thought she looked young half-an-hour ago, she looked downright infantile now.
"Sir!" Squeaky turned, again, with an overly-formalistic salute. It was quite funny, Masterson thought, comparing her to the hot-headed Lancer...
"At ease. Just how old are you, Private?" Masterson asked with all the subtlety of an atomic bomb.
"I'll be nineteen in a month-and-a-half, sir!" She replied honestly, and perhaps a bit too enthusiastically considering Masterson's thoughts on the matter. "But...I don't let that get in the way of my usefulness! I know how to work all the technology on this boat, and the drill instructor back at the academy even said I wasn't the worst shot!"
"Uh-huh. And what brought you to the Army? To the Congo? Surely you've seen the news out here? Someone who knows technology...you should be safe in some navy ship, or helping build the new Space Force."
"I specifically chose the Army when my service period came, sir! I, uh...the idea of being in space kinda freaks me out, and I didn't want to be thrown on some ship."
"So you got thrown on a boat..." Masterson replied with a slight grin.
"I...wasn't anticipating it, but I'm fine with it! With, uh, all due respect, sir."

Judging by the lack of any parents in her backstory, paired with the whole "service" bit, it was clear Squeaky was just another orphan, raised by the state and shipped off to the military or some other important institution once she reached adulthood. In the wake of global thermonuclear armageddon, a winter almost two decades long that completely blotted out the sun and doomed traditional agriculture, and a constant unrest that continues even to this day in some areas, a lot of parents died, their children being evacuated to safe havens while they waited to reunite. They certainly didn't call it the orphan generation for nothing. He was sure someone else on the boat had a similar story.
A man of thirty-seven years, Masterson was among those in the almost-forty year generation, though he was no orphan. He was distant with his parents, both of whom were successful New Roman engineers, but they were very much alive nonetheless.
"Oh, uh..." Squeaky was drown back to the holopad with a slight pinging sound. "Looks like...looks like we have a blip heading our way..."
"Major!" He heard Lancer call out from outside. He turned to see the young NCO tapping on the glass. "You might want to come see this!"
"You just stay on that holopad, alright?" Masterson dismissively suggested, reaching for his holstered pistol. "Stay in this cabin and don't get killed. Eyes open, Cap."
"Yes sir." She called back as Masterson quickly made his way to the upper deck, kicking Cookie in the side as he did so, prompting him to follow.

"Looks like a boat, sir!" Lancer called out as the Ranger rose to the deck. The NCO was squatting atop the cabin, rifle in one hand, binoculars in the other, peering at the object exiting the river proper. Masterson stepped onto the cabin and took the binoculars from Lancer, focusing in on the boat in the distance.
However, they weren't PRM or Mayi-Mayi rebels; they were children. Ununiformed, unarmed children. Four of them were crowded on a small jon boat, their ages ranging from five to twelve, by the Ranger's calculation. The oldest was manning a pitiful-looking engine too big for the boat, guiding it (dangerously, some would call it) close to the Imperial warboat. These kids must have been used to all the soldiers to wander so close.
"They're coming in-range. Blast 'em, sir?" Cookie, who had since crawled onto the main turret, called out.
"Negative." Masterson waved him off. "Just a bunch of kiddies. Let 'em pass. These kids come by often?"
"Goddamn war children..." Lancer grimaced. "PRM turns up and conscripts their dads and older brothers to fight, and then the Mayi-Mayi shows up and abducts their moms and sisters to use as glorified sex dolls. They're mature for their age, but they wander the river by themselves in death traps like that...wait? What the fuck do they got on their heads?"
As the boat came closer, Masterson saw what Lancer meant - they were wearing helmets. Imperial Army helmets. The three youngers wore standard infantry brain buckets, while the older wore the complex dome associated with helicopter pilots - visor, headset, and all.
"Stop that boat!" The Ranger ordered.

As the kid's boat came alongside them, Lancer waved for the oldest child to cut his engine, loudly shouting a command in French.
"Arret! Arret!"
The child complied, calmly cutting the engine and cooly sitting with his legs crossed. It was clear he felt no fear from the Army. Unlike the PRM or local Mayi-Mayi resistance, he knew the Frenks meant him no harm. Masterson considered it remarkable the locals trusted the Army to such a degree, especially when Frenks like Kurtz were running around to the North and the East.
Upon closer inspection, the helmets weren't the only Army trinkets the children possessed. At first glance, Masterson spotted a crate of MREs, a couple pairs of standard-issue boots, and even an M19 rifle.
"Where did you get that stuff?" Masterson firmly asked the children, hands on hips. "The helmets, the cargo..."
Lancer relayed what he said back to them in French.
The child merely pointed upriver.
"Why do you have these things?" Masterson continued drilling. "That is property of the Grand Imperial Army. Is it stolen? Are you running supplies to the People's Republican Militia?"
Lancer relayed, with far fewer words than Masterson used. The Ranger assumed he was paraphrasing to better relate to the child.
The child merely shook his head, and spoke a few quiet words to Lancer.
"He says their home is on the other side of Malebo. They didn't steal the stuff - they found it. The boots...are new shoes. The MREs...their food for the week. The helmets...just souvenirs, he says."
"And the rifle?"
The child seemed hesitant to answer, but he eventually spoke up to Lancer.
"The rifle is to fight off Mayi-Mayi if they come back for the rest of them. Like mother and sister. Just one shot it will take. They'll think they're Frenks and go away." Lancer said, a hint of sadness in his eyes. Masterson was impressed at the child's perception - the M19 made a very unique pinging sound after each shot, much unlike the many other guns in the region. Local insurgencies knew to avoid areas where that sound was coming from, out of fear of coming across an Imperial patrol.
"Tell him the Grand Imperial Army will take care of him if he reports to Nsele Port." Masterson sighed. "The items will have to be returned, but the Empire will provide them with all the food, security and shelter they'd require."
After some deliberation, the child responded.
"He said no..." Lancer shook his head.
"Why not?" Masterson impatiently retorted.
"Because...it's their home." Lancer grimly concluded.

With that the child started the boat back up and turned to leave, heading to the Brazzaville side of the river.
"You gonna let 'em just leave, Major?" Lancer inquired.
"They're not the mission." Masterson responded with no sense of empathy, knocking on the cabin to signal Cap forward.
"Heh. Of course they're not the mission..." Lancer sarcastically puffed. "Why would they be? We're only here to like...make this place not shitty? Who cares if we're sending a bunch of kids back into a hellhole?"
"I do want to see where they got that material, though." Masterson said, ignoring Lancer's complaints. "If they can find it, whatever PRM or Mayi-Mayi is left in the region can for-sure..."

A few minutes of travel upriver and the question was soon answered...
"Jesus Christ..." Cookie gasped loudly.
"I think I'm gonna be fuckin' sick!" Lancer called out in disgust.
A Raven Tiltwing, the Empire's ubiquitous aircraft, was strewn about a nearby riverbank, torn into at least three pieces. Surrounding the metallic corpse were those of the fleshy variety, apparently left to rot in the sun and rain for a couple days at least. Some were tangled up in trees, others apparently made the partial dinners of wandering crocodiles. All that were visible were missing their helmets and boots...
"Call it in Cap!" Masterson ordered.
"I have visual confirmation. Bodies and cargo all over the place...CASEVAC needed. I repeat, CASEVAC on River Five-Fifteen." Cap transmitted as per his order.

A promising start. Welcome to paradise, Major...

Tales from the Frencoverse [Canonical Anthology]

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