Steel Nightmares [FT | Closed]

[Intersteller Terra]

Talos Station
New Tristan, Faran System

---

Kardii sat back on the console couch feeling the gel mould around her shoulder blades taking the tension from her muscles and transferring it into the chair. She tugged at her uniform, navy blue and white with a yellow trim along the seams of her sleeves. She looked at the Commonwealth navy logo embossed on the cuff finding things to occupy her mind.

Her shift had started 6 hours ago, watching the sensor network for anything out of the ordinary. She stretched holding her arms up in the air stifling a yawn. So far since she had been transferred to the station, there had been a grand total of 1 unexpected contact and that had been a mining barge that had suffered a reactor leak and Talos station had been the closest inhabited system for light years around.

Other than that it had been the usual hustle and bustle of a growing fringe colony, New Tristan had started life as a independent colonial venture and had grown into a rather populous world with an advanced industrial base and a growing shipyard. The United Star Commonwealth had just a few years ago offered the colony protectorate status and built Talos Station as a means to defend the world from possible invaders.

Being on the periphery of Commonwealth space the term invaders didn't mean much, all that was out this area of space were miners, pirates and space whales.

Yawning again Kardii almost missed the the first blip appear on the sensor screen, if it wasn't for her AI partner acting as an additional pair of eyes she may have missed it completely for the usual traffic moving in to the system. She was about to flag the contact for the local security forces to intercept and scan when another and another blip appeared followed by more continuously popping up on the screen.

She felt the panic drop into her stomach as more and more contacts appeared, almost instinctively her fist hit the alarm instantly sending the whaling claxon sounding throughout the station. Opening up a comms channel to the stations commander she managed to control her voice enough to inform her of the what was happening.

She watched as Commander Sharn’s face appeared on the screen, her golden hair tousled from a night's worth of sleep, despite the bed head Sharn looked alert and awake almost as if she had been awake for hours already.

“Whats going on Lieutenant?” She asked as she pulled on her own uniform over her skin weave body suit. Already accessing her command feeds from her neural link to the stations network.

“Multiple contacts on the edge of the sensor range ma’am they just came out of nowhere no idents being broadcasted.”
Kardii watched her commanders eyes widen as she accessed the feeds and saw for herself what was going down. “You did well Lieutenant pass the information down well and activate the stations shields and order a general system wide alarm meanwhile i'll get Lieutenant Foster to try and establish communication.”

****

The battle had just begun in earnest and Commander Sharn watched from the holo display along with numerous other officers and holograms from Group Captain Henderson the commander of the Commonwealth Destroyer Group and Admiral Fletcher from New Tristan’s Local Defence fleet. Small clouds of red and blue markers were engaged in high orbit around around the planet.

The situation looked dire with the exception of the station for the moment the invading force had been kept at bay by Captain Henderson in his Battlecruiser and his destroyer squadron but only because Admiral Fletchers local defence force were taking the brunt of the attack. Fletchers hologram flickered a little bit as his image went to grab onto some unseen railing or console.

“We are taking a beating over here” Fletcher spoke his voice grainy from the disruption of the battle. “We need to fall back to the station and use its guns and fighters to maximum effect.”

“Negative” Sharn replied surveying the battle map and using her Neural uplink to get the stream of data from the surface. “Ground forces aren't ready yet we need to hold them in orbit for as long as possible.”

“Is there any response from sector command?” Henderson asked as Sharn watched a wave of missiles leave his battle cruiser aimed for a group of ships that had broken off to engage his squadron.

“None yet, we have to assume our communications have been cut off before they began their attack. We are on our own for now. They don’t appear to have deployed FTLi yet, the Cutter Firestar has been dispatched to report on the current situation.”

Fletchers hologram flickered again, this time more violently than before as Sharn saw the man swear but no sound came through. She saw his eyes widen and began saying something realising that no sound was going through. He turned around clearly barking out orders before turning around saying something else silently before his hologram cut off.

“Ma’am, Admiral Hendersons Cruiser just suffered a critical hit and reports are coming in that they are being boarded,” one of Sharns lieutenants called out, Lieutenant Kardii the officer who had been on call when the alarm had been sounded.

Sharn swore out loud causing the controlled chaos of the stations CIC to momentarily stop as people turned to look at their commander before their officers reminded them of their duty. “Group Captain” Sharn said after a moment. “Can your battlecruiser shore up that hole?”

“Give me the Admiral Granger and we will hold them back” Henderson replied his hologram looking at the shared battlespace map.

Sharn nodded “Get to it Group Captain”

[Vipra]

Cathedral of the Maw,
One Week Prior

A million-million eyes shone in the lowlight of the vast dome, they flickered and blinked in the tepid air, sweat dripping and steam wafting as they shivered in anticipation. The drones and puppets of the void-minds of this small segment of the cause had gathered here and anchored to the ceiling and walls of the vast cathedral. Below them, across the forum floor, a sea of bodies thronged and jostled, billions of Twisted forming a carpet upon which the ranks of hundreds of millions of Fused stood stoic and still. They failed to fill the expanse of the chamber, a vast clearing made at the far end for the highest lord in this arm of the galaxy. Apostle Chutreb could not bear to look in that direction for long, averting the gaze of the three eyes that slunk on stalks of cables and nerves which radiated in symmetry from the stump of his neck.

He stood stop the central dias as the cameras and wetted ocular organs fixated upon him, hundreds of meters above the teeming masses. He raised his five arms by their six joints so the ragged arms of his tattered robes sagged down the exoskeleton assisted limbs and collected pus was able to dribble from the ragged hems. All of him was symmetrical in the manner of the starfish, and all was prime, seven legs liberated from the bodies of war droids raising his squamous black torso higher aloft as his smooth and delicate human hands waved in the air for quiet, painted fingernails flashing scarlet as they caught the light.

The swarm fell silent, even the ferocity of the twisted subsiding.

Apostle Chutreb’s central orifice quaked, eye-tendrils quavering around the fleshy maw as sound reverberated from within and shuddered out past teeth of razorwire and vibro-blades, “We have watched,” his words squelched into the air, phlegm and bile spitting out with them, “We have waited. But no longer!”

“Our time has come,” he spat the words with venomous finality, “The Siege Worlds are ready, the fleets assembled, our host clad with arms and armour fit to tear down the barriers of heathen so that we can shower enlightenment upon them. But first we must offer prayer and praise.”

The Apostle’s voice raised several octaves as slashed his arms towards the alcove where their master rested, “All praise Prophet Gorethos, May he be Welded to all, for under his banner we shall enlighten all!”

Shouts of praise and prayer echoed out in a deafening cacophony throughout the cathedral chamber, blood and oil leaking from the ceiling as the structure itself gave in to the ecstasy and showered its own blessing upon the masses below as they screamed and cried their devotion to Prophet Gorethos and the Weld. In the orgiastic wailing, he rose. Immediately cadres of Emanated knelt upon one knee, four arms held in prayer while legions of Fused prostrated themselves in full and held shivering hands clamped above their heads and they screamed his name in supplication. Twisted writhed and flailed, overcome by his presence as fluids red and black leak from them as tears of joy from their every opening. All who dared stare upon him buckled and fell, muscles, hydraulics, and servos seizing, even Apostle Chutreb fixing his gaze upon the expansive shadow cast by their lord as his own prayers became rasping and painful, blood mixing with mucus.

---

New Tristan, Faran System,
Now

Ezrath, ten thousand and seventy third of his name, walked through the innards of the battlecruiser with his brothers. Every step juddered the metal plated flooring, making the walls stretch and groan as those amalgamated into them accomodated their weight. Fused shipmen made way and cowed Twisted who knew no better, offering prayer and praise as the true knights of the crusade strode past. The boarding pods beckoned in the heart of the launching array, and Ezrath shouldered through the sucking orifice that was the entry. An open sac waited for him, shaped to perfectly match his heavy four armed power armour and the attached tail. Nestling his weapons into the waiting claspers of hooked metal limbs, he was sucked into the sac gently. The membrane closed over him and fluid, thick as ooze and murky as oil, was pumped by arteries and pipes alike as it seeped up the extra jointed legs of his armour past his combat webbing all the way to his rounded helm to darken the visual aspect of his multi-array vision.

Moving was difficult in the ooze, but that was the point.

The pod shifted, muscle and servos tightening it down into a compressed bullet as the magnetics and chemicals ignited. The next moment his vision flickered, brains and other tissues compressing at the massive acceleration. It felt as though his muscle and organs wanted to part from the lattice of carbon and metal that interwove it. That would not happen. He would endure, the pain of his body slowly coming apart under the strain nothing compared to the glory of the Weld. His belief was pure, his mission vital. There would be no failure, should the rumbling of the boarding pod as counterfire rattled it prove to be the foresign of its destruction he would propel himself using the remains to reach his target or die in the process. There were the telltale whirrs of the borehole energy arrays that proved they were getting close however, his faith rewarded.

A sudden lurch, his organs pushing to the opposite direction as the force flipped and the screech of metal on metal surpassed sound suppressants. Then it was over. Stillness and the ache of his tissues healing suffused him with vitality as the sac split open and the shock-cushioning ooze spilled out. Weapons were grabbed, his own corpse-rifle on hand as he wrenched it from the claspers and strode towards the front of the pod.

The fore of the pod cracked open and fell forward with a sloppy clang, ablative fluids gushing out along with probing feelers past the scorched front and a cloud of blackout smoke spewing forth to cover their advance. Ezrath strode forward with eleven of his brothers into the T-junction their pod had stopped at, their mission parameters clear. Their suits clicked rapidly, the sound of crickets as they echo-located through the blackout mist. Enemy crew were everywhere. Some in panic. Others responding, carrying large-bore weaponry. Nine of his brothers were equipped for this, firing down the hallways so their neuro-missiles curved around the corners and navigated into the bodies of the spacers. The bangs of the munitions detonating inside their bodies provided further data as limbs were separated from bodies and torsos evaporated.

Thirty seven spacers died to their guns before they left the blackout smoke.

They advanced and left the invasive pod to continue its ulterior mission on its own terms. Black smoke billowed from their white armour as they strode down the halls, firing their missiles occasionally to clear the way or bouncing a grenade off the walls. Defense came thicker, drones and robotics joining the fray along with turrets that pushed out from the walls. Some of the machines skittered on four legs, small and mobile, others broad upon anthropomorphic legs. They posed an impediment, the retinue having to halt their advance and fire around corners or even wait for the machines to show themselves so they could be broken down with a corpse-rifle. The marines were more of an aide than distraction, the presence of the emanated already breaking down the defenses of the augmented soldiers. They had been primed and prepared to join the Weld, and all they had to do was give them a little push before they were seeing glorious visions and succumbing to the revelations. Then they took part in the good work, turning and firing upon those who had not yet given in, pulling them apart until they knew the joy of oneness.

Two officers were recruited along the way, their brains intact enough and already primed with cybernetics as the marines were for them to be given enlightenment and a chance to amend their ways. As the wires and tubes from their weapons made their way into the dying brains of the officers, worming through skull fractures and bulging eyeballs as they made their way in, the officers wheezed and cried before surrendering their secrets even as their cohabiting machine-minds raged and fought against the oncoming revelations.

It was simple and brutish but they decapitated them from what remained of their carcasses and processed the remains into ammunition and explosives. They fed them into the waiting ribs of their weapons, safe and secure as life-support hoses pushed into already weakened tissue and force-fed them. The machine-minds, to their final conversion, attempted to send signals up the cables and wires in a cute attempt to make the emanated suffer some harm for their efforts. I amounted to little as their own internal hardware digested the code and spat it back at them, hurrying them along the path to righteousness as bone and blood invaded the machine-minds’ metal prisons. They carried on without skipping a step, using the credentials of their freshly converted help to bypass secure bulkheads.

The ship groaned and warbled as they moved, lights flickering and hull shuddering as collisions tore at it, but a familiar repetition vibrated through their boots. A signal. The pod was subverting the craft and joining with the resistant ship-mind, its stowage of brains and minds making the whole of the vessel their joint body as nerves connected to wires and they became one whole organism. Doors opened haltingly for them, protocols fighting against new and assertive ego and they were fed directions. They rarely had to fire their weapons now, the internal systems of the ship turning to their advantage as life support would close and divert heat to rooms and halls until blood boiled and skin peeled away in blistering sheets and the turrets began to spin about to tear away at those crew refusing to succumb to the bliss of the Weld while their more willing comrades used whatever was nearest to shoot, cut, and bludgeon those who would obstruct their advance.

The only room kept from their reach was the combat information center.

They waited outside the room, a heavy bulkhead sealed in front of them. Four of the cohort were wrenching upon it using hand-holds scored into the metal by the powered blades of their tails, the others all waiting to storm the chamber. Ezrath had a specific duty. His heavy corpse-rifle had not yet fired, a testament to the versatility of the neuro-missiles, but it could do what they could not. The door refused them and the now living ship conveyed knowledge to him, so they would go about this another way. His way. Kneeling five feet in front of the door, Ezrath readied his weapon against his shoulder and mentally adjusted the settings. When he pulled the trigger he slid back three feet and tore up the metal flooring the whole way. In front of him the door was now bowed inwards. The force of the shot and the composition of the round had shattered the twelve inch thick void-grade metalwork wide enough for him to stride through the ragged opening of white-hot and dripping metal. His brothers did so, their missiles squealing and banging as the command staff were cut off at the knees and the defense drones exploded in showers of sparks and metal.

The command position and the console there were a ruin along with the far wall beyond it where the round had carried on undeterred through layer after layer of walling and bulkhead. A trail of viscera was strewn along the line where the round had carried through bridge and several men had been caught and torn apart in the slipstream. One lucky enough to survive was wheezing and bleeding where the skin of his whole body had been flayed by the force and his left leg and arm, as well as most of his internal organs, had been sucked several meters from his torso where he managed to hold onto the edge of a console.

Gasping on the ground three feet from the dying man was Admiral Fletchers, his legs shattered but his hands still usable. Eyes watery, salt and pepper hair slick with sweat, he had a pistol in his hand. The first two rounds plinked uselessly off Ezrath’s armour, only managing to scratch away the paint. Frustration and pain mixed on the man’s face, screwed up in a rictus of impotent fury before he squeezed his eyes shut and turned the gun on himself. A sizzling snap and the smell of ozone, then the gun clattered to the ground followed by the Admiral’s hand. He looked shocked, opening his eyes to see where the power bladed tail had cleanly cut off and cauterized his arm at the wrist.

Hunching down over the wheezing human as his eyes clouded further, Ezrath grabbed him by the shoulders. This one was not allowed to die. He was important. Picking him up gingerly, like a child with a puppy, Ezrath jogged from the bridge with the others after they’d finished rearming.