Chapter 17
Justicar
Weldry
16th October, 3024
Nightmare Ship
The Jumpship had been there for three days now and it was a couple more days before the KF drive was ready to jump again, the solar sails eating up the sunlight. "Ho Captain, you wanted a triple expresso, giving Thompson another go eh, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more." The overly chirpy deckhand said as the Captain took her coffee and snarled wordlessly at the man. One unlocked door and you were the talk of the ship, which wasn't so bad if you weren't also paying their wages.
"Captain. We've got some weirdness."
"Could you possibly be more vague." She snapped moving over to see his console, the grip-pads finding purchase. "Well. You couldn't have really been any more specific..." she said changing tone, "goddamn, reel in the sail! Those gravity eddies shouldn't exist, but they're going to tear it apart!"
The crew dived to stations struggling to engage the mechanisms to recover the sails but it was too late. Space ripped and twisted as something was deposited there, waves of energy rippling out from it and, for a ten thousandth of a second the poor jumpship was subjected to almost forty gees of acceleration, enough to rattle everyone on board, and obliterate the solar sail. "What in Cameron's name...."
She moved up to the windows at the fore of the ship and looked out of the expansive transparent material at the object beyond. A black nightmare hung, visible only by the arcs of energy spitting off into space dark as night. "When can we jump!"
"Captain, we can't! The Jump Capacitors aren't even close enough to ready for a ju... three more jumps!"
She could only watch as three more Star Lords arrived and jumpships detached from their docking collars. Diving over to the communications console. "Weldry, this is the Fair Trade Gambit, you have incoming! I repeat you have incoming incl..."
Lights began to come on on the behemoth vessel, and her fear magnified, the sigil of a half human, half machine skull looked at her on the side of a slab of armour as jets of plasma fire began to rotate the ship marginally and she a vast turret on its back turning. "a Warship. By the time you get this message we..." she frowned as all she heard was a wash of noise. "What the hell?"
"I don't know, it's some sort of jamming suite! It's blockading every frequency." Tim said from his own console as he tried to figure it out. The lights began to disappear and, against all senses she saw the starfield through the ship. And then she ceased to see as plasma fire blasted it into oblivion.
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Glitch.
Excitement filled me as I was wired into the Throne Mechanicum, as I made my first connection with the Machine Spirit of the Lionheart. It surged into me like a thunderbolt and I felt the pride, anger and intensity of the machine spirit finally flood through me like a dam whose banks had been broken. With glee I dived into its memories of battle and rode the high of the connection, no man could ever satisfy me as much as that moment of first connection. Or woman for that matter.
We meshed as well as two old lovers as I pushed it's instincts and will beneath and took control of the situation. And yet I could not help but feel a moments terror at what was going to happen. We weren't on a Dropship. I wish we were on a dropship. We stood in a vaulted chamber that reached far over the heads of our Knights, arcane technology surrounding us arcing in what seemed like far from OH&S compliant electrical grounding.
Warden stood next to Behemoth, their Dominus class Knights, Castellan and Valiant, prepared not with missiles but full hardpoints of the Siegebreaker turrets. Dekker stood in the Lazarus just waiting with an angry rumble, I didn't know the other Knight pilots yet, and poor Medusa was merely an Armiger pilot, his implants preventing him from moving up to a more powerful Knight.
But even so, with two Questoris and another Cerastus, what could threaten us?
I looked at the machinery in trepidation. Except maybe this...
"Thirty seconds to Teleportarium Initiation." Without the targeting data from Arano apparently this would be suicide to even attempt.
Lightning began to crackle across the chamber and I felt the worry increase. A howling sound began to fill the chamber and I jumped as lightning arced out to reach me. And then there was a thunderclap of light and sound, a red unlight and then the unfiltered light of day. My stomach turned as the gravity of a real world took over from the gravity of the ship, my senses came around to a new feeling of balance and I opened my machine eyes properly.
Before us the Prison complex stood, and were clearly panicking as the ten Armigers and seven Knights appeared in their midst. And how could they not?
Fire rippled out from the turrets, the fastest things to react, mostly being on automatic controls to prevent unauthorised arrivals. With a roar I charged and cleaved through a turret as I turned the Castigator Bolt Cannon on a platoon of infantry trying to bring manpack SRMS into play. I couldn't avoid throwing up in my mouth a little as they went from men and women to the chefs special casserole before my guns had even spun up to full RPM. The world seemed to quake as Warden ignored the mechs, vehicles and turrets instead firing at the wall directly. The blasts from the Volcano Lance and Plasma Decimator tearing into the wall and making it run like molten lava wherever it struck, cannon fire repeatedly blasting into the walls.
Spinning I charged into a Thunderbolt as it unleashed a volley of missiles, planting the sword clean through his chest. I felt them ripple in, half of the volley working past my ion shield and I screamed in pain, twisting from the injuries, the action ripping the Tempest Blade through its entire torso and dropping it dead to the ground.
"Glitch, move right." Without hesitation I moved right, noticing only then the Warhammer that unloaded it's PPCs on my left side. Pain blossomed before being shut down be pure surprise as a chain raced past my view so fast I hadn't even recognized what had happened until I saw the heavy harpoon that had punched through the Warhammers chassis.
"Thanks Behemoth. Are we in yet?" I turned in time to feel an almost unlimited amount of jealousy as she tested the machines left main weapon for the first time. A barracks complex simply erupted in flame as the Conflagration cannon fired. Fire billowed out and engulfed the entire structure and I saw even the metal heat up under the barrage. A quick wrench and the scream of motors and the harpoon withdrew back to the Valiant.
A moment later the walls dropped and the Armigers charged in, with me not a step behind.
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Kamea
My people fought for their Lady and I strode amongst them worried. The dropships had all landed without issue, including the Raven Guard dropship bearing the four horses of the apocalypse. The names he had told me for them I had forgotten as they advanced, the Baneblade was War, the Banesword was Death, the Stormblade was Famine, and the Stormsword was Conquest.
Moving as a unit they had advanced on the spaceport and I had cause to worry that we would be carrying for their massive masses. Slow and vulnerable. And it was with no small fear I realised how wrong I was. The first sign was when a pair of Locusts had come across the Baneblade taking the fore. Though they were not the most powerful mechs, watching a pair of them slain in as many seconds as beams of light pierced one and the other was blown into fragments when both it's turret and fixed cannons punched into it with a profound detonation that peppered everything nearby with ex-locust shrapnel.
I twisted and brought the Ion Shield into play as a K2 Catapult stepped up and unloaded it's PPCs at me. And it was then I truly understood the power of these machines. I did not fumble about with clunky controls while wearing a diving bell for a helmet. In fact I rather liked the helmet the pilot suit for these machines needed.
But my instinct to sway out of the way had pulled me out of the line of fire, though the Ion Shield had already deflected most of the blast, the autocannons had already begun hammering it with shells as I brought the battle-cannon around and unloaded three shells in rapid succession.
The Stormblade eliminated a bunker, its massive main weapon engulfing the structure in boiling sun-hot plasma as the Banesword fired at a landed enemy Union. I almost resigned myself to chastising it for wasting firepower before I saw the massive hole blasted by its Quake Cannon, a second shot turning the command deck into debris. Of the next shot I saw nothing but felt the bass of its discharge.
The battle for the Spaceport was over and I took up a sprint for the prison as messages from it intensified.
The run was long, and yet, as I arrived I slowed. The Warden was moving like a nightmare, a King Crab, probably the prison warden's mech, was struggling even against the most cumbersome of the Knights. The others had all withdrawn for the purpose of the duel and I could only watch as Warden literally toyed with the man.
A claw came up and fired those oh-so deadly Deathgiver AC/20's only to spark away on the shield protecting the Preceptor of Death. The pilot of the crab too desperate to understand what was happening as he was pulled further out of place before finally it happened. Overbalancing he tipped over, I could almost sense the scream of frustration and rage of the pilot as the Preceptor stepped forwards and crushed it's legs under the mass of his own machine.
But the pilot scrambled out of his machine and stood with arms raised in surrender as Warden's troops began to arrive.
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I watched closely as Kamea wandered around in a bit of a daze as we entered the temporary camps where medicae were examining people. Finally we found him, and I entered the tent without too much worry, the teleport beacon in my hand ready.
"He is in a near-fatal state my Lord." The medicae said as we entered the tent. "Significant signs of malnutrition, obvious and plentiful evidence of torture. This man was not questioned, this was the act of a sadist."
"Torture always is." I said examining him for myself. "Give me the dumb man's docket for his injuries."
"His legs are ruined, his arms are beyond saving and if allowed to heal as they are would become little more than malformed claws that were a source of endless agony,..."
"Tell me. Is he a candidate for interment."
The medicae looked at me considering it. "Anything else and he will die."
"Initiate teleport beacon. Everyone within this tent." I said activating my vox. The Knights would be teleported up soon.
With a crack of light we stood on the teleportarium minor pad, medicaes moving to take Raju. "What are you planning on doing!" Arano said as he was taken from her. "I must be told now!"
"Raju is, or should be, dead. Even with our augmetics, he'd be more than ninety percent machine by the time we were done with him and would be barely functional. His days as a warrior would be over. But that is not the only option." I began marching with Behemoth at my side, taking her hand as we headed for the Manufactorum.
"My uncle was a genius with this technology and he conceived of a way that a warrior could continue when his body no longer could. It was called the Dreadnought project. The finest of which is called a Telemon Heavy Dreadnought, it's about the size of an Armiger. Between battle the interred should rest in stasis." As we found our way to the chamber it opened and Arano drew a breath, as did Behemoth.
As did I.
"That.... is a lot of gold