NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This happens after all other outstanding RPs we’re currently involved in, as well as after anything we do in the near future (given that after this storyline is done, both nations will be rather, no very different).

Gregor liked the ships of Taeonash, all but one. He was watching it now as it left, good riddance to that he thought. It was a Dark ‘Eldar’ cruiser, one they’d gotten for analysis a while back, they’d kept it around after going over it inch by inch for any interesting features. He’d tried exploring it once and failed, the airlock opened into a huge torture chamber, not exactly his idea of fun.

One of the scythes escorted it as it moved out of the vast bay, the horrific contraption, gleaming purple and black armour, sprouting spikes and all manner of horrific-to-behold protrusions escorted by the strange grace of the long thin harvest ship. Gregor turned from the window to look at the ‘Eldar’ next to him. She was tall, dressed in a black suit, very closely cut to show off her {rather fulsome, given her species} figure and a cloak, interestingly sporting both eldar and necrontyr inscriptions on the trim. She leaned forward onto the handrail in front of the grand scale observation window, gloves clenched around the rail. On her head she wore an elaborate circlet of some black crystalline material, with silver highlights, he knew what it was of course, a null collar, elaborately worked to fit her in such a way that it could be worn like that and not be removed by accident, they couldn’t have the rest of her species learning of her at an inopportune time. She also wore her ‘spirit-stone’ again, that had actually been returned to her quite early on, for which she was, as one would say, more than slightly glad.

“So,” he asked, “Feeling confident?”

She turned to look at him, her green eyes glimmering like emeralds set into her cruel green eyes. Little traces of some crystal hung around her eyes at the moment, almost imperceptible. In a cold voice she replied, “I am always confident, mon-keigh.”

“I see,” he said, “Well, good luck.”

“I don’t need luck either mon-keigh. At least not anything you could wish for me.”

She stalked off.

----

Mel’nais, fallen farseer of Tor Yvresse, took her place in the command chair, amid an artificial reconstruction of the Raemian cruiser’s bridge, surrounded by Necron Lords, surreally manning eldar – close enough at least – controls. “Take the ship into the immaterium,” she ordered.

“I obey,” said one of the necrons, deftly manipulating the controls. Aboard the eldar vessel control systems, elaborately bastardised, and held together with the equivalent of cellotape and chewing gum in places, activated. Nais squeezed the armrest of the command throne nervously as it slipped into its faster than light drive, the simulated bridge echoing the creaking and moaning of the real thing, a slight shudder at the base of the chair worried her, that too was simulated from the real thing. It could break up at this point, it wasn’t as if they’d been too careful when they’d put its drives back together.

A moment later, it was gone, into the depths of the hellish dimension such ships travelled in when the web way was unavailable. “Transmission flaky, telemetry may fail,” said one of the Lords, and she nodded.

“Set course for Sol, we will exit at the edge of the system. Signal ahead to the Venus outpost, tell them to indulge themselves,” she said, sipping from a glass of water she had standing on a table nearby.

The ship emerged from the immaterium at the edge of the system, a blossom of crimson light forming around it, as strange half glimpsed shapes fondled and caressed its jagged outline, one, like unto a giant claw, grabbing at a gash in the hull they’d cut beforehand. Siren calls of demons could just be heard as whispered promises in the minds of those nearby, and then it was over. Many parsecs away, Nais breathed a sigh of relief, “Payload?” she asked.

An underling checked for a moment, “All six warheads now running diagnostics. Five operational, one questionable.”

“Excellent,” she said, “Set a course for Earth – Jovian shipping lanes. We’re raiders remember.”

“Can our sensors detect anything?” she added, quite into the role now.

“Negative,” replied one of the necrons, “A slight ghost on scanner battery eight, but it may be nothing, false data.”

With a little smile she continued in character, “Excellent. Ignore it.”

The Shroud Class Cruiser Death’s Gaze approached the cruiser slowly, applying a little touch of its engines here and there, but otherwise just drifting, keeping itself parallel with the Raemian cruiser. ‘Now lets see,’ it thought, ‘don’t want to cripple the engines, so somewhere else we need to hit them, and leave them enough guns to hit back.’ It continued in this vein for quite some time, narrowing its target until it found the best places to hit the enemy and let it run. It could indeed nail the enemy and blast straight through it and out of the other side while still letting it complete its mission.

Twenty thousand kilometres. Any closer and they’d be able to make it out a little, and have some explaining to do when they reached Io. The Death’s Gaze rolled gently, its enemy ‘below’ it, according to the plane of the solar system at least. ‘Pitch down a little…’ it thought, watching. With satisfaction it got into the right poison to power its engines and bring them in for the closest possible approach, ‘Now, thirty seconds thrust at three kilogees, that’ll move me thirteen point five thousand clicks, firing all the way, I reckon that’s a convincing enough alpha strike, then we roll, take a bit of damage, and bugger off like a rat out of a drainpipe.

‘Well, here goes nothing.’