NationStates Jolt Archive

The Imperial Necrontyr Ship Arnstoan Rhien, its name customarily translating into english as ‘Raven’s Claw’ although actually, it was named for an ancient necrontyr avian that was similar to ravens, rather than such the bird itself, coasted in orbit of Earth. To be specific, it was in orbit over the nation of Mirkai. It listened, with mechanical patience, to the electromagnetic signals coming from the nation, entering its stealthed hull, awaiting the appointed hour.

Mirkai was a curious nation, inhabited, mostly, by a population of humanoid ‘birdmen’ who possessed feathers, beaks, and other traits of birds, though this was not why the ship had taken an interest in it. Instead, it was the trait they had of consuming humans, a necessity for them thanks to the genetic engineering that had made them, but one they had the technology – and of course, responsibility – to eliminate for many years.

Hence, the ship, and its political masters, had decided to forcibly inflict change. The first stage of that had of course, been to slip itself under the satellite layer over the nation, allowing the ship to detach a smaller unit that remained in orbit, below the satellites, spreading apart like the petals of a flower unfolding, before it began to jam signals to and from them.

Some satellites disappeared entirely, teleported into the massive vessel’s transport bays, to remove them from communication completely, those belonging to the single major news station in the nation - it was the ship's intent to keep news from spreading.

This of course, was only the beginning. Moments later, the ship reset its hull metal from maximum stealth to a more moderate setting, rippling from a very dark sea green to a lighter shade as it descended into the atmosphere. It’s destination… one kilometre from the edge of the capital aerie, Pride.

"Tick-a one, tick-a two, hunter's wife knows what to do.." The Hunter's Wife was a simple chorus from early Mirkai, one of many that Allid had learned at the Red Ward in his free time. It was the recetation of these that made his job as a night monitor in the Mirkanian Central Defence a little less excruciating, and tonight he'd drawn this little tale from his mind. The deep nasal slur of his owlish accent gave the rhythm something of a ponderous pacing, but it did an admirable job of pushing back the silence that so often filled the large, circular room.

"Take it down, and a frown--"

"--not enough to make her stew!" Allid quickly swiveled his head around, taking his eyes off the monitor for the first time since he sat down early that evening. At first, nothing stood out; even his sharp eyes could see only the pulsing blue radiance of the monitors that lined the shadowy chamber, and the six other owls (four of them Snowy, as he was) that sat watching them; the species a hallmark of any Mirkanian nightshift. Only when the wide head of the Great Horned Owl sat in the room's far-right curve turned towards him did Allid know who had sung. Their eyes met and she clacked her beak.

"Did youuu, perhaps, think youuu were the only one that could sing?" cooed Baskin Robbins in her floating, soft accent.

"Uh, I, see, you.." As always, what should have been a simple sentence was hung up in Allid's beak. Here was why he sung rather than spoke; it was only the words and tunes he'd memorized and rehearsed devoutly that he could ever pronounce on the first try. No great loss to him; he'd convinced himself he was much better at absorption and repetition than fabrication. It was, he'd supposed, why he excelled at a job he despised.

"I.. was.. surprised. Is all. You learned, that..?" Though awkward and stilted, he had managed to spit forth a sentence with some considerable effort, a practice that never seemed to get easier no matter how many times he did it. The embartassment it caused had dimmed long ago, however, and that was something the owl would've appreciated if only he'd realized it; the fact that he didn't was odd, for the first three or so years after the injury he laid awake near every morning, dwelling on how foolish he must've sounded through the previous night.

"Noo, I was taught it, by Ackit. It was written on a little thing, a little paper he saw at one of the ruins."

'Your name, your songs.. What else did your Left Father find for you at Old Mirkai, Baskin? Your perfectly grey feathers? The elegant tufts on your head? The starry shade of yellow in your eyes? If he'd dug me up for you, would you boast about me, as well?' "I.. oh." he whispered; all that made it through the tangled barrier that sat some place between his deepest mind and his beak.

"Though I doo not sing all night, for I must work." Her light tone lent a teasing quality to her voice, but it was a poignant enough reminder for Allid to turn his head back around. He could sing and watch at the same time; he knew this and knew Baskin did, as well, but he'd been left wondering just enough at the seriousness of her statement to hold off on the remainder of his tune for tonight. He returned to focusing on the crisp, blue-tinted outlines on the screen as it flicked through live aeries. Empty.. Empty.. Quiet.. Empty.. Dead...

'Dead?' Yes, dead. The screen wasn't showing a death, no; it wasn't showing anything. The screen itself was dead. 'We've never lost a feed before. Not in all the years I've worked here, not in the years before, not since the MCD was built.' It wasn't just him, either: Behind him, the chamber had filled with the murmur of six other voices, all being tossed back and forth at one another. He turned around; his entire body this time, not just his head, and saw that the other monitors had also gone a solid, bright blue. 'The lines are down? Is that possible? Is it just us? The screens, maybe?'

He stared on as every other owl in the center scrabbled something onto the talon-sensitive black pads beneath their hands. Standard technical protocol; they were all bringing up the inner-aerie feeds, accessing the cameras in the hallways and plazas of the aerie they were in. He turned back to do the same, but before he could even touch the pad, the raising tone of the voices behind him and the clack of talons running towards the emergency com told him what it took the screen a scant few seconds to confirm: They weren't receiving anything. From anywhere.

In this small but critical building in the aerie of Hookeye Falls, seven unappreciated and largely unknown employees recieved the first tiny inkling that Mirkai was about to be deeply and irrevocably changed.

Arnran Selvaran was the third most ‘senior’ Necron Lord. He also had a reputation for being the first into any war zone. It also helped, in this instance, that he favoured a flying body, with spider like limbs. He crossed the gap at great speed, propelled by powerful gravitic motors and accompanied by four hyperactive ‘hunting beasts’ that glided on iridescent black wings and scanned their environment with gimlet green eyes, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

With him was more of his kind, flying necrons, bulky and powerful ‘destroyers’ were the heavier form of infantry unit, grafted to a large flying base. Others, frequently misclassified in the same category by outsiders, were warriors riding a flat platform, like a sled, that had much the same capabilities, including a duplicate of the hefty ‘cannon’ weapon mounted on the arms of the destroyers, but also carrying infantry rifles, followed these, finally the company was completed by the hovering units of ‘heavy destroyers’ a modification of the destroyers who served as light anti-aircraft units, and mobile tank destroyers, with one entire arm devoted to an eight foot long ‘heavy “gauss” cannon’ apparatus, and their faces sported numerous additional eyes, which in tandem with the weapon’s sights fed intense amounts of three dimensional tracking data to the mind inhabiting the necron.

They moved at high speed as they approached, the company assembled in a loose formation that allowed them to bring their weapons to bear on the ‘nests’ ahead.

Of course, such a probing attack was doomed to failure, it always would be, but their function, to draw a response out of the locals, was not expected to take long.

Arnran watched with interest as sensor data flowed into his awareness. He had a host of wavelengths and systems available. Everything from plain light sensing, adjusted to match the necron spectrum of vision, which included a few shades of ultraviolet, to exotic sensors that scanned for the very existence of organic life by esoteric means for which the languages of most peoples have no words. With a thought he activated his phase-shifter, a device that altered the properties of the very molecules of his body to make them barely interact with light – he took on an almost imperceptibly duller texture – and cease almost entirely to interact with physical matter. It was highly efficient protection, though it prevented him using any weapons, and was a prohibitively expensive and delicate device for an infantry scale unit, and thus, something only lords were generally equipped with – hence, he expected his companions to be destroyed long before he was.

Not that they minded. They were necrons. They would live again, as The Master had originally promised.

The cool, dark sky above Mirkai was reflected well in the deep-blue surface of the scanner screen, but the soothing color did nothing to ease the tension inside the cramped room. It was a stock military prefab aerie, like the MDC, and all the critical rooms shared the same circular, monitor-ringed design as all the others; this one in particular, though, was quite small. It also differed from the quiet, dim MDC in the bright white overhead lighting and the shouting voices and talon-clicks that currently filled the room.The harried environment added stress to an already difficult decision to be made by a Merlin, sitting in front of one screen of many. For a moment he could only recall how fast everything had gone by:

It was five or six minutes ago that the satcoms went silent, and the few monitors that were still tuned to receive them showed nothing but an empty blue haze. A total communication collapse was unheard of, and dire enough to warrant the entire military aerie he was in (Warrant Falls 6, in particular) going to high alert. He suspected the other 9 Mil-aers had done the same, but without any means of contacting them he couldn't be sure. It was at this time the bright warning lights in the ceiling of his missile-control station had switched on, and the many in it delegated to setting up an alternative communications relay had begun the hectic, multi-system work that was required. They'd needed to set up the aerie to send and recieve information through short-ranged, inter-aerie communications systems, a process that would have to be emulated by every other mil-aer in Mirkai to become properly functional.

Thirty-seven seconds ago (exactly, by the count on his screen) the monitor for Warrant Falls 6 Long-Range Signature Detector had begun picking up thermal and electromagnetic signals on the outer edge of its scanning radius. The red-centered blue dots were scaled according to signature strength, and his training had told him two things: They were too big to be any kind of birds, and too small to be a conventional aircraft. Thirty-one seconds ago, he authorized a direct feed of the screen to the office of the High Watcher, who likely wouldn't be receiving it for another five minutes.

That brought him to now, sitting and staring intently, stroking the smooth curve of his beak in thought. 'They can't be civilian. No civvies I know of ever travel in such a formation; and any civvie craft I don't know of shouldn't be in Mirkai to begin with. But if I'm wrong?' If he's wrong, it'll cost him his job and reputation, the government a good deal of money, and the military most of its credibility. And as he agonized over this, those tiny dots crept steadily across his screen. Each second of hesitation he could be creeping a little closer to disaster. '..But if I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I won't be blamed. A large group of unknowns drifting into a foreign country in the middle of the night is a probable threat. Right?' Right. Without another word to himself or those around him, this one little Merlin, director of Warrant Falls 6, touched his talon to the screen and drug open a large, digital box over the dots. He lifted the talon briefly and brought it back down on a red echelon that had appeared beneath the box.

"All to battlestations; missiles away." said the toneless, drab voice that rose out of unseen speakers. 'All done.' If that were only true, the remainder of the Merlin's life would've been far simpler.

Outside, surrounded by the chill of night, a large, white metal slab-shaped object rotated atop the round plateau situated on the missile aerie. A dull whine accompanied the motion; the slow protest of machinery that's been awakened for the first time in a long while. Gradually, one of the short sides of the rectangular box came to face the south-east, and it was here that it was halted. This side, as it fell away, moved just as ponderously as the rest of the device, and it was a full four seconds before the array of deep, black holes inset in the face behind it were completely revealed.

Any aspiring filmmaker who would witness the event would've languished the lack of dramatic silence; as soon as the twelve holes were revealed, a great roar burst forth from what was now clearly a missile launcher. Twelve metal cylinders, one for each tube in the launcher, shot out fast enough to not be tracked by the naked eye (though there was none present to see them, anyway), leaving only a thick trail of whitish smoke in their wake. The thunder which the projectiles carried behind them faded into the distance, and the shutter on the launcher was shut once more.

The missiles themselves cut through clouds and through sound itself as they etched their trail of light and smoke across the skies of Mirkai. The silver metal tubes shook and strained with the speed of the air grating against them, their velocity only maintained by the volatile and quickly-draining fuel within. This mattered little, though; these large and ungainly craft were only carriers. When they reached their inevitable target, their bodies would burst apart, and from within would emerge ten small, quick interceptor missiles; 120 in all, and it was these that would destroy whatever was floating into Mirkai. This, however, was miles and minutes away.

It was back in Warrant Falls 6 that the conflict hit its next touch-stone. The Merlin overseer had just had time to prop his feet up on his control station when the ceiling-high screen in the centre of the room hummed to life, bringing with it the somewhat blue-hued image of a stern crow with his left arm held behind his back. There were very few in Mirkai that did not recognize this particular bird; his faded feathers and the gleaming silver armor that covered his shoulders and the centre of his chest identified him as Inius Rodurn, Mirkai's current and longest-standing Warchief.

His low, toneless (yet somehow still imposing voice) shook the Merlin from his state of rest, and he spun his seat around to face the screen.

"..-munications are being routed through local inter-aerie systems. There will be a one or two minute delay to this message. Warrant Falls 6 has detected a flight of unknown craft entering Mirkai, and a capital craft has descended into orbit extremely close to Pride. Both are to be considered hostile; Warrant Falls 6 and Brokeback Ridge 5 are to launch all available infantry and aircraft to intercept the group attempting to infiltrate Mirkai. Warrant Falls 6 must launch its missile complement if it has not already done so. All remaining military aeries are to divert their aircraft and infantry to defend Pride, along with Inner-Defence 1 and 2, and Pride's internal forces."

A grid-like image appeared over Rodurn's face, and briefly flashed a series of coordinates meaningless to anyone unfamiliar with Mirkai's territory; the first showing the approximate area of the flight of intruders, and the second appearing within a kilometer of Pride. It remained on screen only long enough for any mil-aer supervisors to get a rough glance (and their respective computer systems to store it), and disappeared. A second after, the screen went black.

"Not even a goodbye from the grand tightass." The room around him snickered, and the Merlin realized he'd been thinking aloud again. Oh well, shit happens. "Anyrate; you heard the bird. Sinick, Anara, send a general alert to the pilots and the soldiers, and make goddamn sure the coords are waiting for them in the IHUD this time." This last order had a hint of accusation in it; in the last Warrant Falls training exercise, the pilots found their maps bare and themselves very lost. 'And this isn't even close to an exercise. A flight of UFOs? Not an issue. Something large enough to be "capital?" And next to Pride? Well, that's a little different. A lot different.'

"On it, sir!" they both replied in unison, the Barn Owl and Broad-Winged Hawk already beginning to claw scribbles onto the input-pads in front of them. The Merlin commander turned back to his station and did the same to his own, and at the final swipe of his talons the white lights in the room flicked to a bright, alert red. It did little for the Mirkanians than add atmosphere.. 'But it pays to have everyone awake. Now, let's see if I can't earn myself a pay raise.'

Once again, this Merlin propped his feet up against his control station and, once again, he vastly underestimated the coming situation.

Arnran watched as the missiles appeared on the periphery of his vision, or rather, outside it. Necrontyr had mediocre special awareness, but necrons had rather expanded consciousnesses that allowed them to see through many eyes at once, or read off status displays while barely being distracted from the outside world. The necron lord watched, and conversed with Asalae, the necron whose squad he had joined.

“Irritating,” she said, her voice said, as relaxed as though she were sipping a cool drink under the shade of a tree on a warm day. Arnran laughed and she continued, “How about teaching them some proper respect for their superiors?”

Arnran smiled inwardly, “Oh, they’ll be taught in the end,” he said as the sensors indicated that the missiles were approaching weapons range. Asalae turned the upper bodies of her numerous avatars, letting each, with minimal input from her, open fire.

The weapons they carried were ‘Scanning Disintegrator Lances’ a complex weapon that dematerialised their targets. In this setting, they were being simply used to provide a kind of flak that would ablate some of the fast Mirkai interceptors into a condition where they couldn’t fire. It wasn’t, however, a task they were too good at. Some missiles had their aerodynamic skins volatised, but the overwhelming majority were unslowed by the volley of fire and continued seeking their targets.

Where the missiles, more than sufficient, hit necrons they blasted their bodies apart easily, smashing the large machines into debris that fell from the air towards the canopy below, but disappeared quickly, winking out of existence and reappearing within the cavernous interior of the massive necron vessel.

Arnran watched with amusement as they fell, waiting as missiles impacted throughout his force. A necron warrior, divested of its transport vehicle, dropped through the air nearby, spreading its arms and legs ‘instinctively’ in order to maximise air resistance. Arnran sniggered inwardly as the warrior finally disappeared, having apparently decided that unaided flight wasn’t something it was capable of.

One of the missiles skipped through his intangible body, and Arnran deactivated the phasing device, whipping his bladed staff out to neatly bisect it with the glimmering arc left by the infinitely sharp bladed section tearing through both air and missile fuselage. The cylinder dropped from the air, tumbling down towards the forest canopy below, and the necron lord turned his attention to the remaining necrons.

“Enough of this,” he said to the entire attack force at once, “I think they’ve pummelled us enough here. Return to base.”

With a resounding pop, Arnran disappeared, relocated to the inside of the ship. Both his own body and Asalae’s drifted into specially designed chambers in the ceiling of the massive hall.

It turned out that Asalae was, in the ‘victual reality’ that the necrons shared, indeed sitting under a tree, the look on her now-organic face one of casual boredom. The one of the ship’s many electronic representations sat beside them, and Arnran took the remaining seat on the unrealistically comfortable chair, “So,” Asalae said at last, “What now?”

“Well, now I suppose we should wait for their aircraft to arrive…” Said the lord.

“And punish them for their insolence.”

“Oh very well,” he said, “I suppose if you want, we could have Elaraen go and slaughter them with whatever team of sadists she’s managed to find this time,” he turned to the ship’s avatar, “Could you contact Elaraen and have her teleported aboard whatever launched those missiles? Tell her that her primary objective is to terrorise, and that it would also help if she can put the place out of commission.”

Elaraen was not exactly an unusual necron, a wraith, a particularly fearsome design which like Arnran, had a phase shifting device, but a much more robust one which it was built around. Festooned with fearsome blades and electro-shock apparatus. Surrounded by more necrons, ‘flayed ones’ who carried similar claws, unfathomably sharp which blazed with emerald fire as the twitched with impatience.

The pair of long-taloned necrons were surrounded by a small swarm of rustling, clanking necron scarabs, small flight capable robotic units, roughly the size of a man’s chest, that contained explosives and other useful pieces of equipment, including devices to interrupt the function of electronic and even some optronic devices. Making up the rest of the small force were a pair of necron warriors, one of which casually held a long curved sickle blade.

“So, what exactly are we doing this for?” asked one soundlessly.

Elaraen replied quickly, “Basically, we’re going to cause a distraction, kill some things, and do a lot of worrying maiming. And, we should be going now….”

A moment later, the necrons reappeared in the crew quarters of the aerie, standing, or in the case of Elaraen. The closest flayed one lashed out with its claw, punching through the chest of a startled looking ‘owl’ derived bird-man with tufts of feathers emerging from its head. The flayed one scythed the forefinger of the other hand thorough its victim’s neck, severing the head from the victim’s shoulders as it let out a startled hoot. The necron crouched, and began flicking its fingers expertly, taking its time to remove the skin of its subject and drape the brown feathered skin over its shoulders.

Elarean skipped into the next room, reaching out with a casual swish of her prehensile spine-like tail to lash the wings of a female Swanison’s hawk. There was a crackle of white lighting, and the feathers of her wings burst into flames. She screeched terribly for several moments, and Elarean reached out with one needle festooned hand and jabbed it into the bird’s neck, pumping a cocktail of poisons into the hawk’s blood.

Meanwhile, the ship watched with patient disinterest as the local air forces approached.

The horrific deeds of the Necrontyr were far away from Inaga, who now sat comfortably in the cockpit of her G7-1 Dual-Role Airframe. Her mind was perfectly clear while she calmed herself for the upcoming flight, nothing touching her senses except the sight of the gleaming nose just beyond the sheet of perfectly clear glass before her. Though her eyes were not closed, they were vacant and dim, truly aware of nothing. She'd done this many times in her life, all before moments of great stress; it looked particularly odd to the others alongside her when she graduated from flight school: A Cooper's Hawk sitting with an empty stare while a crowd rushed around her.

Numerous beeps and tones filled the cockpit as its integrated OS started up and drew colorful lines on the HUD visor of Inaga's helmet. Even these sharp tones couldn't wake her from her rest, and it was of her own accord that she once more touched reality. Her world came into focus just as a shaft of light appeared at the long, square tunnel her airframe was situated in. She knew by this she was running late; on nearly every practice flight she took, she was well out of her meditation by the time launch procedures had started. 'I'll need the extra focus.' And she would.

A small whisper of static came from the control dash laid out beneath the hawk's hands, and an equally whispery voice followed.

"Are you awake yet, In?" It was Setsat; the Bald Eagle that served as one of her two wingmates. "We've been waiting to hear from you."

"I'm awake, and ready. What did you need?" She already knew, though; she could hear it in his voice. 'He needs comfort. Him and Qist, both. They want to know they'll be ok, and they won't say it.'

"Oh, well.. I didn't really need anything. Except, I didn't want you to miss the launch."

"I won't. Thank you." They both well knew she'd never "slept" through a launch in her life, but it was something the hawk didn't feel the need to press. She wished she could say something, though, to give her wingmates some kind of reassurance. 'It'd be a lie.' was all she could think, and she'd never been a good liar.

The mostly dark tunnel lit up at once, filled with a stark green glow provided by the horizontal row of lights on either side of it. They lead up to the distant opening, and the hawk had already fixed her powerful eyes on that square spot of moonlight. She tried her best to mentally block off the edges of her vision; she hated the color green, considered it bad luck. To her, it was the color of rot and disease, of things with too many legs and too much speed and bad intentions, none of which she wanted to think about now. When-- 'If.' she made it back, she'd have to requisition to have the lights changed to red.

"First mission, alright, alright, let's go! This is going to be great.. I love this part!" clamored an excited voice, which was that of Qist, the far-too-hyperactive Red-Tailed Hawk which served as her other wingman. 'Not a great pilot, but an enthusiastic one.'

Inaga heard a familiar mechanical whine from behind her airframe as the hydraulic locks that kept the craft secure were disengaged, followed by a heavy clang of metal on metal when they retreated back into their storage compartments. Next came the toneless female voice of the launch bay assistance system, telling all pilots to ensure they were properly hooked into their airframes. Inaga gave a quick, reflexive twitch of her wings and felt the cloak of light, sensor-twined fabric that rested amid her feathers. 'Maneuver interface is good.' She then wrapped her toes around the two T-shaped control columns beneath her feet. 'Targeting, good.' Finally, she glanced at the expansive system and weapons display panels that stretched across her dashboard, beneath her hands. She was ready.

Not a moment too soon, either. With no further warning, the airframe she was in suddenly jerked forward, prompted by the rail acceleration system within the tunnel. The frame's g-compensator stopped her from being crushed to death by the instant acceleration, but it was still far from pleasant. The square-shaped exit into the sky sped closer, and then it was behind her. All at once, the dank and confining tunnel was gone, replaced with the open, subtle brilliance of the Mirkanian night. The moonlight shone off the silver of her airframe, casting an eerie reflection in its surface.

For a moment, the craft and the two that flanked it plummeted, looking a little like tailless metal darts as they fell from the sky. Then, with the sound of a switchblade, the wings of the craft snapped out from the body. They looked as a bird's would, were that particular bird made of chrome; interlocking metal plates formed "feathers" that made up the bulk of the wing, each equipped with a small thrust nozzle. It was these nozzles that created the translucent blue glow that formed behind the craft, the hundreds of tiny light sources creating one coherent, blue edge behind the wing.

It was then that the three identical airframes-- Inaga's in the center, Setsat's on the left, and Qist on the right--, tilted upwards and shot into the air, just in time to see the the many similar frames below them, all deploying their wings with that distinct "shnk" sound, and then ascending behind them. The silver reflections and the blue glow all merged together into one visual entity, shimmering and flowing like mercury held in the sky. The Cooper's Hawk couldn't notice the beauty; she was too fixed on the task ahead of her, and the all too real possibility of her death.

Inaga and the entire group turned, bringing their airframes to face the direction in which Pride lay. There was no doubt in her mind that the threat she and the others faced would be dire; they wouldn't have deployed the entire air force if it wasn't. She sighed to herself, hoping that her wingmates didn't hear the exasperated (and perhaps even a little worried) expression. As she sped off towards an uncertain fate, she could think only one thing:

'It's going to be a long night.'

The Mirkai Military Aerie

The necrons moved through the tower with practical efficiency. Two set up little ‘warnings’ where the first two of the birdmen had been killed, while others moved out into the corridor. A necron warrior fired its gauss flayer to catch another ‘hawk’ in its quarters, green light dematerialising feathers, skin and muscle in an instant, leaving a burnt and whittled skeleton that dropped in pieces to the floor of its battered quarters.

Another found an alert, waking birdman, apparently some kind of officer, later examination would reveal, in one of the corridors, sensing it before ‘he’ saw it thanks to build-in sensors that detected higher-level neural activity. It was perhaps surprising that necrons moved quietly, but they did, their feet and joints designed to emit little sound. The warrior waited for his victim to round one of the corners into the corridor, and then smacked the side of his head, using superhuman strength, with the heavy, mace-like end of his weapon, causing the bird to drop unceremoniously to the ground.

He stooped to pick the unconscious birdman up, one handed carrying his weapon with the other, gripping it by the scruff of the neck and dumping it back into the room where the others waited. They carved Mirkai numerals, one two and three, into the walls where they left the remains of their other victims, and retreated, disappearing, as they had come.

The Necron Ship

The local air force had at last arrived. The ship did nothing as they came, simply hovering, its massive bulk surrounded by clouds of machines, of a thousand different designs, a swirling mass of drones that waited in anticipation as the ‘bird-aircraft’ approached. There had been some debate over whether to actually kill the aircraft, and eventually, the more bloodthirsty minds had won out.

Missiles seemed to be the enemy’s order of the day, and the ship was quite happy to let them shoot it, some of the crude – by necron standards, at least - missiles were intercepted by drones, casually latching onto them and disabling their engine systems, letting them fall to the forest canopy below.

Others passed through the clouds of drones and impacted against the vessel’s hull, exploding against it in impressive fireballs, but doing little to damage to its sea green hull, except occasionally making it glow with a deep, cherry red around the impact sight. However, the ship didn’t want its prey to be made disconsolate by this, and had the ‘good grace’ to open several craters in its living-metal hull and shudder a bit, waiting to draw the aircraft into its trap.


Meanwhile, inside the ship Elaraen dropped the prisoner into the ‘care’ of a medical unit, with instructions to ‘interrogate it’ and then throw it into a cell or something. Then, with the others, she returned to contemplate the battle from the omniscient view of the main virtual environment.

((A quick OOC note: I apologize sincerely to Ctan for the long time in coming this post was. Work has eaten up much of my time and even more of my energy, but I'll do my best to continue this thread. I may switch to a shorter, more frequent posting system; both to keep the RP alive and to emphasize the more hectic pace of the action better.))

'It had to be green.' That was Inaga's first thought upon seeing the great metallic titan that hovered amongst the swarms of tiny robotic beings. The second, and more critical of the two, was how exactly she was going to attack it. She'd begun running through every battle plan and approach strategy she'd ever been taught, but couldn't recall any regarding a massive fortress materializing outside of Pride. What's worse, Inaga was running out of time; her Airframe and the flights that followed her were speeding towards the flying ship, drawing closer to the outer cloud of drones. There was no hope of slowing or temporary retreat; with the enemy so close to Pride, they were at the critical hour as soon as they had launched.

It was then that she noticed the few flights ahead of her firing their missiles and, likewise, their impact upon the ship. Those that made it through the drone cloud carried enough force to apparently create sizeable craters. Inaga had no way of telling how thick the armor was, so she couldn't judge the damage to any reasonable extent. 'Better do something..' she thought, and as she watched a few more shallow-but-wide blast marks appear on the massive hull, she was struck with an idea. The first step towards victory is always knowing one's enemy, and she had to know what she was fighting through. She flicked on the flight transmission switch and began to speak.

"Ok, ok, listen up. See that impact crater? The one on the left?" A few more brushes of her hands across the control faces and the area her eyes were fixed on was instantly lit up on every HUD in every airframe behind her. "Fire on it. Three Stiffwings each; half of your payload. If you're looking at a swarm of.. robot, things.. Guns only. Don't waste missiles on them, they're tiny."

Only Qist and Setsat had the authority (and the channels) to respond to her directly, though they themselves were each listening to half of Inaga's flight group; "Every one a yes here!" and "All affirmative." were their responses, respectively.

Once more, Inaga spoke. "Set target, set load." She used the tiny input pad on the right to quickly scrawl some rough symbols; the small dot on her HUD that was fixed in the crater flashed, a circle appearing around it. Another symbol, and a small scribble popped in above it; the Mirkanian numeral for the number three, immediately after a mechanical whirr from beneath her craft told her that the internal ordnance bay had just opened.

"Fire."

From outside the Airframe canopy, Inaga heard a chorus of closely-timed clicks; the weapon locks of her flight groups' airframes letting go, dropping the missiles. Less than a second after, a great sound, like a massive close-by blaze, erupted; the engines on the Stiffwing missiles had engaged, sending the projectiles rushing across the sky, leaving wispy smoke trails in their wake as they flashed briefly into Inaga's view. They all coalesced into one disorganized-looking group, all converging on one single point at the ship's hull. The Cooper's Hawk watched, not breathing, at the same time expecting nothing and hoping for everything.

The Arnstoan Rhien and its attendant drones were under a concerted attack. The vast ship was four kilometres in length, with a stern section seven hundred and fifty meters from its forward section, supported by columns that were, in places, less than a hundred meters across. It was, understandably, this structural weakness that Inaga was exploiting.

What she didn’t know, of course, was that those columns were essentially made of solid, armour grade metal. The craters opened in that stem were mostly for show, though as the missiles impacted, some pieces of the ship’s metal were blasted away, crumbling from debris to ash as they fell and the ship de-energised them.

Craters widened, and after a few moments, there was a sizable hole in the structural support stem, through which the forest canopy below could be seen. Hordes of buzzing constructs flitted around the Mirkai airframes as they closed in on the ship, and then, as suddenly as a flock of small fish that had a pebble thrown into their midst, they turned away, zooming away from the enemy in all directions.

The hole in the stem glowed with a light brighter than the sun for a moment, and was whole once more, the light dimming as more material was created to fill in the crater, layer after layer of brightly shining green metal appearing as fibres then as thick layers of armour. The ship had been toying with them, its armour was far stronger than it appeared, and its regenerative capacities were immense.

Her final missile impacted, and at that moment the ship shone once more, and the reason for the drones scattering became obvious. For a few tantalising moments, it seemed as if the ship would be further damaged. Great bolts of lightning erupted from the huge ziggurat that made up its forwards section.

An energy pulse rippled outwards in a horizontal flash of brilliance and heat that melted and even vaporised the attackers. The ship had positioned itself carefully so that no aeries would be caught by the blast, but most of its attackers would.

Inaga’s ship was on the edge of the pulse, and though the energy pulse was enough to blast pieces of her airframe away, and rock it on a cloud of its own vaporised wingtips decoupling at immense energies, she was one of the lucky ones: others below her were simply incinerated in a nanosecond, some airframes turned to expanding vapours of metals and of flesh, some simply blasted apart letting their burning pilots – dead, if they were lucky – tumble to the canopy below. There was a snap of strange forces and the entire area became chill, flaming debris extinguishing itself immediately, and metal vapours condensing into solid particles.

The ship didn’t particularly want to start a forest fire, and so it cooled the air around it for a moment, ‘sucking’ the energy away in the manner that the necron lord’s weapon, the Staff of Ice, did. Again Inaga was lucky in that she was beyond the area of effect of that device, though some of the surviving airframes below her suddenly stopped manoeuvring, falling from the air as their pilots froze and shattered into ice crystals in their cockpits and engines lost the spark of power.

The ship, its dread work done, began to move again. It was a kilometre in height from the tip of its ziggurat like pyramidal core to the lowest point of its underside, and at a mere ten gravities, it took a whole four seconds to move up by its height as it ascended back to the stars. It altered its course a little, to take a scenic route, powering forwards, its course set to take it over one of the outlying aeries so close that the aerie’s upper sections would actually pass between the two hundred and fifty meter gap in its rear fins.

Inaga was left behind, possibly the last of the Mirkai airforce – communications jamming had gone up an order of magnitude as the ship fired its star-pulse weapon – in existence…

Rippling energy, arcs of electricity, signs of a bio-mechanical temper-tantrum that had briefly sent the Mirkanian air force into a victory cheer. Communication lines between the airframes were filled with congratulations and victorious cawwing for the whole of the seconds as the great alien ship seemed to begin tearing itself apart. There were a few, either smart enough or timid enough to fear something so spectacular from something so unknown, that had taken that small opportunity to turn and flee, and they would be the ones to write Mirkai's future chapters.

Inaga was not one of them, nor was she one of the revelers. Instead, she was just dumbstruck, locked in a hypnotic gaze, thoughtlessly determined to watch their seemingly short-lived enemy burn.

And she did watch it burn. It was be the last thing she watched.

She was spared worse atrocities; the image of her comrades falling from the sky as they burned, for one, and perhaps that would've been the worse thing to see. Still, she was on the very outskirts of the sudden and, to her, inexplicable explosion, and though the others in such command positions had the good sense to turn away, she did not. So it was with rapt attention that she saw the ripples of flame that consumed the air, felt the heat consume her airframe and rip the delicate micro-thrusters into tiny shards of metal, heard the brief but furious cacaphony before the air around her craft was consumed and she could hear it no more.

And then, of course, there was silence. And darkness. The two cliches that wait for everyone.

'I'm dead. I died, staring like an idiot.' There was a hoarse crackle of static throughout the airframe's cockpit. 'And the afterworld has bad reception.'

"Inaga, Inaga, commander, Inaga!" Though the bass of Setsat's voice was easily distinguished through the badly mangled transmission, the hysterity and incoherency that it broadcast was so unlike him that the hawk briefly thought she was hallucinating. She slowly reached down and tapped the comm button with her talon, its position carved into her memory since basic flight training.

"I'm here. Report?" Her voice had no panic or calm, just the lifeless tone of a being that's witnessed far too much in one instant to process in a life time.

"Report!? Did you not see anything!? Anything!? They're all dead, burnt, frozen, dead! Qist's gone, the ship is gone, gone like fled, but *we're* all dead! I mean, I don't mean us, but them us, the ..the pilots, dead!"

"Oh." Nothing more, though her talon never left the comm.

"Is that all you can say!? Is it!? What do we do, I do, go to Pride? What!? I need an order!"

It was then that Setsat heard nothing. Again, he shouted into the comm: "Order!" The eagleman scarcely waited for a reply before angling his wings forward, prompting a heavy series of electric crackles from behind his airframe. Though damaged, badly, some of the thrusters still worked; enough to begin carrying him off at a respectable pace towards Riverwell, his home Aerie, and the family that waited there. The Necron ship's weapon hadn't harmed his body, but it was absolutely effective in stripping away the shell of military indifference he preferred to wear and, discipline be damned, he wasn't going to sit there and wait to die. His airframe left a shaky blue streak behind it as it darted off in an uneven path towards Riverwell, and he left Inaga with one final message: "Fuck you!"

Her talon had long been off the comm switch. She had no desire to communicate, to think, or to do anything other than float there in her twisted metal wings. Her mind would surely heal; shock rarely lasted, but her eyes had been seared by the detonation. As she drifted in her blindness, oblivious to the continued presence of the Necron ship, only one thought stuck in her mind:

'I'll never have to see green again.'

Elimination of primary aerial resistance complete

That was how the slaughter was categorised by the ship. Clean, detached and efficient. It was also the signal for the rest of the ship’s complement to move the mission onto its next phase. There’d been a sortie before, but now they were moving on to the actual invasion itself. Arnstoan Rhien carried thousands of necrons at the moment, with more entering through portals connecting it to Venus. On its underside, massive sections detached, as though as it passed over Pride, it was dropping spores down on the aeries below. It wasn’t, of course, what it was dropping, instead, were vehicles. Monoliths and obelisks.

The former were pyramidal, high with a single large gem within their upper sections that pulsed with power as they effortlessly descended through the air – clumsy by the standards of aircraft, of course, but stately. A little faster were the Obelisk vehicles, squat monoliths that lacked the same systems. The monolith was designed as a bridgehead, rather than a pure combat vehicle. It possessed weapons designed to keep infantry away from it, and a main gun that could harm buildings, bunkers and vehicles, in order to defend itself. Conversely, the obelisk was a pure combat vehicle, possessed of the same guns, its function was as a tank hunter. They were both, on the whole, the same dark green colour as the ship they had come from – though Inaga was spared the sight of them.

Arnran was again out in the atmosphere, hovering below where the ship had been a moment ago. As it moved, the back of its crescent section rippled, a short range portal of immense size – fully five hundred meters across – there rippled and disgorged wave after wave of necrons. It gained height, and torrents of destroyers both heavy and light along with warriors and wraiths disembarked.

With a wraith-lord and a destroyer lord accompanying him, he watched this aerial parade move off. Formations three wide and five deep were the most common, here, he could see wraiths leading a group of warriors riding the old destroyer platforms, their bladed tails twitching in what might be anticipation.

Three squadrons of destroyers buzzed overhead, and one of his ‘pets’ flitted up to observe them go, recording it all as the burnished necrons cut through the night like blades towards the heart of Pride. He knew that soon such images would be plastered over various news ‘channels’ at home. He was well known as the ‘face of the necrons’ for such things. Renowned, would be a better word. Playing a little with his warscythe, twirling it this way and that, as he watched the necrons break formation and head towards the floating platforms that made up the city of Pride, he tilted his head to scrutinise the place.

Nests, he believed they were called. He could see the first Monoliths heading towards the nest that was believed to be the nation’s central legislature, accompanied by swarms of necrons. Here and there, he could see them firing, crackling green-white lightning lashing out at parts of the nests. He imagined that it was to suppress anti-air defences. A jade green palace of some sort reflected much of the light from the weapons discharges to his own blazing jade eyes.

Elsewhere, vehicles and flying troops were to be seen heading in the direction of the twin military aeries guarding the bird-people’s capital city, but Arnran decided to join the assault on the palace. As the necrons began breaking up, and the starship banked – oh it was showing off – around one of the outer nests of the city, he spoke.

He didn’t need to, but he had a mind to, it was good for the ‘cameras’ that he had with him.

“I will lead the assault on the governance centre. Lord Ranth, lead the attack on military target number one. Lady Eianahel, lead the attack on military target number two.” He snapped a hand out, and bashed it against his chest, over the symbol of the necrontyr, as though he were a soldier of ancient Rome saluting. It was an unnecessary and showy gesture. Darkness flickered about him and his ‘pet’ scarabs as though they were being wreathed in flames, and he disappeared. Eianahel shook her head at the showiness of it, before activating her own teleportation device.


Arnran reappeared near the palace, over a wide boulevard where he could see three monoliths disgorging their troops. He had to admit, it was beautiful, he felt like a barbarian come to raid it. “Cordon off the area,” he decreed, and looked at the jade palace. “And summon a pylon!” he added, pointing with the base of his staff to an area a few dozen yards from the main entrance to the palace. He could easily blast an entrance with even smallarms, but he decided that if he was going to blast a hole in this place, he’d use a worthy gun on it.


Meanwhile, the Arnstoan Rhien began to pull out of its show-turn around the nest…

There were no pulsing lights, no blaring sirens in the computer-filled bunker nestled deep within the palace Nest. Here, in the tense silence of a blue-lighted room, stood a visibly enraged Draies, feathers disheveled from his sudden awakening not an hour before. He was hunched over a bank of screens set in a low panel, showing the palace perimeter and the huge, sweeping domed courtyard just inside of its main doors. Though the hawkman looked ready to boil over with anger, he was the only one; the tall, stately crow next to him watched the same monitors with impassiveness, and the hawk to the right (smaller, though otherwise resembling Draies a great deal) had steadied his shaking body against the computer panels, trying to quell his fear.

"They're there? Tell me they're there; don't let those corpses in without a fight, if we're no-" Draies' spiel was cut off by the crow, who tapped one of the monitors showing the courtyard.

"Of course. They're hiding in the shadows, here, and here, on either side of the door and some feet away. Anyone who comes in will be caught in a crossfire."

"And cut down!" Draies quickly ran a hand through the feathers on his head, sweeping them back to something approaching an aesthetic order. "And cut down." he repeated, sounding more solemn. "And then, Rodurn?" he said, looking up from the screens to stare at the crow. "We barely have a hundred men here. We can't fly in more troops with that.. thing hovering out there, can we? Are we just going to sit here and die?"

For that, he had no answer. Draies so rarely got the better of his compatriot that the hawk was forced to smile, despite the grim implication; his son, however, saw no humor in it, and was only forced to press a hand to his stomach and try to quiet the sick fear brewing therein. Still, all three continued to watch.. to wait, for the inevitable break in the silence of the night. And in the courtyard, more waited..

Like the slight, grey-feathered falcon boy. He, like the birds beside him, had no name: he and his compatriots were taught to act as one in defense of the palace and their High Watcher; in crisis, to abandon their individual identities and draw upon each others' courage. Patriotism and slogans did little now, as the visor that covered his sharp eyes illuminated the dark courtyard in shades of dim red. The inspiration for this position was obvious: The courtyard, as it was, extended as a giant rectangle from the entrance to the palace. In the center of the ceiling was a great glass dome, now armored over and blocking all light; opposite the doorway, on the other end of the yard, was a towering, eloquent cliff side of jade and shale, split by a trickling waterfall that curved around the throne-perch in the center of it. Not even the monochromatic vision of his amplification visor could hide its beauty, and it was known that the fountain was left on even in battle as a tribute to Draies and the Mirkai as a whole.

More important tactically were the great pillars that support an overhang surrounding the courtyard, though. It was these that the soldiers hit behind, crouching with their rifles, the more alert not moving from their statuesque position facing the door. Above them, on the overhang, were more soldiers, again positioned to fire at anyone entering the palace. There were no barricades or fixed weapons, as everything had happened too quickly. Even the reserve troops had to be called in; the falcon-boy knew this well, as he was one of them. Never would he have thought, or wanted, to see real combat.. Or, in fact, have done anything but built a little admiration for himself. But now his thoughts of glory and pride were far, and nothing would've pleased him more than being unknown and unappreciated, back in his bed at Red Warren Aerie and unknowing of this sudden invasion.

But the past was gone, only wingbeats set in stone. Here was the present; a cold, heavy rifle in his talons, an impersonal helmet stifling his face, and the sound of hushed breathing in the air. Here were the doors to the palace, and to the future.

Sûlbrannon dropped from high in the air like a stone, talons outstretched. Sheep bleated and scattered before his vast, ominous form, and he pulled up, angling his wings and hurtling along at head-level, snatching one then another, kicking them with enough force to kill them instantly as he beat his massive wings and ascended once more.

He could drop down and mantle – and if anything was insane enough to contest a Great Eagle’s kill, he’d not met it yet – over it, but generally his kind preferred to take their kills away from the herds they predated; it was common courtesy not to make a mess of someone else’s fields, after all. And most things practically exploded when he bit them.

The airs slid over him, pushing his wings up steadily as he flapped them, pushing himself upwards, over the grazing lands of the foothills and over the forest of Mortelluma, a sprawling realm of trees thirty leagues west of the ancient fortress city of Caras Anor, a port originally built to control the passage south, long, long ago, that now covered a large peninsula.

Mortelluma was named for a black hill in its middle, below the foot of Gwaewaegas, the lofty, wind-swept mountain where the eagle dwelt; it was the southernmost peak of a range, where several others of his kind lived. It was known as a black hill, because dark things dwelt there, weaving webs of gloom, that had never been driven from it by the elves, not from fear or indolence, but rather because upon Mortelluma, constrained by the shepherds of the forest and powerful huorns, they were no risk to any, and because it had long been known that even foul things have their place in the plans of the Wise, and could not simply be slain for their existence; and dark things of Mortelluma and a hundred other sites beside within Menelmacar were part of the heritage of the land, and useful, at times.

Sûlbrannon alighted beyond a wide arch built out of the scree-covered side of one of the high mountains. He dwelt upon Gwaewaegas in part to keep watch upon the things of Mortelluma. He dropped his meal onto the smooth flagstones of the porch – perch, rather – and bit in, expertly, soon consuming most of his morning’s take. A pitter-patter on the roof above signalled the beginning of rain, and he nodded to himself in silence; he’d made another perfect guess at the weather.

The bird walked inside, beyond the archway and perch, wide enough to contain him thrice over, through high vaulted corridors that were, to him, small. Through a great hall, and a banqueting room designed equally for Quendi and eagles, to a chamber roofed in imperishable glass, speaking as he did, a few words of Quenya about his latest take; that a computer system therein recorded this, and noted it down as a purchase from a government account that paid for livestock takings of the Great Eagles.

The device replied, telling him that he had a message. That was somewhat unusual, and the eagle nodded, causing a letter of flowing-script to appear projected in midair. Sûlbrannon read, and settled down: there was much information attached.

---

A bolt of emerald light cut through the doorway, flashing them, and several walls behind, to vapour in a heartbeat, spewing volatised material into the air in a thick, opaque cloud of intense, thermal-vision disrupting heat. A shock ran through the jade walls, and shivered the glass dome under its protective armour, to countless jagged pieces that fell like rain.

For a moment, nothing happened as the cloud became more diffuse, and then the building trembled again as another shot blazed through the courtyard about ten yards to the side of the first one, followed by another on the opposite side.

Each hole cut by the pylon was vast, wide enough for two Mirkai to stand outstretched wing-to-wing in, and lumbering shapes pressed against and though them, pushing through the walls with a great crushing and grinding sound as armoured faces that seemed impossibly huge, towers of impassive metal crowned in the same whickering emerald light, half-entered the courtyard. They were hovering mere inches from the floor, guns upon their corners swivelling this way and that as the boiling wall material rolled from the impassive metal faces of the pyramids, each one containing some form of ornate, closed, doorway.

They opened fire, a crackling lightning lashing from the corner-guns, that withered what it touched, not yet affecting the defenders, but instead blasting ornamentation and plant life to pieces – crushing and destroying objects, making plants age to dust in a fraction of a second.

The hovering form of the necron general flew through the wall, higher, legs twitching in incorporeal unreality. Despite this ghostly and intangible nature, it could speak, somehow, even as the first tank crashed to the floor like the hammer of a god, the glowing crystal at its peak shattered into pieces.

“Lower your weapons and surrender, and you shall all live,” it shouted aloud, “and be fairly treated…”

The Mirkai were not a religious species, preferring instead the elegant science that had given them their form and kept their cities afloat. So it was a great testament to the power and the horror of the Ctani weapon that, years later, the surviving soldiers would call it, with utmost sincerity, the touch of God.

The great beam of the weapon ripped through the doors, obliterating them, the twisted emerald color of the weapon's discharge making it seem the jade of the palace itself had been imbued with life, and taken offense to its Mirkai residents. None were hit in the initial blasts designed to create an entryway, though many were sent reeling to the ground, tearing at their helmets while their sensitive eyes stung with the intense flash of overloaded thermal vision. Many others just stumbled back in awe, resting limply against walls and pillars in helpless resignation. What was there to do, they reasoned, in the face of such power?

And then there were others, asking the same question, who answered themselves: Stand strong. They ducked under the overhanging balconies in the courtyard as great shards of glass fell like jagged hail, they backed against walls, not for support, but for cover should the beam sweep across the courtyard. Behind them, the great waterfall, which had stood since the construction of the palace as a testament to the elegance of the Draies line, was torn asunder, and its shale facade toppled to the earth and cracked on the ground with the sound of distant thunder. And still, there were those that gripped their rifles, faced the door as it was atomized, lowered themselves to their knees and stood ready. These mortal creatures, ready to challenge what could be God himself.. and instead found themselves staring with revulsion at the very face of evil.

For even the featureless, gun-speckled pyramids that first rumbled into the trembling palace held a malevolence far beyond that of any ordinary war-machine. The soldiers saw them as moving tombs, obliterating plants and walls around them as rocky pieces of the courtyard showered down around them. But they would not go unopposed. From the darkness in the farthest corner of the courtyard there was a sound, like a guitar string plucked near a megaphone, and a great shimmering of air sped across the darkened room, joined by two more; one from the other corner, and another from the side. It was these blasts the felled the first pyramid, hitting it and shaking apart the internal workings, however unnatural they may be. The crash the thing made when it hit the ground was like a victory bell, and the Mirkai that had been struck by such feer and revulsion as to descend into hopelessness felt the sound resonate within them, and they too were again standing, holding and pointing their rifles at the second pyramid. It was not lost on the bird soldiers that the weapons being fired were not pointed *at* them, and as if to delay their eventual fate they held their fire, seeking not to draw the ire of the machine.

And so it was silence that greeted the Necron general as it floated into the room, its hellish body and impassive voice infecting the senses of every warrior hidden in the palace courtyard. First, the silence was broken by the creature's demand.. And then again, by the clatter of weapons hitting the floor; five or six, at the most.

And then by a rebellious cry: "Go back to hell!" And, lastly, the cacophany of near every resonance rifle in the room firing, all pointed at the general that had so foolishly presented himself. Among those firing was the meek falcon boy, empowered by the felling of the pyramid and robbed of his youth and shyness. Such was the power and the travesty of war.

--

No such noise broke the hissing static in the control room deep beneath the palace, where Draies stood shocked. The great blasts of the Pylon that had torn his courtyard asunder had damaged the surveillance equipment with which he'd been watching his troops, and now he was torn between terror and hatred at the power of his enemy.

"They'll die." he said, with such grim surety that the small hawk beside him lurched with fear. "If they keep fighting, they'll die."

As if this were all the explanation needed, Draies rushed from his console, heading for the door. Beside it was a rack of the same resonance rifles held by the soldiers far above, and he grabbed one with such speed that he didn't need to break out of his run. Rodurn was utterly impassive to this, so fixed in his military mindset that he would not lift his head from the remaining telemetry displayed before him; read-outs of an air force that no longer rexisted, ETAs of reinforcements that would not come. Only the clicking of much smaller, hurried feet could pull him from his stony silence.

"Kato!" he shouted, calling out to Draies' young son who had just darted for the door after his father. Rodurn turned, reached, grabbed a trailing wing, and there was a squeal of pain as Kato ran out the door, leaving the Warchief with a handfull of feathers. And now it was Rodurn's turn to be torn; to let Kato run to his foolish (and evidently suicidal) father, or to abandon his post? One look around the control room, at the silent men he'd trained, fixated with their own read-outs and myriad tasks, made up his mind. If he was not to be their true leader, their example of calm in crisis, what would become of them? Inius turned back to his console, and returned to pouring over the display.

Still, in a quiet corner of his mind, uncertainty loomed..

Arnran looked down at the bird-men as the majority of them raised their weapons to attack him, and shook his head a touch, raising his staff, and letting it crackle with crawling white lightning. Sonic pulses passed through him, smashing parts of the walls and ceiling apart, but apparently not interacting with him. The green lightning of the side guns of the first of the monoliths sizzled for a moment, then reached out to catch the closest Mirkai at the other end.

He burst, exploding from within in a horrific manner as his skeleton was suddenly blasted to vapour; at least it killed him instantly, not giving him time to even perceive what was happening; unlike the nearest soldiers, who had the horrific experience of being showered with Mirkai-giblets.

The doors on the front of the monoliths – even the downed one – slid open, folding a few steps down from glowing green portals that looked like rippling pools tipped on their sides, but only metallic forms flowed from them.

High and menacing white-faced death-masked necrons carrying large double barrelled weapons that shot beams of the same kind as the massive weapons on the Monoliths.

As one stepped from the portal, it would run to the side, looking around, and picking its targets. This got worse as the following necrons joined it, as they seemed able to come out of the portals already firing, running, shooting from the hip – it didn’t seem possible to do otherwise with the weapons the death masked necrons bore – and aggressively seeking out ways of making physical contact with the Mirkai; here they would have an advantage if they dared take to the air, as it would allow them to escape the wicked, forward jabbing blades of the immortals’ weapons. Of course, that would do them little good; for by the work of gravity, there was little cover in the air from the beams of the necrons as they fired on the defenders.

Arnran applied himself to the problem as he fell, diving away from the sonic weapons that had slightly damaged him, even with his prodigious defences. It wasn’t the problem of his fall, he had a target in mind, but it was the problem of the entire situation. He had a degree of mercy for the bird-men before him, but he would destroy them nonetheless; they had been given a fair opportunity to surrender; indeed, it seemed some still cowered without weapons.

He fell onto the bird-man that had cried out to rally the others, missing; fortunately for the bird man, for Arnran weighed ‘more than a little’ and such an impact would be at least dangerous.

Of course, the ‘First Captain of the Necrontyr’ wasn’t entirely useless on the ground either, and he stabbed outwards with the infinitely-sharp blade, towards the Mirkai’s hips, the necron lord’s centaur-like body twisting at the waist and leaning forwards as he scuttled along the broken floor on pointed legs.

---

Meanwhile, across the nation, the necron starship began to deploy small groups to every facility it could find. The aerie factories on the ground were assaulted suddenly by infantry and ‘obelisk’ tanks through gaps in the great aerial shutters that protected them, as attack forces made up entirely of ‘destroyers’ soared over the largest cities, beginning the work of restricting and interdicting flight.

Still, for most of the Mirkai, there was no direct evidence of necron presence. Yet.

A single thought drove him:

'..they will fight. They will fight and die.'

And that is exactly what Serian Draies, High Watcher of the Mirkai, sought to prevent. He ran as best he could through the darkened, white-walled corriders, traversing their gentle upward slopes with quick, uneven breath, his driven mind and noisy talon-clicks drowning out the sound of a much younger Mirkai approaching from behind. The unadorned hallways of the lower aerie soon gave way to the lavishly decorated, jade-accented walls of the palace, and the sounds of weapon fire and crashing rubble echoed from the approaching battle zone.

'..still alive.' flashed into his mind; if there was fighting, his men, those he'd been sworn to watch over the moment he hatched, still lived.

Up a staircase, around a bend, and the comparatively cramped halls broke open into the sprawling courtyard. At first, Draies saw nothing, staring across the second-floor balcony and into the darkness that obscured the other side, a shroud that did nothing to muffle the whine of sonic blasts and the crackle of the Necrons' fierce weapons, and this in turn did not hide the loud scratch of talons on floor that hissed from behind Draies.

In his haste to follow his father, Kato had been a full run through the dark palace, and only now did he try to stop; his talons scraped uselessly on the floor, and he collided from behind with his father, nearly knocking him over the ledge of the balcony. Thankfully, Draies caught himself on the railing before him, lurching forward with a startled squawk and finding himself staring down at the debris-strewn scene below:

A cadre of proud avian soldiers, ducking around pillars and on their bellies behind chunks of the crumbling courtyard that was still being decimated around them, emerging briefly to fire off a blast from their resonance rifles and then taking refuge once more before one of the enemy beams could strike them. Still, in the darkness and chaos, not all could avoid the fire, and as Draies watched one bird was struck by whatever terrible force was brought to bear against him, and seemed to.. burst. A soldier that had been hiding behind a chunk of stone beside the unfortunate fighter found himself doused with blood, and ran beneath the balcony out of Serian's view; doubtlessly, into the archway there and down the hallway beyond.

Any doubt, any hesitation that would've stalled Draies' decision was immediately gone. He reeled back from the edge of the balcony, grabbed his son's wrist for solidarity; though Kato's appearance here surprised him, there was no time for questions or lectures. The High Watcher had time and breath enough for one word, and he ensured it would be heard through the courtyard even above the skirmish:

"Stop!"

And even as his yell still echoed, the distinctive sound of sonic fire ceased.

Arnran twitched impatiently in the air, and with a gesture, signalled his assault force to cease fire, which they did with their usual commendable speed, though all the necrons held their positions and kept their weapons trained on the bird-men as they waited.

If anything, the necrons were cautious. Keeping the bird men in their sights; if anything, if they resumed firing, they’d be rather more accurate with their next shots.

The Necrons moved very precisely at the worst of times. Although their movements sometimes seemed jerky, this was a more precise movement form than the loping, flowing gait they usually adopted. Snapping their arms into position and holding there, limiting movement while keeping the legs fluid in order to brace themselves against sudden movement (probably quite likely during a battle on an aerie, after all), the necrons waited, feet spread, clinging to the ground by a strange molecular cohesion. The joints of the necrons weren’t actually linked to any obvious movement mechanism, but rather, by a magnet-like force operating within the semi-friction-less contact surfaces of the joints themselves, for which English lacked an appropriate term.

“Do you surrender?” the necron lord inquired, in the same voice as it had before, tilting its head to one side a little, glowing at the newcomer Mirkai.


Already, though most of Mirkai was cut off from communications, this was news in the C’tan and Menelmacari empires, and soon, it would likely spread further. There was even a live feed of events in numerous places. The next words would be recorded and publicised quite heavily…

Arnran twitched impatiently in the air, and with a gesture, signalled his assault force to cease fire, which they did with their usual commendable speed, though all the necrons held their positions and kept their weapons trained on the bird-men as they waited.

If anything, the necrons were cautious. Keeping the bird men in their sights; if anything, if they resumed firing, they’d be rather more accurate with their next shots.

The Necrons moved very precisely at the worst of times. Although their movements sometimes seemed jerky, this was a more precise movement form than the loping, flowing gait they usually adopted. Snapping their arms into position and holding there, limiting movement while keeping the legs fluid in order to brace themselves against sudden movement (probably quite likely during a battle on an aerie, after all), the necrons waited, feet spread, clinging to the ground by a strange molecular cohesion. The joints of the necrons weren’t actually linked to any obvious movement mechanism, but rather, by a magnet-like force operating within the semi-friction-less contact surfaces of the joints themselves, for which English lacked an appropriate term.

“Do you surrender?” the necron lord inquired, in the same voice as it had before, tilting its head to one side a little, glowing at the newcomer Mirkai.


Already, though most of Mirkai was cut off from communications, this was news in the C’tan and Menelmacari empires, and soon, it would likely spread further. There was even a live feed of events in numerous places. The next words would be recorded and publicised quite heavily…


Draies new the feel of eyes upon him; human or otherwise, organic or otherwise, and as much as he knew he was being watched by the horrific creatures in the darkness before him, he felt that he was being watched by something more.. cameras. The eyes of entire nations. Was it live? Who was at the other end?

Doesn't matter.. he thought, mulling over a quick speech that was formulating in his head. He looked back to his son, and then down into the shadowy courtyard below, filled with his men.

"I surrender; I offer myself in exchange for the well-being of my soldiers. But my nation.. my people.. I cannot speak for them. I will not speak for them. I will say to them, 'Do as you will.'"

A brief pause, and he addressed the Necron lord directly.

"I do not know why you are here, what your purpose is.. but your weapons are far beyond anything we can match. This nation cannot stand against you; this land we have held for so long, these aeries we have called home.. they are yours. But people cannot be taken. I am sure many will lie before you in submission, but many more will take up what weapons they have. Will field what resistance they can. Whatever you have planned for my species.. it will not be done easily. And I hope to God you die trying to do it."

Another pause.

"My soldiers.." No. "My brothers. Drop your weapons. This battle is lost."

And a series of tinny clatters filled the room as rifles were left to fall to the floor, and helmets were taken off and cast aside.

And it was, at this moment, that the fate of Mirkai was sealed; a future of duality, of ultimate submission and ultimate freedom. For even as this one nation was in the throes of subjugation, another was about to be born.

((OOC: I have been greatly displeased thus far with this thread, and my long delays and abandonment of it have primarily been because I do not feel inspired to continue posting in it.

I, wrongly, continued to deceive both myself and Ctan in saying that I would keep the thread going. Therefore, given the abrupt nature of this discontinuation and recent experiences I've had with Ctan's player, I'm officially withdrawing from the thread. All events that transpired herein have not come to pass, and never will.))